She wasn’t having it. She reached between their bodies, seized his scrotum with her sharp fingernails, and at the same time clenched as hard as she could with her pelvic floor. That did the trick.

He groaned, forgot about the phone and emptied himself into her. He collapsed, spent, across her body, and the table on which they were both balanced lurched alarmingly. The phone stopped. From previous experience she knew he would be asleep in under ten seconds, so she began to wriggle out from beneath him, partly because her back was killing her, but also out of curiosity to find out if Deepak’s annoyingly clingy girlfriend Victoria had been calling. This whole hotel arrangement had been designed to keep her in the dark. Before Prisha could execute the manoeuvre, the phone rang again and this time Deepak disengaged himself and woozily reached across to answer it.

‘I told you to turn it off,’ hissed Prisha.

Ignoring her, he picked up his trousers and turned away to disguise his softening member. He let the phone continue to trill as he walked into the kitchenette and closed the door behind him. Prisha slipped off the table, pulled her knickers on and pressed her ear to the kitchenette wall. She could hear him pacing around inside the tiled enclosure.

‘Could you not have waited?’ Deepak whispered, as he answered the call. ‘I can’t talk now. Can I call you later?’ Pause. ‘I’m not going to sell. There’s much more to be made.’ There was a pause. ‘You worry too much. I’m sure it will be fine. We’ve already made millions out of it. Well, she may have run the company, but I think this proves that my judgement is better than hers was.’

Kirsty Mockett lay on her exercise mat staring at the ceiling. It was seven o’clock in the evening and the flat was finally warm after having the heating on full blast for forty-five minutes. She was comfortable just wearing a T-shirt and underwear for her daily routine. She breathed in slowly, pulling in her diaphragm, and concentrated on clearing her mind through the gentle exhalation. She raised one leg into the air, put a rubber stretch band under her instep, and with both hands pulled her leg until it was almost vertical. Her hamstrings burned with the effort, and she was unable to prevent a grimace. So much for relaxation.

Her first three days as a scenes of crime officer had been an anticlimax after the trauma of Sunday. It had included a tour of Surrey’s Mount Browne police headquarters in Guildford, and a detailed account of CSI’s place in the investigative hierarchy. However, her colleagues and the training officers seemed more interested in getting her to tell them about what she had seen at the Mrs Roy crime scene than in inducting her into the Surrey–Sussex force. When she wasn’t being buttonholed about her experiences, she was subject to a more personal interest. Ryan, a young officer on her course, had on the very first day asked her out on a date. Embarrassed, Kirsty had blurted out a defensive lie about a steady boyfriend outside the force.