The flat contained no personal effects: no books or ornaments on the hallway shelves, no shoes or coats. Windows had been left open, dropping the temperature to below freezing. Snow had blown in. At the end of the corridor I could see a living room with snow over a sofa. I walked through. A black rucksack had been emptied across the floor: men’s clothes, some money, painkillers, contact lenses. A bottle of vodka and two glasses stood on the coffee table. One glass had dark red lipstick smears.

I turned towards the kitchen, saw blood up the wall.

A man lay on his back on the tiled floor. He’d been shot three times, twice in the face, once in the shoulder. The shots to the face had been done close up, leaving a bloody gap where his right eye and the bridge of his nose should have been. They’d removed the lower jaw entirely. The back of his throat glistened icily, white knobs of spine among the flesh. Pieces of brain, tooth and hair had frozen to surfaces in all directions.

A few distinguishing attributes remained. He was white; the condition of his skin and hair suggested someone under forty. He wore jeans, civilian walking boots, grey jumper and dark blue puffa-style jacket. The clothes were mostly global brands, neither cheap nor expensive. I felt a draught and saw a doorway in the corner of the kitchen leading into a bin area with chutes for rubbish disposal and a steel emergency door that had been left open a fraction. Beyond the steel door was an external fire escape.

I returned to the living room and checked the glasses on the table. In one, the liquid had frozen, but not the other. The man had been drinking vodka, but the lipstick-wearer had been drinking water. She had been controlling this situation, I thought. It was her safe house.

My mobile swept the place for devices, surveillance or otherwise. Nothing was currently transmitting. I checked the visible realm: the cupboards, the open window and fire escape. No clues. No shell casings that I could see; no prints. A crowd could have come and gone via the fire escape but their footprints would have been obliterated by the snow of the last forty-eight hours.

He’d been moving towards the fire escape, I felt sure. Trying to escape.

No ID on him: no phone, no wallet. I used my own phone to take pictures of what remained of his face, his fingers, then put it in his mouth and tried to take photos of the remaining teeth. Rinsing the phone, I allowed myself a sigh. Thanks, Joanna. I wondered what I was meant to do now. I wasn’t in a position to seal the place. I wasn’t in a position to stick around.