Dimly, Rita heard Alfonso's phone vibrate as she lay in bed in the hotel. She rolled over and tried to go back to a semblance of sleep. They had only left Federico's last night gone 2am. She had spent a sleepless night filled with thoughts of everything that had happened in the last 24 hours, especially Matteo's horrifying declaration of 'love'.

'Mierda,' she heard Alfonso cursing under his breath. 'I can't believe this.' She stretched out her hand and pulled her own phone off the bed. It was almost 12pm. Mierda indeed.

'I can't believe this.' Alfonso swore again. 'What the fuck was my brother thinking?'

Rita opened her eyes blearily, a crackly feeling in the back of her throat.

'The police came back to Federico's first thing,' Alfonso said. 'They have searched the whole house up and down, and asked Matteo to come in for questioning. They said they weren't arresting him, just wanted 'help with their inquiries'.' He sighed heavily. 'We all know what that means.'

'She took a restraining order out on him. Now she's dead, so he's a suspect.' Rita drank the glass of water that sat on her bedside table, feeling jittery. 'Most murders of women involve stalking before the victim's death - something like 80%, I believe. The whole I can't have you, no one else can.'

'This is insane,' Alfonso whispered. 'I'm so sorry, Rita. Please believe me when I said I had no idea.' He put a hand on her back. 'Matteo has such a fucked up view of women. This might have put you in danger as well.' His voice was tortured. 'I can't believe my brother thought it would be OK to let him go to a true crime event after he'd been in trouble for stalking someone.'

'Matteo's an adult,' Rita said. 'At this age, Federico can't stop him doing what he wants. I completely get why he asked us. Trying to retain some control.'

'The way this kid talks about women is frightening. I can't believe I'm related to him. And I feel horrible to have exposed you to something like that.' Alfonso was right. Many of the things Matteo had gone on to say last night about Erica and other women had been alarmingly misogynistic. He had described women roaming around the streets, 'flaunting' themselves with short skirts and makeup. Rita was sure that there was still more to come, probably things Federico didn't even know about his son.

'I'm sorry, mi amor. It's hard. You shouldn't expect this of your family. And like most people, you don't.' Rita felt a lump in her throat. 'Until you do. Another reason not to have kids.'

'Yeah,' Alfonso said, as she hugged him tight. 'Imagine adding a baby to this mess.'

'We already have one baby. We don't need another one,' Rita muttered.

Alfonso froze in shock. 'What?'

Rita stared at him in surprise, then burst out laughing at Alfonso's confused expression. It was incredibly endearing. 'You know who I mean!'

'Oh - Pepelito! Even if we'd brought him along, this trip couldn't be any more of a disaster.'

'I could have done with him around - I don't know - any time in the last 48 hours.' Rita got out of bed and put the kettle on. The only coffee the hotel had put in the room was instant. It didn't bother her but Alfonso was fussy, she knew. Her head was throbbing. 'Let's try and take our minds off this, we can't stay here all day. The sun is out. Let's go to a museum or something. We're not in London every day, we should try and do something enjoyable.'

'Let's do it,' Alfonso said. 'Get one of those tour buses. Hopefully that'll be a good time.'

*

The hop-on-hop-off tour bus they found went around central London. It had a Spanish audio guide but the voice was robotic and not very audible, so Rita soon ditched it and gazed out of the window at the city's landmarks, roads and green spaces. The events of the previous day kept intruding into her thoughts. They made it impossible to concentrate or appreciate anything.

'Rita,' Alfonso said as they passed Marble Arch and Hyde Park. The bus was open topped, and while it was a sunny day and the downstairs had some insulation, she was shivering. 'When are you going to go to see Heather?'

'Tomorrow,' she said. 'I have my train ticket. Did you want one too? I should get it today.'

'I probably won't come. Federico has been an idiot not telling me anything, but I've got to stay and support him. He is in bits. It is coming up to the point they've either got to charge Matteo or let him go, and he doesn't know what they'll do.'

'I'm sorry.' Rita leaned close towards him, swallowing her disappointment and anxiety. 'Do you want me to cancel the ticket and stay?'

'No. You should go. Hang out with Heather, enjoy a night out with friends, God knows you need one.'

'I'll miss you a lot,' she told him uneasily, holding his hand against her knee. 'I sleep better with you around.' Rita had long since moved back into her old flat in the city. It was the easiest and most sustainable way for their relationship to carry on and fit around both of their crazy hours and strange shift patterns. But the time spent apart meant she treasured the time spent with Alfonso even more.

'I wish I was going with you,' he said. 'I am so pissed off with my brother for not giving me the facts. I don't feel like being around them any more. I wish I'd picked a different hotel. This is all so weird and awful. If I had known about this, I'd never have come.'

'Come with me,' Rita said. 'You need a break too.'

'I know. He's hopeless and I'm so angry, but...I don't know, Rita. It seems like things have spiralled. Federico's drinking too much again. And then there's my niece. Lina never causes trouble, so she always gets forgotten. What a clusterfuck.' He put his head in his hands. Rita had rarely seen him as stressed as this.

'Think about it,' she said, squeezing his hand.

The bus pulled up to its next stop and a woman in her 20s got on. She had mousy brown hair and was wearing old fashioned, drab clothing. She looked familiar, Rita thought, but she couldn't place her. With a cold glance the woman handed Rita a leaflet. 'Do you want to be saved?'

'No thanks,' Rita said in English. The woman gave her a disgusted look.

