So he drove there, up the hill in thick rush-hour traffic, hot and impatient. It could almost have been quicker to walk: he should buy a scooter, he thought, or a motorbike. In the medical director’s office, a thin woman in a red suit carefully checked his ID and he repeated what it was he wanted, showing her the image on his phone.

‘I thought it must be someone who works here.’

The woman looked unimpressed. ‘Those wristbands are for patients, not for staff.’

‘Yes, of course. Sorry.’

‘The staff wear laminated passes.’

‘I’m more interested in this one.’

He was asked to wait. The minute hand on the large clock on the wall jerked forward. He felt sweaty and soiled, and kept picturing the bloated, waterlogged thing that had once been a man. The woman returned holding a printout.

‘The patient was admitted here three years ago,’ she said. ‘As an emergency.’ She looked down at the paper. ‘Lacerations. Stab wounds. Nasty.’

‘Three years ago?’ Bryant frowned and spoke almost to himself. ‘Why would he still be wearing his hospital ID?’

‘It wasn’t a he. The patient was a woman. Dr Frieda Klein.’

‘Do you have an address?’

‘Address, phone number.’

Hussein felt a small twitch of memory. ‘Why does that name ring a bell?’

‘I don’t have a clue. Shall I call her?’

‘Yes. Ask her to come to the morgue.’

‘To identify the body? I hope she’s up for that.’

Hussein stood outside the forensics suite eating a bag of crisps and watched Frieda Klein following the officer down the windowless corridor. She was probably the same kind of age as Hussein herself, but taller, and dressed in grey linen trousers and a high-necked white T-shirt. Her nearly black hair was piled on top of her head. She walked swiftly and lightly, but Hussein noticed there was a slight drag to her gait, like that of a wounded dancer. As she got closer, she saw that the woman’s face, devoid of make-up, was pale. Her eyes were very dark and Hussein felt that she was not just being looked at but scrutinized.

‘Dr Frieda Klein.’

‘Yes.’

As Hussein introduced herself and Bryant, she tried to assess the woman’s mood. She remembered what Bryant had said after he had spoken to her: Dr Klein didn’t seem that surprised.

‘You might find this distressing.’

The woman nodded. ‘He had my name on his wrist?’ she asked.

‘Yes.’

The morgue was harshly lit and silent and very cold. There was the familiar smell, rancid and antiseptic, that caught in the back of the throat.

They stopped in front of the slab. The shape was covered with a white sheet.

‘Ready?’

She nodded once more. The morgue attendant stepped forward and drew back the sheet. Hussein didn’t look at the body, but at Frieda Klein’s face. Her expression didn’t alter, not even a tightening of the jaw. She stared intently and leaned closer, unblinking. Her eyes travelled down to the gaping wound at the neck. ‘I don’t know,’ she said at last. ‘I can’t tell.’

‘Perhaps it would help to see the clothes that he was found in.’

They were on a shelf, folded into transparent plastic bags. One by one, Hussein lifted them down for inspection. A sodden dark shirt. Grey trousers. Those heavy leather shoes, whose laces were blue and double-knotted. Hussein heard a tiny intake of breath beside her. For an instant, the expression on Frieda Klein’s face had altered, like a landscape that had darkened and chilled. She curled one hand slightly, as if she were about to lift it to touch the bag that contained the shoes. She turned back towards the terrible body and stood quite upright, staring down.

‘I know who this is,’ she said. Her voice was soft and calm. ‘This is Sandy. Alexander Holland. I know him by his shoes.’

‘You’re quite sure?’ asked Hussein.

‘I know him by his shoes,’ Frieda Klein repeated.

‘Dr Klein, are you all right?’

‘I am, thank you.’

‘Have you any idea why he was wearing your old hospital ID round his wrist?’

She looked at Hussein and then back at the corpse. ‘We used to be in a relationship. A long time ago.’

‘But not now.’

‘Not now.’

‘I see,’ said Hussein, neutrally. ‘I’m grateful to you. This can’t be easy. Obviously, we’ll need all the details you can give us about Mr Holland. And your details too, so we can contact you again.’

She gave a slight tip of her head. Hussein had the impression she was making the greatest effort to keep herself under control.

‘He was murdered?’

‘As you see, his throat has been cut.’

‘Yes.’

When she left, after they had taken her details, Hussein turned to Bryant. ‘There’s something odd about her.’

Bryant was hungry and he was in need of a smoke. He stood on the balls of his feet, then subsided again. ‘She was calm. I’ll give her that.’

‘Her reaction when she saw the shoes – it was strange.’

‘In what way?’

‘I don’t know. We need to keep an eye on her, though.’

3

When Alexander Holland’s sister opened the door, Hussein noticed several things at the same time. That Elizabeth Rasson was getting ready to go out: she was wearing a lovely blue dress but no shoes and she had a flustered air, as if she’d been interrupted. That there was a child crying somewhere in the house, and a man’s voice soothing it. That she was tall, dark-haired, rather striking in an angular kind of way, and that Bryant, standing just behind her, was stiffly upright, like a soldier on parade. She felt that he was holding his breath, waiting for her to say the words that would change this woman’s life.

‘Elizabeth Rasson?’

‘What is it? It’s really not a good time. We’re on our way out.’ She glanced beyond them, down the street, letting out an exasperated sigh.

‘I’m Detective Chief Inspector Sarah Hussein. This is my colleague Detective Constable Bryant.’ And they both held out their IDs.

Moments like this always got Hussein between the shoulder blades and in the thickening of the throat. However calm she felt and prepared she was, it never became automatic, just part of the job, to look into a person’s face and tell them that someone they loved was dead. She had come here straight from this woman’s brother, lying swollen and decomposing on the slab.

‘Police?’ the woman said. Her eyes narrowed. ‘What’s this about?’

‘You’re the sister of Alexander Holland?’

‘Sandy? Yes. What’s happened to him?’

‘Can we come in?’

‘Why? Is he in trouble?’

Say it plainly, clearly, with no room left for doubt: that’s what they had all been told during training, many years ago now. That was what she did, each time, looking into the person’s eyes and telling them without a quaver that someone they had known, perhaps loved, had died.

‘I’m very sorry to tell you that your brother is dead, Mrs Rasson.’

Suddenly Elizabeth Rasson looked bewildered. Her face screwed up in an expression that was almost comic, cartoonish.

‘I’m very sorry for your loss,’ Hussein said gently.

‘I don’t understand. It’s not possible.’

Behind them, a young woman came running along the pavement and in through the gate to the front garden. Her ponytail was crooked and her round cheeks flushed.

‘I’m sorry, Lizzie,’ she gasped. ‘The bus. Friday evening. I got here as quickly as I could.’

Hussein gestured sharply at Bryant, who stepped forward and took her by the arm, steering her away from the front door.