Her heart started to thump. It couldn’t be? Carla pulled out her phone and scrolled down her list of contacts. And there it was. The number on Joanne’s call data was right there in her own phone.

She dropped the phone and gripped the edges of her chair, trying to ride out the wave of nausea crashing over her.

Gerry.

Carla only just made it to the toilet before she threw up. Gripping the toilet bowl, she waited until her stomach had nothing more to give, then rocked back on her heels and wiped her mouth with her hand. Why had Gerry called Joanne in the days leading up to Connor’s death? Hell, why was he calling her at all? Was he warning her off, telling her not to contact Eve? But surely he knew how dangerous that would be to any future case they might have against Joanne?

She stood, steadying herself against the cubicle wall, before going to the sink to wash her face. Her thoughts were a mess: should she ask Gerry about the call, confront him and ask for an explanation? But that would reveal they were looking at phone data, which would mean he’d know they were checking on Eve, and Bremer would kill her if she did that. But she could trust Gerry, couldn’t she?

The thud in her chest told her otherwise but she railed against it; surely she owed Gerry enough to tell him? A second thought pushed out the first. Maybe she could delete the call from the spreadsheet – who would ever know?

‘Jesus, Carla.’ She looked in the mirror. ‘You do that, you might as well quit the job.’ She felt ashamed. Start tampering with evidence, you lose any right to be in the job, she knew that.

She walked out of the toilet straight into Nell.

‘Hey!’ Nell looked annoyed, but then stared at Carla. ‘You OK?’

Should she tell her? ‘Fine, thanks.’

‘Not pregnant, are you?!’ Nell laughed. Carla felt vomit rise again. Nell put a hand on her arm. ‘I was kidding, you know?’

‘I know.’ She tried to paint on a smile. ‘Find anything at the scene?’

They started walking back to the office as Nell explained they’d got a confirmed sighting at the phone box.

‘Well, that’s brilliant!’

‘It’s a start.’

‘That’s what I love about you, Nell,’ Carla said as they reached the office for their briefing. ‘Your endless positivity.’

Bremer looked at Carla. ‘Go.’

Carla recounted the facts about the telephone number, the phone box and how it linked to Joanne and Connor, before giving a summary of the backgrounds of both Joanne and Eve. She then explained about the murder on Portsmouth beach around the time Eve had lived there.

‘And you’ve got nothing more on it than that?’