‘I’ll sort myself out soon,’ he said. ‘Find my own place.’ He tugged at the wrists of his long-sleeved T-shirt. He preferred to keep his scarred arms covered, even here in the loft. Even with us. He flashed that gap-toothed smile. ‘You know what they say about house guests and fish,’ he said. ‘They start to smell after a while.’

I shook my head. ‘Stay as long as you like.’

‘I might have a look across the road for work.’

‘At the meat market? Good idea. They always need grafters.’

He grinned, pleased that I liked his plan, and placed a bowl of porridge in front of me.

And the truth was I liked having Jackson around. He had been with us for two days now, and he did everything he could to make himself useful – walking the dog, making breakfast. And I realised that I had missed having someone that close in my life. It was true what he said – you can make new friends but you can’t make old friends.

Scout emerged from her bedroom, wild hair and bleary-eyed. ‘You kept Stan on lead, right, Jackson?’

‘I promised you, didn’t I?’

My phone vibrated. DCI Whitestone.

‘We’ve got the body of Hector Welles,’ she said. ‘They must have dumped it during the night.’

‘Where did they leave him?’

‘About one hundred metres from where we found Mahmud Irani.’

‘In Hyde Park?’

‘No. This one – if you can believe it – was found at the junction of Oxford Street, Bayswater Road and Edgware Road – on that massive traffic island right opposite Marble Arch. You know where I mean, Max?

‘Yes,’ I said. ‘Tyburn.’

DCI Whitestone and I came out of the white CSI tent, both of us sweating from the heat and the sight of the dead body of Hector Welles. She wiped her brow with the back of her hand.

‘He’s a bigger mess than the first one,’ she said.

‘They secured Mahmud Irani’s hands behind his back,’ I said. ‘They didn’t get the chance to do that with Hector Welles.’

‘It looks like he tried to tear his own throat out.’

‘Yes – and he still couldn’t shift the rope around his neck. Irani never quite believed what was happening to him, but Welles knew exactly what they were going to do – he had probably seen Irani hang on YouTube – so he fought like hell. Before they had his neck in a noose, and then when he was hanging. This one fought for his life, Pat. And that’s what made all the mess in there.’