Mrs W was evil and so was her son. Rosie had already slipped up once, letting Bill get to Hannah. She wouldn’t make the same mistake again.

As dusk settled, she moved to the living-room window to draw the curtains, taking a moment to survey the street below. Mrs W was out there somewhere and they couldn’t afford to let their guard down.

Earlier, Rosie had persuaded Hannah to come with her as she took Tank for a walk. Although Hannah had been reluctant, the fresh air had done her good, her eyes hidden behind dark sunglasses to avoid unwelcome stares.

Now they were cocooned back inside the flat, the door bolted and the windows locked.

She would make Hannah her favourite dinner and open a bottle of the wine, and for a short while they could pretend that everything was okay, that they were safe.

Croydon had been a waste of time. Liam had called in on Adrian Peters, this time taking flowers and a condolence card. Adrian had seemed grateful for the company and the opportunity to talk about his late wife, and it had been easy to guide the questions and piece together what happened the day of Jill’s death, which was unfortunately very little.

The last time anyone had seen her had been on the Tuesday afternoon. She had called in sick on the Wednesday, which was the day she had fallen or been pushed down the stairs.

Jill’s death still wasn’t being ruled as anything other than an accident, and sensing he was wasting his time, Liam had offered his sympathies to Adrian again, thanked him for the coffee, and decided to move on to Kent and the village where Lauren Bell had lived, just outside of the town of Sevenoaks.

It was still late afternoon and if he made progress with Lauren, he could hopefully be back in Norfolk early tomorrow.

As he suspected, her house was locked up, and knowing she didn’t have any relatives or friends close by, he headed to the local pub, where he ordered a sandwich and a coffee, and got chatting with the barmaid and a couple of locals, working the conversation around to Lauren.

None of them knew her well, but they were all aware of her murder and were nosey enough to gossip.

‘She never really came in here,’ Robin, the barmaid, told him. ‘Maybe on the odd occasion. She mostly kept to herself.’

‘Lived in that cottage all alone. No husband or boyfriend,’ the old, bearded chap, who was propping up the bar, chipped in. ‘Never saw her with any friends. She didn’t even have a dog.’

He seemed shocked by that and Liam glanced at the pretty spaniel on the floor beside him. The dog had been his way to get chatting to them. He had stopped to make a fuss of her and the conversation had moved on from there.