She didn’t know how much time had passed before she finally got up to answer the door, and she’d never appreciated the compassion of her neighbours until now. Two of them stood there expectantly, and she invited them in. She made tea and they talked about the police raid. She sifted absent-mindedly through the mail as she waited for the kettle to boil, and reassured the women that she wasn’t about to top herself, though she felt like it occasionally, when the pain hit her. She opened a letter and stopped.

‘That’s odd.’

‘What’s odd, Shaz?’

‘Keira had an appointment with a fancy solicitor in Manchester booked in for next week.’

‘What about?’

‘It don’t say.’

‘Ring ’em.’

‘They’ll be closed.’

‘Tomorrow!’

‘I will.’

Chapter 20

At Eden House, Kelly was busy examining the CCTV footage and the information given to her by Sergeant Liam Brook. She was working on an action plan that was standard in scenarios where multiple suspects needed questioning: split them up and conduct the interviews simultaneously across multiple sites in the area. It was a proven technique to get conspirators to rat each other out, though sometimes, like in the Stephen Lawrence case, they blamed each other to such a convincing extent that they confused a jury and escaped conviction. Which was why it had to be planned meticulously.

She hadn’t seen Will all afternoon, but trusted that he was unearthing some nuggets of gold for their inquiry, with the help of Liam Brook. She liked Liam. He reminded her of her father – or rather, the man she’d called Dad for over thirty years. John Porter had been a reliable bobby, and risen to the heights of sergeant, like Liam. They were both tall, broad men with steely eyes that were also soft. She could see that he had huge affection for Will, and that made her like him even more.

Ormond wasn’t answering his phone.

The two men who’d earned the finger from Ella Watson before she’d headed off for her run had been brought in for questioning, but they’d turned out to be a mere momentary glitch in her afternoon: both had alibis that checked out for the rest of the day. They were guilty of indecent behaviour, not murder.