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Iraq, but she decided it wouldn’t go down well at this point. She must be growing up, she thought, not sticking her tongue out, keeping her lips buttoned.
    Chambers put his pen on his pad. It was covered in looping, spider-like scrawl, Annie noticed, quite a lot of which appeared to be doodles. “I think we should wrap this up now,” he said. “There are a lot of loose ends, a lot more questions to be asked. This is only the beginning.”
    “There is one more thing,” said Gervaise. Chambers raised an eyebrow. “Oh?”
    Gervaise ignored him and looked directly at ACC McLaughlin. “If we might have your permission to interview Erin Doyle, sir? Before the ground gets muddied.”
    Chambers spluttered. “I don’t think that’s—”
    McLaughlin cut Chambers off, then glanced from him to Gervaise and back. “I do see the problem,” he said. “Clearly the discharge of the Taser is an incident that needs to be investigated by you and your department, Reg. The Independent Police Complaints Commission will no doubt insist on that.”
    Chambers nodded in agreement.
    “But on the other hand,” McLaughlin went on, “we still have the matter of the firearm itself, the reason the AFO team were at the Doyle house to begin with. I think you’ll agree, Reg, that we’re dealing with a separate investigation here. We need to find out as much as we can about this weapon and where it came from as soon as possible, and I don’t think another force would be any better equipped to deal with that than our own. Do you?”
    “But it’s protocol.”
    “It’s protocol that someone else investigates the actions of Constables Warburton and Powell and the rest of the AFO team, true, but that same protocol hardly requires an outside force to investigate the firearm we were called to recover in the first place. We have yet to establish any irrefutable link with Erin Doyle.”
    “But they’re connected, sir.”
    “Of course they’re connected,” said McLaughlin. He turned to Gervaise. “Where is the firearm now?”
    “On its way to Forensic Services in Birmingham, sir.” McLaughlin nodded.
    “I insist on being present at all interviews connected with this business, and with any members of the AFO team or anyone else connected with the weapon discharge,” demanded Chambers.
    “There you are, you see, Reg,” McLaughlin said, allowing himself a flicker of a smile. “You’re already calling it ‘this business.’ To me that simply confuses the issue. We have the matter of the discharge of a Taser by a police officer in the course of his duty, yes, but we also have the discovery of a loaded firearm in a young woman’s bedroom. I would like to know where that weapon came from, what its history is, whether it has ever been used in the commission of a crime, for example, and how it got into Erin Doyle’s bedroom in the first place. Now, I’m aware there’s a connection—the officers were there to pick up the firearm, after all—but as far as I know, the handgun wasn’t used in ‘this business,’ was it? Nobody got a gunshot wound at Laburnum Way, did they? As far as I can gather, the weapon we’re interested in remained wrapped in a tea cloth from the moment it was picked up by Constable Powell to the moment we shipped it off to Birmingham. The chain of evidence is quite clear on this.”
    “Let’s face it,” Gervaise said, “as soon as the media get hold of this, they’ll have a field day. We’re all going to be under the microscope—not just for the Taser discharge, but for the loaded gun, too—and things are likely to get even more twisted than they are right now. There’ll be questions in the house, a Home Office inquiry, a government report—”
    “Yes, yes,” said McLaughlin, rubbing his forehead. “I’m aware of all that, Catherine. I don’t need reminding, thank you very much. I’m also aware that my opinion cuts very little ice with SuperintendentChambers here. But I’m still in charge, and I