He sits back on his heels. The hem of her dress has ridden up her thigh from the fall, and he reaches to draw it down delicately, protecting her modesty. It was one of the things that had troubled him about Charlotte’s death – the indignity of it and how he couldn’t protect her from it. Easy for him to make the connection between the two events. He recalls now the morning when they’d found her. Will Bolton and Martin Cooper banging at the door, rousing Anton from his drunken slumber in the basement. He’d climbed the steps towards them, blinking in the daylight, the blaze of the sun calling his hangover to life. They’d found her in the kitchen, her throat slashed, lying in a pool of her own blood. He remembers the smell of the room – like meat left out too long, already on the turn. It was hot, the sun burning down on the roofs of the houses. Every surface was littered with the detritus of the party from the previous night. Beer cans, half-empty bottles, overflowing ashtrays, crumbs littering the countertops, a few stray sandwiches, the bread hardening and curled at the edges. There were flies everywhere – on the food, hovering over sticky puddles of spilt booze, buzzing around her, crawling in the wound. The amount of blood on the floor was astonishing. There was no doubt that she was dead, and that her death had occurred some hours before. The air in the room declared it – the staleness, the stench.

Martin reached to open the window, all the while making little hacking noises in his throat, as if he was gagging. ‘Jesus Christ,’ Will kept saying, while Anton just stood there, staring down at the body collapsed on the floor in a jumble of limbs and green chiffon. Her dress had fallen open, revealing her left breast, and the indignity of it rose up in him suddenly. It cut through his shock, like a blade, propelled him towards her. All he intended was to pull her dress closed, give her some dignity in death, but he felt Will Bolton grabbing his arm and pulling him back.

‘Have a heart, Will,’ Martin had exclaimed, but Will’s grip didn’t loosen.

‘We can’t touch her. Not until the police come.’