‘No one else knew?’ Joel said. He knew what this meant. A common issue with intelligence received from a source is the provenance. A circle of trust between criminals can be so small that acting on that information would immediately reveal who had come forward, something police needed to prevent at all costs. To do this, information only left the source unit when it was parallel sourced, that is, when it could be demonstrated that the information could have come from somewhere other than the person who had provided it.

‘No one else could. Any child sex offender will have a very tight circle – they may not have a circle at all, not beyond a fake profile on the dark web at least.’

‘But Macie Sutton was part of someone’s circle?’

‘She was. Her brother’s a man called Marcus Olsen.’

‘Marcus Olsen!’ Joel sat straighter.

‘I know … I know he’s been found dead too.’

‘In two different places. And you didn’t think this was relevant until now?’ Joel was back to considering roughing up a colleague.

Miles ran his hand through his hair. ‘What I think doesn’t really matter right now. We handle information in here that can get people killed – that’s the whole purpose of this unit, to provide a place for that information to live, to make a difference, but in a way that no one gets hurt. Three people are dead.’

‘Four,’ Joel cut in. ‘Not wanting to make your day any worse but Danny Evans killed himself with the same gun he used to shoot Hannah.’

‘Killed himself?’ Miles’s repetition was born from shock not disbelief.

‘Probably.’

‘Probably?’

‘I was called out to have a look at him. I’ve been back to work for three days and I’ve already had my fill of dead people. Now it might make more sense that he took his own life.’

‘How so?’

‘I don’t know for sure, I need to put it all together, but we have a convicted paedophile, an informant who can provide access to him and the police officer investigating, all dead. Danny Evans might have a reason to want every one of those people dead. It wouldn’t be the first time someone did something like that and then took their own life.’

‘Job done then? Glad I could help.’

‘Easy as that.’ Joel managed a smile now. ‘I need to get back to it. I have a DS who will need updating too; a fresh set of eyes might have a fresh set of questions. We’re based upstairs. Are you here until late?’

Miles shrugged. ‘I have a camper van and today I was sure to bring it in. Does that answer your question?’

‘What information can you share officially?’