McGlynn and his team worked in silence. There had to be a study or an office. Lottie tried the door to her left. Utility room – the washing machine with a late-night wash. An empty basket sat on the floor ready for the clothes. Clothes that would never again be worn.

Coats hung on hooks, wellingtons lined up neatly beneath them. A shelf with a pair of small football boots, mud and grass clogged in the studs.

‘Out,’ McGlynn said. ‘You’ve trampled all over my crime scene. Enough is enough.’

‘Later, then. After the state pathologist arrives.’

Without glancing at the bodies, she moved back to the hallway and into the living room. Beyond the fireplace a door lay open. Before McGlynn or any of his team could stop her, she entered.

Moroney’s home office. The only thing not upturned was an old desk with its drawers hanging open. It looked hand-made. Roughly hewn timber planks nailed together. A filing cabinet, on its side, had the drawers ripped from its rollers. They were piled on top of each other, contents spilled and ripped apart. The blinds were pulled down behind the desk but a little light crept in at the sides. Lottie noticed the framed photograph hanging on the wall. A seated Moroney, with his usual megawatt smile, his shoulders draped with the arms of the beautiful black-haired woman standing behind him, so different from how she now looked on the kitchen floor. Two children, smiling out at the camera, on his knees, their arms wrapped around his neck. Choking back a sob, Lottie silently mourned the man she had never liked and the family she’d never known he had.

‘Inspector?’ Jane Dore stood, suited up in the hallway.

Totally convinced now that Moroney had not murdered his wife before taking his own life, Lottie walked out of the office with determination in every step. Someone had been looking for something. And she’d no idea if it had been found or not. But once the SOCOs had finished their work, she would be back.

‘It’s an ugly one,’ she said.

‘Aren’t they all?’ Jane said, and set off for the kitchen.

Outside the tent that had been erected at the front door, the cold air had turned to rain once more, and with her mouth set in a grim line, Lottie hurried round the back of the house to look for Boyd.

---

‘Cathal and Lauren Moroney were murdered sometime between five and seven this morning,’ Boyd said, lighting two cigarettes.

‘Very careful murderer to get in and out unseen by neighbours.’ Lottie took one of the cigarettes.

Boyd consulted his notebook. ‘We have a report from a man who lives down the road. Says he heard a car around six. Looked out of his bedroom window. It was still quite dark so he can’t be sure of the colour, but it was definitely a saloon type.’

‘That’s a lot of good.’

‘Better than nothing.’

‘I can’t stop thinking of that poor little girl. What did she hear to make her terrified enough to hide?’

‘Maybe the killer shoved her into the wardrobe?’

‘I don’t think there was time for that.’ Lottie pulled hard on the cigarette, trying to shield it from the rain with her other hand. ‘I’d say Moroney was in the bedroom getting dressed. Heard his wife scream or something. Instinct kicked in. He hid his daughter and ran down the stairs to see what was happening.’

‘That sounds daft. His wife could’ve screamed if she’d burned herself on the cooker or such. Why would he immediately think something was seriously wrong?’

Lottie watched Boyd pacing in small circles, avoiding the puddles on the ground. Cigarette smoke hung low, suspended around him in the mist.

‘Moroney was investigating a drugs ring,’ she said, taking a final drag before stamping out the butt beneath her boot.

Boyd ceased his pacing. ‘And how do you know that?’

‘He told me.’

Boyd stood still.

‘What?’ she said. ‘Don’t be looking at me like that.’

‘Like what? Lottie, what were you up to with Moroney?’

‘I wasn’t up to anything.’

He grabbed her arm. She smelled the freshness of the rain rising from his clothes. Drops dripped from his hair to his cheeks and nose. Too close. She took a step back, shook her head and walked away.

‘You’d better tell me,’ he shouted after her.