‘She’s in the last stage of terminal cancer,’ I said. ‘I think she has other things on her mind.’

‘Because the mother wasn’t aware of contact doesn’t mean there wasn’t any,’ Gane reasoned.

‘Natasha Buck, Hugo Buck’s widow, has no recollection of ever meeting Adam Jones,’ I said. ‘She would have remembered a homeless heroin addict turning up at their door or their wedding.’

‘Jones tried to make contact with Buck at his office,’ Whitestone said. ‘I spoke to the PA at ChinaCorps and she can remember a man claiming to be an old friend of Buck’s turning up at the office wanting to see him. This is two or three years back. She described the man as looking like a tramp. Sounds like Jones. But Buck wouldn’t see him and security had to escort the unknown visitor from the building. Apparently it was an ugly little scene.’

‘The junkie tapping his rich mate for money and getting a knockback,’ Gane said.

‘That’s a reasonable assumption,’ Mallory said.

‘So we’re definitely treating this as a double homicide, sir?’ Gane asked. ‘We’re working on the theory that it’s the same perp? Even without contact since – what’s the school? – Potter’s Field?’

‘Yes,’ Mallory confirmed. ‘The killer’s MO. The manner of death. The school connection. It’s enough. It’s more than enough. How are we doing with prints?’

‘We’ve identified and eliminated all the prints found in the ChinaCorps office,’ Gane said. ‘The alley where Jones was found is a forensic nightmare. Full of prints that we can’t identify and never will.’

‘Glove prints?’ Mallory said.

‘No, boss. Sorry, boss.’

Mallory shook his bald head. ‘There should be glove prints.’ He stared up at the photograph. ‘Who are the other five boys?’

‘We’re chasing that down, sir,’ Whitestone said. ‘Should have names by the end of play today. DC Wolfe’s going to talk to Adam Jones’s mother again and I’ve sounded out the school. The Head Master’s calling me.’

‘And I want the photographer, please,’ Mallory said. ‘Find out who took the photograph, will you, DI Whitestone? And give us a close-up, would you, DI Gane?’

Gane tapped some keys and the camera seemed to move in for a better look. Seven faces swam out of the past and into vivid close-up.

We looked at them in silence.

The boys had all looked the same to me at first. Seven smiling sons of privilege, cocky and smug in their military uniforms and their mullet haircuts, certain that tomorrow belonged to them. But now they were starting to look like individuals.

Adam Jones on the left – a skinny kid with an open, guileless face, looking far younger than the rest. The only one who still looked like a child.