‘Revenge,’ Conway said. ‘Or they saw Selena losing the plot, thought she’d go back to normal if Chris was gone and she felt safe again. And I’d say any of those three could get the job done just fine.’

‘Rebecca?’ But I remembered it, that lift of her chin, the glint that had told me Not so frail after all. Thought of the poem on her wall, of what her friends meant to her.

‘Yeah. Even her.’ After a second, carefully not looking at me: ‘Even Holly.’

I said, ‘Holly’s the one who brought me that card. She could’ve just binned it.’

‘I’m not saying she did anything. I’m just saying I’m not ready to rule her out yet.’

Made me prickle, the carefulness; like Conway thought I was going to throw a full-on hissy, demand she take my Holly off the list, start making calls to my big daddy Mackey. I wondered all over again what Conway had heard about me.

I said, ‘Or it could be all three of them.’

‘Or all four,’ Conway said. She pressed her fingers to her nose, rubbed them along her cheekbones. ‘Fuck.’

She looked like today was starting to close over her head. She was longing to leave: go back to Murder and turn in her paperwork, sit in the pub with a mate till her head was wiped clear, start fresh in the morning.

She said, ‘This fucking place.’

‘Long day,’ I said.

‘You want to go, go.’

‘And do what?’

‘Do whatever you do. Go home. Get your glad rags on and go clubbing. There’s a bus stop down the main road, or you can phone a taxi. Send me the receipt, I’ll put it on expenses.’

I said, ‘If I’ve got the choice, I’m staying.’

‘I’m gonna be here a while. I don’t know how long.’

‘No problem.’

Conway looked at me, eyebag to eyebag. Fatigue had rasped the coppery sheen off her skin, left her bare and hard and dusty.

She said, ‘Ambitious little fucker, aren’t you?’

It stung, places where it shouldn’t have, because it was true and because it wasn’t all the truth. I said, ‘It’s your case. No matter what I do, it’s your name going on the solve. I just want to work it.’

Second of silence, while Conway looked at me. She said, ‘If we get a suspect and we bring her back to base, the lads are gonna give me hassle. About the case, about you, whatever. I can deal with that. If you add to the hassle because you want to be one of the lads, you’re gone. Clear?’

What I’d felt in the squad-room air that morning: not just your normal Murder-squad edge, fast Murder-squad pulse. Something more, beating faster and sharper around Conway. And not just today. Her every day had to be a fight.