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mysteriously. ‘As you’ll discover, babe.’ He held the look for a moment, then took another chunk out of the sandwich, not having realized how ravenous he was. ‘What’s on the box?’
    â€˜Not much.’ Kate sat back and sipped her own whisky and lemonade, made with a supermarket cheapo brand. She sighed contentedly. ‘We need to do a last minute shop tomorrow. I need a new dress.’
    â€˜OK,’ Henry said amiably. He swallowed a mouthful and was reaching over for his JD when his mobile phone rang. It was on the coffee table, next to his drink.
    â€˜Bugger,’ Kate said under her breath. Her mouth warped into a slightly unpleasant shape.
    Henry gave her an apologetic look, knowing the call was unlikely to be from anywhere other than work. The display said, ‘Unknown caller.’
    â€˜Henry Christie.’
    â€˜Boss?’ came the first word, making Henry’s heart sink with its inflection. It was the detective sergeant he’d recently left at Blackpool police station to tidy up the Twist case. Henry hoped it was a minor query, but he knew it wouldn’t be.
    â€˜Go on, Alex.’
    â€˜Hope you don’t mind me calling, but there’s a job just come in.’
    â€˜I’ve finished for the day – for five days, actually.’
    â€˜I know,’ the DS – his surname was Bent – said wearily, ‘it’s just that the Chief Constable just happened to be here when it came in, doing one of his unannounced “catch you doing something you shouldn’t be doing” visits and he wants a quick response to it. The nearest on-call super lives in Blackburn, so he said you’d do it.’
    I’ll bet he did, Henry thought. His mouth twisted in a similar way to Kate’s – whose face hadn’t changed its expression. She looked as though she’d been given a bowl of fried whitebait when she’d been expecting Dover sole: very annoyed.
    â€˜What’s the job?’ Henry asked.
    The DS, who hadn’t yet turned out to it himself, explained what he’d been told. Henry listened, sitting up as he did, paying close attention. He clarified a few points, asked some pertinent questions and issued some instructions. ‘I’ll be down in fifteen minutes,’ he promised and ended the call. He placed the phone down slowly and looked at Kate. ‘Sorry love,’ he said ruefully, giving her a pained expression. ‘Sounds a bit of a messy one. There’s no one else nearby to cover.’
    She held his gaze, then said, ‘This better not screw up my holiday.’
    â€˜It won’t. I’ll just cover it, then hand it over. Promise.’
    She closed her eyes and shook her head. Same old story.
    Henry stuffed the last of the sandwich into his mouth, glanced sadly at the JD, and was aware that the warm fuzzy atmosphere had just turned cold and icy.
    The police moved the public further and further away from the scene until they’d sealed off a good two hundred metres either side of the incident and completely closed the road, as well as the whole length of the alley.
    Rain started to fall heavily as Henry, having parked his car almost a quarter of a mile away, pushed his way through the dwindling crowd of onlookers, their enthusiasm for the grisly tempered by a downpour. He always preferred to walk up to outdoor murder scenes. It gave him more time to take in things, assimilate matters, rather than racing up and leaping out of cars like the Flying Squad. He hunched up the collar on his raincoat, ducked under the cordon tape and flashed his warrant card at the on-guard constable, who had scuttled up to him thinking he was a member of the public trying it on. After a close inspection of the ID, Henry was allowed through, pulling a knitted cap out of his pocket and tugging it down on to his head, over his ears, cursing the rain. It was one of the worst things that could happen to an exterior