Fierce white arc lights clicked on and lit up the scene like a film set. The body of Mahmud Irani looked horribly broken in the glare, the agony of his death imprinted on his lifeless face. The crocodile on his shirt stared off in the wrong direction, as if averting its gaze from the large stain on his jeans.

The Area Forensic Manager and his CSIs were already sweating inside their Tyvek suits, blue gloves and forensic face masks. A van with blacked-out windows came trundling across the parched grass. The mortuary van. And behind it I saw the great white marble arch that marks the junction of Oxford Street, Edgware Road and Park Lane. And something whispered through the trees, like the sigh of the uneasy dead.

‘This was Tyburn,’ I said. ‘Maybe that’s why they took the chance of dumping him here. The dump site could be part of a ritual killing. Maybe the most important part. Because this was Tyburn.’

‘Tyburn?’ Whitestone said. ‘The public gallows?’

I nodded. ‘The Tyburn tree – the three-legged gallows pole – was at Marble Arch. This spot was where London had its public execution site for almost a thousand years.’ The great triumphal arch glowed with the lights of the night. ‘Fifty thousand people were hanged right where we’re standing,’ I said. ‘And they weren’t just killing him, were they?’ I looked down at the body of Mahmud Irani and the lopsided wound on his neck. ‘They were punishing him.’

4

Just before three o’clock on a sun-soaked Monday afternoon, Stan and I waited for Scout outside the school gates, both of us struggling to contain our emotions.

Our small red Cavalier King Charles Spaniel was always excited at the school gates – all those kids, all that attention, all those compliments – but for me today was special because it was the last day of the school year.

And we had made it.

The children began to appear and the waiting crowd of parents surged forward.

I saw the long blonde hair of Miss Davies – my daughter Scout’s beloved teacher – and then there were little girls whose faces I recognised and finally Scout herself, carting a huge folder and wearing a school dress that was the smallest they had in stock but still came down well below her knees.

Miss Davies saw me and smiled, waved, and gave me a big thumb’s up.

I wanted to thank her – for everything – but too many parents were milling around her, giving her gifts, wanting a word before the long summer break, so Stan and I stood and waited at the school gates, his tail wagging wildly and his round black eyes bulging with excitement.

‘We watched a film because it was the last day,’ Scout said, by way of greeting. ‘It was about a Japanese fish called Ponyo.’ She spotted the face of a friend who she hadn’t seen for at least five minutes.

‘MIA! MIA! MIA-MIA-MIA-MIA-MIA!’

‘Bye, Scout!’