On 29 October 2004, a young woman walked into Wembley Point, a distinctive triangular office block in the outer reaches of north-west London. The 21-storey tower slices into the sky, a lattice of windows and white and bronze panelling. More than double the height of any other building in the vicinity, it is surrounded by a large car park and situated on an intersection: the roaring traffic of the North Circular on one side, the off-licences and chicken shops of Harrow Road on the other. Below, next to the tower, the dull water of the River Brent flows past, edged by graffitied walls and crossed by two concrete footbridges. There is not much nearby: a couple of office buildings, a carpet shop, Stonebridge Park underground station. It is not the kind of place you visit unless you have a reason.
The woman was black, petite – somewhere between 5ft 1in and 5ft 3in, police would later say – and dressed smartly in a thin black polo neck under a claret crew neck and a maroon bomber jacket. The autumn weather was starting to bite and she wore tights under her black trousers, with a pair of black Skechers shoes. On her wrist was a simple silver watch, which offset her two silver rings, one of which had a shell shape. She had with her a plastic carrier bag and a large oil painting.
