The scene that awaited King and Lane at Gavin Jones’s house was macabre. The man was lying face down on the living room carpet, encircled by a dark pool of his own blood. Arterial spray stained the walls and the furniture, suggesting he had been stabbed multiple times in what had been a frenzied attack. Boxes that had been stacked waiting to be unpacked in his new home had been knocked over, their contents spilled across the floor. Signs of a struggle were obvious, and bloody handprints marked much of the furniture.

‘He put up a good fight,’ Chloe said, studying the array of smeared fingerprints that patterned the arm of the sofa.

A pathologist was crouched by Gavin’s body, his bagged feet steeped in the victim’s blood.

‘How many wounds, do you think?’ Alex asked.

‘At the moment, I’d say at least eight.’

Alex went back to the front door. It had been forced open by uniformed officers earlier that morning when the 999 call from Sian Foster had been received. Before their arrival, there had been no sign of any forced entry.

‘Whoever did this,’ she said, ‘Gavin knew them. He let them in.’

She turned to face the scene. The first evidence of blood spatter was a few feet inside the living room. Someone had followed Gavin into the house and attacked him there, presumably not long after entering. There had been a struggle, during which he had tried to make it to the kitchen, but he had been quickly disabled by a succession of fatal stab wounds.

Studying the scene, Alex knew there was no chance that evidence wouldn’t be lifted from the body and the room. The attack was too messy. Looking at the results of the fight that had taken place, it was likely that they would find the killer’s blood here as well as the victim’s.

‘We need to find Syed Hassan,’ she said, turning to Chloe.

‘You think he came back to finish what he and his brother started?’

‘They’ll know about their father being responsible for the fire at the shop. We know Syed is capable of violence. He’ll be angry. By all accounts he spends most of his life angry. Perhaps this is the result of it.’

‘Inspector?’

Both women turned to the pathologist, who was holding Gavin’s right hand in his own. Deep cuts were slashed into Gavin’s palm.

‘He grabbed the blade,’ Chloe said.

‘Not just that. Look.’

The pathologist turned Gavin’s body so that his face could be seen. His eyes were still open, which made the sight all the more chilling. Had his killer stayed with him as he’d died, watching what he’d done?

There were two stab wounds to the side of Gavin’s neck, both of which would have finished him off if nothing else already had. He hadn’t stood a chance of fleeing his attacker, no matter how much of a fight he put up.

‘Two different knives,’ the pathologist continued. ‘I’ll be able to tell you more for certain once I get him back to the lab, but these wounds weren’t made with the same blade.’

‘Two attackers?’ Alex asked, her thoughts jumping straight to the Hassan brothers. If Gavin’s claims had been correct, he had already survived one assault at the hands of either Syed or Jameel. Superiority in numbers would have meant he had no opportunity to escape an attack this time.

‘Either that, or a killer armed with a knife in each hand.’

Chloe followed Alex from the room. Outside, Sian Foster was waiting in a marked van at the roadside. Both women got into the back of the van, where Sian was sitting with a blanket wrapped around her shoulders, her pale face contrasting with her puffy red eyes.

‘Tell us what happened,’ Alex said gently.

‘I’ve told the others,’ she said, barely able to get the words out. She was still in shock, and beneath the blanket officers had draped around her body her shoulders were shaking.

‘We need to hear it again, Sian.’

She closed her eyes, squeezing them tightly shut as though trying to blank out the horrors of what she had found waiting for her.

She took a deep breath. ‘I left the hospital this morning and came straight here. I was trying to call him all morning, but it kept going straight through to answerphone. I thought I’d just show up, surprise him. There was no answer when I knocked on the door. I tried his phone again, and when I pushed open the letter box I could hear it ringing inside. That’s when I looked through the window.’

Alex studied her. There seemed something rehearsed about Sian’s retelling of events, though Alex realised she was now suspicious of everyone. ‘There was no one else here when you arrived?’

Sian shook her head.

‘Why didn’t you go home first after leaving the hospital?’ Alex asked.

‘I don’t know,’ she said defensively. ‘I just didn’t fancy being on my own. You know those Hassan brothers attacked him, don’t you? Shouldn’t you be asking them some questions?’

Alex held the woman’s stare for a moment. ‘Thank you, Sian.’

She and Chloe got out of the van. ‘She’s right,’ Chloe said. ‘We need to chase them up before they have time to do a runner.’

Alex nodded. ‘Get Jake and go to the house.’

‘You’re not coming?’

‘I’ll meet you back at the station. There’s someone else I need to see first.’