It had certainly stopped for the man who occupied the hub of this scholar’s study. There was no question that he was dead. He lay on his back on the wide mahogany desk that stood in the middle of the floor. Each wrist and ankle was tied to one of the desk’s bulbous feet with thin cord, spread-eagling the dead man across its surface. It looked as if his killer had tied him down fully dressed, then cut his clothes away from his body, exposing the lightly tanned skin with its paler ghost of swimming trunks.

That would have been bad enough, a profanation Maartens hoped his middle-aged body would be spared. But what turned indignity into obscenity was the clotted red mess below the belly, an ugly wound from which rivulets of dried blood meandered across the white flesh and dripped on to the desk. Maartens closed his eyes momentarily, trying not to think about it.

He heard footsteps on the stairs behind him. A tall woman in a tailored navy suit, honey blonde hair pulled back in a ponytail, appeared on the landing. Her round face was serious in repose, her blue eyes shadowed beneath straight dark brows. She was pretty in an unremarkable way, her understated make-up deliberately making her appear even more bland and unthreatening. Maartens turned to face Brigadier Marijke van Hasselt, one of his two team co-ordinators. ‘What’s the story, Marijke?’ he asked.

She produced a notebook from the pocket of her jacket. ‘The owner of the house is Dr Pieter de Groot. He’s attached to the university. Lectures in experimental psychology. Divorced three years ago, lives alone. His teenage kids come to visit every other weekend. They live just outside Den Haag with the ex-wife. The body was discovered this morning by his cleaner. She let herself in as usual, saw nothing out of the ordinary, did the ground floor then came on up here. She glanced in the study door and saw that –’ Marijke gestured with her thumb at the doorway. ‘She says she took a couple of steps inside the room, then ran downstairs and called us.’

‘That’s the woman who was waiting on the doorstep with the uniformed officer when we got here?’

‘That’s right. She wouldn’t stay in the house. Can’t say I blame her. I had to talk to her in the car. Tom’s rounded up some of our team and set them on door-to-door inquiries.’

Maartens nodded approval of her fellow coordinator’s action. ‘Later, you can go over to the university, see what they can tell you about Dr de Groot. Is the scene-of-crime team here yet?’

Marijke nodded. ‘Outside with the pathologist. They’re waiting for the word from you.’

Maartens turned away. ‘Better let them in. There’s bugger all else we can do here till they’ve done their stuff.’