“No, he didn’t. George Marlow is still the prime suspect, but we have no evidence to put him in that efficiency, no eye witness to link him with either Karen or Della, no mention of him in Della’s diary. The list of what we don’t have is endless. But if Marlow killed Della before he killed Karen, then he knew her room was empty. He might even have known that the landlady was away, probably hoped that Karen’s body wouldn’t be found for weeks. His mistake there was in leaving the light on. Mornay’s handbag was in her room, but there were no keys.”

Always ready to needle her, Otley piped up, “That reminds me, ma’am—handbags. We got a good selection an’ they’re still comin’ in; blue ones, green ones, big ’uns an’ little ’uns. What d’you want me to do with ’em?”

Tennison responded quite calmly, considering. “Get one of her flatmates in, let her go over them to save time. Right, the good news is, I’m going home. Sergeant Otley will now tell you the bad news.”

As she left the room, she could hear the moan that went up in response to the bad news; all weekend leave was cancelled.

“All leave, that is, apart from ’er own. We got to check through all that gear from the bleedin’ paint factory, an’ there’s a lot. It’s a wonder they ’aven’t computerized their salesmen’s bowel movements . . . Get to it!”

When he went to Superintendent Kernan’s office later that evening, Otley found him sitting at his desk, writing memos. Kernan pushed his work aside and poured Otley a large Scotch.

Otley sat down, took a swig and sighed. “We’re gettin’ nowhere, guv, we’ve ’ad nothing for days now,” he said bitterly. “It’s demoralizing, an’ it’s takin’ good men off the streets.”

“Most of them have been on the streets, and we’ve still got nowhere,” Kernan replied. “But now she’s digging up unsolved murder cases on Marlow’s sales routes. He covered the Manchester area, Rochdale, Burnley, Oldham.”

Otley shook his head in disgust and opened his mouth to speak, but Kernan wouldn’t let him.

“And I’ve OKed it, so cool off, Bill. I know what you’re after, but unless there’s good reason for kicking her off the case, she stays put.”

“It’s because she’s a woman, isn’t it? If it’d been any of my lads that done that cock-up on telly, given out Marlow’s registration number . . . You know he never reported it stolen! There’s no report in the log, and I heard his brief was in here creating about it . . .”