Sunday morning is a special time in most households. It’s the time for a relaxing roll-together without the furtive weekday looks at the alarm clock, or the pressing knowledge of Saturday chores. It’s the day of the week when a full fried breakfast happens at a leisurely pace rather than a bowl of cereal being gulped down or a slice of toast being carried out the front door between hastily brushed teeth. Sundays are about relaxation, kicking back and enjoying the company and full attention of loved ones.

Sunday mornings used to be sacrosanct to Beth. From her childhood memories, through her teens and right up until she’d joined the police, those first hours of the Sabbath were about recharging her batteries and preparing for a day spent with family or friends.

Yet here she was, metaphorical sledgehammer in hand, ready to smash and destroy that time for an entire family. O’Dowd would be taking the lead and would be the one to give voice to the unthinkable words, but Beth felt as if she was complicit just by her presence.

When time healed the raw wounds of loss, there would be a recollection of there being two coppers who tore apart the life of a mother and her children. The short, officious boss and the tall sidekick with the scars.

O’Dowd’s knock on the door of the farm cottage was firm but respectful. Through a window, Beth could see two pyjama-clad children sitting on a couch eating toast.

The door eased open with the merest hint of a squeak from the hinges and a tousled head appeared.

‘Hello.’

‘Mrs Keane?’ O’Dowd lifted her warrant card. ‘We’re here about your husband, Angus.’

‘About bloody time. He buggered off last Saturday and it’s taken you days to get here.’

Mrs Keane’s words piqued Beth’s interest and she caught the stiffening of O’Dowd’s shoulders.

O’Dowd gestured at the open door. ‘May we come in?’

It took a moment for her request to register, but Mrs Keane stepped to one side and waved them into the house. The place was a mess without being dirty. Rather it was the type of mess a parent had to deal with ten times a day when there were young children in the house.

As she stepped between the small wellies and dropped crayons, Beth saw a domesticity that was missing from the police house she called home. She could easily have stayed with her parents, as they still lived in the family home on the other side of Penrith, but she’d wanted to have her independence. Plus, by leaving home, she didn’t have to put on a brave face to her parents every time she had a bad day. Her mother was a worrier, and she knew her father had had his reservations about her joining the police. Nor had she wanted to share a house with any of her friends. As much as she enjoyed their company, she needed her own space.

Mrs Keane tried to lead them into the lounge, but when O’Dowd saw the children she gave her head a tiny shake and let herself be directed into the kitchen.

‘Mrs Keane. May I call you Suzy?’

‘Yes.’ Suzy caught something in either O’Dowd’s face or her tone as she pulled her dressing gown tighter over the cerise pyjama top. To Beth the gesture was a defensive one, a mental putting on of armour. ‘You’re not here about him buggering off, are you?’

‘Not exactly. I’m sorry, Mrs Keane – Suzy. But there was a body found yesterday; we ran its fingerprints and found them to match those we had on record from the time your husband was arrested for affray.’

‘Body? You mean he’s dead?’

‘I’m afraid so.’

Suzy’s back collided with the wall and she used it to keep her more or less upright as her legs folded. Her mouth was stretched wide as grief took hold of her.

O’Dowd bent to comfort Suzy. With nothing more useful to do, Beth put the kettle on. It was hardly in the manual of things to do at a time like this, but it gave her something to do and there was a restorative familiarity to a cuppa.

Suzy’s wails pierced the air and prompted the thudding of tiny feet on laminate as two pre-school girls came running into the kitchen.

With two bundles of blonde curls wrapped around her, Suzy’s inner strength returned and she parked her sorrow until she’d told her daughters that she was okay, and that she was only crying because she’d stubbed her toe.

The smaller of the children bent over and kissed each of Suzy’s toes with a lip-smacking sound accompanying the movements of her head.

So far as Beth could tell, the girls knew they were being lied to as the looks they gave Suzy were dubious, whereas the ones she and O’Dowd got were downright suspicious. She didn’t know whether to offer a smile or pull a funny face, which is what she normally did to amuse or entertain young children.

Both seemed inappropriate when those two innocent little girls had had their world destroyed; she didn’t want them to have memories of a copper who’d smiled and joked with them before swinging the axe of destruction.

The taller of the two girls took her sister’s hand and led her back towards the sounds of a cartoon.

‘How?’

Beth looked to O’Dowd who pulled an empathetic face behind Suzy’s back.

‘How what, Suzy?’

‘How did he die? How am I going to tell my girls their daddy’s dead? How will we keep up the mortgage without Angus’s wage? How has it taken you so long to find him? How am I going to tell the girls? Why him? Where was he found?’

Neither Beth nor O’Dowd tried to answer any of the questions. Instead they did what was so obviously needed and comforted Suzy. O’Dowd helped her onto a chair at the table, and Beth put a mug of hot sweet tea in front of her.

After a few minutes of contemplative silence, O’Dowd removed her arm from Suzy’s shoulders and took a seat opposite her.

‘You are bound to have a lot of questions, Suzy, and while I’ll try and answer them honestly, some of the ones you’ve asked are beyond my scope as a human being, let alone a police officer. However, I have requested that a Family Liaison Officer join you this morning. They are experts at helping people in your terrible situation. They have subtlety and tact, whereas I’m more of a blunt instrument. My talents, and the talents of my team lie in another direction. Basically, we’re the ones who get all the tough cases.’

Suzy knuckled her eyes and looked at O’Dowd with a shrewd expression. ‘You say you get all the tough cases. Does that mean Angus was murdered?’

‘I’m afraid it does.’

Beth saw a different side to the new widow once Suzy had digested the news her husband had been murdered, rather than an accident or suicide. It was there in the setting of the jaw, the pushing back of the shoulders and the minute lifting of her chin. Beth knew that Suzy Keane had realised that she’d never see her husband again. He might have walked out a few days ago, but whether he’d planned to return or not, there was no longer a chance of that happening. True to form, like all those who have been wronged, bewilderment was soon replaced by anger.

For the first time since they’d entered her home, Suzy looked into O’Dowd’s eyes.

‘Who killed him? Have you caught the bastard? Why was he killed?’

‘I’m afraid we don’t know who killed him yet.’ Beth gave an apologetic shrug. ‘We’ll need to ask you a few questions shortly. Hopefully the answers you give us will help us identify his killer.’

‘Promise me that you’ll catch him, that you’ll get the fucker who killed my Angus and nail his bollocks to the nearest wall.’ Her arm pointed towards the lounge. ‘My girls are in there; very soon I’m going to have to tell them their daddy’s dead. If not for me or him, please, I beg you, catch the person who killed their daddy.’

As she listened to Suzy’s plea, Beth felt her own conscience answering the call to arms. Those little girls would have a tough enough life growing up without a father. The only support she could offer them was the knowledge that the bad man who’d taken away their father had been caught and punished.

Regardless of the long hours or frustrations the case would put upon her; the two girls and their mother, as much as Angus himself, would be the ones she’d be fighting for.

Beth couldn’t begin to comprehend the horror of losing a parent, let alone at such a young age. Her parents were still alive and she expected to have them in her life for at least another twenty or thirty years. For those little girls there would always be an empty seat at the table, no father to walk them down the aisle and a fight to understand why the killer chose to murder their daddy.