‘You see these people?’ Ajay gestured at all the emergency services personnel moving up and down the street. The firemen in all their heavy gear standing outside Tony’s wrecked bungalow; the forensic investigators unloading equipment from a van; her police colleagues securing the scene. Ajay, she knew, had already organized a team of officers to go house-to-house to attempt to piece together Tony Gardner’s movements, and to find out if any neighbours had seen anything unusual in the cul-de-sac that day. ‘They’re all professionals, they all know what they’re doing, and not a single one of them needs you here to tell them how to do their work.’

‘You know, Ajay,’ – Sasha gave him a sideways look – ‘I can never quite shake the feeling that you’re eyeing up my job.’

‘I’m very interested in doing your job, but only when you’re a white-haired old lady.’ His eyes lifted to her shock of silver hair. ‘When you’re old, at least.’

‘Angie,’ said Sasha suddenly. ‘She has kids.’

‘She’s got minor injuries, including a nasty crack on the head from the door.’ Craig stepped back as she climbed down from the ambulance. ‘They’re keeping her in hospital tonight, just in case, and a relative is going to look after her boys until she’s back.’

‘Okay, good.’ Sasha was actually more stressed by the prospect of her family visiting than the fact that she could have been killed or badly injured. ‘Fast-track the forensic examination and post-mortem on the body. I want to know the results as soon as they come in.’

‘It’s going to be a few hours yet,’ said Ajay. ‘Probably tomorrow.’

‘As soon as they come in,’ she repeated, and he nodded.

‘Get yourself home, Mrs Dawson.’ Frowning, he reached into her hair to pick out a fragment of glass. ‘Missed a bit.’

Sasha’s mind whirled with the possibilities. They had smelled gas earlier. If Tony Gardner was inside, then the likelihood was that he had been there for hours while it filled the house. At which point, he was either incapacitated, unconscious – or already dead.

First Andrew Dean was murdered, and now, in all probability, Tony Gardner. Two friends who had got up to no good as young men, and both implicated in the disappearance of a woman three years ago. The explosion could have been an accident, but what were the chances that their deaths, within forty-eight hours of each other, were a coincidence? Plus, Davey Jenkins was in custody at the station.

‘If that’s Tony Gardner inside, we should inform Abs and Jeremy Weston that there’s a killer still at large,’ she said.