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still managed a tiny flower boutique Rose had opened there. He had closed it the morning he’d heard of Andrew’s murder and hadn’t been to the shop since. He couldn’t go on neglecting it like this, but he still could not face work today. He wouldn’t be able to be polite to his customers and that wouldn’t do. Neither could he go to the shop drunk as he was. Tomorrow, he promised, he’d go in and design a wreath fit to place on his friend’s grave.
    The home he’d shared with Rose was on the upper floor of a three-storeyed Victorian, the lower levels now rented to staff from the University of California. This time of day his neighbours would not be home, and he was glad that he wouldn’t be required to make small talk on the stairs. He pushed into his apartment having no memory of the walk back. Inside, the air-conditioning was turned too high, the air chilly. Nevertheless he shrugged out of his jacket and hung it on a hook in the closet next to the front door, and kicked off his shoes and placed them on a shelf. It was an old habit adopted from his wife who had always had exacting housekeeping standards. He worked his feet into a pair of slippers, and then headed along the short hall passing the sitting room.
    Old age had brought intolerance to him, and he hated the cold. It played havoc with his joints. He decided he’d turn up the central heating before the mist returned and with it the ache to his bones. Perhaps a nice hot cup of coffee wouldn’t go amiss either. He entered the kitchen and placed the makings in his Mr Coffee machine and set it dripping. Like many of the items in the apartment the machine was a relic of earlier times, a gift bought for him by Rose back in the mid-1970s and carted round with them ever since. Thinking back on when she’d presented the machine to him, he smiled sadly. He was a fan of Joe DiMaggio, and his wife thought it apt that he receive a gift endorsed by the former baseball star. It was those little naive touches of hers that had made him love her so much. Feeling maudlin, Jed fetched his favourite mug, placed it next to the hissing machine and then made for the sitting room to deal with the heating.
    A panel in the sitting room controlled the central heating; it was on the wall to the left as he entered. Concentrating on the task at hand he pushed open the door and went towards the panel. It took a second for his booze-addled brain to notice that something was out of place. He turned from the panel to look at the figure standing across the room from him with his hands clasped at his lower back.
    ‘Who are you?’ Even as the question rolled from his tongue it became redundant, because the man had lifted his chin and Jed got a good look at his features.
    ‘I see you know that already,’ the man replied.
    Jed looked around the room, as though checking that nothing else was out of the norm. It was a wasted act, because it wouldn’t matter in the long run.
    ‘What do you want?’
    The man snorted out a laugh. ‘I think you also know that.’
    These days Jed was a florist, another thing he’d adopted and embraced from a life shared with his gentle wife, but he hadn’t always been. As a young man he’d had a very different skill set and the instincts he’d carried then surged to the surface now. He bunched his fists. ‘It was you. You killed Andrew Rington.’
    ‘It’s kind of obvious, isn’t it?’
    ‘You murderous son of a bitch!’ Jed took a step forward.
    The man brought his hands from behind his back, and with them the silenced handgun he pointed at Jed’s face. He smiled. ‘Isn’t that what they call “the pot calling the kettle black” ’
    The gun spat, but Jed didn’t hear it. The bullet took out the back of his skull before the sound reached his ears.

Chapter 6
    The sun was beating down from a sky devoid of clouds, the heat trickling like warm honey beneath my formal clothing. For the occasion I’d doffed my usual casual attire in favour of