They crossed the entrance hall, footsteps echoing, and checked the office. Empty. The window was open a few inches, so Blaydon surely couldn’t be very far away. Thinking that maybe on a day like today he might be lounging by the pool with his headphones on, or taking a dip to cool himself off, they followed the maze of the corridors to the glassed-in pool area. Banks wasn’t sure at what point he noticed that the chlorine smell was mixed with something less easily defined, sweet yet metallic. Gerry was the first to mention it. “What’s that funny smell?”

When they got to the pool, Banks walked through the doorway.

Blaydon was in the water, all right. At least, Banks assumed it was Blaydon. It was hard to tell as the water was tinged red and whatever floated there lay facedown, naked, with his arms stretched out at the sides like a cross. Underneath him spread what looked like a tangle of tentacles, as if they belonged to an octopus or a giant squid. A Hockney swimming pool painted by Francis Bacon.

Banks had just realized that the tentacles were Blaydon’s intestines when he remembered Gerry, and turned to stop her before she got too close. But he was too late. A swarm of flies that had somehow got in rose from the body at the sound of her footsteps echoing on the tiles. Gerry froze in the doorway, turned white and doubled over, vomiting against the wall.

“I’m all right, guv,” she protested, waving Banks away, obviously embarrassed, when he tried to comfort her. “It’s just the shock, that’s all. And that smell.”

“You’re sure?”

She nodded. “Maybe a glass of water.”

There was a wet bar beside the pool. Banks poured some tap water into a glass. Gerry drank it and took out a handkerchief to wipe her lips. “That’s better.”

“Look.” Banks pointed across the pool.

They hadn’t noticed in the initial shock of seeing Blaydon’s floating body, but the butler Roberts lay slumped against the Plexiglas, down which ran a long, ugly smear of red. Roberts hadn’t been disfigured, by the looks of him, simply shot or stabbed. Whatever had happened, he was every bit as dead as his boss.

Banks reached for his mobile.

“Christ, what an abattoir,” said Gerry. “What could he have done to deserve this?”

Banks glanced at her. “Deserve? Nothing, I should imagine. With people like Gashi’s lot, the punishment is usually way out of proportion to any presumed sin.”

“But he was in with them.”

“To a point,” Banks said. “Remember, I always said Blaydon was trying to play with the big boys. Out of his league. I even warned him about it the first time we met.”

“He obviously didn’t listen.”