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from several different networks. All of them went dead,’ Drinkwater said.
    It seemed the whole room reached for their mobile phones and starting staring at their keypads.
    ‘What sort of phone was it again?’ Foster asked.
    ‘One of those slim, dinky ones with the flip-up screen. Clamshell. Girl’s phone. Khan’s got one,’
    Drinkwater added, with a smirk.
    So had Foster. A murmur of amusement went
    round the room.
    ‘Seven, eight and nine are on the same row,’ said Khan, examining his own keypad. ‘They easily could have been pushed accidentally. Where was the phone?’
    Drinkwater looked into the middle distance; with his left hand he patted his left suit pocket, while his right tapped lightly on the right-hand side of his chest.
    ‘Inside breast pocket, right-hand side,’ he said eventually. ‘If the key guard wasn’t on during the struggle, if there was a struggle, or after he was killed and the body was being moved, the buttons might have been pushed. The dial button, too.’
    ‘Sounds the likeliest option,’ Foster agreed. ‘But stick the number up on the whiteboard. Get back in touch with his wife and his bank; see if this number means anything to them. It may be the start of an account number, or a PIN number. We need to know.’ Foster rubbed his face, then ran his right hand over his head. ‘Darbyshire had drunk only four pints.
    He would’ve been merry, not arseholed, so how did the killer get him off the street in the first place? A 31-year-old man isn’t easy to lure into a car. Unless you’re giving him a lift. We have to accept the killer may have had some help. How many hits did we get, Andy?’
    Earlier that afternoon they had fed details of the murder into the computer to sift through suspects who had been cautioned, charged or convicted of stabbings and were out on the streets.
    ‘About two thousand,’ Drinkwater said.
    Each of them would be checked out in the coming days and weeks. A fair bit of mystery surrounded the workings of a murder inquiry, but most of it was simply a long, methodical slog.
    ‘Find out how many had, have had, or still have cab or minicab licences,’ Foster ordered. He clapped his hands together. ‘The rest of you know what comes next,’ he added, winding things up. ‘We
    need to crawl all over James Darbyshire’s life: his movements, his habits, his daily routine. Scour his credit cards and bank details; interview his friends, relatives, girlfriends, boyfriends and colleagues; check his emails; look at what sites he visited. Any porn, anything a bit dodgy, then I want to know.’
    The team got up, a few stretching, some starting conversations while others hit the phones.
    ‘Can I say something, sir?’
    The hubbub died down. It was Heather, her face
    still reddened from anger. Foster’s first thought was that she may publicly challenge him for having slapped her down when she arrived late for the meeting.
    But he knew she wouldn’t be that stupid.
    ‘Go on,’ he said.
    Everyone turned to look at her.
    ‘I must have missed your discussion about the
    letters and numbers carved on the victim’s chest,’
    she explained. ‘But I’ve got an idea about them. It’s been bugging me ever since the post mortem.’
    Foster realized the colour in her cheeks was not anger, it was excitement. ‘Yes?’
    ‘Have you heard of genealogy?’
    He thought for a second. He knew it; old people filling the last few days before death came knocking by tracing their dead relatives.
    ‘Yeah,’ Foster said. ‘Bloody stupid hobby.’
    A few of the others laughed.
    ‘Whatever,’ Heather said, ignoring them. ‘My mum traced our family tree a few years back. But -you sort of need to leave the house, and the best place to do it is in London, not Rawtenstall. She came down to see me and we went to this place in Islington where they have loads of indexes for birth, marriage and death certificates. Place was heaving; no room to swing a cat.’
    Get to the point, Foster