‘Well, you’re not stupid, but you’re definitely getting in his way,’ Judith said with a smile. ‘Ah, here we are, Monday the fifth.’

‘Was he at the rowing dinner?’ Becks asked.

‘Hmm,’ Judith said, not answering immediately.

‘Well?’

‘Sadly not. According to this, he went swimming that night,’ Judith said, and then flicked through the pages to get a better sense of the other diary entries. ‘And he records everything. We’ve got drinks with friends, dinners, choir practices on Thursdays, football matches, badminton on Saturdays. He and his wife lead a full life.’

‘Why are you so interested in that Monday night?’ Tanika asked.

‘It’s the only night that Liz Curtis has an entry in her diary. It was for a rowing dinner. And seeing as we know Elliot Howard rowed back in the day, we were wondering if it was a connection between them both. But according to his diary, every Monday night from eight until nine, Elliot goes swimming in the Court Garden Leisure Centre.’

‘Every Monday night?’ Suzie asked sceptically.

‘Every Monday night. That’s what it says here.’

‘So he’s very unlikely to have been at Liz’s dinner.’

Judith wasn’t happy.

‘Does anyone else get the feeling that whenever we interrogate Elliot’s life, he’s already got himself an alibi? He’s swimming, or he’s at choir practice, or he’s on a webcam holding an auction.’

‘Policing can often feel like this,’ Tanika said. ‘You keep hitting brick walls. But you have to trust in the process. Trust in yourselves. And, knowing what you three have already achieved, even before you had access to the case files, I know you’re going to make a major breakthrough. I just know it.’

Sadly, Tanika’s confidence was misplaced. Because, although the three friends pored over the ballistics, coroner’s and other forensic reports; even though they read all the witness statements and waded through the financial and other background checks, they could find nothing that significantly moved the case on any further. It was so frustrating. Somewhere out there was the killer, if they could only work out who it was.

And all along, Judith kept telling them that there was something big they were missing, something obvious, even. She could feel it in her bones. What was it?

Chapter 33

There were no major breakthroughs for the women on the first day. There were none on the second, either. All they seemed to do was go round and round in circles, rehashing the same clues and leads, and, above all, the same watertight alibis of Elliot Howard and Andy Bishop.