The PCC did everything but scoff. ‘Come now, Detective Inspector. You surely don’t believe that? I may not have the investigative background you do, but even to me that sounds like reaching.’

‘I would prefer to describe it as keeping an open mind. At least until we uncover evidence that points us definitively either way.’

‘And in the meantime, we’re in danger of looking a gift horse in the mouth. Almost overnight, this has become an extremely high-profile case. The entire country is watching, and we have a chance to claim an early win. To put this to bed before there are any embarrassing—’

‘I agree with Detective Inspector Fleet.’

When Fleet turned to Webb, he couldn’t be sure the man had spoken at all. He was looking down at his phone, apparently not particularly interested in what he saw there, his thumbs nevertheless chasing each other frantically across the screen. He was a thin man, not much older than Fleet, with a round head and a shabby haircut, and clothes he might very well have slept in. He was the complete opposite of Apte, in other words. The PCC was as well groomed as he was well fed. He bore a tie knot the size of a child’s fist, and his thick, black hair couldn’t have been more perfectly styled had it been tweezered into place strand by strand. He appeared every bit the man in charge, in other words, whereas Webb might have blown in off the street.

And yet it was the man from the Home Office who exuded a sense of authority. When he spoke, both Apte and Superintendent Burton stopped to listen.

Webb finished typing and raised his head, palming his phone the way a con man would an ace from a deck of cards. ‘There is no sense rushing to a premature conclusion,’ he said. ‘Particularly if you are only going to have to rescind it later.’

You, Fleet noted. Not we. So he was clearly not here to assume any responsibility. Which begged the question, what was he doing here at all?

Instinctively Fleet trusted Webb even less than he did the PCC. At least Apte was publicly accountable. Fleet had never heard of Webb until they’d shaken hands across the table, and he still hadn’t been told what the man did exactly. Fleet’s best guess was that he was a special adviser of some kind. To the home secretary? The prime minister himself? Either way, if Webb was here to represent the government, it was surely Callum Richardson’s involvement in the case that had drawn him in.