‘You can make yourself comfortable, Nellie, and have a think about it. Meanwhile I’m arresting you for making false statements and obstruction of justice, so you have twenty-four hours to have a little think, while the CPS decides if I have enough to charge you. By then, we might be able to add soliciting minors for sexual activity to the list, what do you reckon?’

Kelly looked at the lawyer. ‘Maybe you would like to explain the process to your client?’ she asked, and left.

Chapter 47

‘Mrs Kennedy-Craig, I hope I’m not disturbing you?’ Kelly asked. She’d tried several times to reach Bartholomew’s widow, and this was the first time she’d actually had the chance to speak directly to her. Kelly wasn’t sure what she had expected, but the coldness came as a surprise. She tried to tell herself that it was due to the shock of the woman losing her husband in a violent and dreadful manner. Kelly had yet to work out if the reading of the will or the death of her husband was the worse of the two blows for her. She introduced herself and allowed the woman to process the intrusion.

‘Can I say, first of all, how sorry I am for your loss, and give my condolences to the family?’ Kelly said. ‘I know we’ve had officers visit you recently, and you turned down the liaison team?’ She got straight to it.

‘I don’t need people in my house telling me what I already know, and I have nothing to add to your investigation. I’m very busy.’

The woman was blunt and Kelly had planned for that. Not everyone wanted to talk to the police after the death of a loved one. Some of them were downright hostile, and that was their prerogative. However, the liaison team wasn’t placed with grieving relatives solely for their succour; they were used to gather information on those closest to the victim in case it turned out they were part of the cause of death. Before they were kicked out, the liaison team had already reported that the house was like a mausoleum, with a tense relationship between mother and son, with the lady of the house spending most of the day in bed, and an ever present butler, who watched everything.

The mother and son hadn’t been ruled out as suspects. They never were. Bumping off a billionaire and a politician was something that took planning, and the culprit was just as likely to be a relative or a rival as they were to be a climate nutter, or wronged parent of a teenage girl. That was factual context.