Maclure laughed. ‘Let’s sit down. There’s fresh coffee on the table if you’d like it and one of our volunteers has even broken out the biscuits. They’re normally reserved for people in distress, but given your apparent braveness in the face of vicious bricks and mortar, it seems fitting that we pump you full of sugar.’ He poured as Ava got herself comfortable, wishing she’d taken double the recommended dose of paracetamol that morning. ‘So ask away. Your colleagues wanted to know about Stephen Berry, but I gather this is a more general enquiry.’

‘It is. I can’t give you any details, you understand confidentiality in your line of work, but I need to comprehend the psychological process at the point of committing suicide. Not the day before or even the hour before, but when someone is actively in the process of taking their life.’

‘That’s a tough one, I’m afraid, because it depends on personality types. Some people have almost disassociated their mind from their body when they take final measures and it’s almost mechanical in nature. They tie a perfect knot in a rope, make sure the stool is on a flat surface and won’t wobble when they step up. They’ve taken painkillers an hour before to minimise their physical discomfort, have an email in drafts explaining what they’ve done to family or friends, ready to send with just seconds to go. It’s extraordinary. And what we find out is that those people were usually equally organised in life. They’re also the best at hiding both their intentions and their distress.

‘Chaotic personality types, as you’ll have guessed, fail more often because their attempt is less well organised. They often improvise at a very low moment and end up causing themselves life-changing injuries but without dying, or they succeed but leave a very distressing scene when they’re found. Then there are truly spontaneous suicides and sometimes we never get to the bottom of those, which can be jumping in front of a train or driving a car into a river. Journeys, when people might be alone in their thoughts – in public but feeling as if no one in the world can see them – often result in the least predictable tragedies.’

Ava stirred her coffee and wondered how she could apply that to the Hawksmith death scene.

‘That’s not quite what you needed, am I right?’ Maclure asked.

‘Only because it doesn’t quite fit with what happened at a scene we’re dealing with at the moment. We have a victim who doesn’t match any category you’ve described.’

‘Can you tell me anything at all about it?’ Mature raised his hands in the air. ‘No names, no address, no identifying features, and if it helps, I regard my general work confidentiality as extending to this conversation.’