‘Not that I can find, but that’s not unusual for indecent images.’

‘It’s not.’

‘But his conviction would have been public knowledge. We found a piece in the archives of a local newspaper. The article was also shared on social media and there are any number of comments suggesting various parts of him that should be removed. Maybe someone took that literally.’

‘Maybe. But if you’re looking for a child abuser to hack to pieces there are plenty more in the public domain with far worse offending. Marcus Olsen must have been chosen for a more personal reason.’

‘And there lies the key.’ DS Andrews sighed as he spoke. Joel detected exhaustion in it.

‘Do you have much more to do today?’

‘A fair bit. I’m still at the scene, just waiting for CSI to finish with the body so one of my guys can accompany it to the morgue. Then I’ve got some writing to do. I’ve had my team doing some work on the victim back at the office and from the last update they haven’t been able to find an obvious next of kin. The intelligence around him is pretty typical for a sex offender: looks like a bit of a loner, moved away from West Kent when he received some low-level threats, not known to the police for any other reasons. I’m waiting for Child Protection to come back to me with anything more but he’s still being managed by West Kent. I’ll chase that up tomorrow.’

‘Threats? What was that about?’

‘Two separate intel reports, both around the time he was doing the rounds on social media three years ago. Graffiti on the door of his flat and shouted insults on the street. No offenders. We’ll go through his list of associates. I want to talk to as many as I can to find out if anyone has spoken to him recently. Maybe he talked about a more serious threat.’

‘Maybe. Sounds like a good idea.’

‘Ma’am Marsden … she said you’re not back ’til Monday. She wants me to run this until then …’

‘Monday officially. I’m hoping to come in over the weekend and I’m on the end of the phone for you and your team. I know it’s not ideal.’

‘It’s fine, really. The boss … she told me you were just coming back, so …’

Joel could tell just from his tone that she had added a few more details in than that. ‘Like I said, I’ll be in over the weekend. It would be useful if there was something for me to read through.’

‘I’ll update the log with everything we have so far when I get back in. Anything more that comes in will be on there. I’ll make sure you have access. Is there anything you want done that I haven’t mentioned?’