DCI Will Bailey eased his car into gear. The sun peered sleepily from behind its blanket of clouds as the six o’clock news pips sounded. The only other vehicle, a bin lorry, crawled up the street, its rhythmic beeping and flashing almost lulling Will back to sleep.

One of the bin-men, his old school friend Danny Hiller, waved as he passed. Will smiled. The great thing about living here his whole life was that no-one was a stranger.

His former school slid into view. He remembered playing in those fields, throwing down school jumpers for goalposts. When the jumpers inevitably got muddled up, the teacher would complain that no-one ever labelled their uniform. But the children were adept at identifying one another by smell, and the jumpers would quickly be tossed to their owners.