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this is how you carry on when I’m not here, is it, Sergeant – not bothering to put in an appearance until it’s practically time to take a tea break?’
    That was rich, coming from a man who rarely turned up himself before ten o’clock, Woodend thought, but he contented himself with saying, ‘I had a late night, sir. There was a murder I had to investigate.’
    Bentley sighed, theatrically. ‘So there was,’ he said. ‘Well, I suppose you’d better tell me about it.’
    Woodend gave him a concise summary, and when he’d finished, Bentley said, ‘Was there anything on her to identify her?’
    He’d only been half-listening, Woodend thought – half-listening at best.
    â€˜No, sir, as I’ve already explained, she didn’t have a handbag, or even a purse,’ he said.
    â€˜Still, even without formal identification, putting a name to her shouldn’t be much problem, should it?’ Bentley asked.
    â€˜Shouldn’t it?’
    â€˜Of course not. After all, there can’t be that many niggers in London who match her description, now can there?’
    â€˜There can’t be that many
coloured
girls, no,’ Woodend agreed. ‘I read somewhere that the entire
coloured
population of the British Isles doesn’t come to much more than eleven thousand.’
    It was a mild rebuke, and he knew it, but it was as far as he dared go with the man who held his future in his hands, and he could only hope that Bentley would take the hint.
    â€˜And most of the niggers who aren’t too bone idle to earn an honest day’s pay have jobs on the docks, don’t they?’ Bentley said, with complete disregard. ‘So the chances are that this particular girl will have
lived
near the docks.’
    â€˜That’s probably true,’ Woodend agreed, resignedly.
    â€˜Then all you have to do is go around the dockland police stations with her photograph and find a local copper who knows her. And once you’ve done that, I expect the same local copper will be able to tell you who killed her.’
    â€˜How would he know?’ Woodend wondered.
    â€˜He’ll know because he knows
these people
,’ Bentley said, speaking more slowly now that he’d realized he was dealing with an idiot. ‘And because he knows them, he’ll also know which of them it was that this girl managed to rub up the wrong way.’
    â€˜So you’re assumin’ she was killed by a coloured man, are you?’ Woodend asked.
    â€˜Of course I am,’ Bentley said. ‘It’s the only
logical
assumption to make, and I don’t see why you’re not making it, too.’
    â€˜I don’t think that the woman who reported the murder was coloured,’ Woodend said.
    â€˜What does that prove?’ Bentley asked dismissively. ‘She doesn’t have to have been coloured to have seen the murder and then report it, now does she? Where’s your problem with that?’
    â€˜She didn’t
see
it at all, sir. She was
told
about it.’
    â€˜So?’
    â€˜So why would a
coloured
man tell a
white
woman that he’d just committed a murder?’
    â€˜To impress her,’ Bentley said easily.
    â€˜To
impress
her!’
    â€˜He was probably trying to get into her knickers, and thought that he’d have more of a chance if he gave himself a dangerous edge.’
    â€˜Do you really believe that’s possible, sir?’ Woodend asked, incredulously.
    Bentley shrugged. ‘Well, I admit it’s not something you or I would have done if we were trying to get our ends away,’ he said, ‘but then these jungle bunnies don’t think like us, do they?’
    An’ I don’t think like you, Woodend thought – but if I ever start to, I promise I’ll shoot myself.
    â€˜Mitre Road’s a fair way from the docks,’ he pointed out. ‘What was the victim doin’ there at all,