‘The Normandy veteran that Darren Donovan put in a coma for fifty pence. As far as we can see, Bert Page doesn’t have any violent criminals to avenge him. In fact, despite all the hand wringing in the press, Bert doesn’t have anyone to give a toss about him. He was living in care until Donovan put him into the hospital. There’s a middle-aged daughter in Australia and that’s it. Why would someone want to hang the nasty little creep who hurt him?’

Sergeant John Caine shrugged.

‘I don’t know, Max,’ he said, making a minute adjustment to one of the ropes on his hanging tree. ‘Maybe just because it’s the right thing to do.’

At the end of the working day Edie Wren and I stood outside a big house in Canonbury Square. We were close enough to Highbury Corner to hear the unbroken rumble of the traffic on the Holloway Road and Essex Road, but Canonbury Square itself was green and leafy, like a millionaire’s fantasy of the English countryside.

Edie consulted her phone as I rang the doorbell. ‘Tara Jones lives in the whole house?’ she said. ‘The whole house?’

A child in his pyjamas opened the door. Maybe three years old. That age when they stop being babies and start being the person they will be for the rest of their life. And I could see Tara in the child. The pale face, the huge green eyes and especially that almost Asian hair.

I crouched down so that our eyes were at the same level.

‘Is your mummy in?’ I said.

‘Yes,’ he said, but a Filipina nanny came to collect him and a man appeared, still wearing the suit and tie he had worn to his office in Cheapside or Canary Wharf.

‘Can I help you?’ He had an accent that was full of privilege and a nose that had been broken more than once, the telltale signs of someone who had played a bit of rugby at his private school.

‘I’m DC Wolfe and this is my colleague DC Wren from West End Central,’ I said, standing up. ‘I believe your wife is expecting us?’

He nodded and went to get her, leaving Edie and I alone on the doorstep. Down the corridor we could see large mirrors, tasteful prints on the walls, a home of money and taste.

Edie chuckled softly. ‘And to think I felt sorry for her when she arrived in Savile Row,’ Edie murmured. ‘You know – the brave young deaf woman making her way in the world. To think I felt sorry for her! She’s got everything, hasn’t she?’

‘Yes,’ I said. ‘I guess so.’

Then Tara Jones was in front of us in a white T-shirt with those tight trousers with the hoops around her bare feet. She pushed back her hair and she didn’t smile and she didn’t ask us to come inside.