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was highly probable it was not going to come all right now, that he and Aston’s other employees looked fair to be joining the thousands already in the dole queues. ‘Any road, about a half hour ago, I had to come round here to check …’ He waved in a vague direction towards the organized chaos of moulding boxes, wooden patterns, rough castings and other foundry impedimenta as if he couldn’t remember what it was he had come in for. ‘Well, that don’t matter now. Got the shock of me life when I unlocked the door and found him lying there. I didn’t even know he’d arrived.’
    â€˜He was just like this?’
    â€˜Not exactly. He’d fallen face down into the bin.’ He indicated the big bin of damp-looking sand into which wooden patterns for the castings were pressed to make a mould for the hot metal, in front of which Aston’s body lay. ‘I thought, bloody hell, and first thing I did, I turned him over and shook him a bit to see if he was all right, but it was no good, he was gone.’
    Although head wounds bled copiously, there was no blood to be seen from the wound on the side of his head, though it would admittedly have been difficult to discern any in such a place, when grime and dust from the coal that fired the furnace was thick over everything.
    â€˜Well, let’s have a better look at him.’
    â€˜Half a mo, Doctor.’ Stanley glanced at the light coat she’d slipped on over the tennis dress she hadn’t had time to change. ‘You’ll want summat to kneel on.’
    He disappeared, and while he was gone Kay looked down at Aston. He was dressed with his usual military precision, in a smart grey business suit, perfectly laundered white shirt with a stiff collar, and a discreetly patterned tie. His shoes shone with spit and polish. His bowler hat had fallen off and rolled some distance. His fist was clenched around a pencil with a broken point and a small, thick ledger with dirty pages was lying open on the floor. He appeared to have fallen on to the brick floor with only his upper half in the bin. Nevertheless, he was a heavy man and the dent in the dense, damp sand where his head and shoulders had landed was considerable.
    Stanley was back a moment later with some folded newspapers which he placed on the filthy floor.
    Thanking him, Kay knelt, and with cotton wool and a square of gauze began carefully wiping away the sand which had collected around the dead man’s light eyelashes, eyes, his thick, nearly white eyebrows, his nostrils and the heavy, slack mouth. Though the dead could feel no pain – and she had not liked Aston – she worked gently, with respect as well as by ingrained habit. She noted the marks round his mouth and his bloodshot eyes, and eased down the lower lids with her finger. She decided the gash on his temple didn’t look either serious or new. There were no other abrasions or contusions on his nearly bald head. Finally, having completed her examination, she stood up. ‘This will have to be reported to the coroner.’
    Stanley was a small man with greasy hair and a habit of adjusting his glasses by scrunching up his face. They stayed slipped down his nose now, unheeded, while his eyes bulged. ‘Coroner? How’s that?’
    â€˜I can’t sign the death certificate without being sure how he died, and that’s not immediately obvious. He’ll probably order a post-mortem.’
    â€˜Eileen thinks he had a stroke and fell against the side of the bin.’
    â€˜Well, it’s just possible,’ Kay said drily, ‘that for once Eileen might be wrong.’
    More than possible, she thought. Something definitely didn’t add up here.

Three
    The trail became steeper as Felix and Vinnie climbed the last incline to the Beacon, Felix lagging, while Vinnie forged ahead with undiminished enthusiasm. She had never made this pilgrimage before and that made achieving her