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and sotto-voce conversation, and from their glances upwards when he came in he guessed they were talking about him. But he was so glad to see them getting on together after the tensions in the past that he didn’t mind being the cause. Hart had brought in the first heap of statements and Mackay, the office swot, was stolidly working his way through them; while McLaren, the face that lunched on a thousand chips, was stolidly working his way through a Ginsters Mexican Chicken Wrap, which he was eating cold straight from the packet, the shiny sauce smearing his mouth like gloss lipstick.
    ‘Right,’ Slider said. ‘Ed Stonax.’ They all looked up. ‘First of all I have to tell you that there is a complete embargo on speaking to the press. That means any form of news media, and it means all of you. They’re going to be all over you—’
    ‘They’ve been ringing up already, guv,’ Hart said.
    ‘I’m not surprised. But you do not give them anything, repeat anything .’ He looked round the room and noted Fathom’s expression of insouciance along with his slight pinkness of complexion.
    Fathom, meeting the boss’s eyes reluctantly, said, ‘What are we supposed to say if they ask us stuff?’
    ‘You say no comment. Can you repeat that? Two words, no comment . Say it.’
    Fathom, realising he meant it, muttered sheepishly, ‘No comment.’
    ‘Good. Now, anything to report?’
    Hart said, ‘I had a long chat with the next door neighbours, guv. Mr and Mrs Arbuthnot.’
    ‘Yes, I saw that.’
    ‘They never heard nothing.’
    ‘That’s a surprise,’ said Swilley.
    ‘Ooh, irony! You could put someone’s eye out with that,’ said Atherton.
    ‘They have their wireless on a lot,’ said Hart said imperturbably. ‘That’s what they call it, love ’em. But they did say that when they didn’t have it on, they could hear him typing through the walls.’
    ‘Wouldn’t that be normal? He was a journalist,’ Hollis said.
    ‘Yeah, but he’s been doing an awful lot of it lately. They always could hear him when he was working, because his desk is against the party wall, but they said for about the last week or ten days he was always at it. Whenever they turned off the radio they could hear him, and in the night, too. Like a death-watch beetle, Mr A said – whatever that is.’
    ‘A parasitical beetle that chews wood and destroys churches and makes a clicking noise,’ Atherton said. ‘How can you not know that?’
    Hart shrugged. ‘Education’s failed me.’
    ‘How would you know?’
    ‘Can we get on?’ Swilley said in a pained voice.
    Hart resumed. ‘Well, they didn’t have anything else to tell me except that they liked him and reckoned he was dead straight and dead public spirited. They said he was a real help with the tenants’ meetings, jollying people along and getting round the awkward customers and that. They wanted him to take over as chairman only he said he didn’t have the time. So he seems to have been a stand-up bloke.’
    ‘Nice to know,’ said Slider, ‘but it would have been nicer if they’d heard something.’
    ‘No-one we’ve interviewed so far heard anything,’ Fathom said.
    ‘But, guv, the front door’s broken,’ Hart said. ‘That could be something?’
    ‘Yes, I heard. In what way broken?’
    ‘It’s one of them where you buzz people in, but the buzzer wasn’t working and the door wouldn’t latch. Anyone could have just pushed the door open. It was supposed to have been mended yesterday, but the Arbuthnots said it was broken again today.’
    ‘Who was supposed to have repaired it?’ Slider asked.
    ‘There’s a sort of handyman, caretaker kind of person. He lives in the basement. Name of—’ she inspected her notes ‘—Borthwick, David Keith. He’s supposed to do repairs, or get people in if he can’t do them himself. I haven’t had a chance to talk to him yet.’
    Slider nodded. ‘That’s something to follow up, anyway. What about the lift? That was out of