As she got closer, she saw a single foot poking out between the forest of legs, the instep turned onto the dirty floor. The sea parted as Narey neared and she saw the corpse lying there on its back, one leg tucked under the other and the head broken.

It was badly decomposed and had suffered from however long it had been hidden away in the old cinema. The building must have been full of rats and mice and the body wasn’t a pretty sight. The woman had been left naked, stripped of dignity and her life as well as her clothes. Left there to end up under rubble when the place was flattened.

Narey stood silently for a moment, contemplating the type of bastard who would do that to another human being.

‘Was she killed where she’s lying?’

Paul Burke shook his head. ‘There’s tissue and blood spatter on the corner of the stage over there. Every indication that’s where it happened.’

‘When did the demolition guy find her?’

‘Less than an hour ago,’ McVean told her. ‘We had a car here within ten minutes.’

‘Anyone estimated how long ago she died?’

Baxter made a face. The one he pulled when making out he’d been asked to make a definitive judgement when all she really wanted was some rough idea to work with.

‘I’m not in the business of guessing, DI Narey. If you—’

Another voice cut in. ‘I’ll make a guess. Five to six weeks by the look of it.’ It was Winter, walking across the stage towards them with camera in hand and his kit bag over his shoulder.

She glared at him, resenting both his sudden presence and his manner. She’d known, of course, that he’d be on his way but was still irked at him turning up like this, far too familiar in front of the others. There was a line when they were at work, her line, and he knew he was crossing it. Most of all though, she begrudged the fact that she was going to have to step aside and let him get at the body first.

‘Mr Winter,’ she addressed him coolly. ‘This is Sergeant McVean. You know everyone else. Do what you have to do and then let us get on with it.’

He walked past her, his eyes fixed on the body and a strange, almost troubled look on his face. She’d seen him photograph victims many times and had been bothered by the enthusiasm, almost zeal, with which he approached his work. This time his lips were pursed tightly and his brows knotted anxiously. Maybe he had finally developed a sense of fitting solemnity but she doubted it.

‘What’s up?’ she whispered as he readied himself over the corpse.

‘Just doing my job,’ he murmured back. ‘I won’t be long.’

She stepped away, unsure how to reply and keen to avoid arguing with him in front of the others. Winter dropped his bag a few feet away from the body and raised his camera to his eye.

The truth was he’d been disturbed since the moment he’d got the call. Not the body or the length of time it had lain there: they were just different shades of an old routine. It was all about the location.

He got to work, doing what he had to do, but with a real and unusual sense of unease. The woman filled his lens in an ugly mass of welts and blistered skin, a war of purples, blues and reds. Her hair was the only thing intact: long and dark it curled in waves under her caved skull. He photographed her from every angle, in whole and in part. Open mouth, twisted leg, outstretched arm, desecrated torso.

He got to his knees and squeezed into the recess off stage so that he could photograph what was left of her face in situ. She could have been anything from early thirties to mid-forties, so difficult to tell. One arm was up near her face, unnaturally so and maybe trapped when she was dumped there. Her nails were still a well-manicured red, their shine barely dimmed.

It made him think of what was probably Enrique Metinides’ most famous photograph, The Death of Adela Legarreta Rivas. Two cars crashed on Avenida Chapultepec in Mexico City and she was run over on her way from the beauty parlour to a book launch. Metinides photographed her, hand outstretched, eyes open, make-up done perfectly, nails immaculate.

It was the thought of the Mexican photographer that made him tilt his camera slightly and catch the circus that was gathered above and beyond this poor woman’s head. Forensics and police, Rachel among them, game faces on, itching to get to work. Well fuck them, they could have her.

He got to his feet, stepped back a couple of paces and took one final, all-encompassing shot before tilting his lens to the floor. Job done but far from happy.

She was by his side, speaking quietly. Obviously trying to suss out why he’d been so short with her earlier.

‘Two dead bodies in creepy places in such a short time. You must think it’s Christmas.’

‘Not really. You know I don’t believe in God.’

‘Tony? What’s wrong?’

‘A woman’s been murdered and left to rot. I just don’t think it’s funny.’

He knew she didn’t quite buy it but she could hardly argue with his reasoning: the truth of that lay in front of them. It wasn’t the truth about why he was troubled but he wasn’t ready for telling her that, not quite yet.

Chapter 15

Back on Renfield Street, the air was thick with the sound of car horns being thumped by frustrated drivers. The building was on a busy interchange and traffic had ground to a halt thanks to the cop cars and ambulance that were taking up part of the road.

Tough shit, she thought. You’ll get to wherever you’re going even if you will be late. The woman in there will never get home.

She knew she was tense, more than was normal. Tony had freaked her out a bit with his reaction and she couldn’t figure out what was wrong with him. Maybe she didn’t have him as well trained as she thought.

It was more than that though and she knew the second reason, while completely selfish, was the one that had her adrenalin in knots. She could feel the clock ticking on this case already, not just in terms of getting a result but also making it hers. She’d been in the right place at the right time to get the call to the Odeon but she knew keeping it wouldn’t be as simple as that. MIT was packed with people who’d want their hands on this and would be trying to rip hers from it.

She could hear them now, forming a disorderly queue to moan about her already being on the Molendinar case, about her only being a DI for five minutes, how she only got her promotion because of reorganization to Police Scotland. And of course, they’d play their big card, their sneaky ace. How she only got promoted because she was a woman, how she was meeting some imaginary gender quota, how the bloody glass ceiling had somehow turned upside down.

Of course it was all complete bollocks but if she wanted this, and by Christ she did, she had to make sure she was stuck to it with superglue.

She glanced at her watch and saw there were still forty minutes of office business hours left and she had to make the most of them. Fraser Toshney and Becca Maxwell were on the pavement a few yards away and she scribbled a note on her pad and ripped the sheet from it then called them both over.

‘Becca, I want you to stay here, make sure the uniforms keep the public and the press on the right side of that tape and keep me up to date with anything that forensics find. I also want you to look into this when you get back to the office.’ She handed the DC the note she’d just written.

Maxwell read it, looked quizzical but nodded. ‘Yes, ma’am.’