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them. It was hard to tell how old he was. He could have been anything from fifty to seventy.
    ‘Morton Carlisle,’ he said with a small bow of his head. ‘I’m the proprietor of Beast. Would you like some assistance?’
    ‘Yeah,’ Chris said. ‘I’m looking for something, for a colleague. He’s interested in… you know…’ He made a general sweeping gesture with his hand. ‘Stuffed animals.’
    Ava noticed Carlisle wince at the word
stuffed
although he was quick to cover it up.
    ‘Well, as you can see we have a wide selection of mounted animals. Is there anything in particular you’d care to take a closer look at?’
    ‘I’m not sure. To be honest, I don’t really know what he’s into.’
    ‘Your colleague,’ Carlisle said patiently. ‘Is he a collector? If so, we may have already met. The world of taxidermy is a small one.’
    Chris hesitated as if pondering on the wisdom of divulging his business contacts to a complete stranger. His eyes raked the room before coming back to rest on Carlisle. He weighed up his options for a few seconds more, but then, unwilling to make the wrong choice, decided to throw caution to the wind. ‘Borovski,’ he said. ‘Anatoly Borovski.’
    ‘Ah, Mr Borovski,’ Carlisle said, bringing his long slender hands together as if in prayer. He briefly touched his chin with his fingertips. ‘Indeed. I may have just what you’re looking for. Come this way.’
    Carlisle turned and swept off towards the rear of the store. As they followed him, Ava recalled again how this had once been a funeral parlour. It was here that the bodies had been cleaned and embalmed and laid out in the chapel of rest. Strange, she thought, how the business had changed but that the premises continued to be inhabited by the dead. There was something inescapably macabre about the place.
    Carlisle led them into a room where he lifted his arms in a wide dramatic gesture as if welcoming them to previously unknown delights. ‘Here we are!’ he exclaimed. ‘The birds!’
    ‘The birds,’ Chris repeated glumly, glancing not altogether tactfully at his watch. ‘And Mr Borovski likes these?’
    ‘Oh, indeed. He has a very keen interest.’
    ‘And are there any in particular that —’
    ‘Over here, over here,’ Carlisle said, ushering him towards the larger cabinets at the back.
    Ava followed in their wake, peering at the collection as she trudged behind. There was a vast array of birds both of the native and more exotic variety. There were birds small enough to fit into the palm of her hand and ones with the kind of wingspan that would strike terror into their prey. There were pheasants, owls, buzzards and eagles. There were parakeets and parrots and toucans. She stopped to peer into a dome containing two pretty European bee-eaters with jade green breasts.
    ‘Ava?’ Chris called out.
    She hurried over to join the two men. Chris was scrutinising the contents of a large glass case. Inside, perched on a rock, was a gyrfalcon with brown flecked plumage and black eyes ringed with yellow.
    ‘What do you think?’ he asked. ‘It’s either this one or the sparrowhawk.’ He turned to look at the case behind him, indecision etched on to his face.
    Ava studied both mounted birds. Although she could appreciate the skill involved, she couldn’t see the beauty. For her the loveliness, especially of birds of prey, was in the flying, in the swooping and soaring, in the graceful way that they travelled through the sky. These poor creatures had been grounded forever. Sensing, however, that a choice had to be made – and that Chris wasn’t likely to make it in a hurry – she pointed confidently towards the falcon. ‘That one,’ she said. ‘Yes, definitely that one.’
    Morton Carlisle nodded sagely. ‘Yes, an excellent choice. Quite excellent.’
    Ava gave him a thin smile, suspecting that the response would have been exactly the same if she’d chosen the hawk.
    ‘Okay,’ Chris said. ‘I’ll take