Priest nodded at a security guard who returned the acknowledgement and opened another set of secure doors which led to three lifts and a plush staircase leading up.

‘Jeez, what’s the rent on this place?’ Georgie muttered.

‘Nothing,’ Priest replied, calling the lift. ‘I own it.’

‘The penthouse?’

‘The building.’

Less than a minute later Priest was unlocking his front door and stepping inside with Georgie; the burning in his head had intensified into a full-on inferno.

Priest held up his hand and Georgie stopped. He closed the door softly behind him. The short entrance hall led through to the kitchen – everything was still. A breeze drifted in from somewhere, probably an open window. The distant hum of shoppers floated in with it. Otherwise, it was eerily quiet.

‘What about the security guard downstairs?’ asked Georgie.

‘Ted? She’d just need to flutter her eyelashes and say she knows me. He’s lovely but probably the worst security guard in London. She’s got a bloody key so once she was past him it was easy.’

He padded across the kitchen floor past the lounge and through to another narrow corridor. Sunlight filtered through the skylight onto the panelled walls where a series of high-resolution vintage film posters were grandly framed: Nosferatu, Night of the Living Dead, Black Sunday, The Birds and his favourite, Freaks. At the end of the corridor, the door to the spare room was ajar.

He turned back to look at Georgie who had been half distracted by the portly image of Alfred Hitchcock on the poster of The Birds. She looked back quizzically and he waved at her in a gesture intended to say that he would explain later. She looked behind Priest and pointed to the partially open door as if to ask, in there?

Priest nodded and she hung back, waiting for him to venture forward. This seemed prudent but was Elinor Fox’s slight frame really capable of murdering two adults? Alexia maybe, but Simeon?

Priest wrestled with the idea as he crept forward. He reached the end of the corridor and pushed the door open a little more to see into the room, to the end of the bed, to the duvet slung on the floor and the bed sheets torn down the middle. He opened the door fully and took in the scene.

The room looked like a tornado had hit it. Both bedside tables had been upturned and the contents of the drawers scattered across the floor. The curtain had been yanked from its rail and ripped into several pieces and the bed slunk to one side over a crumpled leg.

Elinor Fox was nowhere to be seen.

‘Oh my God!’ Georgie exclaimed, entering the room and standing next to Priest surveying the damage. ‘Was there a wild bear in here?’

‘Not exactly,’ Priest mumbled.