‘This is where all those hikers got killed last year, isn’t it?’ said Mo, doing a great job of breaking the mood.

Bolt remembered the case well enough. Two young couples had come up from London for a weekend of hiking, and had been reported missing a few days later. All four bodies had been found in the house they’d rented for the weekend. Three had suffered stab wounds while the fourth – a teacher called Ashleigh Murray – had been found hanging in the living room. The local CID had concluded that the deaths had been a case of murder suicide, with Ashleigh Murray as the perpetrator, but the case had been racked by controversy ever since, with Murray’s family pushing hard for a full review by a separate police force.

‘That’s right,’ he said. ‘I always thought there was something weird about that case. A woman primary school teacher, well liked by her colleagues, and with no history of mental illness, who reportedly has a great relationship with her husband, goes mad with a knife and kills him and two other people, then kills herself. I don’t buy it. I never did.’

‘Me neither,’ said Mo. ‘You know why? They never explained the injuries to the lower leg of the female murder victim. Remember? She had deep cuts consistent with being caught in an illegal hunting trap, as well as the stab wounds, but there was no sign of a hunting trap anywhere round that house.’

‘You know a lot about the case.’

‘I just remember, it all seemed wrong. Do you know what else?’

‘Go on. Surprise me.’

‘The cottage where the bodies were found was less than two miles from Vladimir Hanzha’s country estate.’

Bolt was surprised at that. ‘Really?’

‘Really. Do you reckon that’s a coincidence?’

Bolt frowned. ‘God knows. The thing is, there are too many coincidences around this whole case.’

‘Exactly, but I’ve got a strong feeling that our Vlad’s not going to shed much light on things.’

‘I think you’re right, but at least we’ve got a good excuse for going to see him. Any grieving parent would want to know that their child’s killer’s been found, even if he is dead.’ So far, the Disciple inquiry team hadn’t announced the discovery of Leonard Hope’s body. They’d been told from above to keep it quiet for at least another twenty-four hours. Bolt wasn’t quite sure why, but he guessed the Brass were still trying to come up with a way to announce it that didn’t make the Met look like a bunch of incompetents for losing him in the first place. Either way, it had meant that the press conference that Bolt had chaired that morning had just turned into another bout of hostile questions about the hunt for Leonard Hope that he’d been unable to answer properly, but at least it meant he and Mo could get Vladimir Hanzha’s reaction to the news of the demise of the man who’d killed his daughter first-hand.

‘He doesn’t know we’re coming, does he?’ said Mo, as Bolt slowed the car to turn up the well-kept private road that led to the estate.

‘No, and if he’s not in, we’ll wait. We know he’s up here somewhere.’

As it happened their luck was in. When they arrived at the ornate wrought-iron gates and introduced themselves through the intercom, they had a wait of less than a minute before the gates opened automatically and they were allowed to drive inside. A plainclothes security guard who looked Russian checked their warrant cards, then directed them down the left-hand fork of the road that led them a further two hundred yards through carefully manicured gardens, before they came to an impressive-looking, three-storey Georgian country house, the size of a small hotel, with turrets at either end and an imposing clock tower in the middle.

‘How the other half lives, eh?’ said Mo as they parked the car at one end of the driveway next to a brand-new crimson Ferrari and got out.

‘And I bet you we pay more taxes than him,’ said Bolt, taking a moment to bask in the afternoon sunshine before walking over to a flight of steps wide enough to hold a wedding party that led up to the front door.

Before they got there, the door opened, and a big man in an open shirt and suit trousers appeared. He was in his mid- to late-fifties, with a thick head of curly grey hair and a slight forward stoop, without which he probably would have been about Bolt’s height at six foot four. He was beginning to run to fat, and his face was jowly and grizzled, but not without a degree of charm, and Bolt reckoned that a decade ago he probably would have been a pretty good-looking guy. Even if he hadn’t seen a photo of Vladimir Hanzha, he would have known straight away that this was him. He looked exactly as you’d expect a dodgy Russian oligarch to look, and Bolt was surprised that he’d chosen to greet them personally rather than send someone else. Men like him usually had a fairly sizeable entourage.

‘DCS Bolt,’ he said in a booming voice, coming down the steps. ‘I recognize you from the press conferences.’

They shook hands and Bolt wasn’t surprised that Hanzha tried to crush his in some kind of Vulcan death grip. ‘Pleased to meet you, Mr Hanzha,’ he said simply, not reacting to the pain as the Russian released his hold. ‘This is my colleague, DS Mo Khan.’

Hanzha gave Mo a curt nod and made no attempt to shake his hand. ‘Come inside,’ he said, addressing Bolt. ‘You must have come a long way. Can I get you a drink of anything?’

They both declined and followed him through a grand, richly carpeted foyer with animal heads and expensive paintings of traditional country scenes mounted on the walls. Bolt noticed the head of a huge stag with antlers several feet long that looked newer than the others.

‘I shot that one,’ said Hanzha, his tone matter-of-fact, as if he did such things every day.

Bolt didn’t comment. He’d never considered hunting animals with a big gun particularly impressive, and was one of those people who thought they looked better alive in their natural environment than decapitated and stuffed in a rich man’s house.

Hanzha led them down an adjoining hallway, past an indoor swimming pool, separated by a floor-to-ceiling glass window, and into a spacious, traditionally furnished living room with views out towards the mountains in the distance. They sat in chairs next to an unmade fire, Bolt and Mo opposite Hanzha.

‘Let me start by expressing our condolences for the loss of your daughter, Mr Hanzha,’ said Bolt.

Hanzha sighed deeply and his expression tightened. ‘We didn’t get on well, me and Ivana. She was headstrong, like her mother. But I miss her.’ He nodded slowly, as if this was the first time he’d admitted this to himself. ‘I miss her.’ For a few seconds he didn’t speak, then he looked at them both in turn. ‘So what brings you all the way up here to see me?’ he asked.

‘We have some news regarding our prime suspect, Leonard Hope,’ Bolt told him.

Hanzha’s expression darkened. ‘Tell me,’ he said, leaning forward in his chair, suddenly very interested.

‘We found his body yesterday. It had been dumped in countryside west of London.’

‘It showed signs of extreme torture,’ put in Mo, watching Hanzha closely.

For the first time the Russian smiled, but there was no humour in it. ‘Good,’ he said. ‘I hope the bastard died in plenty of pain.’

Bolt nodded. ‘Yes, he did.’

‘So the hunt for The Disciple is over. It cannot bring my daughter back. She is with God now. But at least some kind of real justice has been served. I was worried he would end up in one of your prisons, watching television in his cell, taking drugs, living out the rest of his life in comfort.’

‘I don’t think our prisons are that comfortable,’ said Mo.

Hanzha grunted dismissively. ‘They are a lot nicer than Russian ones. Russian prisons are real prisons. The prisoners actually suffer there.’

‘The point is, Mr Hanzha, there are still unanswered questions,’ said Bolt. ‘The foremost of which is: who killed him.’