When she found the strength to come back out, Jason was standing right there in the hallway, arms folded, glaring at her grumpily.

‘You really think that’s going to help? Maybe that’s why you’re in this mess in the first place.’

‘I don’t know what’s going on, Jason.’

‘No. And neither do I.’

‘But I didn’t have anything to do with Reeve’s death. You can’t possibly think I did?’

‘Of course I don’t.’

His tone wasn’t particularly convincing and Dani took little comfort in it. She moved forwards and past him, into the kitchen. She headed for the fridge; the bottle of vodka her next stop. As she reached forwards for the handle Jason’s arm came in front of her, pinning the fridge door shut.

‘That’s not going to help.’ His voice was stern.

‘I was going for some chilled water, idiot.’

She let go of the handle and turned to look at him. He hadn’t bought the lie.

‘So what now then?’ she asked.

‘How do you mean?’

‘Am I under suspicion?’

‘Not yet.’

‘Not yet? That’s not a great answer. Does McNair know?’

‘No. These results came directly to me. I’ve not passed the forensic results on to her, and they haven’t been logged in the system yet. Look, you need to be one hundred percent straight with me here. I’ll only help you if you tell me everything.’

‘There’s nothing to tell! What are you expecting me to say?’

‘That you fucked up? That you went around that flat gung-ho, picking up things right, left and centre without recording your movements. That you didn’t find anything of note, because at the time neither Harland or Grant were suspects in your case. That you then forgot to write up in your notes exactly what you’d seen and done in that flat so we could properly eliminate any fingerprints you left. Maybe because you were too traumatised by what happened to Harland that day, or maybe because of your meds. You made a mistake. The notes created a false impression of what you did in the flat, but at the time you had no reason to suspect that the place was a crime scene, and you thought nothing of it.’

Dani said nothing to Jason’s statement. She just stood and stared at him, trying to read his face. What did he mean exactly? Was that a story he believed himself? Or just the one he was prepared to tell to help Dani out?

But it was all bullshit.