When I looked up she nodded at the photographer and, almost lazily, he swung his camera towards me and pulled the trigger. It took photographs like a machine gun.

‘Hey,’ I said, raising a hand to protect myself.

‘Have you seen what the online community are saying?’ The little voice recorder was in my face. ‘They’re calling Bob the Butcher a hero.’

I stared at her. ‘Bob the Butcher?’

‘He’s all over the social networks. He’s been trending for twenty-four hours.’ Scarlet Bush had a disbelieving little smile on her face. ‘You genuinely weren’t aware of that?’

The porter was finally opening the door. I pressed my warrant card against the glass and said my name and rank. So she knew my name, too.

‘And how does that feel for you, DC Wolfe?’ she asked. ‘When the social networks are calling the murderer a hero and the victim a scumbag?’

‘Sorry, sorry,’ the porter said, finally opening up.

I paused in the open doorway.

‘Murderers are never heroes,’ I said.

Scarlet Bush smiled at me, more broadly now, as if we both knew that wasn’t quite true.

Mrs Natasha Buck, widow of the dead banker, was in dark glasses and wet from the shower. Tall, early thirties, still in her bathrobe.

The strange combination of robe and shades made her look as though she was on holiday, heading for the pool. Her damp hair was blonde – very blonde, the white-gold you see on black-and-white film stars. She looked like a natural blonde, but maybe not that natural. She had the worked-on thinness that you see with a lot of wealthy women, and the same sense of entitlement.

Towelling her long blonde hair, she frowned at my warrant card as if it was junk mail from Pepe’s Pizza Parlour.

‘I’m very sorry for your loss, Mrs Buck. I know this must be a very distressing time.’

‘I already told the police what I know,’ she said. ‘A young black man and an older white woman.’ She had the carefully clipped enunciation of a foreigner who has spent ten years around serious English money.

‘DI Gane and DI Whitestone,’ I said. ‘I know.’

‘They even swabbed my mouth.’

‘They do that for your DNA. To rule you out. We just need to double-check some details, if that’s convenient.’

‘Not really.’ She glanced at her watch, shining like a diamond-encrusted bauble on her thin wrist. ‘Actually I’m about to go out.’

She was strikingly attractive, with the kind of face that you would not look away from until you found yourself staring. And perhaps not even then. But it felt like a lot of men had told her she was beautiful.

‘We do have an appointment, Mrs Buck. If it’s inconvenient now we can do it at some later date.’ A pause. ‘At the station.’

She looked at me properly for the first time. Then she laughed.