Emad thanked her and they approached Henry, who sat up guiltily at the sight of their uniforms. ‘Could you run us over to the Cherub Pond as fast as you can, please?’

It was far too hot to walk; he was sweating cobs inside his hi-vis jacket and hat.

They rattled along yellow gravel paths, curious visitors looking up at them from their lawn picnics and strolls. The bus/cart shuddered to a halt next to a walled garden, and Henry turned around in his seat. ‘Go through that archway,’ he said, pointing away from the garden, ‘across the open lawns, turn left at the far side, through the No Entry rope, left again by the greenhouses and you’ll come to the pond.’

They thanked him and alighted, both wiping the sweat from their foreheads as they crossed the lawns and ducked under the rope, falling silent as they prepared themselves to see a dead body.

It was floating face up in the rushes. With dulled, bulging eyes and bloated, peeling skin, it was every bit as gruesome as Emad had feared it might be. A distraught woman came over to them, and Emad had to blink himself back into sharp focus. He realised his breath was coming in sharp, shallow puffs and he felt sick.

Hold it together, dickhead, he silently and furiously urged himself. But one glance at Damian told him his colleague felt the same – the man had turned like a traffic light from red to green.

The woman approaching was wearing a baseball cap with a large label hanging down over her left ear – which was the first image that came back to Emad whenever he mentally revisited the scene. It was odd, but infinitely preferable to that of the corpse. The woman was sobbing – nose running and eyes streaming from underneath her sunglasses. She was short and slim, of indeterminate age – she could have been anything from thirty-five to fifty.

‘You must be Meredith Vincent? I’m PC Khan – call me Emad. Are you all right? I think you need to sit down for a minute. It’s a terrible shock. I don’t feel so hot myself, if I’m honest.’

Spotting the cracked, listing stone bench on the far side of the pond, weeds sprouting out from between the cracks, Emad took Meredith’s arm and led her over to it. It didn’t look appealing, but it was in the shade. The pair of them weaved through the unkempt grass and stumbled slightly over the crazy paving as Damian took a tentative step closer to the still, brackish water.

Emad realised how out of his depth he felt. Right then, despite his nerves about encountering the legendarily difficult Mavis, he’d have welcomed him there to tell him what to do. ‘Isn’t there someone you could call to be with you?’ he asked gently.