At two minutes to nine the dated blue conference room was already full, with more than ten officers clustered around the worn pine furniture. Dani vaguely recognised most of them but couldn’t yet remember all of the names of the more junior staff, particularly those from other departments. Easton was already there, as was Fletcher. McNair wasn’t, Dani was relieved to see. Although she’d sent her boss an invite, she was well aware that the DCI had an early morning meeting over in Harborne, which Dani had somewhat deliberately double-booked against.

As she closed the door behind her, the room fell into a hushed silence, like it would at school on the first day of term, when a new teacher walked in to start a class. Dani could feel eyes on her. Could almost hear the questioning thoughts, everyone still wary of the copper back from the dead.

‘Morning all,’ Dani said. ‘We’ll be ready in a minute.’

She smiled and got some murmured responses in return. Fletcher was standing on her own at the front of the room, cleaning a whiteboard. Dani headed over to her.

‘You’re leading this?’ Fletcher asked quietly.

‘I’m happy to.’

‘Makes sense. I think you’re probably more into the detail than I am at this stage.’

Which Dani would agree with, even if Fletcher’s acknowledgement surprised her.

She got the meeting underway. First, she went over the events of the last three days, from Natalya’s murder scene, to Reeve’s murder and the drugs found in his apartment, to the information given by Rebecca and Laura and the link to Grace Agnew.

‘Where are we at with house-to-house for Natalya’s murder?’ Dani asked when she was done with her initial regurgitation.

‘All done, ma’am,’ said a smartly dressed DC with designer slicked back hair. DC Constable, the same officer who’d been with Easton at Paul Reeve’s murder scene. ‘We went to every house over three streets. We’ve been back since to cover ones who were out. Still a few to go where the residents must be away, but other than the Mondys, we’ve got nothing new.’

‘And cameras?’

‘Again, we’ve covered them all off now. Nothing new.’

‘But we had Natalya on one less than half a mile away? We used the image for the press con?’

‘It’s a mainly residential area,’ Easton said. ‘There really aren’t that many cameras about unless we go out further, but would Natalya really have been running for miles?’

‘Probably not,’ Dani conceded, though she thought she might come back to it.

‘I’ve no idea how the killer escaped the one Natalya was caught on, but he did,’ Easton said.

‘And that one camera doesn’t give a clue as to where she came from?’

‘We’re still looking into it, but on the face of it, no.’

Dani sighed.

‘And who’s working on formally IDing Natalya?’