Rowlinson snorted. ‘I have bumped into Assistant Commissioner Auckland on two occasions since the beginning of my secondment. On both of those occasions, she pulled a facial expression that suggested she had either eaten something that disagreed with her or, curiously, she wasn’t particularly pleased to see me.’

‘She probably remembers your appalling best man speech.’

Despite the macabre circumstances, Rowlinson managed a chuckle. ‘I’m afraid that my words were rather spoilt by the drink. As I understand it, the objection was my reference to the blonde twins you met on duty when you were still a wooden top and your stiff interrogation of them in the . . .’

Rowlinson tailed off as O’Connell stood and addressed them.

‘She’s been dead for at least twenty-four hours. First signs of rigor just starting to show,’ he said in a guttural voice that Priest suspected had been shredded by decades of cigarette smoke.

‘Was she killed here or moved here?’ Rowlinson asked.

‘Killed here, I’d say. I’ll know more when I get her on the slab.’

‘What killed her?’ asked Priest.

O’Connell looked across at Priest incredulously. ‘Pardon me, sir, but who the fuck are you?’

Priest feigned looking hurt. ‘I found the body.’

O’Connell looked over at Rowlinson. ‘Isn’t he a person of interest, then?’

‘He’s very interesting. Maybe you could answer his question so we can get out of this shit-hole.’

O’Connell hesitated but eventually relented. ‘Asphyxiation. There’s cling film in the corner of her mouth.’

‘Same as Simeon Ali,’ said Rowlinson under his breath.

Priest inhaled, deep and slow. Given the connection, it was now clear that they were looking at the same killer. But what had somebody gained from killing both Alexia and the man who was going to testify against her?

‘What about her face?’ Rowlinson asked.

O’Connell wiped his nose on his sleeve. ‘Those pictures, Harry.’

One of the SOCO team dressed head to toe in a white coverall passed Rowlinson a set of polaroid photographs of Alexia Elias’s head. Rowlinson passed them to Priest, who shuffled through, whistled. From a distance it wasn’t clear what had happened but the close-ups showed a terrifying image.

During his time as a major incident detective inspector, Priest was used to seeing the aftermath of violence – more than most senior officers see in an entire career. Widely regarded as an expert on serial killers and having had specialist training in the States, he thought of himself as generally unshockable.

Now, looking at Alexia Elias’s mangled face, he concluded that he may have to recalibrate that idea.

‘What the fuck?’ he breathed.