‘You’re just making this up, aren’t you?’ Gillard asked softly. ‘To protect Matthew Cleaver.’

‘No I’m not!’ she shouted, and began to sob.

‘Have you been sleeping with him?’

‘No.’ Her reddening face said otherwise. ‘Anyway, I’m sixteen!’

‘Yes, but just a few weeks ago.’

There was no reply. Gillard had gone as far as he dared in an informal interview. He didn’t discount the idea that Rory Tickett could have been the murderer; the bloodstains he had seen looked lavish enough for the kind of power the ex-boxer possessed. Rowena was a tough girl, academically precocious but emotionally too; grown up before her time, cast into all the perils of an adult world. But anything she said had to be set against an abiding affection for Matthew Cleaver which she was incapable of hiding. That made her a poor liar, but a liar nonetheless. It would be hard to take anything she said at face value.

‘I’ll get someone to take your fingerprints and a DNA swab this afternoon,’ Gillard said, as he stood to leave. ‘It’s just for elimination purposes.’

‘Whatever,’ she said, sniffing back tears.

‘And as I mentioned, I need your phone. Just for a few hours.’

‘No way. Arrest me if you want.’ Her jaw was set, head high. A vision of martyrdom, ready to be nailed up on a cross next to the man she loved.

By nine p.m. Tuesday evening the CSI team were dismantling their tents at Dove Cottage. Gillard was standing with Kirsty Mockett in the garden, when he got emailed more forensic results. The fastest were, as usual, from the highly efficient fingerprint centre in Lewes, which Surrey Police shared with their Sussex counterparts. The forensic list compiled by Kirsty Mockett now had fingerprints and elimination DNA samples from most of the village residents, many of whom had volunteered to be swabbed and printed to help speed up the inquiry. The DNA results would come in probably tomorrow morning, hopefully including a match for Crystal Willow. Rowena had reluctantly surrendered the contents of her mother’s wardrobe at Willow Cottage, and having looked over the clothing, Kirsty was confident of finding Crystal’s DNA there.

‘Have you seen these?’ Gillard said, pointing to his iPad, as Kirsty was just rolling up her used Tyvek suit and fitting it into a large plastic evidence bag. She watched over his shoulder as he swiped through the attachments.