Robbie Lewis was stood on Louise Cornish's doorstep, waiting for some time before she answered the bell wearing a cleaning smock.
"Robbie Lewis! I'm sorry I didn't hear the bell- I was just hoovering the place… But do come in; this is a pleasant surprise."
Lewis entered the home that Louise had once shared with her husband Jack Cornish. He remembered happy gatherings of days gone by when he and Val would spend time with Jack and Louise and how the kids enjoyed playing together.
"It's good to see you, Louise, but you seem surprised. Didn't you send me a text message asking me to come?"
She looked blankly back at Lewis. "No, I didn't. But I can offer you some tea and we can try to get to the bottom of it."
Lewis accepted though he was uneasy with why he may have been summoned there. He showed her the text message on his phone.
"No, that's not my mobile number, Robbie. Besides, I would call you from the home phone as I always do. I hardly even text, even the boys know to call me. Do you think it's just a coincidence from another Louise who got a wrong number? I know several Louises, and they are all lovely…"
"I'd like to think so, but that's too much coincidence. Louise, do you have any news of Jack these days?"
"I haven't seen him in some time, but he's been great at sending money for the boys. Never misses a month. I suppose he's quite upset with me, though. You see, I've initiated divorce proceedings."
"Ah." Lewis said. "I think that may be for the best."
"Yes, Robbie. I've actually met someone. I'm ready to move on. The boys are nearly grown and I know that Jack isn't coming back. I don't know- don't want to know, really- what he's gotten mixed up in with the police because he's still the father of my kids. I suspect that's why you're here though."
"I don't know why I'm here meself, but I suspect that you're right. I thought I caught a glimpse of him two weeks ago in Manchester, though. I was visiting our Lyn."
"Manchester? I wouldn't know anything about that. But do tell me all about how Lyn is doing. How's her little family?"
Louise broke off the conversation when one of her sons called home from uni. Lewis and Louise had talked amicably for the better part of an hour, but Lewis didn't get the sense of how Jack and this visit fit into the looming puzzle of Moody.
In the early morning hours, Laura Hobson rolled over in bed and kissed Robbie Lewis goodbye as she had been called out to a crime scene. She always cringed a little when she knew that the DI in charge was Alan Peterson.
DI Peterson's bagman was none other than Alex Gray, who had recently been promoted to Detective Sergeant. Hobson thought that they made a good team. Peterson was a bit of an Action Man, but Gray was calm and intuitive. He had learned from Lewis how to listen.
Dr Hobson was attending the corpse and let the SOCOs know that they were on the lookout for their old friend the blunt instrument. Looking up at the lead SOCO from where she was on the floor, something caught her eye- a photograph on the mantel.
"Gray, can I have a word please?" DS Gray approached Dr Hobson. "Do you remember the drugs case you worked on with Robbie a few years ago?" Gray nodded. Hobson pointed out the photo of a man and his two sons.
"Is that Jack Cornish?" Gray asked.
"It is." Hobson confirmed. "I can only assume that our unfortunate victim here is his wife Louise. I never met her myself, but I know that Robbie was a friend." She shook her head, wondering how Lewis would take the news.
As she attended the corpse with care, a SOCO came back to her with a possible murder weapon. "Dr Hobson, we found this wheel brace hidden in the bushes in back of the house. It appears to have blood on it."
Dr Hobson took the four-way lug wrench into her gloved hands. "Yes, this will do," she murmured. As she examined the wheel brace more carefully, she found herself in the grasp of a far-off memory. She froze.
"Are you all right, Doctor?" the SOCO asked.
"Quite." She said, and left it at that, retreating to her memory.
The previous summer, Lewis and Hobson had gone out for a day of hiking along the Cotswold Way. Lewis thought he knew a short cut to a particularly scenic village with a cracking pub, but he and Hobson ended up with a punctured tyre somewhere in rural Gloucestershire.
Hobson wanted to call a mechanic, but Lewis was convinced that he could change the tyre himself. Hobson located the fix-a-flat kit in the boot of the car. As Lewis jacked up the car, Hobson examined the wheel brace, trying to determine which of the four ends would fit around the tyre's wheel nuts.
Back at the scene of Louise Cornish's murder, Hobson realized that she was holding that same wheel brace with her gloved hand.