There were eight people seated around the table when the chief constable opened proceedings by introducing them all to one another. One of the people Banks didn’t know, by either name or sight, was the lawyer from the Crown Prosecution Service. Her name was Janine Francis, and she was not one of the CPS lawyers that he usually dealt with. The eighth person, still only vaguely familiar to Banks, was the county force’s new media liaison officer, Adrian Moss, an ex–advertising agency up-and-comer and political spin doctor with a flowered tie, fresh-scrubbed youthful appearance and a breezy, confident manner. A motley crew, indeed, Banks thought, as he tried to imagine why they might all have been brought together under one roof. It had to be something big.

“I know some of you must be wondering what all this is about,” said the chief constable, “so I’ll make it simple and get straight to the point. I assume you’re all familiar with Operation Yewtree and its investigations into sexual abuse, predominantly against children and primarily by media personalities? In the wake of the Jimmy Savile business and the successful convictions of Rolf Harris, Gary Glitter, Dave Lee Travis and Max Clifford, among others, I’m sure you can imagine that a lot of past victims have been encouraged to come into the open over the matter of historical sexual abuse.”

Historical abuse. The words brought about an immediate sinking feeling in Banks’s gut. A function of the political correctness of the times, historical abuse investigations were intended to right the wrongs of the past and to send the message that no matter how many years had gone by, if enough people cried foul, someone would be sent off. They were also a way of appeasing the victims of such crimes, of giving them a voice some of them had been seeking for years, and perhaps even “closure,” that much overused word, both of which Banks approved in principle. In practice, however, it often turned out to be a different matter, a witch hunt where victims were often disappointed and the reputations of innocent people sometimes went down in tatters. No detective in his right mind wanted to be part of a historical abuse investigation. Banks checked the faces of the others. Their expressions gave away nothing. Was he the only one who thought this way? Did it show?

“I’d like to think we’ve all learned a thing or two from the way these incidents have been handled over the past couple of years,” the CC went on, “and one of the things we should have learned by now is to keep things close to our chests. I ask you all not to speak of what’s said in here to anyone outside this office. Not even to your colleagues. Adrian.”