As Tanika introduced herself, she saw that the fire was made up of half a dozen paintings, if not more. She started pulling them out to try and save them. And as she did so, she noted that they were all similar to the painting in Stefan’s house that had had its frame removed.

Elliot just stood to one side and watched her, puzzled.

‘What are you doing?’ he said.

‘A neighbour saw you setting fire to some paintings in your garden and called it in.’

‘Why’s that a police matter?’ Elliot said, turning to look at the clutch of houses that had windows overlooking his garden. ‘Bloody nosy parkers.’

‘It’s a police matter because we have reason to believe Stefan Dunwoody was killed in connection with a Rothko painting you sold to him in 1988,’ Tanika said as she pulled another painting from the fire and wiped the flames off it on the grass until it was only smouldering. A third of the painting hadn’t yet caught fire, and Tanika could see that it had originally been three bands of plain colour, each of them a different shade of orange.

‘You’ve got to be kidding me,’ Elliot said, superiority slipping back into his voice, but Tanika guessed it was false confidence. ‘You aren’t seriously suggesting I’ve just set fire to a bunch of Rothkos, are you? They’d be worth millions of pounds.’

Tanika examined a charred batten of wood. It was made of modern pine and didn’t look as though it could have come from the frame around the Rothko in Stefan’s house. Stefan’s frames were all old, and most of them were gilt or ornate. In fact, as she removed the last burnt painting from the fire and smothered the flames on the grass, she realised that all of the wood she could see was cheap, such as would be used to make a modern canvas for a painting. Indeed, at the corners of each piece of wood she’d taken from the fire, she could see modern staples where the canvas had been attached to the frame.

‘These paintings look like Rothkos to me,’ Tanika said, not wanting to give any ground.

‘That’s very gratifying. It’s very much the effect I was going for.’

‘How do you mean?’

‘I painted these. All of them.’

‘You did? When?’

‘In the last few months. It’s what I do in my spare time. Painting.’

‘Can you tell me about the Rothko that Stefan bought from you after your father died?’

Elliot thought for a moment before replying.

‘Okay, the thing you have to know about Stefan Dunwoody is he was a crook.’

‘Is that so?’