I cursed under my breath. Where did they get this from?

‘One final question,’ she said. ‘Technical point. A third murder is the game changer, isn’t it?’ Her tone was lighter now. She was happy. ‘Because when we have three murders, it’s official: we have a serial killer. That’s true, isn’t it?’

I hung up.

Stan padded into the room and watched with interest as I tried to get dressed. He cocked his head to one side as I struggled to get my socks on. There was no longer enough give in my back for me to bend forward.

‘You’re not allowed in this room,’ I said. ‘Go on, Stan, get out.’

He lay down, still watching me. Sitting on the bed, I pulled my shirt on. Stan rested his chin on his front paws. I buttoned up the shirt and had another go at my socks. But it was no good. The muscles in my back were petrified.

Apparently bored with my pathetic efforts, the dog got up and yawned. Then he stretched, first lifting his tailbone in the air, his chest almost touching the ground, and then rocking forward on to his front legs, his hind legs and back almost a straight line.

Then he looked at me.

You try it.

But I knew if I got down on the floor I would need the fire brigade to get me up. So I stood with my forearms resting on the bed and pushed back with my tailbone, feeling the stretch in my lower back. Then I rocked forward, and there it was in my hamstrings – that sweet feeling of muscles that had been sleeping suddenly waking up.

I kept doing it – rocking back, rocking forward, a modest approximation of my dog’s stretches – until I was sweating and breathless but finally loose enough to sit on the bed and pull on my socks.

Stan watched me.

Yeah, he seemed to say. You got it.

Scarlet Bush was right – three deaths and we were no longer hunting a murderer. We were hunting a serial killer.

But we were not there yet.

Piggy Philips was lying in a hospital bed, breathing through a ventilator because of the puncture wound in his windpipe, uniformed officers outside his door twenty-four hours a day as he stubbornly clung to life.

Chapter 15

15

THERE IS A canteen in 27 Savile Row, but just the other side of Regent Street all of Soho is waiting for you with every kind of food in the world. So if you work out of West End Central, the backstreets of Soho are your real canteen.

I found Elsa Olsen in a Korean restaurant at the top of Glasshouse Street. The forensic pathologist was just polishing off a bowl of dak bulgogi and steamed rice.

‘You look like death warmed up, Max.’

I eased myself into the chair opposite her.

‘Coming from someone in your job, Elsa, I’m going to consider that a compliment.’