I met her, I wanted to tell him. I found her alive. I held her hand in the hospital. I was with her when she died. And I promise you that I am going to nail the bastards who did this to your sister and all those other women.

But I said nothing. I put my arm around him, guiding him to a chair, but never quite touching him. We all remained standing.

He was very young for what he had to do today. Seeing his sister’s body would bring home the full reality of loss. I realised that it was best to ask him anything I needed to know now, before he saw her.

‘Nenad? Why was Hana coming to this country?’

‘She was a nurse,’ he said in near-perfect English.

‘Do you know what she was going to do in this country? Did she speak about her plans?’

‘To work as a nurse.’

‘But did she have a job to come to? Or was she planning to look for work?’

He shrugged, shook his head, his eyes once more avoiding my gaze.

‘Where did you learn English, Nenad?’

‘YouTube. And my sister.’

I turned to Jovanović.

‘I recommend that Nenad does not touch the body,’ I said. ‘Touching can make it all a lot worse.’

Jovanović murmured a sentence in Serbian and Nenad shrugged again, as if none of this had very much to do with him. I felt for the kid. He was a teenage boy in a situation he was not equipped to deal with. In fact, I had never yet seen a fully grown adult who was equipped to deal with this situation.

Elsa Olsen came to meet us in the lobby. I made the introductions and Elsa took us down in the lift to the Iain West Suite. Beyond the glass wall, a lone metal trolley was waiting for us, the body it held covered by a white sheet.

Elsa looked at Nenad Novak and then at me.

The boy stared off into a corner of the room. I nodded and Elsa gently pulled back the sheet to reveal the face of Hana Novak. I was still looking at her when the boy finally spoke.

‘That’s not her,’ he said.

We all looked at him.

‘That’s not Hana,’ he insisted. ‘That’s not my sister. You’re all wrong.’

He turned on his heels and walked out.

‘Very irregular,’ said Jovanović.

Elsa took a last look at the lifeless face on the trolley and then pulled back the sheet.

‘I’m going to have to record her as unclaimed, Max,’ she said. ‘Like all the others.’

‘I’ll talk to him,’ I said.

I thought I would find him waiting for us in the lobby. But he was already out of the door. I stepped on to the street and saw him walking into the small park on the far side of Horseferry Road. Jovanović was by my side.