‘A long shot,’ Chloe said to the woman behind the counter, ‘but we’re trying to identify a man who may have been sleeping rough around here.’

DC Jake Sullivan was standing behind Chloe, his attention momentarily distracted by one of the betting shop’s televisions. Like the couple of elderly men who were seated on high stools to the side of him, he was transfixed by the race that was playing out on the screen: mesmerised by the stampede of hooves, the blur of colour, the manic tones of the commentator as the horses reached the home straight. Chloe couldn’t abide any form of sport that involved animals. Horse racing in particular seemed unnecessarily cruel.

‘Is this about that fire up at the hospital?’ the woman asked. She leaned forward across the counter, bringing with her a cloud of sickly-smelling perfume.

Chloe nodded. ‘How did you hear about it?’

The woman shrugged and picked at a purple-painted nail. ‘One of the regulars was in earlier talking about it. News travels fast round here, like. Specially bad news. You don’t know who he was then?’

‘Not yet.’

‘Fuck it!’

Chloe turned. One of the old men had stood from his stool and was pulling his raincoat on, continuing to curse as his companion stared at the television open-mouthed as though willing the race results to somehow alter.

‘Stupid animal. They should put the lazy bugger down.’

An uncharitable response flitted through Chloe’s brain and she held back the temptation to share it. Where was the appeal in this? she wondered. A few minutes of anticipation that resulted in inevitable disappointment and certain financial loss. She would rather give her money away than help further line the pockets of a betting shop owner.

Perhaps she was being unfair, she thought. Hadn’t she once known what desperation felt like? There had been a time when she would have done anything for money. And she had. She wasn’t really in a position to judge.

‘You must get quite a few regulars in,’ Jake said, breaking Chloe’s train of thought. ‘Anyone you might usually see who’s not been in over the past couple of days?’

The woman sat back and pulled her jet-black hair back from her face, knotting it in a bun with the elastic band she wore around her wrist. ‘We get plenty of regulars, but only a few you could set your watch by. The others are in and out all over the place. I can’t think of anyone I’ve noticed who’s not been in recently.’

Chloe retrieved her mobile phone from her pocket and showed the woman an image from it. It was a photograph of the trainers the victim had been wearing; not the pair retrieved from the hospital, but an internet image of the same style.

‘Ever noticed anyone wearing these?’

She wasn’t surprised by the perplexed look the question received. Expecting this woman to have noticed the shoes of every customer who walked through the doors of the betting shop was more than a long shot.

‘They’re quite distinctive,’ she added hopefully.

The woman shook her head. ‘Sorry.’

Chloe thanked her and left, with Jake following behind. They stepped out into the afternoon air and scanned the street for the places they had not yet been. There wasn’t that much to work with: a café that appeared to have no customers, a boarded-up TV repair shop that looked as though it hadn’t been in business since the nineties; a women’s clothing shop that bore a forlorn-looking ‘CLOSING DOWN SALE’ sign on its front window. The busiest place was the Spar, but the staff there hadn’t had anything of use to share.

‘Never seen any homeless people round here,’ Jake said as they headed back to the car. ‘Think the DI has got it wrong?’

‘Just because you haven’t seen them doesn’t mean they don’t exist.’ Chloe folded her arms across her chest in an attempt to stave off the cold. It wasn’t yet November, but it already felt as though winter had taken a grip. Being homeless at any time of year must be a miserable experience, she thought, but during winter and with the approach of Christmas it must be especially desolate.

Jake had a point, though. She had never seen anyone sleeping rough this side of Cardiff. There were shelters with emergency beds, and a recent rise in food banks meant that those who were in need were able to eat, but where were these people the rest of the time? Homelessness was on the increase in the capital; to think that it wasn’t spreading elsewhere would be naïve. And yet, somehow, the homeless managed to make themselves invisible. Or maybe everyone else was responsible for making them so.