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the words back with minor relish, ‘we’ve got ourselves a murder.’
    ‘You don’t have to sound so pleased about it.’
    ‘It’s better than endless burglaries and domestics.’
    ‘Yes,’ Slider assented minimally. His own pulse had quickened at this first, far-off sound of the hunt, but he never liked the part of him which felt excited at the beginning of a murder enquiry. It was someone’s life, after all. ‘Well, get on with it.’
    The circus – forensic, fingerprinting, photography – had been and gone, and now Slider stood alone in the back shop looking round it contemplatively. It was small, drab, and even with the door open, stuffy. The floor was tiled in a chequerboard pattern of black and red, scuffed and pitted with age. The walls – what you could see of them –were tiled with large white ceramic tiles of the sort which first gave rise to the expression ‘bog standard’. The backdoor was a massive thing of plain, impanelled wood, painted black, and with a splintered notch three inches above the lock where it had been forced on a previous occasion, according to Slaughter. The window, as Slaughter had said, had been blocked in rather crudely and was still awaiting any kind of finish to its raw bricks and mortar.
    Two walls were lined with open shelves on which were stacked bags of powdered batter mix, boxes of Frymax cooking fat, jars of pickled eggs and pickled gherkins, cartons of crisps and outers of soft drinks. Along the third wall were ranged a large fridge which was mostly full of individual meat pies and drink cans; a huge chest freezer which contained nothing more sinister than packets of frozen fish, chicken portions and sausages; and a pallet stacked with paper sacks of potatoes.
    Along the fourth wall, nearest the door, was a large sink with a stainless steel drainer to one side and a steel-topped work table to the other, above which, on the wall, was a rack containing an impressive array of butcher’s knives. Under the work table there was a small drain set into the floor, and a brief glance around confirmed that the floor was sloped to drain into it, presumably so that the whole thing could be hosed down for ease of cleaning. Next to the work table stood the peeling machine, a large metal drum on a stand, which looked like a cross between an old-fashioned ship’s binnacle and a What-The-Butier-Saw machine. Next to that was the chip-cutter. Slider tentatively felt one of its blades, and withdrew his hand hastily.
    He stepped again to the back door and looked out. The yard had high wooden fences all round and one gate, secured by a padlock, leading to the alley. The alley had a high brick wall on one side, behind which were the back yards of the shops in the adjacent side-street, and on the other side the gardens of the houses down the opposite side-street. The back windows of those houses were out of sight because of a large sycamore growing in the nearest garden. The only windows which might have a view of the yard were upstairs in the dry-cleaners next door, and hehad already ascertained that the Patels used the upper floor only for storage – they lived in a semi-detached house in Perivale. So anyone might have come and gone through the alley-way with a good chance of not being seen.
    The pathologist, Freddie Cameron, came looking for him. ‘I’m off now, Bill. I’ll let you have a preliminary report as soon as possible.’
    ‘What’s the hurry?’
    ‘The smell, old boy.’ Cameron shuddered delicately. ‘It’s the sort of stink you can’t get out of your nostrils for days.’
    ‘That’s something, coming from you,’ Slider said.
    ‘Not a Linger Longer Aroma,’ Cameron amplified, in retreat.
    Slider smiled inwardly, wondering how many people would remember that particular advertisement, and nearly missed his chance. ‘Oy! Can’t you tell me something before you go? Anything, even if it’s only I love you.’
    Cameron turned back reluctantly. ‘About the