Ahead of us the familiar blue lights of parked police cars flashed, and yellow tape blocked the public from the crime scene that lay beyond it.

‘She could have been the one,’ continued Adrian morosely as he unzipped a large carry-case.

‘You’ll get another chance,’ I said, slapping him on the back as he stepped into his scene-of-crime overalls. ‘There’s someone for everybody, you know. Even you.’

Most people assumed that the white-suited forensic photographers and videographers seen on the TV news photographing and recording crime scenes were members of the police force. And sometimes they were – but sometimes they weren’t. The Metropolitan Police, and the other forces throughout the country, also used independent companies. Like us.

The forensic division of Private London had a contract with the Metropolitan Police, purely in the photographic area. Forensic pathologists themselves were still under the direction of the Forensic Science Service, which was an agency of the Home Office working with the police.

Adrian’s boss Wendy Lee had been a popular and highly respected pathologist at the FSS before I recruited her to head up Private’s forensic unit. Some cases required independent forensic analysis before they came to court – and the resources that Private offered Dr Lee tempted her away almost as much as the far higher salary I dangled under her nose. We gave her access to the kind of superior technology that the Met could only dream about.

The detective in charge at the scene, DI Ken Harman, nodded to me as Adrian and I walked up. We’d worked together before.

‘Dan.’

‘Ken.’

We shook hands briefly. And he held up the tape for us to cross under.

POLICE – DO NOT CROSS THE LINE

Somebody had crossed the line, though, I thought ironically as I straightened up again on the other side of it. As ever, it was the smell that hit me first.