A flare in Gwynne’s eyes but he controlled it. With ghastly calm he said, ‘Let me talk to Constable Hirschhausen, Joyce. If you don’t mind?’

‘I’m staying right here.’

‘Is it true, Martin?’ Hirsch said. ‘You hit Brenda?’

‘You do know who she is, don’t you? The mother of a murderer. Two murderers, if truth be known.’

A transformative surge of feeling flowed through Hirsch. All the misery Martin had wreaked, on all of his days on earth. His voice a low rumble, Hirsch said, ‘I know who you are, Martin. I know everything.’

Gwynne tried for bewilderment, but there was a fugitive glint behind it. ‘Know what?’

Your imagined grievances, nourished by hate, thought Hirsch. Your vicious little dreams and vendettas. Your nasty churchgoing spitefulness.

He reached out. He patted Martin’s cheek. ‘I know. And I’m patient.’

Brenda was weeping. She was afraid to go home, she said. Home contained memories. Things had gone wrong there that couldn’t be put right.

Hirsch said gently, ‘Adam’s there?’

‘He’s that ashamed,’ she said.

‘He needs you just now,’ Hirsch said, knowing it was a cliché; knowing it was true.

Brenda sniffed. ‘He’s angry with me.’

‘It’ll pass,’ Hirsch said. He paused. ‘Gemma’s his girlfriend, did you know that?’

Brenda went still and Hirsch could see her mind working. There was an unexpected dimension to her son if he had a girl.

Hirsch decided to press the matter. ‘Invite her for dinner.’

A few minutes later he watched her drive off in her old wreck and went inside to check his email.

There was one that mattered: the fingerprint branch had found two sets of prints on the pub bayonet. One set matched a Clifford Edward Palmer of Peterborough, two convictions for assault. The other set were not in the database but did match prints found on the copper-skip crime-scene tape.

Hirsch rocked in dismay.

Ivan Bagshaw had handled the bayonet. Ivan and his brother, likeable ratbags whose job took them all over the countryside in their council vehicles. Seeing and knowing everything. You wouldn’t question their right to be anywhere in the district.

Fuck, fuck, fuck.

Perhaps he groaned it aloud; a voice said, ‘Sorry?’

Joyce Gwynne, standing in the main doorway, sunlight spilling in around her.

She entered, clutching a big Myer shopping bag to her chest, shut the door and stood at the counter. It wasn’t steel in her spine, exactly, but she held herself with some resolve, without the shy ducking away.

‘I would like,’ she said, ‘to make a statement.’

Hirsch took her to the other side of the counter and settled her in a chair across from his desk. Set out a digital recorder, notepad and pen.

‘Go ahead.’