“Mr. Lovell, that was a colleague on the phone. A sixteen-year-old boy has been shot with a gun that discharged in your shop.” She slammed her hand on the table. “It was a deliberate setup, apparently. A trap. What the hell is going on?”

DCI Sampson’s head jerked up in surprise. Lovell let out a moan.

“Did it—is he—?”

“You’re lucky he isn’t dead.”

Lovell seemed to shrink, as if the air were being sucked out of him. Wildeve moved her chair a little closer.

Her voice was ice. “That’s not the only thing in your shop. Perhaps you would care to explain how Detective Inspector Adam Stanton’s warrant card found its way there, too.”

Lovell’s mouth sagged open.

“This isn’t looking good for you,” she said. She counted off on her fingers. “The dead body of your wife, the doll’s eyes, the paint on the bodies of the victims, the identification of a murdered police officer you spoke to on the day of his death found on your property, and now a kid with a gunshot wound. Concealing a body. Possession of unlawful ammunition and an unlicensed firearm. You’ll be going to prison for a very long time.”

“I didn’t do anything,” he said.

“It will be better for you in court if you tell us the truth now,” she said.

“I didn’t do anything.” He was insistent and his gaze was steady. No shifting eye contact or overconfident No comment. No body language to indicate he was telling her anything but the truth. To hide her confusion, she took a sip of water.

“Mr. Lovell, why would you have a gun in your shop?”

“It’s not a real gun. It’s homemade. It fires newspaper pellets. Mix them with sodium chlorate and charcoal and sulfur and they pack a heck of a punch.”

“But it was aimed at the door, ready to—”

“It was suspended from the ceiling of the shop and connected to a battery-powered tripwire. It was aimed at the door to deter intruders.”

“And you get a lot of those, do you? Reported them to the police yet?”

“No,” he said softly. “Except those damn kids. Didn’t expect them to break in, though, did I? I go in the back way and disable the device in the morning when I go into work. I—”

“But you think that someone is regularly coming into your shop?”

“I know they are.”

She raised her eyebrows to express her disbelief.

She changed tack. “How long have you owned the Doll & Fancy Dress Emporium, Mr. Lovell?”

An expression of startled surprise lit his face.

“I don’t own it,” he said. “I’m just a tenant.” He looked at them both. “I thought you knew that.”