Today wasn’t one of the rare days, so Chanter’s arms didn’t enter Meakin’s mind. Chanter was doing a stint fielding responses to the Billy Dead Mates police artist sketch, which had been widely circulated yesterday. That’s what he was supposed to be doing, anyway. Instead, he was ignoring the phone ringing on the desk in front of him and staring at his iPad as if nothing existed beyond it. Passing behind him, Meakin spotted the words ‘Senior Business Analysts Ref 30’ on the screen. He reached over Chanter’s shoulder and picked up the phone. Chanter looked up, smiled, and slid his chair out of the way – in the helpful spirit, Meakin imagined, of ‘Anything I can do to help you do my job for me, just say the word!’

The caller had nothing useful to offer. She’d thought at first, she said, that the sketch might be of Eric, the pushy Amnesty International volunteer who’d come to her house three nights in a row – always interrupting her supper – to try and persuade her to donate money, even though she’d made it clear from the start that she didn’t have much to spare. And he’d had the cheek to say that a one-off tenner wouldn’t be ideal and that he’d prefer a regular monthly amount by direct debit! Eric had tried to make her feel guilty, but the thing was that it couldn’t be Eric in the police sketch, did Meakin see? Because the man in the picture was at least twenty years younger. Still, in all other respects he did look like Eric – the same eyes.

Meakin thought the man in the sketch looked all right – like the sort of person he might want to watch the rugby or have a pint with. This was unusual. Most faces brought into being by police artists looked capable of far more ruthless acts than interrupting three consecutive suppers. Still, if Billy Dead Mates didn’t look harmless and amiable, how had he talked his way into four people’s kitchens and persuaded them to make him cups of tea? His benign face was part of his M.O., presumably.

Meakin told the caller that if she wanted something to be done about Eric, Amnesty were the people she needed to talk to, not the police. Putting the phone down, he said in his clearest, most deliberate voice, ‘That was yours to get.’