‘Why did Mr O’Brian think you should have woken the baby earlier?’

Kelly-Anne opened her mouth to speak but Connor shut her down.

‘We’re not saying anything else.’ He sat down next to Kelly-Anne and took her hand, squeezing it until she winced. ‘Take us down the station if you’ve anything else you want to ask.’

Silence fell. Paul looked to Nell and gave a quick shrug, but she wasn’t done.

‘Kelly-Anne, did you hurt your baby?’

‘Don’t answer that,’ Connor told her. Leaning across to the coffee table, he picked up a cigarette and lit it. After three short drags he gave it to a pale Kelly-Anne. Nell noted the shaking hand as she took it, the panicked look in her eyes, and waited.

‘I know what you are all thinking,’ Kelly-Anne finally said. ‘Single mum on benefits with a con as a boyfriend.’

‘Oh for fuck’s sake, Kelly-Anne.’

But Kelly-Anne shrugged off his comment and folded her arms tight across her chest, cigarette now dangerously close to the back of the chair.

‘It’s not like they wouldn’t have checked,’ she said, voice sulky. ‘In jail twice, if you want to know.’

‘How long did you spend in jail, Mr O’Brian?’ Nell asked.

Kelly-Anne gave a bitter laugh and took a drag. ‘Second time was long enough to miss the bloody birth.’

Connor relaxed back into his chair. ‘Two months. Was just for a bit of weed, that’s all.’

‘Growing it,’ Kelly-Anne added. ‘Bloody growing the stuff he was. Stupid git.’

He threw her a warning look and the pair collapsed into silence. Had she got them wrong? Maybe it was Kelly-Anne who pulled the strings, in which case it was possible Connor was covering for her. But before she could push them further, Eve knocked on the door.

‘Can I have a word?’ Her gaze landed on Kelly-Anne before moving quickly to Connor, where it lingered, despite his cold stare back.

‘Sure.’ Nell nodded for Paul to join them, then pulled the door to. ‘What you got?’

Eve removed her blue plastic gloves. She studied her hands as she did so, before looking down at Nell, piercing blue eyes a stark contrast to her pale skin. ‘It’s definitely not a sudden infant death. There are clear signs the child was shaken.’

‘The boyfriend said he shook her trying to wake her – could that fit?’ Nell asked, looking back at the closed door.

Eve gave a short, hard laugh. ‘I’m sure he did say that. Trying to cover their tracks, no doubt. But no, the way the blood has collected suggests there was limited movement after death.’

‘What, they didn’t even pick her up?’ Paul asked, his tone full of disgust.

‘Doesn’t look like it, no.’

‘O’Brian also said he tried to resuscitate her with chest compressions – any sign that’s true?’ Nell asked.