Number two on the list was Sylvia Wilson, an older woman who lived on the outskirts of Saltern, in an area called Leetoft, who worked in a local plant nursery. In her case, the photo showed her two grandsons, one of whom had been ten at the time the picture was taken.

Then came Nan Cutler, the murder victim. They had no idea who the subject of her picture was, other than that the boy — if it was a boy — had a name ending in “Y” and was eleven years old. Nan had lived in Saltern-le-Fen town.

The last one had been Fleur Harper, in his own village of Cartoft. The intruder had removed a framed photo of her son, Jason, aged nine or ten. He was now eleven.

Uniform had interviewed the three women, none of whom knew each other or Nan Cutler. Their lives didn’t seem to overlap anywhere. They had no shared interests, neither church, clubs, libraries or gyms. They even shopped at different supermarkets.

He remembered the man who had been watching at school gates. What was going on with him? He called out to Marie.

‘Anything back about our watcher?’

‘Not yet, boss. Robbie and Charlie are now up to date with their work and are with us at last, so I’ve given them that one to chase up. Charlie’s down with Uniform, and Robbie’s catching up on the CCTV footage. Hopefully, we’ll have a report by late afternoon.’

‘Okay. Let me know if there’s any progress. Oh, and Marie, how is our Robbie?’

She shook her head. ‘I had a long chat with him earlier. He’s a lot more cut up about it than he’s letting on. He said it had been a joint decision, but now he’s beginning to think he made a big mistake. He’s well confused.’

Jackman felt for him. His relationship with Laura had almost ended in the same way, but luckily they had both realised what they were losing and had got back together. ‘Tell him that if he ever wants to chat, he knows where my office is. All that paperwork probably didn’t help. I’m sure he’ll be better off doing something physical.’

‘Absolutely,’ Marie said. ‘I’ll make certain he’s run off his little feet. Gary and Kevin are trying to build up a picture of Nan Cutler. I’ll report what we have at close of play.’

‘Good.’ He paused. ‘Off out on the town again tonight?’

‘Not tonight. Ralph’s received intel that a job he’s working might come to a head this evening. It’s the planned raid that our uniforms have been asked to support, if we are needed. It’s really big.’

‘Sounds it. Our Fenchester brothers and sisters will be busy tonight, that’s for sure,’ Jackman said.

‘I just hope he stays safe,’ Marie said. ‘Those raids can get messy, especially when there’s drugs with such a huge street value at stake — like, millions.’

He laughed. ‘Ah, the joys of being attached to a police officer!’