‘Who cleaned it? I’m going to assume there was some blood, which would correlate with Simon Glover’s murder having taken place here. And who painted this place? It’s not as if Glover was disposed of particularly carefully. But this level of work and attention to detail means that more than one person was involved. Cleaners, painters, movers.’

‘This seems highly organised. Is this something they have done before? Something they do regularly. Not to mention the distance from the original crime scene. We are at least an hour away from where the body was found.’

‘Maybe you do need to do a TV appeal for information. They love you at the moment.’ Imogen smiled, knowing Adrian hated being the centre of attention, but she loved to watch him squirm.

‘Seriously, though. If they have done this before then why was this job so sloppy? Why haven’t we been finding bodies in the river for years? Are they trying to send a message to someone else?’ Adrian said.

‘Sloppy, how?’

‘You know, body in the river, which is basically a trail of evidence. Not to mention the fact that they didn’t finish the woman off. Not quite professional, more confusing. I’m telling you, it’s a message. Judging by the way the woman behaved, I think she was probably the intended recipient of that message. She wasn’t beaten as badly. I reckon Glover was beaten as a lesson to her.’

‘You’ve been watching too much TV. People don’t do that in real life.’

‘Maybe not in your life. We’re missing something.’

‘That’s an understatement,’ Imogen said.

‘So, what now?’

‘Let’s go and see this co-worker of his and see if he can shed any light on what might have happened to Simon Glover.’

Adrian pulled out his phone and called Karen Bell, the lead crime scene investigator and recently promoted head of the forensics department. Imogen knew that she and Adrian alone wouldn’t find anything here – not a fingerprint, a strand of hair or a speck of blood that would confirm it as the crime scene. They needed to call the crime scene technicians in to work their magic. Even the cleanest rooms aren’t forensically clean.

They waited outside for someone to come and secure the scene; the smell inside was too chemical and overwhelming to stay there.

‘Do you think we will get any answers from the friend?’

‘I’m going to go with no. The secrecy and silence around this case is not only bizarre, it’s already pissing me off. There’s no reason to believe it’s going to get any easier.’

‘That’s the spirit,’ Adrian said.