She answered, listened, then offered the Faculty Administrator the kind of softly spoken gratitude that would give him continental fantasies for the rest of the day.

‘He knows who she is,’ she said, slipping her phone into the front pocket of her jeans.

‘Really? That quick? How many students are in the faculty?’

‘Thousands. But he knows her. Some issue with her tuition fees. Anyway, she’s called Lisa Cullen, and she’s doing Media and Communications. So, you came to the right faculty. I can show you where her department is. Or you could ring her. Brian has sent me her contact number. Do you want me to forward it to you?’

‘Do you have it there?’ he asked.

She held up her phone and showed him the number that the drooling Brian Summers had just sent, in contravention of every Data Protection policy that had ever been written. Joe made a note of it in his book.

They stood in silence for a while.

‘I’m sorry, I never…’

‘Asked my name,’ she said, smiling but not extending a hand. ‘Claudette. Claudette Lausseur.’

The smile was rich and beguiling, and immediately made him forget what the French manners were at this point. Was it a kiss-on-both-cheeks moment, or not? Shit, he couldn’t remember. And which cheek first? He always got that wrong. So many banged heads in Lyon.

He thrust out a hand, and she shook it.

With that he was off, marching down the corridor, his phone already pressed to his ear.

She watched him go, expecting a backwards glance from him. But there wasn’t one.

‘Pity,’ she told herself, weighing the phone in her hand. ‘At least I got his number.’

He walked across the campus, the wind coursing through the open spaces between buildings, buffeting him slightly more than was pleasant, his open jacket flapping like a set of ineffectual wings. He looked around for somewhere more protected, intending to call Lisa Cullen. But as he did so, his phone rang.

The conversation was short. Lisa would have to wait. He had a murder scene to attend. And Jane Shaw would need to be informed that her son was dead.

8

A small fire engine was pulling out of the entrance to Broadyards Country Park as he arrived. The occupants looked serious, their mouths closed, none of the usual banter after a call-out. There was a police officer at the gate. Joe held up his card and was waved through.

He drove in and headed across the car park, taking care to avoid the potholes in the rough dirt. In the far corner, the crime-scene perimeter had already been set up, half a dozen vehicles parked in a cluster, people coming and going.