‘I don’t know what more I can say. I have to pick Jamie up from school later, he’s at the Grammar …’ She paused for a moment. Joel heard a sniff like she was struggling to hold it all together. ‘I haven’t told him about his dad. I don’t even know where to start. How do I do that?’

Joel was suddenly aware that he hadn’t stopped to consider Jamie. ‘That’s not going to be easy, Mrs Evans. I can’t even imagine. Maybe I can help. I can be there when you talk to him, for questions, or I could even be the one saying the words?’

‘No, it needs to be me.’ She made a sound like she was still battling with herself. ‘I appreciate the offer.’

‘No problem. Maybe we can meet before the school run. We can talk it out, what you might say to Jamie. I’m not far away from you.’

‘You mean come to my house now? No, I don’t think that’s … I don’t want the police here. Somewhere out maybe …’

‘Wherever you’re comfortable.’

‘Comfortable …’ She seemed to fade out. ‘I don’t think I can remember what that feels like.’

‘Poor turn of phrase, Mrs Evans. There’s a place on Folkestone Road, does a good coffee: Farthingloe. Do you know it?’

‘I know it.’

‘It should be quiet this time of day and it’s close to the school. Can you be there in an hour?’

‘I can. These “developments” you want to talk about – it’s not more bad news, is it? Please, Inspector Norris, I don’t think I can take it right now.’

Joel’s gaze dropped to the bloody mass of hair and flesh wrapped in a bag and discarded in the shower tray of her husband’s hotel room.

‘I’ll see you in an hour.’

Chapter 42

Joel eyed the coffee machine as he took a seat at the bar. DS Rose stayed standing. She was staring at a barman who had acknowledged them with a briefly raised hand but seemed determined to keep his head down and act busy. Finally he stood straighter to smile at Joel’s colleague.

‘You with the cops, I take it?’ he said. ‘I just saw your lot turn up.’ He gestured at the window but remained fixed on DS Rose. Joel had summoned a marked patrol to come to their location and stand on the door to Danny Evans’s hotel room. It was a crime scene now. Joel didn’t know how long it might be for, since they were quickly running out of CSI resources.

‘DI Norris, if I can drag you away from the prettier one,’ Joel said and the barman looked back at him with colour filling his cheeks.

‘I’m sure you’re both pretty in your own way,’ he said.

‘I have been told that. What’s your name?’ Joel asked.

‘Darryl.’