Like almost everyone in this situation, Issa already knew what Jonah was going to say. Jonah could see it from the sagging of his body against the door frame, and then the uncoordinated way he turned to lead them into the colourful sitting room.

Any doubt that they had the right person disappeared as Jonah sat on the cushion-laden futon. A chrome-framed photograph on the table beside it showed Issa and their victim in wedding garb. They were grinning at the camera, Alex’s head a good six inches higher than Issa’s. He had one arm over the smaller man’s shoulder. Alex looked about twice as wide as his husband, too.

Jonah focused on Issa and took a breath. ‘I’m very sorry to have to tell you that Alex was found dead in the early hours of this morning.’

Issa’s brow creased, and he put a hand up to his mouth. ‘How?’

‘It looks like he was attacked,’ Jonah said. ‘The pathologist will conduct a full post mortem, but it seems clear that he was a victim of violence.’

Issa took a large, unsteady breath. ‘Was it at a club?’

‘We’re unsure where the attack took place,’ Jonah said, carefully. ‘He was found outside a residential address.’

Issa gave him a strange, sharp look. ‘What residential address?’

Hanson said, soothingly, ‘A house on Saints Close. Do you know it?’

Issa shook his head, immediately, and then stood up and went rapidly over to a desk. He picked up his phone, his hand shaking badly.

‘He was supposed to come home,’ he said. ‘I tried calling him.’

And then he started to cry.

‘You settle yourself here, so,’ O’Malley told Louise Reakes, who was now fully dressed in a jersey dress with a fur-lined parka over the top. He placed an oversized mug of tea down on the interview-room table. ‘We’ll get your statement done as soon as Detective Sergeant Lightman is back.’

‘Thank you,’ Louise said to him. Her hand went to the mug, but then dropped to the table. She stared at the steam, unmoving.

‘When will your husband be home?’ O’Malley asked, thinking of her going back to her house alone after this, and having to walk past the place where the young lad had died. She could do with some support, he thought.

She looked up at him slowly, and said, ‘I’m not quite sure. Sometime in the afternoon, I think.’

‘Where’s he coming from?’

‘Geneva.’

‘Ah, so a fair distance.’ O’Malley nodded. ‘He must be worried about you.’

There was a moment where Louise just stared at him, in apparent incomprehension, and then she said, ‘He won’t be worried. I haven’t told him yet.’

O’Malley found himself looking back at her with much the same expression. ‘Did you not send him a message or so?’