As he finished packing up, Jane had the opportunity to take in the flat’s luxurious furnishings. There were antique oil paintings along one side of the hallway, and a small Georgian side table opposite. The elaborate gold-framed mirror was spattered with blood. The hall carpet was a pale blue, the weave so thick that the corrugated cardboard sank into it. The ceiling cornices had gilt decorated scrolls and Jane looked up at the ornate chandelier, made from numerous pieces of beautifully colored glass.

‘Murano glass,’ Lawrence said. ‘Probably 1920s.’

Spencer glanced up at the chandelier. ‘Looks quite cheap to me.’

‘No, it’s very, very expensive,’ Lawrence replied.

Suddenly they heard Tyler’s voice from the kitchen. ‘If you antique aficionados are finished assessing the value of the furnishings, could you come over here?’

Jane followed Spencer into the kitchen, and couldn’t help gasping in surprise. It was in a totally different style to the ornate hall and Jane had never seen such modern equipment. There was a state-of-the-art stove, and all the cupboards and worktops were black granite and silver. The white tile floor had been partly covered with corrugated cardboard to protect it and there was a kitchen bar with chrome and black leather stools. Every available wall space was occupied by kitchen cabinets. Tyler had a large notebook open on the counter and a takeaway coffee. He gestured for them to sit down, then jerked his thumb towards one of the cabinets.

‘That’s a dishwasher in there, next to it is a deep-freeze and next to that is a fridge. You’ve got a coffee percolator that looks like a power-station and I would say they must’ve lowered the ceiling for these spotlights.’

Spencer nodded. ‘Yeah, we found out he’s worth a bob or two. His partner has formally identified him. He didn’t show any emotion at all. Not a thing.’

‘Well, somebody certainly got very emotional towards Foxley,’ Tyler said. ‘I’ve never seen anything like it. Until we’ve had the postmortem and we meet with Paul Lawrence again, our priority is to identify a suspect. It’s very difficult to ascertain if robbery was involved, but I’ll walk you through the bedroom and the drawing room, so you can get a feel of the place. Apart from the blood bath, nothing looks disturbed. So that means we have to consider that this horror may have been staged, the killer making it look as if he acted in a fit of uncontrolled rage, and then the dismemberment done to make us think we’re looking for a psychopath.’

They spent another twenty minutes discussing the neighbor who had alerted them, agreeing that she needed to be spoken to again to verify the timeline Spencer had made a note of when she called the station.

They also urgently needed to talk to Foxley’s ex-wife.