Inside were eggs, bacon, milk, a few yoghurts, a pot of hummus, plenty of veg in the bottom drawer. And at the back were half a dozen cans of cider.

He closed the fridge and stood for a moment. There was no presence of Craig in here, he thought, as he looked for teabags and sugar, running his finger along the worktop surface and finding no dirt there. Craig might have bought the TV, the sofas, the enormous fridge. But there were no signs of him. It just didn’t feel like a shared house. This was his mum’s place.

But exactly who was she? An addict? Alchy? Bullshit. That was an act. Whatever she’d done in the past, her home was… what was the word? Respectable. The sense of normality was unmistakable. Not a luxurious existence, for sure, but an ordered one. What was it the snobbish left-wingers used to say? The deserving poor. That was Jane Shaw. The kitchen reeked of a decent person living a decent life. Even her social security record had proved to be unremarkable, give or take a bit of unregistered cleaning work.

As he made the tea, his phone was pinging more or less continuously with updates on the crime scene and the scale-up of the operation back at HQ. He let the messages come, glancing at them, replying briefly whenever necessary.

He caught sight of himself in the chrome toaster. DS Joe Romano: CID’s number one under-achiever now investigating a murder. A team was being assembled at Elland Road, twelve officers for the initial push. They’d be out on the streets within a couple of hours, knocking on doors, eliminating persons of interest. But they needed to know which doors, who they were looking for. They were waiting for his orders.

He heard the muted sobs of Jane Shaw from the front room, and wondered whether there was much he could do, however many officers he had. Known associates? Informants? How many CID officers would want to pull in favours from their contacts for a drug dealer? In any case, the investigation would be downgraded as soon as something with a higher priority came in. This had to be quick. He needed info, and he needed it more than Jane Shaw needed sympathy.

‘Here,’ he said, setting down a steaming mug of tea for her. ‘It’s got sugar. Is that OK?’

She took it, had a sip, then put it down.

‘So,’ he continued, ‘as soon as you’re ready, we have to go through some stuff. I’ll just pop upstairs to the bathroom if that’s all right.’