Grace saw the post and mail shots scattered on the floor. He knelt and glanced at the name that was on all the letters. Michael Starr. He frowned. Over to his right, through an open door, he heard the sound of a television. A voice he recognized, the presenter Angela Rippon, talking about a consumer issue.

‘Who’ve you got here, Alex?’ he asked Call.

‘A POLSA and four search officers doing a finger-tip search in the gardens and pathways, James Gartrell is doing the photographs and video,’ the CSM replied. ‘Two CSIs checking for prints and DNA in the house, but excluding where the body was found. The Home Office pathologist should be here in the next hour – he wants to see the body in situ before it’s moved to the mortuary.’

‘Any early indicators of the time of death?’ Roy Grace watched a search officer through a downstairs window, in protective clothing and blue gloves, inching forward on her hands and knees across the main garden path.

‘It was called in at 11 a.m. by his carer – Denise Clafferty, from social services. She normally visits every day to check on him, make sure he’s looking after himself and hasn’t done anything careless like leaving the gas on. But for once, she didn’t come yesterday because of a family emergency.’

‘He’s got Down’s Syndrome but lived on his own?’ Grace quizzed.

‘He lived with his brother, who looked out for him, but the brother was nicked last November and has been on remand in Lewes ever since.’

‘Mickey Starr?’ Grace asked.

Call nodded. ‘Yes.’

‘Glenn’s case,’ Potting added, helpfully.

‘Does Glenn know, Norman?’ Grace asked.

‘Shall I tell him, chief?’

‘Yes.’

Pulling out his phone, Potting stepped outside. Grace and Call went up the stairs, across a short landing into a bedroom, where a scene of utter devastation greeted them.

The room was totally trashed, items of furniture upturned and the curtains torn down. Blood spatters all over the walls and carpet – and even the ceiling. The victim, in a T-shirt, tracksuit bottoms and trainers, lay like a fallen sack on the floor, his head on what must have been a white rug but was now mostly red from the massive wound at the rear of his head. It had stained his thinning fair hair. His face had been beaten – or kicked – into an unrecognizable pulp. There was more blood across his white T-shirt on which a legend was printed.

Grace read the words, with a lump in his throat.

DOWN’S SYNDROME AWARENESS!
I’M A HOMIE WITH AN EXTRA CHROMIE!

Poor bloody sod, he thought, anger welling up inside him. Who had done this? What bastards could have come in here and done this – to such a vulnerable person?