‘You and your burned hands – I don’t understand how you can be so fucking difficult. And I don’t understand how you can bear to be reminded of such an epic failure every single day.’

He pointed to Alex’s scarred hands. Alex was deeply shocked; he couldn’t believe a colleague had just said something so grotesque.

This is sick, he thought, turning away.

Such an epic failure. Every single day.

As if Ross could have done any better.

‘Hang on,’ Ross said, waving his phone around. ‘I just heard from our colleagues in Haiti.’

‘Haiti?’

Alex had no desire to hang around.

‘They called yesterday, but I asked them to double-check a couple of things.’

‘What the hell are you talking about?’

‘Lovisa Wahlberg’s boyfriend – the guy who got her involved in drugs. I thought it was strange that she’d been given a tattoo just like his before she died, and I wondered if it might have something to do with him. It was a long shot, but I wanted to be able to exclude him. Whichever way you look at it, our perpetrator must have known about the boyfriend’s tattoo.’

Our perpetrator. Who could be you, Ross.

‘I’ve been thinking the same,’ Alex said slowly. ‘We can’t see a connection between the victims, but the killer knows a hell of a lot about them.’

Ross ignored his comment.

‘So I contacted the narcotics team in Port-au-Prince, asked if they could put me in touch with Lovisa’s ex in jail. And that’s when I found out he’d died several years ago.’

‘Hardly surprising,’ Alex said. ‘Serving time in a place like that can’t be easy.’

Ross gave him a supercilious look.

‘I’m well aware of that. Hardly surprising, you say. But you’re wrong. The guy didn’t die in jail. He absconded after being threatened for a long time. He owed money to several dealers, and asked for protection via his lawyer. He got nowhere, of course.’

Alex waited, suspecting that there would be more twists and turns before Ross got to the point. He wasn’t wrong.

‘He didn’t get very far before they caught up with him. The police don’t know exactly what happened, but the day after he did a runner his body was found, badly beaten.’

‘Okay, so he definitely wasn’t involved in Lovisa’s murder,’ Alex said.

‘The debts weren’t just his,’ Ross went on. ‘They were Lovisa’s too.’

Alex suppressed a sigh.

‘You think a drugs gang from the West Indies came over here to murder her?’

‘No, but I think they inspired our perpetrator when he was deciding how his victims should die. Although I’m not sure how that works.’

Ross held up his phone so that Alex could see the screen.

‘Look at this, but make it quick. I’m in a hurry, I’ve got things to do.’