After showering and waking herself up a little more, she took Lizzie downstairs and put the coffee machine on. It was becoming more and more difficult to keep Lizzie in her chair, because the child was inquisitive and trying to move around, even at four months old. Kelly plopped her inside a playpen Ted had bought, which was in the hallway near to the kitchen. If she kept the doors open, she could see her and hear her talking and singing to herself, as she mimicked the adults around her. Kelly forgot her headache, and made a quick sandwich to eat later, knowing it would be a long day again. She had to catch up with Fabian Kennedy-Craig and try to pin George Fellows down to a meeting at least, if not an interview. The man was inside Bartholomew Kennedy-Craig’s inner circle and Kelly reckoned that it was pretty unfeasible that he wouldn’t know what his boss had been up to all these years. However, she also had to give him the benefit of the doubt, because in her experience, paedophiles were the most manipulative of highly disturbed narcissists. It was still possible that nobody else knew. Nellie would have to be brought in again. It was a tedious merry-go-round but the only way to get around the CPS’s inability to charge everybody on a copper’s nose, as they did in the good old days. Yo-yoing to and from interview suites was now the go-to leisure pursuit of the best criminals, until they made a mistake, or got caught. She wanted to ask Nellie again why she called Kennedy-Craig ‘The Chief’. Every time she thought of the pet name, she winced.

As was customary during a big case, Kelly’s thoughts overtook her perfunctory morning tasks and she was in a dream-like state when Johnny came back inside. Ted was still in bed. Johnny put his arm around her waist and it made her jump.

‘In the zone?’ he asked.

She nodded.

‘No worries, I’m happy to stay here,’ he smiled.

It was funny how making love to him was the easiest thing in the world, but facing him and organising the care of their child was somehow awkward. She put it out of her mind and told herself that she was being paranoid. Johnny was a typical bloke and probably not even considering the rights and wrongs of what they’d done over the last couple of days. It felt good, that was all. Times change. People change. More importantly, opinions change.

Ian Burton had gone to prison for possibly the rest of his life. There was no justifiable reason to let his legacy affect her family. No good reason at all.

‘I was thinking I might scoot over to the flat today and get some things to bring over,’ he said. ‘That’s if you’re okay with that?’

This got her attention.