They made their way carefully up the slippery, frozen-slush steps of the pale stone building, noted that ‘Miss Morton’ had a flat on the top floor, and pressed the bell.

Nothing happened.

Clement pressed it again.

Still nothing happened.

‘She must be out,’ Trudy said. Perhaps, she mused nervously, she should get back to the station now and report the latest interesting findings to Inspector Jennings, before he became too annoyed at her prolonged absence?

Clement smiled grimly. ‘Perhaps. More likely she’s still in bed and can’t be bothered to get out of it.’ He pressed the bell again, and this time left his finger on it for nearly a minute. Eventually the door to the main hall clicked open and they stepped inside.

Trudy was surprised to find the communal area actually quite warm; they tended to be freezing in places such as this. She said as much to the coroner, who began to climb the stairs with a firm grip on the handrail and carefully lifting his feet.

‘Ah, you’re forgetting,’ he chided amiably. ‘This is an upmarket building. No caretaker would dare let the radiators stay cold in this weather. He’d have half a dozen toffs biting his ears off if he did.’

Trudy was still smiling over this image when the door to No. 8 was flung open just before they reached it.

The woman who stood in the doorway scowled at them with the ferocity of a Valkyrie that had just had a juicy steak snatched from under its nose. She was, perhaps, forty-five or so, but had the well-preserved look that meant she could have been as much as fifty. She had curves, a lot of messy brunette hair and narrow but sparrow-bright hazel eyes. She was also free of make-up, which left her face looking strangely naked.

She was dressed in a pair of silk grey trousers with a wide flare at the feet (which were bare) and a huge white knitted polo-neck sweater, the neck of which came up almost to her ears.

‘Was it you who was leaning on my bell?’ she demanded. Her voice had a definite ‘smoker’s rasp’ to it, and her eyes widened just a little as they took in Trudy’s uniform, but then her gaze stopped and stayed on Clement.

‘Guilty,’ Clement said with a slight bow. He had never looked or sounded more imperious and Trudy saw the artist quickly readjust her attitude. Instead of belligerence, a sort of grudging amusement spread across her features. Her face was pale and a pinched, triangular shape, that seemed at odds with the curves of her figure. She reminded Trudy of a peculiar sort of cat – one that had the fluffy, comfortably body of a round tabby cat, but the startling head of a Siamese.