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the rapid response.’
    ‘What, you think he was the reporter who rang the Commander? But how could he have known about it?’
    ‘Maybe he did it.’
    ‘Down, boy,’ said Slider.
    Back in the Agnew flat, the body had been taken away. The room was strangely lifeless, all colour gone with her. The tattiness was now merely depressing rather than defiant.
    ‘There’s a mess of stuff to be sorted through,’ Atherton said gloomily. ‘Why did she live in a place like this, anyway? I’d have thought she earned plenty.’
    ‘You heard from L’raine what a saint she was. Maybe she gave it all away to charity.’
    ‘And leapt tall buildings in a single bound,’ Atherton said. ‘No, I see her as one of those pathetic pseudo-intellectuals who leech on dimwits to give themselves a sense of superiority. Better to reign in hell, etcetera, etcetera.’
    ‘I don’t know,’ Slider said. ‘With Candi up-atop and Peter the Bunny down under, I’d have thought Phoebe Agnew was the one being leeched on.’
    ‘Precisely my point,’ Atherton groused. ‘Why didn’t she stop slumming it and move somewhere else?’
    ‘Did you get a package of hostility through the post this morning? I thought you thought she was a brilliant writer.’
    ‘She was obviously a slob,’ Atherton said, watching the forensic team opening cupboards and drawers. The tidying had evidently been done student-style, by bundling up everything visible and stuffing it into hiding. ‘Why can’t we ever investigate someone with a minimalist lifestyle?’
    Slider had left his side and was talking to Bob Lamont, who had come in person to lift the fingerprints. ‘What’s it look like?’
    ‘Dabs everywhere. A real mess. She wasn’t houseproud,’ said Lamont. ‘I’ve done all the usual places – door, light switch and so on.’
    ‘Do the cutlery, wineglasses and bottles in the kitchen, will you,’ Slider said. ‘Working on the assumption it was the killer she cooked for—’
    ‘You don’t want much, do you?’ Lamont complained.
    ‘Have you done the CD covers?’
    ‘Just about to.’
    ‘Good. Maybe he put music on to kill by. Oh,’ he added, ‘and what about the flush-handle on the loo – that’s one they often forget.’
    ‘Shall be done.’
    Slider’s own troops were already starting to sort and bag papers from the areas that had been finished with. Atherton turned as he came back to him. ‘I suppose we’ve got to sort through all this lot to find the next of kin.’
    ‘No, you can ring one of the papers,’ Slider said. ‘They’re bound to have a morgue piece on her.’
    ‘Brilliant, boss.’
    ‘That’s me. Try the
Independent
first. Better not start off by suggesting to the
Grauniad
that they know more about the case than you do. And when you’ve done that, ring the
Ham and Ful
and find out where the downstairs tenant is.’
    ‘He’s probably somewhere giving himself an interview,’ Atherton said.
    Just as Slider was leaving, Lamont came back to him. ‘I think we may have something,’ he said. ‘The cutlery and glasses and so on in the kitchen, and the coffee cups and brandy glasses over there,’ he nodded towards the unit, ‘have all been wiped clean on the outside.
But
the whisky glasses have both got lip and finger marks on them. Now, assuming one set belongs to the deceased—’
    ‘Nice,’ Slider said, brightening. ‘They always make one mistake.’

CHAPTER THREE
Three corns on a Fonteyn
     
    W DC Swilley burst into Slider’s office. ‘Boss?’
    ‘Don’t you believe in knocking?’ he said sternly.
    ‘No, only constructive criticism,’ she said.
    ‘Don’t you start. One smartarse in the firm’s enough,’ he warned. ‘I hope you’ve come to bring me a cup of tea?’
    She shook her head. ‘Sorry. There’s a bloke here from the local paper.’
    He frowned. ‘Why are you telling me? You know I don’t talk to the press.’
    ‘No, boss, but he says he’s got information about Phoebe Agnew. His name’s