‘First thing,’ Steve says. He tugs the oven open, carefully, hooking a gloved finger into the door crack instead of touching the handle.

Two roasting tins, full of food shrivelled into crispy brown wads: what looks like potatoes, and something in pastry. He pulls down the half-open door of the grill: two blackish lumps that started out as either stuffed mushrooms or cowpats.

I say, ‘So?’

‘So it’s all cooked to leather, but it hasn’t actually burned. Because the knobs are still turned on, but the actual cooker’s been switched off at the wall. And look.’

Plate full of vegetables – green beans, peas – on the counter. Pan half-full of water on one of the cooker rings. The knob for the ring is turned on high.

‘Soph,’ I call. ‘Anyone turn off the cooker? You guys, or the uniforms?’

‘We didn’t,’ Sophie yells back. ‘And I said to the uniforms: anything you touched, you tell me now. I’m pretty sure I put the fear of God into them. If they’d been fucking about with the cooker, they’d have ’fessed up.’

‘So?’ I say, to Steve. ‘Maybe Lover Boy was late, Aislinn turned off the cooker.’

Steve shakes his head. ‘The grill, maybe. But would you turn the oven off, or leave it on low and stick all the food in there to keep warm? And would you let the water for the veg get cold, or would you keep it boiling?’

‘I don’t cook. I microwave.’

‘I cook. You wouldn’t switch off the whole thing, specially not if your boyfriend was running late. You’d keep the water simmering, so you could throw in the veg the second he arrived.’

I say, ‘Our guy turned it off.’

‘Looks like. He didn’t want the smoke alarm going off.’

‘Soph. Can you print the wall switch of the cooker for me?’

‘No problem.’

‘You check for footprints in here?’

‘No, I let you two walk all over it first, to make my life more interesting,’ Sophie calls. ‘Footprints were the first thing we did. It rained off and on last night, so anyone who came in would’ve had wet shoes, but any prints dried up a long time ago – the heat in here – and they didn’t leave any decent residue. We got a few bits of dried mud, in here and in there; but those could’ve come from the uniforms clearing the scene, and there wasn’t enough for identifiable prints anyway.’

Lover Boy is changing, in my mind. I had him down as some snivelling little gobshite who threw a punch that went wrong and who was probably back in his flat shitting himself and waiting for us to show up so he could spill his guts and explain how it was all her fault. But that guy would have been halfway home before Aislinn’s body hit the floor. He would never have been able to make himself stand still and think strategy.

I say, ‘He’s got a cool head.’