‘I figured a coffee was a good idea for a couple of reasons. I need to get up to speed with this investigation, with what you know, but we also need to get to know each other a bit. Maybe that’s where we should start,’ Joel said. ‘So, let’s make this informal. You’ve just seen your mate laid out on the floor, you’re angry and upset. This is a free pass to say what you’re thinking. About me, about this investigation … about what it is you really want to say.’

‘What I’m thinking?’ DS Rose whipped round to face Joel.

‘You want to be part of finding the person that did this to your mate, I get that, so you phoned my superintendent to be put on the investigation. But now you seem angry to be here.’

‘I phoned Major Crime first’ – DS Rose leaned forward now, her expression angry – ‘and they told me it was nothing to do with them, told me some superintendent had thrown her weight around, saw this as a juicy way of launching some new team that would get her to the next rank and taken it off them. Major Crime, with their core of twelve experienced detectives and all the other experts they can call on. Two detective sergeants, a guvnor, a Detective Chief Inspector who’s an experienced SIO, all ready and waiting to start finding out who shot and killed one of our own back there. But not now. Now they’re all sitting on their hands and they’re just waiting. See, when this investigation fails, Major Crime can use it to show that they can’t be replaced after all and everything goes back to the way it was. But what about Hannah? The people that did this to her? She deserves better than being abandoned as some political pawn. She’s dead, she was murdered.’

‘When it fails?’ Joel said.

‘Sandra was right about you, you’re no SIO. You’re not even a detective.’

‘My badge says different.’

‘When was your last investigation, the last time you formally interviewed someone even?’

Joel sat back now. He sugared his drink, deliberately taking his time. ‘Ten years would be about right for a formal interview. But questioning people – criminals, witnesses, people standing out on a ledge with every intention of jumping – every day since. We’re police officers, we question everything, we investigate everything. You don’t need to be on a specific unit to do that.’