Beth gave up waiting for O’Dowd to return to the crime scene and went looking for her. Hewson and the CSI man had made a couple of barbed comments about her whereabouts. It had been a full half hour since she’d last spoken to the DI, and considering O’Dowd was the most senior officer on site, it was unthinkable that she wasn’t at the centre of things.

She marched her way to the area where she’d seen O’Dowd walking towards the old farm steading. A tractor rumbled in the distance and there was the unmistakable smell of fresh manure in the air.

It was one thing nipping off somewhere to make a call, but not for this length of time.

Beth rounded a corner and found O’Dowd. The DI was sitting on a hay bale with her head in her hands and there was no mistaking the fact that she was crying. O’Dowd’s shoulders heaved as sobs wracked her body and whimpers escaped her mouth.

Unsure what to do, Beth stood frozen to the spot. But a minute later, with O’Dowd still absorbed in her sorrow, Beth knew she had to act. She took the last five steps across to where the DI sat.

‘Ma’am. Are you okay?’ Beth laid a hand on O’Dowd’s shoulder.

O’Dowd brushed the hand away, but she did at least turn her head to look at Beth.

‘C’mon, ma’am. It can’t be that bad. Whatever the problem is, I’m sure you’ll find a way to deal with it.’

The DI didn’t answer; she pulled her cigarettes from her pocket and fed one into her mouth. The glimpse Beth got of her boss’s face showed red puffy eyes and tear-streaked cheeks.

Beth allowed O’Dowd a few drags on the cigarette before crouching down so she could look her in the eye. She knew the next few minutes may well define the rest of her police career, but this was a conversation that she had to have.

The victims needed a police team firing on all cylinders. A team led by someone with their eye on the ball and a complete focus on delivering their killer to the justice system. Beth knew O’Dowd was this person, but right now, she seemed to have fallen to pieces.

Summoning her courage, she opened her mouth. ‘With the greatest of respect, ma’am, you need to pull yourself together. What happened in that cellar scared the crap out of me, but all’s well that ends well. Yes, we could have been killed, but we weren’t. Three people were killed in that cellar, and it’s our job to find out who killed them and Angus Keane.’

O’Dowd’s jaw trembled as she levered herself back to a standing position. Her eyes flitted over Beth’s shoulder and blinked furiously. The cigarette dropped to the ground where it sent tendrils of smoke up O’Dowd’s leg until she ground it out.

Beth waited, she’d said her piece and now it was a case of seeing how the DI reacted. She felt like it could go either way – O’Dowd could bollock her, but maybe she would snap out of her funk and tell her she was right.

What she didn’t expect was for O’Dowd to crumble again. The DI’s legs went unsteady as if she would fall and her mouth widened as she fought to not release the tears which had suddenly filled her eyes.

Beth grabbed O’Dowd’s shoulders and guided her back to the bale of hay. She used her own body to shield the older woman from the view of anyone who passed their way. The only consolation she had was that they were out of sight of the house and all the people attending the crime scene.

At a loss as to what else to do, Beth patted the arms O’Dowd had wound round her waist. ‘That’s it, ma’am. Let it out. In five minutes you’ll be right as rain and spitting orders at me the way you usually do.’

Stoicism turned into sobs again as O’Dowd sounded like her heart was breaking.

It took every one of Beth’s prescribed five minutes for the tsunami of grief to wash over O’Dowd and ebb away. While she waited for it to pass, Beth rubbed O’Dowd’s back and tried to offer her reassurances that everything would work out fine in the long run. That they’d survived the ordeal in the cellar and, bar a few cuts and bruises, hadn’t been harmed.

When the tears subsided and O’Dowd released her grip, Beth took a half pace back and let the DI have a moment to collect herself.

‘You’re right, Beth. I should be in charge here, not crying like a baby or wandering about in a trance.’ Another cigarette was plucked from a packet and stuffed into her mouth. ‘It’s just… just, there’s stuff going on at home as well as this…’ Her hand flapped in the general direction of Highstead Castle. ‘The toughest case of my career. And shit, I thought you were a goner when that partition fell on you.’

