‘You have my full support,’ he said.

‘Thank you, sir,’ she said, looking over her cup.

The drive over to Eden House was peaceful and straightforward. If ever there was anything that could be deemed a rush hour in Penrith, then it was because of a build-up on the M6 and not because thousands of commuters were choking the city. It was mainly a tourist town, with winter walkers milling about, and most of them looking for taxis and buses west into the mountains, which could be seen from everywhere in town. They seemed untouchable from here, with their snowy, arrogant peaks.

Her first task in the office would be to get her team together. She needed all of them. From today, all information would be coordinated through her, until they got some answers. There was still plenty to do on the mountainside, not least evacuating the bodies of the deceased. She’d checked with Ted before she left that they had capacity in the two mortuaries they were using for the incident. They had space. It would be tight, he’d said, but they’d manage. Ted planned to prioritise the autopsies of the pilots and the dead passenger, Bartholomew Kennedy-Craig.

Meanwhile, she wanted to know where the helicopter had taken off, because she already knew that it wasn’t from Carlisle airport.

Chapter 22

The man who’d been arrested last night for domestic violence charges and was being held downstairs in the Eden House cells had apparently sobered up, and had been interviewed under caution in the early hours of this morning.

Detective Constable Emma Hide had prepared the transcript. Kelly greeted her team and everybody in the room stopped what they were doing. They were all aware what their boss had been up to for most of yesterday, and that she was once again in the news.