‘My biggest hope is for the tests from the murder weapon. I’m expecting them tomorrow.’

‘Any dabs?’ she asked.

Gillard shook his head. ‘The fingerprint boys say that the assailant had been wearing fabric gloves, which had obliterated some earlier smears and partial latent prints. I’m keeping my fingers crossed that whoever last used it for its intended purpose has left some sweat there, and we might be able to dig up a bit of DNA from them.’

Forty miles south-east, Sam Gillard was nearly home. She had just finished a shift in the Surrey Police control room, where she was a civilian call handler on the emergency line. Brutally stressful, not so much because of the weight of work, though that could be bad, but because of the distressing scenes that were described to her: serious road accidents, stabbings and worst of all domestic violence – often caught as it happened. Tears, anguish, pleas for help. Trying to get needed information and call tracing done while keeping witnesses and victims on the line.

Now, she was reversing her car up the drive, and would soon put her feet up in front of the TV. Sadly, no glass of wine at this stage in her pregnancy. Perhaps she’d try that yoga breathing technique again. She unlocked the door, and found a parcel on the mat. No stamp or address, just brown paper and string, the old fashioned way. It just had the four words written on it in marker pen.

‘For your little one.’

She unwrapped the parcel, and saw a series of hand-knitted baby clothes. A little jacket, booties and a bonnet.

Not pink, nor blue. An ugly twill of dark brown and grey with black ribbon. The enclosed card said: ‘With warmest wishes from your Auntie Trish.’

It made her blood run cold.

Chapter 7

Wednesday

The DNA test results on the hand weight turned out to be interesting. Gillard opened up the PDF emailed by the lab, and speed-read the details. The bloodstained end of the weapon unsurprisingly yielded lots of DNA that matched Mrs Roy, plus some animal markers, which turned out to be dog. Bertie the boxer, undoubtedly, struck with the same weapon. As Quoroshi had predicted, there was a profusion of previous usage. Unfortunately the partial prints were either smeared or not anywhere near detailed enough for a proper comparison with the national database. The separate report from the Surrey/Sussex fingerprint centre in Lewes had confirmed that. However those same sweaty prints did yield a tiny trace of so-far unidentified human DNA.

Gillard wanted more work done on this sample. After speaking to Quoroshi, he requested mitochondrial analysis, a lengthier process involving the maternal line of heredity and which would give some detailed evidence about the ethnic origin of that person. Though he already knew that none of Mrs Roy’s children had wielded the weapon, there was a much larger extended family of cousins and uncles peripherally connected to the business who had not been DNA-tested. Comparing the unknown sample with Mrs Roy’s could provide some pointers not only of direct familial connection but of common ethnicity. Of course, even if such a match were found it would not prove that the sample was from the perpetrator. At the very least it would hint at who had at some stage touched this gym weight, and open up a new line of inquiry. He also ordered specialist test on the fibres of cloth found on Bertie the boxer.