Lewis almost made it. He dropped onto the flat roof without making much of a sound. He supposed if he were a lot heavier he would have made a loud thud. His diet of smack kept him looking like some waif and stray. He smiled to himself. What was he thinking; he was a waif and stray. His family wouldn’t have anything to do with him and he couldn’t really blame them. He’d stolen from and lied to them more than he was comfortable thinking about. He heard voices below him and stayed where he was, too scared to move or even breathe out too hard. The voices eventually faded and he crawled to the edge of the roof. The grimy, red wheelie bin that he must have used last night to climb up onto it was still there. He could still make out the voices in the backstreet, but he couldn’t see anyone because he was trying to keep as low down as possible. All he needed to do was to get down onto the bin, then make a run for it. Get as far away from here as possible and keep out of Stacey’s way until she was no longer mad at him.

He turned around and lowered himself onto the bin. What he hadn’t taken into account was the fact that it was the bin from the Chinese takeaway under Stacey’s flat, and the plastic lid, which was coated in grime and grease, was as slippery as an ice rink. His scuffed Nikes found their footing on the bin at last, allowing him to let go of the corner of the roof. But then disaster struck. His left foot slid right off and he began to fall. Trying to catch his balance, he shouted, ‘Fuck!’ In a matter of seconds he hit the tarmac, landing with a huge thump. The breath was knocked out of him.

Mattie and Lucy, who were deep in discussion, turned to see where the noise had come from. A skinny, tall figure with the hood of his sweatshirt over his head limped out of the backyard of one of the shops, near to where Stacey’s naked body lay. Lewis stared in horror at the corpse of the woman he’d loved until the heroin addiction had taken over.

Mattie shouted, ‘Stop there! Police.’

Lewis, who knew that he was in a whole new level of deep shit, did the only thing he could; he turned to run in the opposite direction. Mattie began to sprint after him, yelling for him to stop because he was contaminating a crime scene. Lewis did his best to outpace the man chasing him, but he’d twisted his ankle when he fell and it was slowing him down. He tried to give it his best and pushed himself to run faster, when he felt the copper behind him grab the neck of his hoodie, yanking him back. His ankle gave way and he began to tumble to the ground, taking the copper with him. The pair of them crashed onto the hard, filthy floor of the backstreet and landed in a heap just in front of the exit onto High Street, which had been sealed off with blue-and-white police tape.

Beth, who had been the first officer on scene, was now standing there watching. She pulled out her cuffs and in a matter of seconds she was straddling Lewis and had his arms secured behind his back. She looked at Mattie. ‘Are you okay, Sarge?’

Red-faced, he nodded. ‘Yes, thanks.’

She winked at him.

Lucy ran up behind them. ‘Nice work – shame you had to trample the bloody crime scene, though.’ She held out her hand and pulled Mattie up. Beth, who was dragging the skinny man to his feet, focused on his face as his hood fell off.

‘Fancy meeting you here at this time in the morning. Lewis Waite, you do not have to say anything. But it may harm your defence if you do not mention when questioned something which you later rely on in court. Anything you do say may be given in evidence.’

‘I haven’t done anything. I didn’t know it was a crime scene, did I?’

‘Tell it to the custody sergeant when you get back to the station.’ Beth put him into the back of the police van.

‘I didn’t do it! You can’t arrest me for something I haven’t done.’

She ignored his shouts and slammed the cage doors shut.

Mattie smiled at her. ‘Good work, Beth, thanks.’

She climbed up into the front of the van and looked at Lucy. ‘I’ll get him booked in and leave him for you guys, if that’s okay?’

‘That’s brilliant, thank you.’

Lucy finally left the scene in the capable hands of Amanda, who was now being assisted by Jack whilst they worked out the best forensic strategy to process the large area. The whole time Toby hadn’t muttered more than four words to anyone, which Lucy had put down to first-day nerves at his new job. She supposed he hadn’t really been expecting to have to work a murder scene on day one. It didn’t normally happen like that. Amanda had said she’d waited nine months before working on her first murder. Lucy wished she’d been so lucky – it was a standing joke that Lucy being on duty and sudden or suspicious deaths went hand in hand.

As she sat in the passenger seat of the car, she massaged her temples. There was so much to do. Mattie was driving and talking about the boxing match that had been on last night. She drowned out the noise of his voice as she tried to figure out if both murders were connected.

When they got back to the station, Lucy went to her office and shut the door. She had her head bent as she wrote out her list of tasks, which would then be uploaded to HOLMES, the Home Office Large Major Enquiry System, on which the whole investigation would now be run. She preferred to use a pen and paper first. It made her brain work harder and she found that she could focus more. A knock on the door made her lift her head, to see Browning standing there with a mug of coffee in his hand.

