They had Norcott’s dental records at Ryegrove. Gupta used them to confirm that the body from the amusement arcade was him. Beth might well have been able to ID the body but Anna quashed that idea without a second thought.

The investigation was now firmly centred around finding King. There were other people in the office now. Faces she recognised but didn’t really know. Her team were all there, but Dawes seemed to know everyone, and she realised some of these officers were his colleagues from the Major Crimes Unit. Dawes was on the phone, but he held up a finger, which she interpreted as him wanting to speak to her as she ducked into her room. Anna answered some emails for ten minutes until Dawes ended his call, crossed the room and walked in, closing the door behind him.

‘Gupta’s prelim report shows Norcott also had a skull fracture.’

Anna squeezed her eyes shut for two long seconds, trying and failing to ward off some inner pain. ‘That ties in with what Beth Farlow told us.’

Dawes’ response was silent. The grim line that was his mouth was enough.

They held vespers late that afternoon, Rainsford in attendance. Anna leaned against one of the desks, and it was she who kicked things off.

‘The toxicity report on Norcott said he had haloperidol in his system but that he died from a heroin overdose. Someone had added caustic soda to the mix to make absolutely sure.’

‘Heroin? We didn’t find any evidence of that sort of stuff in his mother’s house in Wales. I didn’t know he was a user,’ Dawes said.

‘That’s because he wasn’t,’ Anna said. ‘Beth Farlow said she saw King inject Norcott several times.’

‘The last reported sighting of King was the day he got back from the hospital,’ Holder said. ‘The patrol car dropped him off and duty officers can confirm he went into the building.’

‘What’s the CCTV coverage like?’

Dawes shook his head. ‘Not brilliant. He lives on a quiet avenue. Nice little ground-floor apartment. School opposite. They have cameras covering the street but that’s about it. We’re having a look, but if he didn’t go in that direction, then…’

‘What about neighbours?’

‘No one saw him come or go after he got dropped off.’ Dawes shrugged. It was his turn to point a remote at the screen in the corner, and he mirrored it with the screen on his desktop.

‘This is St Boswell’s Court.’ It was daytime onscreen, and the camera flowed through the stone pillars at the pavement entrance, panned up over the three storeys and then down into the basement flats before swivelling back around to show the road and the buildings opposite. Big, solid-looking Georgian stone structures adapted now for non-residential use such as clinics and schools. It zeroed in on a camera mounted high on the wall of Clifton High School Prep opposite. Then the POV shifted and led them along a wall separating the apartment complex from the church next to it, right through to a garden area behind and the back entrance to Christchurch Road. The rear garden was communal. Lots of windows looking out into the neat little space. ‘Difficult to see how he could slip away without being seen, isn’t it?’

‘Not if he knew the other owners’ movements. Could he have slipped over the wall into the church next door?’ Holder said.

‘Maybe.’ Dawes paused the video. ‘I’m not going to show you inside because there’s nothing to see. It’s clean and tidy. No laptop or phone and, last I heard, no passport either.’

‘What about other properties?’ Anna asked.

Khosa said, ‘I’ve spoken to his ex. She doesn’t know of anything. We’re getting bank statements now and phone records, of course.’

‘Did his ex say anything else?’

Khosa smiled a wry little smile. ‘She was surprised and upset, obviously. Worried about how King being involved in a police investigation might impact the children. They have a boy and a girl. Both in their twenties and living in London. But it was more what she didn’t say, ma’am.’

‘As in?’

‘As in, “No you’re wrong, it couldn’t be him.” She didn’t say anything like that.’

Anna nodded. You needed to separate an estranged spouse’s possible vindictiveness from sheer surprise in these situations. If the divorce had been acrimonious, there might be an element of Mrs King seeing some hateful pigeons coming home to roost. On the other hand, there was probably no one who knew King better.

‘I’ll need to talk to her at some point,’ Anna said.

‘Any more about Shaw, ma’am?’ Holder asked.

She turned towards Rainsford, who shrugged. ‘Nothing yet. They’ve had several sightings, all spurious. One of the hazards of going to the press, of course.’

‘Talking of the press, they’re going to want to know who the USU dragged out of that amusement arcade,’ Dawes said.

Rainsford nodded. ‘I’ll handle it. As of this moment we’re still waiting for formal confirmation of identity. That’s all they’re getting.’

Anna pushed away from the desk and went to the images still up on the whiteboard. She stood next to Alison Johnson’s, staring up at it as she spoke.

‘I think we can be certain Krastev had a hand in Jamie Carson’s murder, and I’d put money on him having something to do with Alison’s too. But King’s up to his neck in this as well.’ She turned to Khosa. ‘Tell me where we are with regard to the Dorells.’

Khosa’s expression crumpled. ‘Down a blind alley so far.’

Anna shook her head. ‘OK, let’s just keep chasing up everything we have on King and the Dorells and see where it gets us.’

‘So how do you see it, ma’am?’ Holder asked.

She turned back and faced the team. ‘Let’s imagine Alison Johnson knew Norcott had seen something. Perhaps she told him not to say anything until she found out what it was. What if, like Beth Farlow did, she went to see someone she trusted. Someone who knew Norcott.’

‘King,’ said Khosa.

‘Exactly.’

‘But wouldn’t Norcott have told her that King was one of the people at the fence?’

‘Maybe, probably. But then Norcott was a patient. Perhaps Alison wanted King to explain it to her so she could reassure Norcott that what he’d seen was not what he thought it was. She was hardly likely to take everything Norcott said to her at face value.’

‘Doesn’t explain why she’s buried next to the railway line,’ Dawes said.

Anna nodded. He was right. There were still big pieces of this jigsaw missing. Key pieces that meant they couldn’t progress until they’d been found and slotted into place. It was now well after six. She told the team to go home and get some rest.

Rainsford ordered her to do the same. ‘Give me ten minutes, I’ll get a car to follow you home and check out the flat with you.’

‘Shaw’s not stupid enough to be waiting for me at home,’ Anna said.

‘No. But he might be bright enough.’

That left her wondering.