She had spent more of her working life behind this and a host of similar time-worn Formica tabletops than she cared to remember. She flattered herself that she was good at reading people. So when she’d first joined CID she’d assumed that interviewing suspects would come easily to her. It didn’t take long for it to become painfully apparent that she was anything but a natural when it came to extracting information from recalcitrant interviewees. Some people seemed to have a gift for it. But not her.

It was a lippy kid she’d picked up for dealing in Gloucester that had changed it all. Despite three solid hours of coaxing, cajoling and questioning he’d stubbornly refused to utter a word. That is, until he’d stood up and hurled the word ‘Motherfucker!’ and a scalding hot cup of tea at her, swiftly followed by the table it had been standing on. She’d just about managed to stop herself from bursting into tears, but she’d been the butt of the station canteen jokes for weeks. Couldn’t handle a kid. No way she was going to make it. She’d decided there and then there was no way she was going to let it happen again. So she’d read every psychology textbook she could lay her hands on and sat in on endless interviews with senior colleagues, pestering them for tips and hints until they’d become sick of it.

But it had paid off. And now here she was about to question her first suspect in her very own murder inquiry. A uniformed constable stood in the corner of the room and across the table from her sat Damian Kelly. Six feet plus with a thick head of jet-black hair and two days’ growth of stubble, he didn’t look like a man you’d want to cross. She could see why he’d had no trouble hauling Jack Tyler to his feet.

She took a sip of water from the plastic cup and glanced down at the Manila folder that lay open in front of her.

‘Well, Mr Kelly, thank you for coming in to speak to us.’

‘It seemed to me I didn’t have very much choice in the matter, now did I?’

Was it the surname that was doing it or did she detect an almost imperceptible hint of an Irish accent? Sally’s eyes flicked down to the paperwork in front of her. An Irish national. But it looked as if his parents had moved here when he was a kid.

‘You’re here voluntarily, Mr Kelly. But you are being interviewed under caution. You do not have to say anything. But it may harm your defence if you do not mention when questioned something which you later rely on in court. Anything you do say may be given in evidence.’