Beth noticed the tremble had gone from O’Dowd’s hands and that she’d straightened her posture from its tearful slump. ‘If you want to tell me about it, it’ll go no further. If you don’t, that’s fine so long as I get my boss back. There are four victims we have to fight for.’

‘I know.’ O’Dowd pulled a face then lifted her head and looked Beth in the eye. ‘Tell me straight, do I look old enough to be a grandmother to you? Is that what I am now? An old woman with a hanky up the sleeve of her cardigan and knitting needles by her side? I’m not ready for the scrapheap yet. I’ve still got plenty of good years in me. I’m not old enough, am I?’

The questions caught Beth by surprise. Of all the things she’d been expecting, grandmotherdom wasn’t one of them.

‘Depends on the era, ma’am. Sixty years ago you’d be considered old to be having your first grandchild.’ Beth made a helpless gesture. ‘If someone saw you with a baby now though, they’d probably wonder if you were its granny or its mother.’

‘That’s what I thought.’ O’Dowd ground her latest cigarette into the dirt of the farmyard and pulled out another. ‘It’s my daughter. She’s pregnant. Seventeen years old and not a live cell in her pretty little head. Oh, and here’s the best bit. She doesn’t know who the father is because she was at a couple of parties where things got, to use her term, “hot and sweaty”.’ Smoke was blown from O’Dowd’s mouth with an exasperated fury. ‘That’s my little girl for you; the kind of idiot who thinks getting knocked up after being so out of it that she wasn’t sure who shagged her isn’t going to be a problem. Jesus, it’s all she can do to make beans on toast for herself. How in the name of God is she going to care for a baby?’

Beth got the whole picture in an instant. No wonder O’Dowd was so distracted. Her daughter’s behaviour would impact on her and the rest of her family. If the daughter stayed with her and her husband, as Beth expected she would given O’Dowd’s comments about her, there would be sleepless nights, babysitting duties and a whole host of extra work, not to mention that a large part of financing the child’s upbringing would fall on its grandparents.

‘She has no idea how hard being a parent can be. I had a husband to help me and I still found it a struggle at times. What am I going to do, Beth?’

There was no definitive answer to the question, so Beth answered it in the only way she could. ‘You’re going to cope. The Zoe O’Dowd who’s my boss is someone who copes. I’m sure there will be tears and tantrums along the way. But you’ll cope. Plus, if your daughter is anything at all like you, she’ll put on her big-girl pants and rise to the occasion.’ Beth took both of O’Dowd’s hands in hers, taking care not to burn herself on the cigarette. ‘I fully expect my DI to bore the arse off me with pictures and tales of the grandchild she loves. Yes, it’s scary just now, and there will be a lot of scary moments to come, but there will be so many wonderfully special moments as well. One day, you’ll look back and remember how you’re feeling now and wonder what you were so worried about.’

O’Dowd wiped her face with the palms of both hands. ‘That, Beth, is the best get over yourself speech I’ve ever heard. Thank you.’ She pursed her lips together. ‘You’re an odd one, but in a good way.’

Beth smiled at O’Dowd, pleased with her praise and glad to see a semblance of the DI’s usual personality coming back. ‘Just find my grumpy-arsed boss, I kinda need her now. And so do four dead people.’

O’Dowd pushed herself off the hay bale and straightened her shoulders. ‘She’s back. Now let’s go and see if our friendly pathologist has anything for us.’

Beth wasn’t fooled by O’Dowd’s sudden appearance of strength. But she admired her all the more for pulling herself together for the greater good of the team.

As she returned to the crime scene with O’Dowd, Beth couldn’t help but remember the way she’d been at the start of the week. O’Dowd’s confident can-do attitude had been infectious and had inspired her, yet she’d now seen another facet to her boss’s personality. The worrier, the person who despaired and looked to others for answers she couldn’t find herself.

Beth’s next thought was that O’Dowd’s confident manner was sometimes a front as she battled to hide her own insecurities. The realisation made Beth feel closer to O’Dowd as there were times she had to deal with her own feelings of unworthiness.

More than anything else though, Beth couldn’t shake the memory of the life that had once grown in her sixteen-year-old belly.