It always amazed Greg that the press could reach a crime scene almost as quickly as he could, and as he climbed out of his car he noticed the gang leader standing in the doorway looking both angry and upset.
"Mr Barrymore?" he asked. "Detective Inspector Lestrade. I understand you found the body."
Greg ushered him back into the house as they spoke. Neither man gave any sign of knowing the other.
"Someone broke in here and killed my girlfriend." Barrymore fists were clenched as he fought his anger.
A glance at the front door showed that it hadn't been forced, so he followed the other man through to where the forensic team were taking photographs and looked at the back door.
"No forced entry. Could it be that she knew her killer?"
"Who knows?" the anger was over-spilling now. "She used to work for the government..."
Stepping up to take a closer look at the body Greg realised with a start that he recognised the woman slumped, inelegant in death, across her kitchen table. She was none other than Mycroft Holmes' PA.
When the government fell he alone was missing from the list of murdered civil servants, and Greg had always assumed his ever present assistant had fled with him.
"Well," he thought, "I can't believe how wrong I've been."