‘How did it go?’ Lesley asked over the roar of the pub.

‘Badly,’ I shouted back. ‘Case Progression Unit.’

Lesley pulled a face.

‘What about you?’

‘I don’t want to tell you,’ she said. ‘It’ll piss you off.’

‘Hit me,’ I said. ‘I can take it.’

‘I’ve been temporarily assigned to the murder team,’ she said.

I’d never heard of that happening before. ‘As a detective?’

‘As a uniformed constable in plain clothes,’ she said. ‘It’s a big case and they need bodies.’

She was right. It did piss me off.

The evening went sour after that. I stuck it out for a couple of hours but I hate self-pity, especially mine, so I went out and did the next best thing to sticking my head in a bucket of cold water.

Unfortunately it had stopped raining while we were in the pub, so I settled for letting the freezing air sober me up.

Lesley caught up with me twenty minutes later.

‘Put your bloody coat on,’ she said. ‘You’ll catch your death.’

‘Is it cold?’ I asked.

‘I knew you’d be upset,’ she said.

I put my coat on. ‘Have you told the tribe yet?’ I asked. In addition to her mum, her dad and nan, Lesley had five older sisters, all still resident within a hundred metres of the family home in Brightlingsea. I’d met them once or twice when they’d descended upon London en masse for a shopping expedition. They were loud to the point of constituting a one-family breach of the peace, and would have merited a police escort if they hadn’t already had one, i.e. Lesley and me.

‘This afternoon,’ she said. ‘They were well-pleased. Even Tanya, and she doesn’t even know what it means. Have you told yours yet?’

‘Tell them what?’ I asked. ‘That I work in an office?’