‘I’m assuming the reason you’re really here is to find out if the dead guy from the river used to work with us?’

Now it was Claire’s turn to smile. ‘Yes, that’s part of why I’m here.’

‘I think you’ll be disappointed,’ Juliette said. As she turned away, Claire could almost swear she heard the words the young woman spoke under her breath: nosy bitch.

Claire made her way up to the main drive and then strode towards the grand entrance of the house. She looked at the pictures she had taken. She wasn’t sure that Michael Jakes had been correct about the function of that basement room. Yes, there was a big lock, and a sliding metal hatch. But it could equally be somewhere for an overnight security person to sleep. There was no smoking gun.

She rang the bell and a few moments later an Asian maid in traditional uniform opened the door and showed her in through the grand entrance hall. She was led into a wood-panelled drawing room. She had somehow expected there to be mounted heads of lions and tigers on the wall, but instead there were paintings of bewigged aristocrats that presumably had come with the property.

Gus van Steenis was wearing a white linen jacket over a crisply ironed pale yellow shirt. With him was a dark-suited middle-aged man, introduced as his lawyer. Coffee was ordered from the maid, and the manager beckoned her to a seat opposite his large walnut desk.

‘So, Detective Inspector, you have come to check up on us,’ he said.

‘Not exactly. As you may be aware, we’re trying to trace a man of Chinese origin who we found in the Thames last week.’

‘I’m aware of that, in fact I gave a statement about my movements on the evening of his disappearance to PCs Wickens and Cottesloe,’ he said.

‘Yes, I have it here.’ Claire opened her leather briefcase and took out the statement. ‘That’s fine for that line of enquiry, but I was just wondering if you had ever employed someone of that ethnicity.’

‘Well, we had a Hong Kong Chinese chef here a few years ago. But he left back in…’ He looked at the lawyer for help.

The suit rapidly flicked through a pile of documents. ‘March 2017,’ he said. He passed the document across to Claire, who made a note of the name.

‘I understood that you were coming to check our various permits for the animals,’ van Steenis said, his glance flicking across to the lawyer, who handed her a thick white envelope.

‘It’s all there,’ the lawyer said. ‘Local authorities and Defra zoo licence, planning consents, movement permissions, dangerous animal consents.’

‘I’ll take these away and have a look,’ she said.