There wasn’t much else. The second victim was also still in situ in the living room amid a very familiar scene of a wasted life. A stick-thin young woman with numerous signs of drug use on various parts of her body was laid out with trousers pulled down to expose where she had injected the fatal dose into her groin. She was surrounded by paraphernalia as promised. It didn’t help with any theories. It could well be that the woman happened to overdose at the same time as Hannah Ribbons was being murdered by gunshot in the only bedroom, but Joel couldn’t quite see in his mind the order of events in that flat. Whatever had gone on, he was sure the key to putting it all together was understanding Hannah rather than the dead drug user.

Joel needed to get away. He swapped contact details with Sandra and smiled when she made him promise that he wouldn’t go on to be a disappointment after all.

‘I’m not sure I can promise much right now,’ he said.

‘You do have the look of a man thrown in at the deep end.’ She beamed. ‘One thing at a time, that’s all you can do.’

‘I agree and the first thing to do is to meet my new sergeant.’

‘Oh,’ Sandra said. She was loitering by the front door to the flat while Joel was stripping away his forensic layer. DS Rose was a little further away, looking out of the filthy window at the end of the corridor and out of earshot. ‘I assumed Lucy was it?’

‘She is, as of twenty-five minutes ago.’

This time Sandra’s laugh was loud enough to bounce around the space. ‘Someone really is setting you up to fail here, aren’t they?’ she said. Joel managed just a smirk.

‘That’s certainly what it feels like.’

Chapter 19

Google Maps guided them to a coffee-shop chain in an industrial estate nearby. DS Rose took a seat, choosing a corner booth a little distance away from anyone else while Joel waited at the counter for their drinks. She positioned herself with her back to him, her head turning occasionally like she might be looking out of the window.

‘Are you OK?’ Joel put the drinks down and stepped past to sit opposite.

‘Not really. She was a friend of mine … Seeing her like that.’

‘I can imagine. Not ideal for this to be the first case …’

‘It’s why I’m here. The only reason,’ DS Rose snapped then pushed herself back in her chair, her head turning to the side again, her attention back out the window. She bit her bottom lip like she might have been hasty.