‘Jesus,’ said Stephen, looking up at him again. ‘Can I use that?’

‘What?’

‘That’s really good. I could use that in my book.’

‘No!’ Isaac felt stung.

Stephen went back to his typing. ‘Oh, and don’t look at my Google search history. It’s full of questions like, how long does it take the skin to putrefy when a dead body is buried in a lead-lined coffin?’

‘I could tell you that.’

‘You just said you don’t want to talk about work!’

‘I can help you. I didn’t say I wouldn’t help you. I just don’t want to talk about it right now.’

Stephen sighed and put his laptop on the bedside table. ‘I’m going for a fag.’ He picked up the packet of cigarettes and got up off the bed, moving over to the balcony doors.

‘If you’re going to go outside, put some clothes on,’ said Isaac, eyeing the pair of small black briefs Stephen was wearing.

‘Why? It’s late. It’s dark.’

‘Because…This is Blackheath. My neighbours are respectable.’ This wasn’t exactly true. A handsome young man had moved in next door, who Isaac suspected was gay. He was terrified that the neighbour and Stephen might meet. After all, Stephen had left him once before.

‘On the outside they might be respectable. Who knows what goes on behind closed doors?’ teased Stephen.

‘Please…’ said Isaac leaning over to embrace him. Stephen rolled his eyes and ducked away, pulling on a T-shirt. He put a cigarette in his mouth and moved to the door. Isaac watched him as he went out onto the balcony: his tall athletic frame, the cigarette dangling from his pouty lips, how his underwear clung to his muscular buttocks.

In his work life, Isaac was peerless: a brilliant forensic pathologist with a distinguished career. He was in control of every aspect of his profession and he deferred to no one. In his private life, however, he was clueless. Stephen Linley turned his world upside down. Stephen was in control of their relationship and he was in control of Isaac’s emotions. Isaac found that this both thrilled and unnerved him.

He reached over, grabbed Stephen’s laptop. He saw the chat room text appearing in chunks and moving up the screen. He minimised the window, and it was replaced by the text of the new novel Stephen was writing. Stephen’s novels were dark and violent. Isaac found reading them unpleasant, but he was drawn to them, and was ashamed to admit that he got a thrill from the dark violence, and from the way that Stephen could inhabit the minds of sadistic, brutal serial killers.

He was about to start reading when he realised he’d promised he wouldn’t read anything until it was finished. He replaced Stephen’s laptop and went out on the balcony, like an eager dog missing its owner.

17

Laurel Road was quiet and still when Erika inserted the key in the lock of Gregory Munro’s house and pulled the crime scene seal away from the door. She turned the key and gave the door a shove, separating the remains of the sticky seal. She stepped into the hallway. There was an urgent beeping noise, and she saw, glowing in the darkness, the panel for the alarm system.

‘Shit,’ she muttered. She hadn’t anticipated that after forensics had completed their work the house would be left alarmed. She stared at the screen, knowing she had only a few seconds before uniformed officers would be summoned, followed by the distraction of paperwork, where she would have to justify her presence. She keyed in the combination 4291 and the alarm deactivated. It was the fail-safe number often used to reset the alarms at crime scenes. It might not be the most secure way of doing things, but it saved a fortune in call-out fees.

It was stiflingly hot, and the rancid meaty smell of Gregory Munro’s dead body still hung faintly in the darkness. Erika flicked on a switch and the hallway lit up, the light petering out as the stairs rose into darkness. She wondered how the house would feel to someone who didn’t know it was a crime scene. To her, it still seemed to reverberate with violence.

She moved past the stairs and through to the kitchen, turning on the lights. She found what she had seen in the photo: a corkboard beside the fridge. Pinned to it were several takeaway menus, a handwritten shopping list, and a flyer for a security company: GUARDHOUSE ALARMS.

Erika unpinned the leaflet from the corkboard. The design looked professional, but it was printed on ordinary inkjet printer paper. The background was black with ‘GuardHouse Alarms’ written on it in red. The ‘H’ of ‘House’ morphed upwards into an image of a ferocious German shepherd. Underneath this was a phone number and email address. Erika turned the flyer over. Written in blue biro near the bottom was: ‘MIKE, 21ST JUNE 6.30PM’.