'Well then, enjoy your life of sin. Have fun burning in hell.' The woman gave her a disdainful look and went deeper into the bus's interior, giving leaflets to the other tourists behind her. Rita inspected the leaflet, which was from the Abundant Blessing Church of Christ.

'The end times are near. The trumpet blast has sounded. The rainbow is a sign of God's covenant with man - and nothing else.' Rita shook her head, handing it to Alfonso. The leaflet consisted of quotations from the Book of Revelation, bizarre comments on world events, AI generated pictures and diatribes about LGBT people. The unintentional humour in the text was overshadowed with its repellence.

'Looks like a cult.' He handed it back to Rita, who folded it up and put it in her pocket. She leaned back in her chair as the woman walked around upstairs handing the leaflets out. Many other passengers were laughing. Presently the woman returned down the stairs, and gave her and Alfonso a dirty look as the bus stopped.

'I've seen her. I don't know where.' Rita watched the woman get off the bus. The display overhead said the following stop was the London Natural History Museum. She doubted that the 'church' would win many converts there.

'At the convention, maybe?' Alfonso said.

'Maybe. Trying to mend people's ways, no doubt,' Rita muttered as the bus left again. When it pulled up at the Natural History Museum she was ready to get off. She had been sitting down for too long and her legs were going numb. Alfonso stood up and they both climbed off.

Craving a cigarette after the stress of last night, Rita glanced at a small newsagent across the street from the open square leading to the ornate Gothic building. She tore her eyes away from the inviting but seedy-looking shop, telling herself it was for her own good. As she linked arms with Alfonso again, a cluster of pigeons of different colours pecked at chips on the pavement in front of them. They walked past, and the birds flew away.

'I always wanted to go to this place,' Alfonso said as they approached the Natural History Museum's entrance. 'I never had the time when I came here before.' He laughed. 'I think Pilar went to an animal testing protest somewhere near here when she was living in the UK. I don't think this was the place where she let the rats out of the cages, though.' Pilar was Alfonso's late wife and he still adored her. It had never made Rita feel jealous. She loved hearing his stories.

'Dominguez spent some time as a riot cop. He arrested someone on an animal rights protest once. They were dressed in a bunny outfit and they tried to hit him. He likes to talk about that story to wind me up.' Rita rolled her eyes. 'Ask him about it. Or maybe - don't. Dios mio.'

They sat down in a cafe by the entrance and got some tea. The museum was free but the queues were enormous. They had just added new specimens to their dinosaur collection. An information display at the entrance said it was regarded as one of the most important in the world. Rita imagined the reaction of the cult and laughed to herself.

'When is the earliest we can get to Scotland?' she said softly as they sat at a table with small models of fish and whales hanging from the ceiling above. Their original plan had been to spend a week exploring the Scottish Highlands' beautiful mountain scenery after the Crime Convention had ended, but the booking only started in four days' time. 'Maybe we should think about going there earlier?'

'I looked, Rita, it's all booked up unless you want to pay hundreds of euros.'

'Yeah. We've paid enough as it is.' She swallowed. 'I'll look myself. But I suspect you're right.'

'If we fancied, there is an IMAX cinema at the Science Museum,' Alfonso said. There was a flyer on the table with black spirals, advertising an action movie. 'I wanted to see this one. It gets good reviews. Hmm. 'A fresh take on the superhero genre with heart stopping action and gut wrenching drama.''

'Oh! This is the one Jesús was going on about,' Rita said. 'I'd like to see it too. Back in Spain, though. I'm no good watching movies in other languages with no subtitles.'

As they wandered around the museum's cavernous hallways, Rita's anxiety faded, replaced with a dull certainty in the back of her mind that the police would want to speak to her again about Matteo. Besides dinosaurs, the museum featured exhibits about wildlife, other ancient creatures, rocks, minerals and meteorites. Somewhere, there was also an exhibition on the evolution of humans. A few children ran around and hit the buttons on the interactive displays.

'I'm glad I came here with you,' Alfonso said, running his hand over the shell of a giant trilobite that had lived millions of years ago. Suspended from the ceiling was a model of a feathered beast, the relative of a Velociraptor which had been designed to look as realistic as possible. 'This is great. I'm feeling much better.'

'Good. We needed it.' Her phone vibrated in her bag. She dug around for it. When she saw who it was, her stomach clenched. There was still a chance this was a social call but with DS Mackie's unwelcome visit the previous night, she strongly doubted it. She fumbled with the phone a few seconds before answering.

'Hello?' she said.

'Hello?' There was an edge to Subeera's voice. She sounded out of breath. 'Rita. Thank goodness I managed to get hold of you. Something's happened and I need to speak to you. Are you free later?'

'Is it about Matteo?' Rita paced away from the trilobite section, towards the other end of the museum hall.

'No. I don't know where to start on that. The entire investigation is a mess.' The line broke up. Subeera sounded like she was walking along a busy road. Rita could hear cars going past and drilling in the distance. A siren rushed past. 'Rita - I've been suspended. I think they're going to sack me.'

'What? Why would they do that?' Not paying attention to what was around her, Rita brushed lightly against a replica of a Triceratops skeleton. The model had a sign by it saying 'Don't touch'. One of the curators of the museum started towards her with a dirty look. It took a few seconds before she moved away.

'I can't talk about it on the phone. It can only be in person.' Subeera sounded on the edge of tears. 'With everything you went through...I think you might be the only person I can speak to.'