Jean Wilder and Piper Maldini could avoid a trial by entering a plea of guilty on all counts of murder, but it was not going to happen – we had already been informed by the Crown Prosecution Service that both women would be entering pleas of not guilty. Jean Wilder and Piper Maldini wanted their day in court. They wanted, I guessed, to tell the world exactly why they had murdered Mahmud Irani, Hector Welles and Darren Donovan. Like all true believers faced with the end, they dreamed of armies rising behind them.

This final stage of the investigation meant that our Murder Investigation Team would be confined to our desks on the top floor of 27 Savile Row for the next couple of months. You hear a lot about the Golden Hour after a murder is committed. Well, these were the bread-and-butter weeks of arrest to trial – collating evidence and preparing statements, long days of snatched meals eaten at workstations and a waterfall of coffee.

The paperwork had just begun. Prosecutors from the CPS would come and go as they built their case. The police detect, investigate and arrest and the CPS make it stick in court. At least, that is the theory. So our investigation was not over but we were in the home straight.

And that’s why when I entered MIR-1 on the morning after the arrests of the surviving members of the Hanging Club, I found Tara Jones clearing her desk.

There was nobody else around. I stood before her as she pushed the shining veil of hair from her face, her wedding ring gleaming like a sliver of gold on black velvet. She did not smile at me as she placed files in a cardboard box.

‘Buy you a coffee?’ I said. ‘Bar Italia? Your favourite?’

‘And then what happens, Max?’

‘I don’t know,’ I said.

Your mouth, I thought. Coffee-flavoured kisses. Your eyes looking into my face. Your hands in mine. And then another triple espresso before I have to come back to work. That sounded good to me.

I reached out to touch her arm just above the elbow. With the temperatures suddenly dropping, she was wearing a sweater today, and my fingertips brushed cashmere. She did not pull away but TDC Billy Greene came in just then, calling a jaunty ‘Morning all!’ as he swung his backpack on his desk, got out the sandwiches that his mum had made him, and powered up his computer. I stood there staring at Tara and there was something in her eyes that I knew I would never get past.

‘Shall I tell you what happens, Max?’ she said, her voice little more than a whisper, although Billy was already leaning forward, lost in his screen, munching one of his mum’s sandwiches. ‘If we get what we want, it will not make us happy.’

‘What do you mean?’ I said, even though I knew exactly what she meant.