She turned and pulled her hood on. I did the same, gave Amanda a quizzical frown. Sweeney’s attitude was far beyond what I had expected. I’d expected to be turned on my heel and shoved right back out the door, but instead I found myself following Sweeney to the edge of the bar area where the crowd was thicker and a photographer’s flash was bouncing off the walls. Sweeney was letting us in, but she clearly didn’t trust me. She had the restless eyes of someone trying to decide whether they can turn their back on a dangerous animal, constantly searching my face when she didn’t think I noticed.

There were two bodies visible from the door to the kitchen. A brown-skinned woman had been lying on her stomach when she was shot in the back of the head, her jaw still resting against the dirty tiles. Her hands were flat, palm down, sitting either side of her head, which was turned away from me. A man I assumed to be Michael’s son Andrew had been shot multiple times just before the entrance to the back door and had dragged himself a little way, painting the floor in jagged streaks as he went for the exit and was shot again. There were footprints in the blood, one set, it looked like, but this could have been from whoever discovered the bloodbath. A photographer was getting a close-up of the woman’s face.

“That’s Keema Daule, twenty. Over there is Andrew Bell, twenty-one,” Amanda said, looking at her notes.

“Christ.” I winced. “They’re just kids.”

Hearing me say the word “kids” sent a ripple of uncomfortable looks around the people in earshot. There are certain things I can’t mention as an accused pedophile. Children, toys, schools. I’ve talked about cartoons in public and made people shift uncomfortably in their seats. It never wears off.

“Are they a couple?” I asked.

“No,” Sweeney said. “He’s got a girlfriend. Local girl, Stephanie. Keema here is over from the UK recently, been backpacking her way around the country. Mum’s of Indian heritage but Keema’s lived her whole life in Surrey. We’re making calls liaising with the Surrey cops. They’re going to go around there and give them the news.”

“Who found them?”

“Delivery guy coming in with frozen chips.” Amanda looked at the ceiling. “Terry Hill. Local guy. Andrew is usually here to let him in in the morning. He knocked at the front, no answer. Came round the back, looked in the back window and saw a foot. Called the ambulance. Thought someone might have fainted.”

At the back of the kitchen beside a shelf full of blackened pots and pans there was a tiny barred window, greasy from the kitchen air. The angle looked right. Around the side of a bench, the delivery man would have been able to see only Andrew’s splayed foot and nothing of Keema.

“Someone interview him?”

“Yep.”

“So what are the current theories?” I wondered.