The SOCO’s eyes open wide, and his mouth falls open in mock astonishment. “Sure, mate,” he says. “Good thing we’ve got you experts round. I’d never ’ave thought o’ that.” He turns back to his work, shaking his head.

“Tyler!”

The man who speaks is standing at the edge of the hole in the doorway, his finger tapping out a drumroll on the mobile in his hand. “What the fuck are you doing to my crime scene?”

Detective Inspector Jim Doggett is a wiry stick figure of a Yorkshireman held together almost entirely with nervous energy. He never stops moving. Pacing, tapping, head nodding; never still, not even for a fraction of a second. Tyler’s grandmother would have called it St. Vitus’s dance, but it isn’t medical as far as he knows. They call Doggett the Yorkshire Terrier, and not for the first time Tyler wonders what his nickname is. Then he decides he doesn’t want to know.

“The usual, sir. Making friends, contaminating evidence, that sort of thing.” He pauses for a moment, aware he’s on shaky ground. “I was told you needed everyone you could get.”

Doggett barks out a laugh that causes the SOCOs to stop briefly in their work and look up. “Your sort of help I can do without.” Still, despite his words he appears to be considering the idea. Then he says, “Since you’ve made the effort, I’ve no objection to an extra pair of eyes.” He inclines his head, beckoning for Tyler to follow, and disappears back down the hallway.

Tyler leaps back across the hole just in time to see Doggett ducking through a small doorway under the stairs. It opens onto another staircase, this one made of stone. As he follows the DI down, his arm brushes mold from the wall, dislodging a snowfall of musty flakes. At the bottom of the steps the room opens into a cellar that stretches a good way under the house. At some stage it has been used for storing wine, and many of the bottles still survive, the dark-green glass almost blackened with soot. There are props supporting the beams above, relieving the house of its decades-long struggle to hold itself together. Huge, freestanding arc lamps have been set up by the SOCO team, and the cellar bustles with activity as photos are taken and forensic experts go about their painstaking science.

“Right,” Doggett says, all business. “House has been empty six years, as I’m sure you’re aware. Monday morning, the builders move in.” He gestures to the props holding up the ceiling. “Yesterday, they come down here, knock a wall down, and bang! Shock of their bloody lives. Elliot reckons he’s been there a while. Smart money’s on the former owner of the house.”

“Gerald Cartwright.”