Right now, we’re all gearing up for this afternoon’s ‘community meeting’ which should be interesting to say the least. It’s safe to say we won’t be talking about how bad the food is, or the need for a private visiting area, or Ilias’s constant farting, or any of the other fascinating topics that normally crop up at these things.

Probably just the one item on the agenda this time.

Yesterday . . .

I gave the police an initial statement when they first arrived, an hour or so after I’d found the body, and I reckon I did pretty well, considering I was probably still in shock. This was after they’d bagged up my bloodstained trackies and T-shirt and trainers, and sat me down in an exam room with a mug of tea and a nice friendly DC called Pauline.

Is there anyone you’d like us to call, love?

I hadn’t even had a chance to shower, but I know how it works. I told them as much, made sure the officers at the scene knew they were dealing with someone who understood the procedure. Who fully grasped the importance of getting a witness’s statement, my statement, while everything was still . . . fresh. As I pointed out to Pauline, I hadn’t so much as washed my hands yet, so things could hardly have been any fresher.

I think I’ll be all right. I’ve had blood on my hands before.

Pauline and her older male colleague were just the first detectives on the scene, but the MIT that ended up catching the case would probably be a different team from the one that was dealing – or not dealing – with Kevin’s murder. I guessed the two teams would be putting their heads together at the very least, once the left hand of Homicide and Serious Crime became aware of what the right hand was doing. That’s not something you can ever take for granted in the Met, but even allowing for the usual administrative bullshit and basic incompetence, two murders – in the same place in the space of a fortnight – were pretty likely to raise a red flag.

I mean, you would have thought.

‘So, you found Miss McClure’s body when you visited the women’s toilets, is that correct?’ Pauline seemed a bit . . . mousy for my liking, then I remembered that she was talking to someone she’d presume was almost certainly traumatised.

I nodded. ‘Saw it as soon as I opened the door. Well, you could hardly miss it.’

‘What time would this have been? Approximately.’

‘It was . . . what, an hour ago? So about half-past three.’

‘You could see straight away that it was Miss McClure?’

‘Yeah, I saw the ginger hair. I mean I noticed the blood first, obviously. There was a lot of blood.’

‘So, what did you do?’