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My colleague took a statement from Mr Hooper, who was shocked, horrified and angry. Fiona was his daughter by his second marriage. Mr Hooper had been alerted to the death by his third wife, a model calling herself Angelika with a “k”, who’d found the body and gone into hysterics. By the time my colleague got round to her, Angelika had recovered enough to give him a statement. To give them their due, neither Mr or Mrs Hooper asked for a solicitor to be present, and both said they wanted to help the police find out what had caused the accident.
    â€˜Angelika says that she is the only person who uses the gym normally, but she had given her stepdaughter Fiona permission to use it if she wasn’t around. Angelika says she had gone into the gym to fetch a sweater she’d left there earlier in the day and found the body. When pressed as to her exact actions, she said she’d gone in, heard the treadmill working overtime and was livid that someone had been misusing it. She turned the speedometer down and switched the machine off. Then she saw the body and started screaming.
    â€˜Mr Hooper heard her. He arrived, couldn’t find a pulse – which wasn’t surprising as the girl had been dead for some time – and called the ambulance. The ambulance people called the doctor. The doctor called the police. The police took statements from everyone in the household: that’s Evan Hooper, his wife Angelika, another teenaged daughter and an au pair. Oh, there was a toddler, too, but she was safely tucked up in bed by that time and asleep.’
    â€˜Isn’t there a son, as well? Or am I imagining it?’
    â€˜No son visible. My colleague asked for backup and the DI was summoned, who reassured the family that there would be the very minimum of fuss as it was obviously a dreadful accident. It appears that Fiona had recently been trying to get her weight down. She was allowed into Angelika’s private gym to use the equipment without supervision and must have set the speedometer too high. Being alone, and for some reason unable to adjust the rate, she panicked, misjudged her step as she tried to get off and spun out of control across the room. Bashed her head in on the wall opposite.’
    â€˜Tragic,’ murmured Ellie, worrying where this tale might end up. All roads seemed to lead to Mr Hooper, and she didn’t like that, not one little bit.
    â€˜There was no reason to suspect anything was other than it appeared to be. But now this other death . . .?’
    â€˜I hadn’t heard of another one.’
    â€˜Abigail Hooper, two years and two months, child of Angelika and Evan Hooper. She died in the play centre at Pitshanger Park on Thursday morning.’
    â€˜Oh, that’s dreadful. What a terrible thing. The poor parents!’
    Ellie knew the play centre well. It had its own small but adequate building in the park and a small enclosed play area laid out for toddlers. It was run by two women with some local assistance. They charged just about enough to keep them going, with a bit of help from the council and local charities.
    The DC continued. ‘We received notification of a fatal accident at twelve hundred hours on Thursday morning. One of the children attending the play centre had an allergy to peanuts, had eaten a couple of biscuits given her by a clown, and died despite all they could do to save her.’
    â€˜A
clown
?’
    The DC nodded. ‘Imagine that. A clown. Somebody’s birthday treat, apparently. Only, no one has owned up to having a birthday that day, or to organizing a visit from a clown. The women who run the play centre are trained in first aid. They kept their heads and did all the right things. As soon as the child was found to be in distress, they asked her au pair for the EpiPen to treat her, and used it. No good. The child was past help. Death comes quickly in such cases, which is a blessing in some ways, I suppose. They rang for an