I introduced myself and showed my warrant card. She peered at the card, then at me – her eyes were narrow and suspicious. Despite a plain brown skirt, matching blouse and cardigan I noticed she wore an analogue watch hanging upside down from her breast pocket. A live-in nurse perhaps?

‘We’ve come to see Mr Woodville-Gentle,’ I said. ‘Is he in?’

‘He’s supposed to be resting at this time,’ said the woman. She had a Slavic accent. Russian or Ukrainian, I thought.

‘We can wait,’ said Lesley. The woman stared at her and frowned.

‘May I ask who you are?’ I asked.

‘I am Varenka,’ she said. ‘I am Mr Woodville-Gentle’s nurse.’

‘May we come in?’ asked Lesley.

‘I don’t know,’ said Varenka.

I had my notebook out. ‘Can I have your surname please?’

‘This is an official investigation,’ said Lesley.

Varenka hesitated and then, reluctantly I thought, stepped back from the doorway.

‘Please,’ she said. ‘Come in. I shall see if Mr Woodville-Gentle is awake yet.’

Curious, I thought, she’d rather let us in than tell us her second name.

The flat was basically a long box with living room and kitchenette to the left, bedrooms and, I assumed, bathrooms to the right. Bookshelves lined every wall and with the curtains closed the air was stuffy and carried a whiff of disinfectant and mildew. I scoped out the books as Varenka the nurse led us into the living room and asked us to wait. Most of the books looked like they’d come from charity shops, the hardbacks had damaged dustcovers and the paperbacks showed creased spines and covers faded by sunlight. Wherever they’d been bought, they’d been meticulously shelved by subject, as far as I could tell, and then by author. There were two shelves of what looked like every single Patrick O’Brian up until Yellow Admiral and one whole stack of nothing but Penguin paperbacks from the 1950s.

My dad swears by those Penguins, he said that they were so classy that all you had to do was sit in the right café in Soho, pretend to read one and you’d be hip deep in impressionable young women before you ordered your second espresso.

Lesley surreptitiously jabbed me in the arm to remind me to look stern and official as Varenka led us into the living room before heading off to disturb Albert Woodville-Gentle.

‘He’s in a wheelchair,’ murmured Lesley.

Judging by the spacing between the furniture and positioning of the dining table the flat had been laid out for wheelchair use. Lesley scuffed the carpet with her shoe to show where thin wheels had worn tracks in the burgundy weave.

We heard muffled voices from the other end of the flat, Varenka raised her voice a couple of times but she obviously lost the argument because a few minutes later she emerged wheeling her patient down the hall and into the living room to greet us.