‘No, no, I am aware. I have an old colleague working in solicitors on St Lawrence’s Lane. I thought I’d make the call from there … as long as you’re happy to be left alone. I’ll come back to lock up in … shall we say, an hour?’

‘An hour?’ I repeated in dismay. I was going to have to work fast. I’d realised as soon as we’d opened the front door that it was going to be a bigger job than I’d anticipated. I’d forgotten the activities of the forensic team. They had brushed the aluminium powder they used to find fingerprints everywhere. It showed as horrible grey smudges on the paintwork, on every door and windowsill, on the walls in the hall, and as a silver dust on dark surfaces like the bannister rail, the mantelpiece, and the backs of wooden chairs. The clutter on the table was still the same, the bottles and jars of cleaning materials still there, but all coated in a fine, silvery dust as if an infinitely fine snow had fallen.

‘Will an hour not be sufficient?’ Mr Young asked, the smooth skin of his forehead corrugating into wavy lines as he raised his eyebrows. He looked at his watch. ‘Well, I’ll pop back around eleven to see how you’re getting on.’

I was longing for the fussy man to go, relieved when he went downstairs and I heard the door click shut behind him. I let out a breath and stared at the tiles of the fireplace, where spattered gobbets of blood had dried to a rusty brown. I closed my eyes briefly, and tried to block out the memory of Nick lying dead on the floor. If I allowed myself to remember him, I knew I wouldn’t be able to do what was necessary. I had to force myself to think only that this was a cleaning job, like any other. Dithering would only weaken my resolve.

I’d brought my own rubber gloves and bag of cleaning materials. I just needed a bucket and I knew Nick kept one in the cupboard under the kitchen sink. As I walked into the kitchen, I remembered what Inspector Ford had told me. There were no traces of blood in the kitchen, no sign that the killer had been anywhere in the flat but in the living room and on the stairs.

Nick had told me he kept some nasty things under his sink and he wasn’t wrong.

I had to move an ancient bottle of ether and a tin of naphtha out of the way before I could extract the bucket. I filled it with cold water from the sink, added some bleach, pulled on my gloves, selected an old cleaning cloth, then carried the bucket back into the living room.