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through and mislaid one of the digits. What did he do it for, though, I wonder?’
    ‘Probably a joke,’ Beevers said.
    ‘If so, it was a bit near the knuckle,’ Norma got in first.
    ‘Perhaps he thought it might speed things up,’ Atherton said, ignoring her loftily. ‘He must have had a lot to do in a short time.’
    ‘Unless he hoped it would obliterate the fingerprints? He seems to have wanted to hide the identity of the victim. Did the scalp turn up, by the way?’
    ‘It wasn’t in the sacks. Nor the hands. Nor any of the victim’s clothing. God knows where they’ll turn up. But what bugs me is that he goes to all that trouble,’ Atherton complained, ‘and then makes no attempt to give himself an alibi.’
    ‘Perhaps he wants to be punished,’ Norma said. ‘Remorse. You said he was pretty upset when you found the foot’
    ‘Yes, but he might have the decency to wriggle a bit, though. The man is not a sport. I mean, where’s the challenge for us if he doesn’t make a chase of it?’
    Mackay came in in time to hear the last bit. ‘Oh, has he put his hand up, then, Slaughter?’
    ‘As good as,’ Atherton said. ‘First he insists he went straight home alone and went to bed’
    ‘Where does he live?’ Norma asked.
    ‘Bedsitter in Pembridge Road—’
    ‘Shangri-la!’
    ‘As you say. Then when I pushed him a bit, he changed his story and said he stopped for a drink on the way, didn’t speak to anyone in the pub, and
then
went home alone. How can you verify a negative?’
    ‘I thought he didn’t shut till eleven o’clock,’ McLaren objected. ‘How could he get to a pub before closing time?’
    ‘Well spotted. You should be a detective,’ Atherton said admiringly. ‘Version number two of his non-alibi was that it was so quiet he closed up early, about half-past ten—’
    ‘Which accounts for his having chips left over,’ Norma put in intelligently.
    ‘—picked up a taxi to Holland Park Station and went to Bent Bill’s.’
    ‘Oh? Is he that way, then?’ Mackay asked. Bent Bill’s was the aptly-named Crooked Billet, a notoriously homosexual pub in Clarendon Road, Notting Hill.
    ‘To the trained observer it’s obvious,’ Atherton said modestly. ‘Anyway, I asked him if he had a girlfriend and he said no. Then I asked if he had a boyfriend and he got upset and went bright red. That’s when he changed his story and said he’d gone for a drink. But he still claims he drank all alone, didn’t talk to anyone, went home alone.’
    ‘Well, I suppose that’s it, then,’ Mackay said. ‘Bent Bill’s is a cruiser’s pub. He must have picked the victim up there, taken him back to the shop for a spot of whoopee, and after that—’
    ‘He’d had his chips,’ Beevers interrupted eagerly, as though he’d just thought of it.
    ‘These homosexual murders can be very nasty,’ Norma said, trying to keep up the tone. ‘Look at that Michele Lupo case back in ‘eighty-six.’
    ‘We had a case once when I was at Kensington—’ McLaren began.
    ‘Have you run a make on Slaughter?’ Norma asked hastily.
    ‘Yes, but he’s got no form.’
    ‘There always has to be a first time,’ she said comfortingly.
    ‘But he still says he knows nothing about the body, so unless he breaks down and tells all we’ve got a long haul ahead of us. I’m going with the Guv’nor to have a look at his bedsit.’
    ‘What about Bent Bill’s?* Norma asked.
    ‘No point in going there until the evening session. It’s a different pub during the day. Anyway, it’s between you and Andy, Alec. I’m booked, and the Guv’nor won’t want to do it himself.’
    ‘What’s that, homophobia?’ McLaren demanded.
    ‘No, they only keep Watney’s,’ said Atherton.
    The house where Slaughter lived was one of those tall terraced houses so typical of North Kensington, stuccoed and painted dingy cream, with a pillared porch, and steps up to the front door over a half-basement. You could tell the privately-owned