Francesca was convinced Andrew hadn’t absorbed the true reality of the situation. She paused for a moment and waited for him to speak.

But Andrew remained silent, still holding on to the phone. He looked around his small bedroom. The air was stale with a haze of cigarette smoke and on his bedside table sat an ashtray overflowing with cigarette butts. Beside that were some empty cans of lager. Andrew was pleased that the news had come via a phone call rather than as a result of his mother and aunt showing up. They would not have approved of his squalor and he did not have time for their disapproval.

‘Is Ma alright?’ Andrew finally broke the silence, while reaching for a half empty can to sip from.

‘No, I wouldn’t say she is.’

His aunt sounded clipped, but he didn’t care. She’d made little effort with him when he was a child and the last time they’d seen one another was at the funeral of a distant relative. Andrew had never met the relative, but his mother had forced him to attend the funeral.

‘Where are you both?’ He drained the rest of the lager and scrunched the can up in his hand, hurling it across the room and aiming for an overflowing rubbish bin, which he missed.

‘After speaking to the police your mother didn’t want to go back to the house. She was staying with me when she received the news. We are staying in a hotel in Cambridge.’

‘The police?’ Andrew sat bolt upright, suddenly paying attention. ‘Why the police?’

When she had first taken the phone, Francesca had been worried about breaking the news about the way in which Dennis had passed, but now, what with Andrew’s total lack of distress, she said the words as if they were quite normal. ‘Because he was murdered.’

In the incident room, Barrett paced backwards and forwards in his office waiting impatiently to hear news from the forensics team. Bob Roland, who had been at the scene, was the lead pathologist and had promised Barrett that he would be in touch.

By ten o’clock, when he still hadn’t heard, he picked up the phone and dialled the number for the Addenbrooke’s Hospital morgue department.

‘Dr Roland.’ The man who answered sounded out of breath as if he’d travelled some distance to reach the phone in time.

‘Bob, it’s Barrett.’

To Barrett’s surprise, Bob Roland groaned.

‘Ian, I was just about to call.’ Bob was the only person who Barrett worked with who ever called him by his first name and Barrett didn’t like it.

‘Yes, yes, of course you were,’ he said with a sarcastic grin. ‘Any news?’

‘Well, of sorts.’

Barrett didn’t like the sound of that one little bit.