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including dogs. Polsa should be on board by midday today. That’s Police Search Adviser,’ she says to the new chap. ‘The search teams, in other words. Three: house to house. Four: FLO and victimology. Five: media. We’ll get a photo of Edith out this morning. I’m meeting with Fergus in an hour to discuss Press strategy. Six: intel work. Colin, you’ve got her phone and her laptop. Let’s trace her car reg on ANPR – that’s Automated Number Plate Recognition, for our new recruit here. And Will Carter’s too, while we’re at it. I want all of the council’s CCTV looked at. Seven: persons of interest. That’s Will Carter, obviously, and Helena Reed, the friend she was with on Saturday night. Is that enough to be getting on with?’
    ‘Hypothesis, boss?’ asks Nigel. Manon says he’s needy, always looking to senior officers for answers. Davy would never express something so judgemental, though it’s fair to say Nigel is permanently exhausted since having the twins.
    ‘I would say she’s opened the door to someone she knows or at least to someone she wasn’t immediately afraid of. The blood indicates an injury, possibly when someone tried to remove her from the house. The amount of blood doesn’t suggest a murder on site; it’s more likely it’s come from a cut of some kind. A sexual encounter of some sort? He makes advances, she’s not keen, and there’s a blow from the wine glass in the tussle. All supposition at this point. We are within the golden hour, so let’s press on.’

Manon
     
    She pulls out a swivel chair and wheels herself next to Colin, who smells of bonfires – the obscure brand of cigarettes he smokes.
    ‘What’s her phone telling us then?’ she asks.
    ‘In terms of the victim’s usage, nothing past 8 p.m. on Saturday night, when she texts the friend, Helena Reed,’ says Colin.
    ‘What does she say in that last text?’
    ‘“There in five. E.”’
    ‘Anything else?’
    ‘Before the party she does some texting. Someone called Jason F.’
    Manon reads Colin’s screen.
     
What time u getting there? E
     
Later, somewhere to be first.
     
Don’t be long, will you?
     
Why not?
     
Wouldn’t like you to miss anything …
     
    ‘There are others, too,’ Colin says. ‘She texts her tutor, Graham Garfield, to say, “Hope to c u tonite.” He replies, “What’s going down?” Trying to pretend he’s not fifty-seven, if you ask me.’
    ‘And she says?’
    ‘“Karaoke, tequila, and bad behaviour.” To which he replies, “On my way!”’ says Colin.
    ‘What about Facebook?’
    Colin clicks on his screen and up pops a collage of Edith – her neck, her arms, brown legs crossed, laughing, her head thrown back. Edith cuddling a cat. Edith in cut-off shorts. Edith wearing a Stetson. Black and white, some with colours blown out by Instagram, which gives them a smoky, Seventies sheen. Beneath these are comments to the tune of ‘Gorgeous!’ and ‘Beautiful, beautiful girl’ and ‘Stunning’. Each photo is ‘liked’ by Will Carter. In a few she’s in a living room, stretched out on the sofa with her feet in Will Carter’s lap as he nurses a goblet of red. In many of the images, another girl is somewhere off-centre or in the background, curled in an armchair reading; just a half of her face, a lick of her hair.
    Over four hundred photographs.
    ‘They’re all of herself, pretty much,’ says Colin.
    Edith’s posts are random music lyrics, Bruce Springsteen mostly. The odd literary article about Seamus Heaney or Toni Morrison. Bo Diddley is my new jam. Nick Cave is my new jam.
    ‘She has four hundred and eighty-two “friends”,’ Colin adds, drawing quote marks in the air.
    ‘D’you know how many I’ve got?’ says Manon, a yawn stretching her face, while Colin scrolls down. ‘Four. One’s my dad. One’s the electrician. I’m not even sure I know the other two.’
    ‘She’s a member of these groups,’ says Colin, clicking again. ‘Guerrilla