To his left the pool of blood spread wider, thicker, with a rich gloss to it. We would have to double-check with the uniforms, but it was a pretty safe bet that that was where they had found Jennifer Spain. Either she had dragged herself over to die curled up against her husband, or he had stayed close after he was done with her, or someone had let them do this last thing together.

I stayed in the doorway longer than I needed to. It takes a while to wrap your head around a scene like that, the first time. Your inner world snaps itself away from the outside one, for protection: your eyes are wide open, but all that reaches your mind is streaks of red and an error message. No one was watching us; Richie could take all the time he needed. I kept my eyes off him.

A gust of wind crashed into the back of the house and kept coming straight through some crack, flooded around us like cold water. “Jaysus,” Richie said. The gust had made him jump, and he was a shade paler than usual, but his voice was steady enough. He was doing fine, so far. “Feel that. What’s this gaff made of? Newspapers?”

“Don’t knock it. The thinner the walls, the more likely the neighbors heard something.”

“If there’s neighbors.”

“We’ll keep our fingers crossed. Ready to move on?”

He nodded. We left Patrick Spain in his bright kitchen, with the thin streams of wind swirling around him, and went upstairs.

The top floor was dark. I flipped open my briefcase and found my torch—the uniforms had probably smeared their fat paws all over everything, but still, you never touch light switches: someone else could have wanted that light on or off. I turned on the torch and nudged the nearest door open with a toe.

The message had got garbled somewhere along the way, because no one had stabbed Jack Spain. After the congealing red mess downstairs, this room was almost restful. Nothing was bloody; nothing had been broken or wrenched over. Jack Spain had a snub nose and blond hair, left to grow into curls. He was on his back, arms thrown up above his head, face turned to the ceiling, like he had collapsed asleep after a long day of football. You would almost have listened to hear him breathing, except something in his face told you. He had the secret calm that only dead children have, paper-thin eyelids sealed tight as unborn babies’, as if when the world goes killer they turn inwards and backwards, back to that first safe place.

Richie made a small noise like a cat with a hairball. I trailed the torch around the room, to give him time to pull it together. There were a couple of cracks in the walls, but no holes, unless they were hidden by the posters—Jack had been into Manchester United. “Got kids?” I asked.

“No. Not yet.”