The reporter seemed to have lost her voice when she had lifted the boot for Priest to check Simeon’s pulse. It was a pointless act – Priest had attended enough murder scenes to know a corpse when he saw one. The cause of death wasn’t obvious – no wounds or blood – but Simeon’s face was horribly contorted. His jaw was locked open and dislocated at an angle. His eyes bulged out of their sockets, the yellowy skin around them stretched taut across angular cheekbones; the image vaguely reminded Priest of Edvard Munch’s iconic painting, The Scream.

He straightened up and, turning to Fox, said, ‘My witness is dead in your car, Miss Fox. Any comments you may have on that state of affairs would interest me greatly.’

Fox was fiddling with her hands, occasionally running them through her hair. She looked shocked, and as any good actor will tell you, shock is one of the simpler human reactions to mimic convincingly. Priest wasn’t sure what he thought of her just yet.

He watched her closely as she mumbled a reply: ‘I don’t know how he got there.’

‘OK.’ Priest nodded and pulled his phone out of his pocket before turning back to the car.

‘Wait!’ Fox spluttered, moving forward and taking his arm. ‘What are you doing?’

He looked over his shoulder at her and got a good look at her eyes. They were wide and alert with dilated pupils – startled prey.

‘There’s a dead body in the boot of your car,’ he explained slowly. ‘I thought I might let the police know. What do you think?’

‘Well, can’t we just talk this through first?’ Priest noticed her hand was shaking as much as her voice. Georgie had moved away from her, as if she might catch some contagious disease. ‘I mean . . . I don’t know anything about this.’

‘So you’ve said. In which case, you’ll have nothing to worry about.’

‘What?’ she bleated. ‘It’s my car. Are they going to believe me?’

‘We’re going to find that out pretty soon,’ said Priest, examining his phone. Although given that my ex-wife is the Assistant Commissioner of the London Met and most of her colleagues hate me, I suspect we’re both in for a rough ride over this one.

‘Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God.’ Fox had started pacing around frantically. She fumbled in her coat pocket and pulled out her own phone and started tapping away on the screen. ‘I’ll have to phone my boss.’

Georgie grimaced. ‘Your boss?’

‘I have deadlines to meet,’ Fox said with venom before turning her back on Georgie and putting the phone to her ear.

Priest had found what he was looking for in his own contact list and was about to hit DIAL when Georgie took his arm.

‘Charlie, I don’t trust her.’

Priest looked Fox up and down.