Summary

The morning after Strike's birthday dinner, he wakes up in Nina's bed. In Chapter 16, she brings him coffee and croissants along with a copy of the News of the World. Culpepper's exposé on Lord Parker's large-scale tax evasion is front page news. Strike parts from Nina to look for the house Joseph North willed jointly to Quine and Fancourt. According to Leonora, Owen hates the house, but Fancourt refuses to sell it. A restriction clause in Joe North's will requires that the house be used for artist's studios. Strike finds the ornate, late Victorian artist's studio and after searching the downstairs, heads upstairs. Corrosive acrid fluid has been splashed everywhere, ruining the interior of the house. As he climbs the stairs the stench strengthens until he opens a door and finds a horrific crime scene: a carcass “trussed, stinking and rotting, empty and...