Stanley shook his head. ‘He’s going home. He wants everyone in the incident room for a nine o’clock meeting when he’ll brief us all on what the commissioner said and where the investigation is going from here.’

‘That doesn’t sound good,’ Boon remarked.

‘I have an awful feeling history might be repeating itself for Barnes,’ Jane said.

Stanley shrugged. ‘We won’t know until he’s briefed us, Jane. For now, we crack on as normal.’

Boon removed the little owl from his pocket and put it on Stanley’s desk. ‘Mother Adele made this. As well as lots of other animals, she also made a ladle for Sister Margaret, like the one she used to hit the kids with. Obviously, she had to use a knife of some sort.’

Stanley raised his hand. ‘I get where you’re going with this. The problem is, we can’t rely on anything Sister Margaret said.’

‘That why I spoke with Julie Dorton. She confirmed Sister Margaret was a keen whittler. She said she kept little animals she made on her study desk and had a small box in which she kept an array of different whittling knives.’

‘All very interesting but circumstantial,’ Stanley said.

‘We can’t just rule out Mother Adele as a suspect,’ Jane said. ‘Julie also told us Mother Adele was ambitious. She saw herself as the next Mother General and fantasised about having a private audience with the pope. If Missy threatened to expose her cruelty and drinking, her ambitions would have been destroyed.’

‘True,’ Stanley agreed. ‘But I don’t think Barnes will buy it. He’s convinced Meade is responsible.’

‘We have to tell him what we know about Mother Adele so he sees there are other possibilities,’ Jane said.

‘I’ll leave that to you two, then,’ Stanley said.

‘Thanks a lot,’ Jane replied.

‘Look,’ he said. ‘You both know this case better than any of us. I suggest you sit down and compile a report detailing all the evidence you have against Mother Adele and Meade. Stick to the facts and don’t forget to consider a joint enterprise.’ Stanley handed Boon the owl.

Jane found herself remembering Barnes’s Sherlock Holmes quote: ‘Once you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, no matter how improbable, must be the truth.’

Returning to the incident room, Jane thought about phoning Nick, but knew if he was surly again it would really upset her and she wouldn’t be able to focus on compiling the evidential report. Boon went to the canteen to get a sandwich and a drink for both of them.

‘The Bromley SOCO dropped off some photos for you, sarge,’ the female civilian indexer said, holding up a large envelope. ‘DS Johnson, the lab sergeant, asked if you’d call him regarding the seeds in the victim’s stomach.’