“Tyrone’s a good worker,” she said. “Very competent.”

“I’ve no doubt but is this—” he jerked his head towards the doorway, “—the sort of thing a kid his age ought to see on a regular basis?”

Kelly put her head on one side. Hmm is that a social conscience I detect?

“He makes good wages. They help support his family. And some of us don’t have the luxury of being shielded from the harsh realities of life Mr Lytton,” she murmured. “Tyrone saw his first OD while he was still in primary school.”

A muscle clenched in the side of his jaw. “And that makes either of you experts at distinguishing suicide from . . . something else does it?”

Kelly felt the jolt of his words go through her but she’d taught herself not to let her emotions show outside her skin. Learned it in a hard place where any sign of weakness got you beaten or killed.

So she merely raised an eyebrow at the hesitation and didn’t pursue it. “It wasn’t our call to make,” she said instead which was the truth—as far as it went. “My boss has told us to hold fire until he’s double-checked certain disparities in the scene with the investigating officer. Until then everything needs to stay as it is. I’m sorry.”

He sighed, a thin hiss of pure exasperation. “The police told me as far as they’re concerned the case is closed. She killed herself. End of story,” he threw out. “And believe me, they looked hard.”

Not hard enough. Kelly shrugged and dug a business card out of her back pocket, held it out. The cards held the firm’s name and contact details but no personal information. “You’re welcome to speak to Mr McCarron directly if you like.”

He took the proffered card and fingered it for a moment but made no moves towards a phone. His next words surprised her. If the look on his face was anything to go by they surprised him too.

“Show me.”

She arched an eyebrow.

He gave a shrug of frustration. “You must have seen it first,” he said. “The kid—Tyrone? He mentioned something about the blood.”

Kelly hesitated. Ray insisted that they were efficient, professional, neat and respectful at all times but she’d never encountered this kind of morbid curiosity from the deceased’s nearest and dearest before.

“The blood spatter is inconsistent,” Kelly said at last, keeping her tone neutral.

“Inconsistent,” Lytton repeated flatly. “What does that mean?”

All Kelly’s instincts warned her not to get into details. She’d said too much already. If there was the slightest chance the case might be reopened she needed to stay as far away from it as possible. To say anything else was self-destructive madness.

Kelly shifted her stance. “I’m sorry but I can’t say more,” she said. “It’s not my call. Until I’ve had absolute confirmation we can’t disturb the scene.”

“Can’t or won’t?” His eyes narrowed on her face, the scrutiny uncomfortable. She’d met people before with eyes like these. Mostly the wrong sort of people in the wrong sort of places. It had rarely ended well.

“I’m sorry,” she repeated, “but I’m afraid you need to speak with—”

His step forwards was enough to cut her off in mid-sentence.

“No,” he said quietly, “I believe the person I need to speak with is you.” His head tilted a little as he looked down into her face. “You suspect I had something to do with it? I wasn’t even in the country when Veronica died.”

Kelly felt the angry intensity, the urgency behind his words. It mattered to him that she believe him but she didn’t know why. She suppressed a shiver and hated it. Not the shiver itself but the reason behind it.

“We’re not accusing you of anything Mr Lytton,” she said carefully. She was suddenly aware that she was alone with the guy in part of a house big enough so that a scream from one wing could hardly be heard in another. And she’d stupidly sent her back-up well out of earshot in a misguided attempt to protect him.

He stepped back abruptly and Kelly tensed in automatic response but he swung away from her, staring down into a pit of his own making.

“I did not kill my wife,” he said quietly. “I had no desire to do so and no need.”

He glanced back at Kelly’s expressionless face but she gave him nothing in return. He gave a brief nod as if he’d expected that and turned away.

She let him make it almost to the doorway then said, “How much do you know about high-velocity gunshot wounds?”

He turned back, stuffed his hands casually into the pockets of those well cut trousers.

“I hunt,” he said shortly. “Mate of mine has to cull the local deer population every now and again or they strip his plantation. He doesn’t always choose his marksmen . . . wisely. So yes, I’ve seen what the odd wild shot can do.”

Kelly recalled, perhaps too late, that it was one of the man’s own hunting rifles his wife had apparently chosen for her demise. Or someone else had chosen for her.

Damn. Ah well too late now.

“Then you’ll know there’s always blowback spatter from the entry wound and forward spatter—projected spray and debris—from the exit.” Her voice matched his own, cool and dispassionate.

“But?”

She hesitated again. Ah well, in for a penny.

“You’d better see for yourself,” she said and moved over to the bathtub.

He joined her with only fractional reluctance. Kelly wondered if she thought more or less of him for that.

Side by side they stared down into the carnage left by violent death, smeared by the paramedics and the forensics teams that followed. What remained was somehow damaged, dirty and sad.

“How can you see anything inconsistent through all that?”

“Because I know what to look for.” She crouched careful not to touch anything and used a pen as a pointer. “Void patterns in the spatter confirm the position of the . . . of your wife at the time of the shooting,” she said choosing her words with great care.

“You can refer to Veronica as ‘the victim’. The police certainly did damn well often enough,” he said tightly. “I won’t bite.”

Kelly gave a faint smile, recognising the grim humour for what it was. “You can see here the back spatter from the entry wound. It’s very fine, almost a mist, travelling in the opposite direction to the bullet.”

“And you can tell that how, exactly?”

Kelly rose, reached for her camera and flicked through the stored images. “Look at this one,” she said. “You can see it’s teardrop-shaped—rounded at one end and with a streak at the other. The streak always points in the direction of travel. See?”