On arrival we are met at the airport and escorted to a car that smells faintly of petrol and fried onions. The driver informs us that our luggage will be taken directly to the hotel and we to the site. It is evening and the near empty streets are lit by faint yellow lighting. It feels an inauspicious beginning to our tour.

"Perhaps it would be better to begin in the morning," my assistant Bream says with his chipper voice.
        
But the driver does not respond.
        
Wide boulevards with pairs of bored soldiers, the monotony broken only by skeletal trees and the garish wall posters of the President. Then a warren of back streets, dim, the lighting not working, or flickering with a fault. We stop at last outside one of the identical terraced houses that is distinguished by bright lighting behind its curtains and the small crowd outside.
        
"So this is it?" said Bream.
        
"It seems so."
        
The driver opens the door and we get out of the car. A few cameras flash and someone claps. Then a portly man strides towards us.
        
"Greetings, greetings, we are so delighted you could be here. Your work is renowned here, even if you do not get the recognition you deserve in your own country. We are most honoured. I am Melk, of the Department. Come forward, come forward."
        
We stand while camera bulbs flash and we are handed our disposable white scene suits and sets of latex gloves. Then Melk holds out his arm to lead us forward with a flourish. I am pleased to see that the tape across the yard in front of the house is secure. It is important that the initial walk-through begins as close to the point of entry as possible. The ground upon which we are about to tread must not be disturbed. It seems these people are not amateurs despite this being a more backward country than our own.
        
"Here," says Melk handing me a large pair of gold-plated scissors. "Please to proceed."
        
I cut the tape.
        
"The mortuary vehicle will be here soon to be at your disposal and your driver will wait to take you to your hotel. But tomorrow, yes, we shall all return to see your work."
        
He claps his hands and a few others join in.
        
I note a footprint in the dirt on one of the flagstones in the yard. I place a marker. Then we begin the walk-through proper, point of entry then location of crime, possible sites the suspect may have cleaned themselves, point of exit. I note with satisfaction that the lighting rigs they have set up are state of the art, I only need to adjust the angle for a proper oblique floor sweep.
        
In the reception room there are two bodies. A middle aged man and woman. The woman sprawled on the floor, the man sat in an armchair with a bottle of pills by his side. The woman is of the greatest interest, the blood pooled around her head, her dress slightly rucked up above the knee.
        
While Bream takes photographs I examine, then begin to place my markers, identifying the points of interest, the blood, the footprints, the sites where hand contact may have been made to leave prints. Then the fingers of the man's hands which may contain exchange materials from any potential weapon.
        
"Murder then suicide?" Bream suggests.
        
We are not here to decipher but to prepare, yet Bream can never help himself.
        
"And the weapon?"
        
"Ah."
        
We work long into the night and it's the small hours before we get back to our hotel for a deserved rest.

#

The hotel is of mediocre quality. There is a dripping tap in the sink in my room and an endless difficulty getting the shower to the correct temperature. The bland breakfast is served by a sullen, blank faced, waiter.
        
When we get to the site there are a number of sleek black saloon cars parked nearby. Melk is at the head of the crowd. He is wearing some kind of chain of office. As we get out of the car he begins to clap and the crowd joins in with him.
        
"Bravo," he says, "Oh bravo."
        
A camera flashes and we are gently manhandled by some flunky to stand next to Melk for a formal photograph. Then Melk begins a speech, praising our art, noting how we had not only preserved but given a delicate emphasis, which cleverly preserved multiple possibilities. It is a rather more astute observation than I anticipated.
        
Soon the press are invited in for a viewing and Melk takes me to one side, squeezing my arm.
        
"And your next work," he whispers, "will be an even greater triumph, yes."
        
After that the rest of the day is something of an anti-climax. Our driver has been instructed to take us on a tour of the city, but in the overcast light and the drizzle the place could not be more dispiriting. The monotony of the streets is broken only by the Central Square in front of the Presidential Palace, which itself is a gaudy monstrosity.
        
Back at the hotel we both retire early.

#

I am disappointed with our next engagement. One victim and a rather unglamorous one. An old woman whose head has received some kind of blunt force trauma wound. Still, one has to work with the material at hand.
        
The setting itself is another run-down terraced house similar to the one the day before.
        
To enhance the work I decide to use a rather playful annotation in the placement of markers. It is a method I have used before. The various items of evidence are identified, from numerous blood splatters, isolated blood spots, the large ceramic ashtray blooded on one side and various ornaments spilt from an upturned coffee table. Instead of labelling these with consecutive numbers I use a novel number series, one of prime numbers for blood evidence, one of polynomials for potential exchange materials.
        
The effect is to create separate paths through the evidence. Read by a discerning eye these become patterns of effect.
        
"Not that old chestnut," Bream comments, but not unkindly.
        
"Perhaps," I say, "we'll find out if these people really are connoisseurs."
        
Inevitably the pattern I have created has to take account of the powerful focus of the corpse, which always threatens to dominate any scene. Once the body has been removed by the mortuary assistant and Bream has taped the outline I feel a sense of dissatisfaction with the various weighting of elements in the room.
        
In such a situation a little license may be executed. There is always a decision to be made about what constitutes evidence and what does not. Angling the lighting again I manage to a add a new number series using indentations in the carpet that might be boot prints, pieces of dirt that may have fallen from those boots, a slight smear of mud on the wainscot next to the door.
        
I am satisfied with what we have achieved by the time Melk arrives with his small entourage of journalists and photographers.
        
"Oh, I see what you have done, yes, yes," he declares with delight.
        
That evening we dine with him and some of his staff in a restaurant near to the hotel. The food is as bland as the hotel, the wine acidic, but Melk's enthusiasm is overwhelming.
        
"You are beginning to make quite a stir my friends, yes you are."
        
He presents us with a newspaper. The photographs show our work, myself and Bream with Melk outside the first scene.
        
"I must admit," I say, for perhaps I have had a little too much to drink, "that today was a little disappointing. The material was rather...limited."
        
"Oh don't worry," he says, "everything will get better. Bigger and better yes. It is all arranged."

#