‘You do realise,’ the female detective constable sitting next to him cut in suddenly, ‘that if you’d mentioned these Russians to our officers that day when you encountered them on the moor, they might have been arrested and this might never have happened?’ She stared at me with her strange-colour eyes and her little mouth twisted. ‘Mr Nickolai might still be alive.’

I gasped as if she’d punched the air out of my lungs.

‘That will do, Constable!’ The inspector turned on her furiously. ‘Go and check on forensics, see how they’re getting on.’ Her little mouth shut like a trap, but as she got up from the table, the look she cast me was triumphant.

‘I want you to disregard what my colleague just said,’ the inspector said when she’d left the room.

‘Even if it’s true?’ I asked brokenly.

‘We don’t know that, at this stage. We don’t know anything.’ He leant forward. ‘But you could be very helpful to us, Juno. At the moment, it doesn’t seem that robbery was a motive, but you’ve been in the flat many times, you might be able to tell us if anything had been disturbed, or if anything was missing.’

‘You want me to go in there and look?’

‘The forensic team will still be working but Mr Nickolai’s body has been removed,’ he assured me. He stood up and held out a hand.

‘Now?’ Panic squeezed my insides.

‘Please.’ Polite, but clearly a command.

He guided me across the road from the back door of the estate agents, his hand, supporting but firm, on my elbow. A little knot of people had gathered on the pavement, drawn like insects to the flashing of blue lights. Ordered back by the police, they’d retreated as far as the nearest corner. Amongst them, the tall, turbaned figure of Mr Singh stood, looking worried and confused. At the sight of me he raised a hand to catch my attention, but I could only throw him a helpless glance as the inspector walked me inexorably to the point where we ducked under the blue and white tape with DO NOT CROSS printed on it.

At the door, a man in white overalls was brushing powder around the doorbell with a soft paintbrush. We stopped and were made to put white elasticated bags on over our shoes so that we wouldn’t contaminate the crime scene. I was warned not to touch anything. As we began to climb the stairs, I made to grip the handrail for support, but remembered just in time, and stopped myself.

Inspector Ford paused. ‘All right?’ he asked, and I nodded, taking a deep breath.