She was standing in sunlight, swaying forward towards me, palms coming up. High voice with a tremble in it, But but please I really need— Me blank-faced, leg twitching with impatience, thinking Pathetic.

She wanted something from me. Help, money, a lift, advice? I wanted her gone.

Steve says, ‘Work?’

‘Could’ve been.’ The blank face took willpower; on my own time, I would’ve just told her to get lost.

‘We’ll run her through the system, soon as we get back to HQ. If she came in with a domestic violence complaint . . .’

‘I never worked DV. Would’ve had to be back when I was in uniform. And I don’t . . .’ I shake my head. The searchlight sweeps of the techs’ headlamps turn the room sizeless and menacing, make us into crouching targets. ‘I don’t remember anything like that.’

I wouldn’t have been itching to get rid of her, not if she’d been getting the slaps. The slit-open eyes give her face a sly look, like a kid cheating at hide-and-seek.

Steve straightens up, leaving me to take whatever time I need. He raises his eyebrows at Sophie and points to the rectangle of light coming through the kitchen door. ‘Can I . . . ?’

‘Knock yourself out. We’ve videoed in there, but we haven’t fingerprinted yet, so don’t go polishing anything.’

Steve picks his way past the techs, into the kitchen. The ceilings are low enough that he practically has to duck, going through the doorway. ‘How’s that going?’ Sophie asks, nodding after him.

‘All right. He’s the least of my problems.’ I let the vic’s hair fall back over her face and stand up. I want to move; if I walked fast and far enough, I could catch up to the memory. If I start pacing around her crime scene, Sophie will kick my arse out the door, lead D or no.

‘Sounds like a blast,’ Sophie says. ‘Now that you’ve seen the place the way we found it, can we turn on the bloody lights and stop fucking about in the dark?’

‘Go for it,’ I say. One of the techs turns on the overhead light, which makes the place even more depressing; at least the headlamps gave it some kind of personality, even if it was a creepy one. I pick my way between yellow evidence markers to the bedroom.

It’s small and it’s spotless. The dressing table – curly white-and-gold yoke with a foofy skirt, like something an eight-year-old would pick out for her princess room – has none of that makeup left scattered on it, just another scented candle and two perfume bottles that are for looks, not use. No tried-and-ditched outfits strewn across the bed; the daisy-pattern duvet is pulled straight and symmetrical, neatly dotted with four of those scatter cushions I’ll never figure out. Aislinn tidied up, when she finished getting ready: hid away every bit of evidence, in case God forbid Lover Boy should figure out she didn’t naturally look like something he’d picked out of a catalogue. He didn’t get this far, but she was expecting him to.