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strode through reception and the open-plan ground-floor office. I clocked covert and overt glances as I passed. At the rear of the building I jogged up the stairs to my office.
    Winston Hart, the chair of the Police Authority, had been phoning my mobile during my journey but I’d ignored his calls. He was a pompous prat of a local councillor from Lewes, one of many academics from the local universities involved in local politics. He’d left four messages with Rachael, my secretary.
    I eased behind my desk and looked across at the painting on the opposite wall. I’d bought it ten years ago when I could little afford the expense. I loved the mystery of it – a man and a woman sitting at a table, both gazing at a flower she was holding in her hand. A pot of the same flowers behind them on the window sill. The colours were bright – a yellow wall, red chairs, the man’s green coat, her black hair. But what was its story? That was the mystery.
    I sighed and called Hart. Our conversation was brief.
    â€˜I have utter faith in my officers,’ I said. ‘Whatever happened was, I’m sure, justified. I’ve asked Hampshire Police Authority to carry out a full investigation but I’m confident it will confirm my belief.’
    Hart had a spindly voice and always sounded tetchy.
    â€˜Do you know exactly what happened?’ he said.
    â€˜I know enough about my officers to stand by them.’
    When Hart and I had finished speaking I buzzed through to Macklin.
    â€˜And?’
    â€˜We’re still not clear, sir,’ he said. ‘The statements we took last night leave a lot unexplained. And we can’t locate DC Edwards. It was his man who gave us the tip about Grimes staying in that house. We think he was also the man monitoring the house.’
    As he spoke, I picked up the photo of Molly and the kids beside the phone and looked at their smiling faces. It was taken a long time ago.
    â€˜Is Foster still around?’
    â€˜They’re all on suspension but he’s writing up the debrief.’
    â€˜Find him. I want to talk to him today. Listen, Philip, why wasn’t Danny Moynihan leading the operation? He’s our most experienced silver commander.’
    I put the photo back on the desk.
    â€˜He’d done the morning shift. I called him but he stood himself down. He’d been drinking after his shift. He wasn’t drunk but—’
    â€˜Yes, I get it. He was complying with the rules.’
    The regulations for armed operations stated that officers should have had no drink or drugs of any nature in the previous eight hours.
    â€˜Philip, why don’t you have anything for me? You have responsibility for our use of firearms, for God’s sake. There’s a press conference this morning. People will expect me to have answers. I expect to have answers, but I don’t. I’m supposed to go out on a limb and stand up for my officers when I don’t in fact know what has happened.’
    â€˜Don’t you think it might be a good idea to postpone the press conference?’ I could hear by the tone of his voice that he thought I’d been wrong to call the press conference so soon in the first place.
    â€˜I can’t do that.’
    â€˜Well, then, why not keep it low-key?’
    â€˜Were any weapons found at the house?’
    â€˜No, sir.’
    â€˜Have the people been identified yet?’
    â€˜No, sir.’
    â€˜So we don’t know if Bernard Grimes was even there.’
    â€˜It seems unlikely, sir.’
    â€˜Do we know who Edwards’s informant was?’
    â€˜No, sir.’
    I shook my head wearily.
    â€˜Philip – give me something. Anything .’
    At the press conference I announced that I’d asked Hampshire police to investigate under the direction of the Police Complaints Authority.
    â€˜All the officers involved in last night’s incident have been suspended pending that investigation. That