‘Come on,’ Callum said, in a tone that suggested none of them were worth the effort. He placed a hand on Ben’s shoulder as, behind them, Lance started balling up Ben’s bedclothes. ‘We’ll show you where you can ditch those and get some fresh ones. And if anyone messes with those,’ he added, addressing the room now, ‘we’ll help you shove them down that person’s throat.’

Ben made a noise involuntarily. He managed to make it sound like a laugh, but only just. The truth was, he was so grateful, and so reassured by Callum’s touch, that his first instinct had been to sob.

Tuesday 22 October, 10.49 a.m.

The woman squinted as she smoked. Her eyes never left Fleet’s, even as she jutted her lower lip and exhaled towards the ceiling.

‘Do I have to come and identify him?’ she said at last. They were the first words she’d spoken since Fleet had told her that her stepson had been found dead.

Fleet was seated on the sofa in the woman’s living room. Nicky was beside him, and he felt her shift slightly.

‘No, Ms Johnson,’ Fleet replied. ‘That … won’t be necessary.’

Christine Johnson, formerly Draper, ground her cigarette into an ashtray on the mantelpiece. She took her time, and Fleet had a feeling it wasn’t just the cigarette she was trying to extinguish. If he had to guess, he would have said she was trying to stub out a host of unbidden memories.

‘Good,’ she said, when she was satisfied. ‘Because if I’m honest, I’d probably have to remind myself what he looked like.’ She dusted her hands and folded her arms, raising her chin defensively.

‘You don’t remember what your stepson looked like?’ Nicky responded. She covered it well, but Fleet could tell she was shocked. Fleet was, too. He’d been moderately surprised that there’d been no photographs of Ben on display when they’d arrived at the sixth-floor council flat, but he knew as well that some people preferred to keep their grief private. His mother was one of them, as, indeed, was Fleet himself. He’d once criticised his mother for not having any pictures on the mantelpiece of Jeannie, his younger sister, who’d committed suicide when she was a teenager, but Fleet himself didn’t even keep a photograph of Jeannie in his wallet. Nor had he ever felt the need or desire to display any pictures of her at home – either in the bedsit he occupied now, or in the house he’d once shared with Holly. The difference was, unlike Christine Johnson, neither Fleet nor his mother would have needed to remind themselves what Jeannie had looked like. The image of his little sister’s wide-eyed innocence was burned on Fleet’s brain.