He focused on the older woman first, presumably Mrs Mary Bateman, and the sight of her made him wince. She was thin and grey-haired, and he was sure he had never seen her before. She was stretched out on her back and had a gaping wound in her chest where the shotgun shell had ripped into her. Dried blood covered her white blouse and long, pale green skirt. Her wrinkled grey features were frozen in a grimace, and her dead eyes stared up at the ceiling.

A few feet away from her lay a young woman who James assumed to be the daughter, Charlotte. She was slumped against the side of the breakfast bar with a large kitchen knife lodged in her stomach. Her eyes were closed, her mouth hung open, and her swollen tongue was poking out between thin, blue lips. The blood from the wound had spread across her ripped jeans and beige T-shirt. Despite her current appearance, she struck James as someone who had been pretty in life. She also looked a bit younger than he knew her to be, and the fact that her life had been cut short so brutally made his throat feel tight.

He then turned to the man – Robert Bateman. He too was lying on his back, but James was unable to tell if his face was familiar because there wasn’t much left of it. It seemed obvious that it had been blasted with a shotgun from very close range, and the ghastly wound exposed lumps of shapeless, raw flesh and bone. There was a garish spray of blood on the wall behind him and bits of his skull were scattered about the floor.

James felt a sense of unreality consume him and he had to fight down the urge to vomit.

He noticed the shotgun lying across the bottom half of the body, Mr Bateman’s right hand resting on the wooden grip and his thumb poking through the trigger guard.

A wretched scenario leapt into James’s mind – was this a murder-suicide? Did Bateman, for a reason that might never be established, shoot his wife in the chest before placing the shotgun under his own chin and pulling the trigger? James could see that it was a pump-action weapon and therefore capable of firing off multiple shots before having to be reloaded.

But that left the question of who had stabbed Charlotte. Instinct and experience told him that her stomach wound was not self-inflicted.

He lifted his head and cast his eyes around the room, seeking answers, and what he registered for the first time was that the design of the room was in stark contrast to the bloody mess on the floor.