‘I’ll answer by way of an example. I think you’ll all have heard something about the murder of Bree Beaumont.’ He reached for a manila file that sat atop his desk and from it extracted a couple of eight by ten glossy photographs, holding them up.

‘Exhibit A, on the left,’ he began – Scott spoke a precise legalese even in private – ‘is a picture of the deceased. Bree Beaumont, very pretty, a player in the big-money oil business. Also married, two kids, and,’ he paused for effect, ‘rumored to be dating Damon Kerry.’

This was a trump that had been kept from the media and Scott enjoyed the reaction. ‘Perhaps our next governor, that’s right.’

Scott raised the picture in his right hand. ‘Exhibit B is Bree Beaumont’s body lying in the enclosed patio area underneath her penthouse apartment, where she landed after a long fall. As you’ve read in the papers, there were shards of glass in Bree’s hairline. They didn’t find glass where she landed, none in her apartment. So someone conked her on the head and threw her over. She was six weeks pregnant, too.’

Scott cocked an eyebrow. He had their interest. ‘This is high profile, career-making stuff. You can’t let these cases get away and if they start to slide, you’ve got to go pro-active.’

The first male clerk spoke again. ‘How is it getting away?’

‘It’s been three weeks, and our friends in the police department don’t have a suspect. After that amount of time, the odds say they never will. That’s how.’

One of the female clerks checked in. ‘But they must be looking? Isn’t it just a matter of time?’

Scott conceded that sometimes it was. ‘But in this case, the original inspector, Carl Griffin, was working solo and got himself shot to death – apparently unrelated – just a few days after Bree was killed. The new guys – Batavia and Coleman – haven’t found anything and it doesn’t seem like it’s bothering them. And until they bring us a suspect, we’ve got no job.’