“It’s just that we have reason to believe that Mimosa might have been connected with some Pakistanis, and there seem to be a lot of them in the neighborhood. Running the shops and businesses along the Strip, for example. A takeaway, minicab firm, Balti restaurant and so on. We know she ate kebab and pizza shortly before she died. Coincidence?” Gerry realized she was pushing it a bit with this. All they really knew was what Dr. Glendenning had found in her stomach and what Jazz Singh had got from the DNA: that her last meal consisted of pizza and kebab and that she had had rough sex with three men of Pakistani descent. There was nothing to indicate that the men came from this area, or that she had eaten her last meal on the Strip. Still, Gerry believed that Ciaran O’Byrne needed a bit of a kick up the arse, and as often as not in her business the roots of a crime began on the victim’s own doorstep, so it wasn’t an unreasonable assumption.

“Well, there are lots of places you can get kebab and pizza, and there are Asian communities all over the country.”

“Yes, but Mimosa lived here.” Gerry paused. “I must say, you seem remarkably unconcerned. Don’t you get it? We’re talking about a fifteen-year-old girl in your care who was raped and murdered.”

“I’ve told you, Mimsy wasn’t in my care.”

“But you have a close connection with the family, with her mother particularly.”

“But not because of Mimsy. Yes, well, I try to do my job. Things were difficult, but they were coping. Mimsy didn’t need to be taken away and handed over to foster parents or put in a home. She could take care of herself. At her best Sinead was there, and Leonard Thornton is a decent bloke, despite all appearances to the contrary.”

“Maybe. But he didn’t keep a close eye on Mimosa.”

“Surely you can’t blame Leonard for what happened to her?”