Hawkins pressed the mask tightly against her lower face, trying to create a better seal. The zip-up anti-contamination suit was typically uncomfortable over her clothes, and already her feet were sweating inside overshoes large enough for a basketball pro.

Ahead, the only other door in the room was mostly closed, except for the large section missing from its lower half, a bulbous shape with oddly smooth edges, big enough for a decent-sized dog to fit through. Intersecting shadows danced in the gap, splitting and merging; betraying the movements of forensics officers on the far side.

Behind her, Frank coughed again. ‘We waiting for the hors d’oeuvres to come round?’

Hawkins shook her head at him and walked to the door, the scoured handle screeching when she pushed it down, its granular finish rough through her nitrile glove.

They entered a slightly less cramped space with a window in the far wall, decaying wood framing utter blackness beyond. The low ceiling had lost its cladding at some distant stage in the past, further cavities revealing dark glimpses of upstairs. The smell of death at this scene wasn’t quite in the same league as its predecessor, but the location was doing its best to compensate. Hawkins’ gaze moved around the room, as she contemplated whether the churning stench of putrid water and recently evacuated faecal matter was a preferable substitute for decayed flesh.

Called it a draw.

Floor-standing lamps stood in opposite corners, shedding temporary but harsh brilliance on a decrepit space that hadn’t seen attention for decades. Layers of dirt encrusted every surface, damp slowly conquering ancient paper that hung off the walls, creeping in dirty curls towards the floor. Beside them, a television set with a tuning dial teetered atop a fragile bookcase, beside an armchair of which the local mice had long since had their fill.

Across the room, a battered wooden table occupied the far corner, ripped homemade covers lagging a few of the chairs, fresh furrows in the blackened remains of carpet underlay showing where the whole lot had recently been dragged from the middle of the room; the reason for its removal obvious.

The centre of the restricted floor area was now occupied by a prone human figure.

Unlike its disintegrating predecessors, however, this body looked oddly pristine. That would make Pritchard’s job, in determining cause of death, much easier. But it wouldn’t help to explain why the young man had come to a row of derelict houses in the middle of the afternoon.

Or why he was dead.

‘Backs,’ someone said.

Both detectives turned and stepped aside to let another white-suited SOCO enter the room.

He mumbled what could have been thanks, shuffling past to join his three identically dressed colleagues in their oddly choreographed ballet, trading space for space in the compact room, their shadows dancing through one another on the walls.

Hawkins watched them for a moment before her gaze returned to the body.