She was also angry. Had Fletcher asked for Dani to be at the press conference just so she could be made a fool of? Dani had never seen Fletcher as the conniving type but perhaps she now felt her position was under threat with the prospect of several months away from the force, in the same way that Dani was feeling threatened coming back after so long on the sidelines.

After the argument, McNair and Fletcher would no doubt have taken themselves away to confer and swap notes. Dani was back on the force, but she felt like she was already being marginalised.

When she exited the stairwell on the sixth floor, she noticed the door to the apartment next door – Mrs Miller’s – was wide open.

Most of the inhabitants in the twelve-year-old apartment block overlooking the canals were young couples or young professionals. Dani lived in one of four apartments on the top floor, the ‘penthouse’ level, as it had been sold to Dani when she’d bought the place, just a few months before the financial crash hit in 2008. Up on this level there was just Dani, Mrs Miller, and an engaged couple who Dani knew both worked for a big accountancy firm, but she couldn’t remember either the name of the firm, nor of the man and woman. They were rarely about anyway, seemingly working all hours and regularly away from home. The only other apartment on the floor – a three-bed monster that probably was fit for the title of penthouse – had been empty and on the market for more than four years, the seller unwilling to budge from the price he’d paid for the pad when the block had been brand new. So it was generally just Mrs Miller that Dani saw out and about on floor six.

Mrs Miller was in her seventies, a true cat lady. She’d been married once but her husband had run away with his mistress some twenty years previously and she’d never re-married or even put herself back into the dating game as far as Dani knew. She was harmless enough, if a little senile, but for some reason she’d never liked Dani.

Perhaps it was because Dani was a police officer, or because she was in her mid-thirties and lived on her own. It certainly wasn’t because Dani was a loud or obnoxious neighbour in any way.

Dani peered into Mrs Miller’s apartment as she walked past, intending to give a smile and a greeting if she saw her neighbour. Mrs Miller was standing just away from the door, wearing a thick light blue bathrobe and holding a shabby ginger cat in her arms.

‘Hi,’ Dani said.

Mrs Miller squinted her eyes and nodded.

‘I thought you were the Tesco man,’ she said.

‘What? No. Didn’t see anyone coming up either.’

‘Idiot’s probably got himself lost again.’

And with that the door was slammed shut.