Lynne was about to issue the usual disclaimer about not discussing current cases when Hoskins said. ‘Well, between you and me, we’ve been given the right run-around. Not made much progress.’

Halliday shrugged, thanked them, and hobbled his way to show them out. Once the door had closed, Lynne said: ‘I didn’t think you were supposed to tell them anything.’

Hoskins’ eyes slid sideways to the young woman. ‘Just a bit of banter. Does no harm. He seems like a nice bloke. Clearly fancies himself.’

Lynne was aware that Hoskins had left a conversational gap for her opinion about Halliday. He was never interested in her opinion on the case, so she wasn’t going to share on this. ‘Don’t you hate these new estates?’ she asked, casting her eyes across the road. ‘Hardly a blade of grass, and most of the trees are stumps.’

‘Yeah, DI Perry lives just down the road. Dunno why he’d shell out for one of these. All balsa wood frames, tiny rooms, built on the hurry-up.’ Hoskins sniggered, and inclined his head back towards the door behind them. ‘Do you think his knob is still raw?’ he whispered.

‘What a charming thought,’ Lynne muttered, rolling her eyes, and strode back to the car. She had decided long ago that Hoskins was a sexist pig, with little piggy wandering eyes. The less time she spent with this repulsive man, the better.

‘Wait for me,’ said Hoskins, staring at his phone. ‘Got to get back right now. They’ve found another body.’

‘Is it Beatrice?’

He nodded.

‘Oh no,’ Lynne said. ‘That’s so sad. The poor girl.’

‘It’s the way of the world, love. If the world wasn’t like that, we’d be out of a job.’

Chapter Ten

Hoskins got back after Gillard had already begun the presentation to a packed room. ‘As everybody will be aware, this is just the outcome that we feared,’ he said. Many of the officers were visibly upset, and not just the women. Working on crime quickly erodes and numbs human emotion, replacing it with a weary cynicism, oiled by the kind of dark humour that gets you from day to day. But every so often, the humanity of a potential victim reaches across the boundaries, rekindling feelings and the unlikeliest kinds of hope. It is always manifest with child abductions, the quintessence of innocence facing an unknown evil, and often with the elderly, when attacked in their own homes. Over the last week or so Gillard had seen so many of his colleagues almost visibly willing Beatrice to be safe and alive, volunteering extra hours to make it so. The discovery of her body now seemed the cruellest of fates.

‘The body was lodged under a tree a mile downstream from Lacey Dutton, which is why it had not been spotted. It was freed by divers an hour ago.’ He posted up some enlarged images of the corpse, still wearing a bra but no other underwear. Considering the substantial amount of time she may have spent in the water, the features were still surprisingly recognisable.