Then, she spotted something else. A pregnancy test kit. Now that was interesting. No one knew anything about Verity’s love life. It might explain the sickness, too.

Chapter Seventeen

Claire Mulholland arrived at Mount Browne’s CID building to see Gillard. He was sitting at his desk, eating a mid-morning sandwich, with the photographs of the body from the island laid out in front of him like some bizarre card game. Not too many people could sit and eat tuna and mayonnaise on granary bread while staring at the distorted features and blood-cyanosed flesh of a corpse, but she realised that his was the kind of familiarity that breeds, if not contempt, then at least decent digestion.

Gillard described to her what they knew of the man, now known irreverently as Mr Fang due to his one prominent gold-filled tooth. Claire could see the lack of progress was really beginning to bug him. The mitochondrial DNA tests had confirmed only what a simple glance at the man seemed to show, that he was mostly of Chinese origin. There were ancestral traces of Tibetan and Mongolian too, but Gillard wasn’t sure how that would help. ‘I’m looking for a more precise view of where the man had actually spent most of his life,’ he said. ‘That should come with the results of the stable isotope analysis, which shows the mineralisation in his body. It looks like that might yet be another week.’

‘Well, here’s a new line of enquiry for you,’ she said. ‘Baz is working on this private zoo owned by the Arab sheikh, just outside Walton-on-Thames.’

‘Ah, is that the one on the old St Thomas’s prep school site? Managed by that Zimbabwean.’

‘Yes, Gus van Steenis. It has the makings of quite an expensive undertaking. There’s not much detail online, but there’s going to be a very substantial reptile house, including crocodiles, and they’ve got the famous injured rhino.’

‘Ah, yes. Dennis.’ The detective chief inspector stroked his chin. ‘Interesting. Van Steenis went to the party on Tagg’s Island the same night that everyone seemed to hear this splash in the river. If he was involved that would be very careless.’ He turned to look at her with a smile on his face. ‘Are you thinking along the lines that our victim was sat on by Dennis or something?’

‘Well, it’s possible isn’t it? Maybe one of the constrictor snakes that he has.’