Several box files and envelopes containing bank statements had already been packed away, and Kelly ordered the computers to be removed as well. The affairs of the old Lord Allerdale were in immaculate condition, but she knew instantly from the volume of them that they’d need weeks to trawl through it all. She peered out of the window and watched Sebastian. Beyond him, across the lake, she could make out the Keswick Launch, and she called to Emma, who followed her gaze.

‘The easiest way to get a body over to the marina would be by boat,’ she said.

‘Which is why there were no witnesses to vehicles in the middle of the night.’

‘It also indicates local knowledge.’

Kelly’s phone rang; it was DS Kate Umshaw from Eden House.

‘Guv, we’ve just had the Met on the phone. Two of George Murphy’s colleagues have turned up dead in a garage in Bethnal Green, and another has gone missing. All four worked in the same lab.’

Chapter 10

Johnny helped Kelly pack, or rather, more accurately, watched her place items in a suitcase and take them out again. He lay on her bed eating a steak baguette in an attempt to put on weight. So far he had no new plans for any more crazy fell races.

Kelly was antsy. HQ had given her a week to visit the Met, working alongside the team investigating the deaths of George’s two colleagues. She was to take one officer with her, and she chose DC Emma Hide, who could do with the exposure. It was a victim information-gathering exercise as well as a collaboration, and she explained to Johnny that she intended to be back before the weekend. The Met’s SIO was essentially in charge of the case in London, with her as consort. George had been killed on her patch, but the fact that his whole lab had been wiped out moved the inquiry to a new level, and the SIO in London was a DCI. There was a potential foreign element to add to the mix, as the fourth member of the team was a Greek Cypriot national.

In the background the TV blurted out the appeal for information about George Murphy and his colleagues. It was a small news segment, as murders in the capital were all too common; even double homicides. Some information had been kept from the press as a matter of strategy – such as the significance of Allerdale House, and the murder weapon – and the report concentrated on the fact that the scientists all worked for Ravensword.