She eased around him, to stare down at the shape crudely scratched into the blackened remnants of carpet underlay.

Nobody spoke until Frank arrived beside them. ‘What the fuck is that?’

Hawkins knelt to trace the inscription, picking up flecks of material on gloved fingertips. ‘The edges are fresh. I’d say this was done by the killer, probably around the same time he created the body we just moved.’ She turned to Pritchard. ‘Did you see anything like this at the first scene?’

The pathologist shook his head. ‘Certainly no markings like that under the bodies, nor that I noticed in the rest of the flat. Not that we were looking for anything like this at that stage.’

‘This might help.’ Pring held up his camera. ‘Whole flat was digitally documented at the time, as per procedure. It’s all on file.’

‘Good,’ Hawkins said. ‘We may want a look at that, but the place should still be cordoned off, so first we’ll go back and check in daylight.’

For a moment, no one else spoke, and Hawkins was scrolling through a Google search for symbols on her phone, none of which looked like the one scratched into the floor, when the hiatus was broken by a voice she didn’t recognize.

‘Looks ritualistic.’

Her gaze shot upwards to find one of the SOCOs carefully skirting the space where the body had been. He was oddly tall, so much so that she wondered how she hadn’t noticed him before. The sleeves of his overall were pulled taut, and supplemented by crinkly red oversleeves bridging the gap to his nitrile gloves. His voice was muffled, partly by an anti-contamination mask, partly by the beard straining to escape its confines.

Hawkins frowned up at him. ‘How do you know?’

The SOCO shrugged. ‘My ex was into all that spiritual rubbish. She has books full of stuff like that.’

‘OK. What does it mean?’

‘Not a clue.’ His expression bent. ‘But she’d be able to tell you.’

‘Fine.’ Hawkins opened the notepad on her mobile. ‘Where do I find her?’

33

Hawkins sighed as her keys bounced off the doorstep, hit her shin and dropped noisily on to the wet grass beside the path. She bent to retrieve them, too tired to swear, even about the fact that for the first time in history, next door had turned off their outside light, leaving her in almost pitch blackness.

By the time she had finished at the latest murder scene, dropped Frank home and returned to Ealing, the clock on the Alfa’s dash had shown 3:05 a.m.

It was too late to turn up unannounced at the Hounslow address the SOCO had given her for his ex-girlfriend, plus she was due back at work in just over five hours’ time.