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the door.’
    Now that really
was
mumbo-jumbo, she thought.
    Her booth was painted with the same traditional swirling pattern as had appeared on so many horse-drawn caravans in the past, and the sign over the door read, ‘Gypsy Elizabeth Rose. The only genuine Romany on the Golden Mile.’ More than a dozen photographs hung from the wall – each one featuring Elizabeth Rose standing next to a celebrity who was doing a summer season in Blackpool. The punters liked that.
    Elizabeth Rose unlocked the door, stepped into the booth, and slid behind her consulting table. It would probably be a few minutes before the first customer turned up, so there was time for her to smoke a cigarette if she wished. And she did wish – but she didn’t dare take the risk of being spotted with a Players’ Navy Cut between her lips. Gypsies were not supposed to smoke. Gypsies were not supposed to do anything that normal people did. Ah, but if only those ‘normal’ people could see her when the season was over – holidaying on the Isle of Capri. No red kerchief then. No bangles. She dressed as smartly as a countess and spoke an elegant English unhedged with ominous warnings and dark predictions.
    Neither of her lives could be called a fake, she thought as she reached for the gin bottle which rested against the leg of the table. She really was that sophisticated woman in Capri. And she really was an authentic gypsy who could sometimes see into the future when she was in Blackpool. She hadn’t foreseen the death of Detective Inspector Punch Davies, though. And perhaps she should have, because it hadn’t needed psychic powers to divine that the course he was heading on was almost bound to lead to tragedy.
    As she lifted the gin bottle to her mouth, she noted that her hands were trembling. And why shouldn’t they be? Hadn’t she got a right to be afraid when she was almost certain she knew who had murdered the policeman? Wasn’t she entitled to shake when she examined her own predicament and saw that Davies’ death had set off a trap which now gripped her in its iron jaws?

Six
    T he area under the Central Pier where DI Davies had been found was roped off and guarded by three young constables, but on either side of the ropes – and for as far as the eye could see – the beach was filled with canvas deckchairs. Woodend let his gaze rove over the thousands of people who had chosen to spend their time on the beach. It was a hot day, and some of the men had taken off their jackets and even loosened their ties, but few had gone so far as to remove their sleeveless pullovers. Further away, down at the edge of the sea, a group of young women had tucked the hems of their dresses into the bottom of their knickers, and were tentatively paddling in the water. It could have been a scene from his own childhood, the chief inspector thought.
    â€˜That’s where the body was found,’ DCI Turner said, pointing to a strip of sand between two of the pier’s cast-iron supports.
    â€˜But was that where he was
killed
?’ Woodend asked.
    â€˜It seems likely.’
    â€˜You can’t be sure?’
    â€˜The tide was just going out. If there’d been any signs of a struggle the sea would have washed them away. But if Punch was killed somewhere else, how did the murderer get his body under the pier? He couldn’t very well drag it along the prom, now could he? There’d have been too many people about.’
    â€˜Perhaps he brought it along the sands,’ Monika Paniatowski suggested.
    Turner shook his head. ‘He’d have been spotted by someone on the promenade, Monika, and whoever saw him would have been bound to report it. No one has.’
    â€˜He could have been brought by boat,’ Paniatowski said.
    â€˜What would have been the point of that?’ Woodend asked. ‘If the killer had gone so far as to load the body into a boat, why not simply dump it