Dean Street was sealed off from the corner with Old Compton to where it met Meard Street. I counted at least two unmarked Sprinter vans and a bevy of silver Vauxhall Astras, which is a sure sign that a Major Investigation Team is on the scene.

A DC I recognized from the Belgravia Murder Team was waiting for me at the tape. A short way up Dean Street a forensics tent had been pitched over the entrance of the Groucho Club—it looked as inviting as something from a biological warfare exercise.

Stephanopoulis was waiting for me inside. She was a short terrifying woman whose legendary capacity for revenge had earned her the title of the lesbian officer least likely to have a flippant remark made about her sexual orientation. She was stocky and had a square face that wasn’t helped by a Sheena Easton flattop that you might have called ironic postmodern dyke chic but only if you really craved suffering.

She was already wearing her blue disposable forensics overalls, and a face mask hung around her neck. Someone had liberated a pair of folding chairs from somewhere and laid out a forensics suit for me. We call them noddy suits and you sweat like anything when you wear them. I noticed there were smears of blood around Stephanopoulis’s ankles on the plastic-bag thingies that you cover your shoes with.

“How’s your governor?” asked DS Stephanopoulis as I sat and started pulling on the suit.

“Fine,” I said. “Yours?”

“Fine,” she said. “He’s back on duty next month.” Stephanopoulis knew the truth about the Folly. A surprisingly large number of senior police officers did; it just wasn’t the sort of thing you talked about in polite conversation.

“Are you SIO on this, ma’am?” I asked. The senior investigating officer on a serious crime was usually at the very least a detective inspector, not a sergeant.

“Of course not,” said Stephanopoulis. “We have a DCI on loan from Havering CID but he’s adopted a loose collaborative management approach in which experienced officers undertake a lead role in areas where they have greatest expertise.”

In other words he’d locked himself in his office and let Stephanopoulis get on with it.

“It’s always gratifying to see senior officers adopt a forward-looking posture in their vertical relationships,” I said and was rewarded by something that was almost a smile.

“You ready?”

I pulled the hood over my head and tightened the drawstring. Stephanopoulis handed me a face mask and I followed her into the club. The lobby had a white tile floor that, despite the obvious care taken, had smears of blood trailing through a pair of wooden trellis doors.

“The body’s downstairs in the gents’,” said Stephanopoulis.