Sean Bancroft and Luke Farrar, the ten-year-old boys who had reported finding the body, were at home with their parents, and someone would talk to them later. First of all, the police needed to examine the scene.

The smell of decay assaulted Annie before she had even got through the front door. Fortunately, the responding officers and attending paramedics had been careful and sensible enough to disturb things as little as possible, and both Annie and Gerry kept their distance as they studied the corpse. The smell didn’t come from the dead man, though; he hadn’t been dead long enough for that. It came from the house itself—neglect, unwashed dishes, damp walls, rotting food, old socks and blocked drains.

The man appeared to be in his late sixties, though it was often hard to tell with a drug addict. He had long, straggly, unwashed hair, thinning at the temples and on top, and a bushy beard stained yellow around the lips. He was slumped sideways on a mobility scooter wearing baggy corduroy trousers and a threadbare pullover. His left sleeve was rolled up almost to the shoulder, and a needle dangled from a vein at the bend of his elbow. Lucky man, Annie thought. Not so many junkies as ancient as he seemed to be had usable veins left in such an easily accessible part of their bodies. From what she could see of his arm, it was scarred from previous injections, and at one point above his wrist, the skin bulged an angry red, a sign of infection from a dirty needle. The room itself was sparsely furnished, and what there was looked as if it had been salvaged from a scrap heap. The ancient wallpaper was faded and peeling from damp where the walls joined the ceiling. Wet patches dappled the walls, throwing out of kilter the symmetry of the flower pattern.

“Was the overhead light on when you arrived?” Annie asked PC Carver.

“No, ma’am. I turned it on. Had to. I could hardly see a thing.”

“That’s OK. I just needed to know. Have you searched the house?”

“Yes, ma’am,” PC Helms said. “We had a quick shufty around, at any rate. Nothing. It’s all much the same as this room. More like a squat than anything else.”

Annie nodded and gestured for Gerry to check the place out, then she turned her attention back to the body. “Do you know who he is?” she asked PC Helms.

“No, ma’am.”

“OK. There’s not a lot more we can do until we get Doc Burns here to check him out. Did the kids say the back door was open?”

“Yes. No signs of a break-in. Neither there nor here at the front.”

Annie squatted and peered more closely at the corpse. She noticed the edge of a worn leather wallet sticking out of his hip pocket. She was already wearing her latex gloves. “Take note, constables,” she said as she reached forward carefully, grasped the wallet between her index finger and thumb and slowly pulled it from the pocket. “In case it ever comes up, for any reason, I’ve removed his wallet from his pocket at the scene.”