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up.
    They got out of the car and approached the imposing terrace of four-storey houses. At number one twenty-three a young woman stood holding a baby. She was talking to Dan Phillips, the
Herald
’s crime reporter, while a photographer took shots of the next door property, where someone had spray-painted the immaculate gloss-white door with the vivid red words ‘Paedos rot in hell’.
    ‘Detective Inspector?’ Phillips turned and came down the steps, blocking her way along the pavement to one twenty-one. Pinprick eyes scanned her face trying to read her mind from her expression. ‘A child’s body is found under a patio and next, the police are visiting the house of a certain Mr Franklin Owers. According to my sources he’s a known paedophile. Anything to say on the matter?’
    ‘Give us a chance, Dan.’ Savage wanted to ask him how the hell he had got here before them, but instead she pointed to the graffiti. ‘I can tell you the idiots who did that have got the wrong address. Or maybe I should say
you
have got the wrong address.’
    ‘Hey!’ Phillips said. ‘You don’t think I would do such a thing, surely?’
    Savage pushed past the smiling reporter, knowing that spraying the door himself just to get a good picture was exactly the sort of thing he would do. She opened the little iron gate to one side of one twenty-one and descended a narrow set of steps, leading down to a basement flat which lay below the level of the road. At the bottom, the small concrete area had flooded at one end and a plastic bin had fallen on its side, disgorging its contents to float on the grimy liquid. A distinct odour of dog shit hung in the air, overpowering the whiff of the rubbish, and Savage spotted little piles of the stuff half-submerged in the water.
    ‘Ma’am?’ Calter had joined Savage at the bottom of the steps and now she crouched in front of the frosted-glass door, peering through the letter box. ‘Doesn’t smell too nice inside either.’
    Savage rapped on the glass and waited. Nothing. She tried again, and when a third lot of knocks failed to produce an answer she pulled out the set of keys.
    ‘Let’s try these, shall we?’
    She snapped on a pair of latex gloves before inserting the key into the lock.
    The door opened into a hallway, a sheet of pale blue lino leading towards the rear of the property, the edges torn and cracked. Three piles of dog shit lay near to a doorway to the right where a pool of yellow liquid flowed across the lino and off the edge. The urine had seeped into the pine floorboards, turning the wood dark.
    ‘Police, Mr Owers,’ Savage said. ‘We’d like a word.’
    Nothing.
    Then they heard a yapping and a noise halfway between a purr and a growl.
    ‘You don’t like dogs, do you, ma’am?’ Calter said, moving past Savage and into the flat. ‘Better let me deal with this.’
    At that moment something the size of a large cat came shooting at them from the rear of the hallway. A pink tongue lolled from jaws surrounded by a black face, atop a fat and stocky tan body. The thing stopped a couple of metres away and horrid little round eyes stared at Savage for a moment before she stepped aside to let the dog run through the front door. The animal scampered by, splashing through the flood and up the stairs to the street.
    ‘Pug, ma’am. Poor little thing. Must have been shut in here all the time. Lovely breed of—’ Calter stopped as Savage glared at her. ‘Anyway, now we know about the dog shit.’
    Thank you, Jane.’ Savage said, closing the door. ‘Let’s stop the bloody creature getting back inside at least.’
    ‘Three piles of poop. I’d say that means the dog has been shut in here for a while.’
    ‘Feel free to investigate further. Personally I am going to leave that to John Layton. I am sure he is an expert in canine faecal deposits.’
    Savage negotiated a way between the piles of poo and the pool of urine and went into the room to the right, a living room with thin,