‘I thought you could do with this; keep your brain cells going.’

She smiled at him, which he took as an invitation to walk into the small office. He passed her the mug and she took it from him, giving the contents a quick glance to make sure there were no flecks of sour milk swirling around inside it.

‘I used fresh milk – I even bought it myself at the garage on the way into work.’

‘I didn’t say anything. Thank you. I need this.’

He threw a Mars bar in her direction. ‘You also need that by the look of you – when are you going to start taking care of yourself, boss?’

Lucy laughed. ‘I do take care of myself; in fact, a few days of not eating will help. My trousers are tight.’

He shook his head. ‘You still got to eat. Have you had anything this morning?’

Lucy tried to think what she’d eaten; had she actually taken the toast out of the toaster and buttered it this morning?

‘What are you, my dad?’

‘Who told you?’

They both started laughing; Lucy liked the new and improved Browning. He was much funnier than the grumpy version. She pointed to a chair and he sat down, a sigh escaping his lips.

‘Another murder?’

‘I know, it’s like some kind of déjà vu or a bad dream.’

‘Rumour has it you could have passed on the Benson case to the new boy. Is there any particular reason why you didn’t?’

Lucy considered it. ‘Yes: I don’t like him very much and I’m not sure that I trust him not to fuck up all the hard work we’ve already done on it.’

‘Good enough for me.’

It touched her that Browning had taken it upon himself to try to look out for her.

‘Well, give me a shout if you need a hand with anything.’

Smiling back at him, she took a gulp of coffee and began to finish her notes, ready for the briefing.

Tom walked into Lucy’s office. ‘Ready?’

‘Ready as I’ll ever be.’

‘Good; the troops are waiting.’ He turned and left.

Lucy stood up, running her hands down the front of her trousers to smooth out any creases. The briefing room was full and the chatter coming from inside was loud. As Tom followed Lucy inside, a hush descended over the room. She didn’t look at anyone as she walked to the front. Her pulse was racing a little; it didn’t matter how many times she had to do this, she still got nervous. She stood behind the lectern and placed her notes on it, waiting for Tom to get the interactive whiteboard working. He was far better at technology than she was. The board came to life and on it appeared a photograph of the body found in the backstreet. There were a few gasps and murmurs. Browning, who was standing at the back next to Mattie, shook his head in disbelief at the horror of what he was looking at.

‘So, this is our victim. We have a driving licence, found in her discarded handbag at the scene, in the name of Stacey Green. It’s a very poor photo, but good enough to go off until we get a positive ID from a family member.’

A hand went up and Lucy looked over at the officer who had arrested the guy who’d trampled the crime scene and then tried to run from it.

‘That guy I booked at the scene is Lewis Waite. He kept saying he didn’t hurt her and never would, that it wasn’t him. So he obviously knows her.’

‘Excellent point – DS Jackson is going to interview him shortly. He is also our number-one suspect at the moment. I want to know everything about him and Stacey Green: What their relationship was. Where he was trying to escape from. When the last time he spoke to her was. I want all the shops and flats above the backstreet canvassed. Did anyone see or hear anything at all? If there is any CCTV footage I want it seized and brought back here. Browning, would you go to Aston’s nightclub and ask them if you can view their CCTV before seizing it?’

‘Yes, boss.’

‘Col, can you start all the intelligence checks on both Stacey Green and Lewis Waite? I want anything and everything.’

Col nodded, stood up and left the room: he had his tasks. Browning followed him.

‘Rachel, can you phone the council and make sure the bin collections have been suspended? There were a lot of bins out. Task force can have the pleasure of searching those, although I think that Dr Maxwell will confirm that the cause of death will be asphyxiation by ligature. We also need to locate the victim’s shoes, which are missing, as a priority. At this moment I don’t believe that we are searching for any other weapons. However, that assumption could change after the post-mortem so it’s better to be safe than sorry. That’s it for now; the PM isn’t scheduled until the morning. Let’s see what we can do between now and then to make sure the suspect we currently have in the cells is the correct one. Thank you.’

Lucy looked at Tom. ‘Is that everything for now?’

He smiled. ‘Yes, I’d say that pretty much covers it.’

She walked out of the briefing room. The fact that Stacey Green’s shoes were missing was a huge concern for her. Lewis Waite might be good for the crime, but they couldn’t discount that there might also be a connection to Melanie Benson, and this possibility scared her – unless Lewis Waite had killed both women and had their shoes at his home address.