Atkinson picked up the ram. She stepped out of the way as he aimed the front end at the handle and swung.

One great smash and the door was swinging on its hinges. The scene inside was a mess of red and white, blood and tiles, a bath brimful of bloody water surrounding the pale skin of the man’s body. Atkinson coughed, to cover a gasp probably. The body itself was unmarked, perfectly still and white, hands and feet bluish and mottled, face peaceful, eyes closed. Harper thought of dumplings in beetroot soup, and her stomach rumbled. She’d skipped lunch, saving herself for dinner tonight. Now it looked like she wouldn’t be getting any.

“Anything?” said one of the paramedics.

“There’s a body here,” called Jo. She checked behind the door to make absolutely sure there was no one else in the room waiting to attack them, but the action was just routine; she’d known already, copper’s instinct, that the man was alone. “It’s safe. You can come through.”

She couldn’t see the wrists, only the backs of the man’s hands. This was a scene she’d come across a few times in her years as a response officer, and it didn’t get any easier to understand. What had made this man do this to himself?

“Is that him, the owner of the flat?” asked Atkinson.

Joanna went back to the kitchen counter for the driver’s license. She compared the dead-looking face in the bath with the living one in the image. She showed the picture to Atkinson, who nodded. “That’s him.”

The two paramedics entered the bathroom gingerly, so as not to slip in the mixture of blood and water on the tiles. One of them knelt by the bath. “Mr. Franks?” he said. “Can you hear me?” He placed a hand on the man’s forehead. Then he turned over the arm nearest to them, exposing the inside of his wrist. Joanna fully expected to see a deep cut there, and perhaps later they would find a razor blade that had slipped underneath the body as he fell unconscious. But there was no damage: the skin on the wrist was intact. The paramedic reached for the left arm: also no cuts.

“Where’s the blood coming from?” asked Jo.

“I can’t tell at the moment. Somewhere on the back of him.” He placed his fingers at the man’s neck, then listened at his chest; his cheek came away wet.

“He’s alive.”