‘Oh, that’s fine,’ Mary said, seeming to relax now that she’d found some common ground between Dani and her husband. ‘I’m sorry for bringing it up. Steven’s the same. He hates that people still recognise him for all the wrong reasons.’

‘Mrs Grant, do you know anything about Paul Reeve? Was Ethan close to him?’

‘I don’t recognise the name, to be honest.’

‘What about Jimmy Colton?’

Mary paused this time, but still looked unmoved.

‘I’m sorry, detective, but the thing is, I really don’t know much about Ethan’s personal life anymore. For one very good reason. You can see the type of trouble he gets himself into. I don’t want any part of it. I have no idea who his close friends are but I do know that most of them are probably no good.’

‘Your son did that to you?’ Dani asked, indicating the black eye. Well, if Mrs Grant wanted to bring up sore subjects, then so would Dani.

Mary hung her head in embarrassment.

‘He didn’t mean to. It was a misunderstanding. He’s never hit me before. He’s just… in a bad place.’ Her head shot back up again. ‘Wait, you don’t think that Ethan actually had something to do with—’

‘No, Mrs Grant. He’s not a suspect in our investigation at this stage. We have no reason to believe that at all. We just want to speak to him like we want to speak to all of the close friends of the victims.’

‘I guess the only thing I can do to help you then is to give you the last address I have for him, though who knows if he’s actually there or not anymore. He made me drop some of his things off there a few weeks back but I didn’t even go inside.’

‘That would be very helpful.’

Mary disappeared and came back a few moments later with a Post-it note that she handed over to Dani.

‘I wish I could help more, but we’re not exactly on the best of terms right now.’

That was clearly an understatement.

‘Thank you for your time, Mrs Grant,’ Dani said. ‘If you do think of anything else—’

‘You’ll be the first to know.’

Dani and Easton were shown out, and no sooner had they stepped over the threshold than the front door was sharply closed behind them.

‘Yet another interesting family,’ Easton said when he and Dani were safely inside his car.

‘That’s one way of putting it.’

‘So we’re going straight there?’ he asked, indicating the Post-it that Dani was holding.

‘I’ve not got anything better to do. Have you?’