When she arrived, the Jimny still sat at the front. She rode around to the back, installed her bike in the yard shed, briefly examined the visor on her dented helmet, which still hung loose at one side, and deciding to take it with her to try to get it repaired later, walked through the house. It was empty, her mum being out at work, so she locked up behind her, threw her helmet into the Jimny’s rear seat, climbed in and headed back across town towards the much more prosperous suburb of Cotely Barn.

She was there within fifteen minutes, her driver’s window down as she cruised, seeing lush front gardens, a few now reddening in the early days of autumn, and pleasant detached houses built in cottage and country styles. The neighbourhood was quiet, as she’d expected, most folk now at work, and the kids at school – which was not necessarily a good thing, as it made her more noticeable. The trick in that case was to keep her visit short and sweet.

On Cedar Lane itself, she spotted No. 27 straight away. It was only different from the others in that it was prettier than most, a large detached in handsome beige brick, with neatly pruned ivy cladding its front. However, the thing that caught Lucy’s eye most was an extension on the left side of the house. It looked as if it had been constructed relatively recently, and now connected what had formerly been a free-standing garage to the main building. Ostensibly, of course, this had been to accommodate a fifth bedroom over the top of the garage, but it also meant that if someone was to park inside the garage, any illicit cargo could be transferred indoors without any danger of prying eyes.

Despite that, when Lucy glided to a halt opposite, she wondered if she’d ventured too far into the realms of supposition. The route she’d followed here was tenuous enough without going back to Priya Nehwal and telling her that she’d found the killers because they’d recently added a new room to their house. Nothing about the building stood out otherwise. On first appearances, the whole place was terribly respectable. The car on the drive was a silver Volvo V90 estate, while further up, inside the open garage, Lucy could see what looked like a black Audi A3. Both carried relatively recent registration marks, which meant they’d be expensive – and wealth rarely went hand in hand with violent crime.

Unless it’s violent crime of the organised variety, her inner detective told her.

Lucy considered that.

And DNA rarely if ever lied.