By the time Freya and Mina arrive at the homeless shelter, dinner time is in full flow. The dining hall has rows of tables, all the plastic chairs occupied, the chink of cutlery against crockery. A smell reminiscent of school lunches fills the air: overcooked vegetables and roasted meat.

Freya stands at the edge of the room, while Mina makes enquiries. She feels wary eyes on her, instantly able to mark her out as law enforcement. The people at the tables are hunched and shabbily dressed. Few talk, all eat as quickly as they can, shovelling precious food into their mouths.

Mina turns away from the man she’s been talking to. A tall, thin bloke – one of the helpers at the shelter – wearing a stained white apron and hairnet.

‘Dave here was the one who identified Duncan,’ Mina explains.

Dave nods. ‘I’m sorry to hear of his passing,’ he says. ‘Duncan was a good bloke.’

‘Can you tell us more about him?’ Freya asks.

He shakes his head. ‘As I told Detective Constable Desai, I don’t know about family or next of kin,’ he begins. ‘Like most people here, Duncan didn’t speak much about his past.’

‘Did you know anything about him?’

The man directs them away from the main dining hall, and they move to stand in the quieter corridor.

‘I know he was in the army, in his youth. And then inside for a stretch, maybe a few times.’ Freya nods; they’ve already run his background. ‘He was trying to turn his life around. Without much success. A lot of the ex-forces guys have the same root problem.’

‘Which is?’ Freya asks, but she can guess. She’s heard it too many times.

‘The places they’ve been to, the things they’ve seen. It’s more than any person should have to cope with. But when they don’t have a strong, supportive family to help, or they don’t feel they can open up and deal with it, they need to look for other ways to survive. Some turn to drink, drugs. Some turn to violence.’

‘Doesn’t the army provide support?’

‘They do, but they’re overloaded. Most are men, I’m afraid. They retreat into themselves, lose the support of their loved ones or just walk away, not wanting to be a burden. Which means they end up on the street. Or in prison, like Thorpe.’

What Dave’s saying backs up what Freya has found. Once they had a name, she could find out more about Duncan Thorpe. A stint inside when he was twenty-nine, for manslaughter. Reading between the lines, it sounded like a pub fight gone wrong: local lads squaring up to a group of squaddies, out drinking in a dodgy pub. One ended up dead, after having been on the receiving end of Duncan Thorpe’s fist. Out of the army, and into jail.