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Geoffrey.
    PC Plod to us. Fancy seeing you. You don't usually need sustenance so early. Mrs West chucked you out, has she?' Bernadette took a delight in referring to Bailey as West, her own way of striking a blow for female solidarity. 'Can't think why. What do you want? Tea, coffee, gin, whisky? Harold's had one of the latter already. Sweetens him up nicely, you can tell.' Her clipped tones, educated, only the slightest undertones of Irish, betrayed a defeat that was marshalling forces.
    She had decided to allow Harold the last word, a decision made before Bailey's entrance. The why-don't-you-bugger-off-if-you're-so-bloody-miserable routine usually ended round one and heralded the beginning of round two an hour or so later. She never had the answers to Harold's final questions. Looking at her plump frame, wearied face, scarred hands, uncontrolled once-blond hair, Bailey could see why she had no answer. Here and now might have been terrible, but here was an addiction, and in any event there was nowhere else to go.
    `Business I'm afraid, not pleasure,' said Bailey, and to forestall some howl of protest added quickly, 'We've found a body three-quarters of a mile from here. Bluebell Wood.
    You're nearest as the crow flies, hence the visit. Simply a chance you might have seen something or know who she is. Which is more than we do.'
    À body? Oh, my God,' said Bernadette, sinking her weight into a chair, suddenly breathless, patting hair and chest as if to see that she was still alive herself, shooting a venomous glance at Harold, accusing him of every foul deed, including this. 'Really dead?'
    `Very dead. Since a few days. Beyond artificial respiration.'
    Bernadette crossed herself rapidly, last remnant of expensive Catholic education long since forgotten in her language, remembered in her fear of hell. 'Poor soul,' she said. Bailey liked her for being shocked, and for expressing pity before irritation.
    `But why,' asked Harold, always the calmer but sooner provoked to suspicion, 'why are you asking us? Why should we know anything about it?'
    Ì don't imagine you do,' Bailey replied with casual patience and the smile that creased his face from forehead to chin. 'But you're the nearest building, and I simply thought if I gave you a rough description it might trigger something. She might have been a customer here. You might have seen a couple in here having an argument, oh, a week or ten days ago. Woman of about forty, dark hair, good figure. I'm only boxing in the dark. Maybe someone depressed.'
    Òh,' said Bernadette, brightening, 'was it suicide, then?'
    `No,' said Bailey, 'not unless she buried herself, too.'
    There was a little silence, sun streaming through spectacularly dirty windows on to Harold's pale skin. An innocent silence, pregnant with the desire to help, or so Bailey sensed it, not the hesitation of guilty confusion, but not a productive interlude, either. Unless this victim had sprung into the communal mind immediately it would be useless to expect either party to this soured but engrossing union to remember what happened the day before, let alone the week. Unless blows had been struck or walls collapsed.
    Harold giggled. 'Only dark-haired lady comes in here is your wife,' he said, adding out of malice, 'sometimes on her own, too.'
    `Yes I know,' said Bailey, 'but she'd resent the description of fortyish, you know. She's got a few years to go before that. Almost as many as I have the other side.'
    `Couples,' said Bernadette suddenly. 'Couples. We never have women on their own unless they sit quietly and read a paper like Mrs West. Think of couples, Harold, you git.
    There's one or two of the definitely over-the-side kind, always looking at the door in case they're going to be spotted, sitting in a corner pawing each other. Disgusting — well, sweet, really, in a way. Chance would be a fine thing, wouldn't it, Harold darling? One respectable pair — I mean, not kids — used to come in here, woman about