‘With respect, sir,’ said Fleet tightly, ‘isn’t that exactly what this is?’

The superintendent clamped his jaw. Webb looked up from his phone, peering at Fleet from underneath his thick blond eyebrows, which were as unruly and dishevelled as his hair.

‘What are you implying, Detective Inspector?’ said Apte.

Fleet focused on Webb, who clearly understood precisely what Fleet was implying. Webb – and whoever he worked for – didn’t want Ben’s murder pinned on Wheeler, because he didn’t want it pinned on anyone. Not yet, anyway; not while Callum Richardson was still in the frame. By keeping the investigation active, yet denying it adequate resources, Webb could ensure Richardson would continue to be linked to an open murder enquiry every time he was mentioned in the press. If it turned out that Richardson was guilty, so much the better, but in the meantime even the uncertainty – the inevitable insinuations – would be enough.

In other words, it wasn’t the fire Webb was interested in. It was the smoke.

‘Are you really that scared of the man?’ Fleet said, ignoring Apte’s question and talking directly to Webb. ‘Is your boss really so afraid of having to make a fair fight to keep his job?’

Don’t get into politics, Rob, the superintendent had told Fleet once. And yet the longer he worked as a copper, the more he came to understand that the real challenge was keeping politics out. You only had to look around the room. Burton had always been a yes man. It was the reason he had that crown on his sleeve. Apte had stood for his position as a candidate representing the ruling party, so obviously he would do whatever people like Webb told him to do – assuming he ever figured out what that was. As for Webb himself, in theory he had no authority here, and yet there he sat with his eyebrows and his phone, subtly manipulating everyone else around the table.

‘That’s enough, Detective Inspector Fleet,’ said Burton, in a tone Fleet recognised all too well. So far today, in spite of their mutual animosity, they’d been managing to keep things between them relatively civil, probably because there were other people in the room. But steadily they’d drifted back on to more familiar ground.

‘You have been given your instructions,’ Burton growled. ‘I believe that will be all. Please keep me informed of any further developments. Before I am obliged to read about them in the press.’

Fleet stood. He looked at Apte, and then at Webb, who for the first time in the entire meeting had set his phone face down on the table. He was staring at Fleet impassively, but there was no mistaking the curiosity in his eyes.

Fleet turned back to face Burton. He hesitated for a moment, thinking of all the things he might say, then clamped his lips and raised his hand in a salute.