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looked up from his seat, metres away from the two women within the rectangular room, a frown on his face.
    Her view of Tom was obscured by the other three from the briefing as they moved about the room, gathered their strewn equipment and paperwork, and moved in and out of Sophia’s line of
vision.
    The noise they made as they got ready to rush out to their allocated enquiries almost drowned out Gabrielle’s muttered verbals.
    ‘I wouldn’t be quite so sure he went to prison for absolutely everything he did. There’s clearly someone who thought they had unfinished business. Besides, you heard what the
DI said in the briefing about the stuff in Woodville’s spare bedroom. Please try to tell me how anyone finds that acceptable. And not forgetting what kind of perverted child porn we’ll
probably find on his phone and computer.’
    Even though Sophia had known Gabrielle for a couple of years, they were nothing more than colleagues, with little attempt on Gabrielle’s part at contact outside work. She had tried to be
welcoming when Gabrielle had arrived on their team, but her hand of friendship had been very much slapped away.
    It was then with an unsettling feeling that Sophia looked from the computer screen to Gabrielle, before staring back again.
    A smile was twitching at the corner of the younger detective’s mouth as she gazed upon the sight in front of her.
    The terminal screen was filled with a colour crime-scene-investigator image of Albert Woodville’s purple, mottled face, mouth open, eyes dead.
    During her twelve years of policing, Sophia had seen a lot of unpleasantness, sometimes exhibited by those she worked closely with. A black sense of humour kept them all going from time to time,
took away the pressure and relieved some of the stress, but she failed to find anything funny about the sight of the man’s swollen, dead face.
    Unsure which she found more fascinating, the grotesque picture on the computer screen or the look on Gabrielle’s face, Sophia watched with a growing feeling of discomfort as Gabrielle
enlarged the image and pitched forward in her seat to get a closer look.
    Sophia was so busy staring that DI Harry Powell had to call her a third time from his office door before she realized that her name was now being shouted.
    ‘Sorry, sir,’ she said and turned one hundred and eighty degrees in her chair. ‘I was completely engrossed in something.’
    She hurried over to where he stood and followed him into his office. Without being told to, she shut the door behind her. Whether he wanted to speak to her in private or not, she had something
she wanted to say to him and didn’t want to be overheard.
    Harry leaned against the windowsill, hands in his trouser pockets, waiting for Sophia to speak.
    ‘Everything all right?’ he asked, curious as to her hesitation and why she had closed the door.
    Her lip-biting silent response answered his question.
    He waited again while she tucked her wavy mousey hair behind her ears, round expressionless face giving nothing away.
    ‘I’m a bit worried about Gabrielle,’ she said, taking care with her words. ‘I’m not sure how she’s taking to this one. Her initial reaction seems a bit odd
but perhaps it’s because it’s been one of those weeks.’
    Her detective inspector nodded at her. ‘I know there’s been a lot of overtime all week, plus the fortnight or so beforehand was busy for the whole department. We’re all
knackered.’
    He could sense that there was something else that Sophia wasn’t telling him. He had worked with her on and off for a while now and she had a good reputation for being hard-working and
trustworthy. The same could be said of Tom Delayhoyde but Gabrielle Royston was a different matter.
    ‘What’s up with Gabrielle?’
    ‘I’m not really sure. It’s not as if it’s her first murder and she’s been here for some time. I get the feeling that she’s . . .’
    Sophia really didn’t want to say it. Although