The calls were all from the District Communications Officer, who had also left a voicemail and an email. Joe had seen the Comms bloke around HQ. Early thirties, poached from the Merseyside Force for his social media savvy. He’d done a few presentations for CID, which had been pretty interesting, although the durability of news cycles and the predictability of trending peaks had been of little interest to Joe, with his usual workload of break-ins and low-level missing persons. It was interesting now, though. Pity he’d not bothered to take any notes.

The voicemail was brief, the tone clipped and efficient. A press statement had been released stating that DS Joe Romano was no longer Senior Investigating Officer on the current investigation, but that he would remain on the team until all details of the situation were known.

The message ended with a number of suggestions, which were repeated in the email, in the inevitable bullet-point form:

• do not use Twitter or any other social media
• do not frequent any licenced premises
• do not speak to the press (under ANY circumstances)
• electronic correspondence with unknown parties should only be entered into after clearance from Corporate Communications (District Officer).

Up ahead Kathy’s Hot Butties was open for business. Running a hand briefly down his midriff, he decided a bit of bacon might perk him up. As he got out of the car, a lorry swept past, a great whoosh of wind knocking him back against the door. The air was cold and bitter with diesel fumes, and suddenly the world felt heavy with thoughtless cruelty. Heavy enough to drown out the small things, the insignificant deaths, a couple of low-lifes. They meant nothing at all.

Shaw’s killer had driven down a road just like this. It was the last sighting of the Toyota. He tried to imagine the sequence of events. Was Shaw already dead at that stage? Either way, it took some guts, driving the car of your recently murdered victim, his body right beside you, still warm, or still dying. What kind of person can handle a situation like that without making some sort of mistake? For one thing, you’d need a pretty good idea of where the CCTV cameras were, and more importantly, where they weren’t.

A man in a charcoal suit was standing at the counter of the small, brick-built café waiting to be served. The suit was slightly too small for him, and he wore it badly, as if he should never have been wearing a suit in the first place. Inside, a woman talked over her shoulder as she worked at the hot plate.

‘Bacon’s coming. You after a butty, love?’

‘Please,’ Joe said.