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few minutes’ respect by keeping their distance. We headed that way and as we approached the couple moved deeper into the cemetery. They were a middle-aged couple carrying a wreath and of no concern. Something else caught my eye though. A large saloon car stood idling on the road outside the front gate. Even from this distance I could make out the silhouette of a head turned our way, but nothing of the features.The last thing anyone wanted was violence at a funeral, but I wondered if this was Andrew’s killer. More than anything I wanted to slip away from Rink and Yukiko, and go over there and check. But I didn’t; for all I knew it was a cop scoping us out. I just lifted my head and stared at him. A hand came out of the front passenger window. I didn’t flinch; it was empty, I could tell. The hand furled into a fist and knocked a short rhythm against the door. Then the engine roared and the saloon car peeled away from the entrance and took off at speed.
    ‘Who was that?’
    Rink had come silently to my shoulder. His mom was in the capable hands of her two lady friends, blissfully ignorant of what had just happened as she accepted their hugs and condolences.
    ‘I was just wondering the very same thing,’ I said.
    ‘You think it was Chaney?’
    ‘No.’ I’d credited Sean Chaney with more intelligence than this. From the way we handled him on the BART carriage he must have realised he was wholly outclassed. I was confident that he hadn’t run to the police to complain about us, because he would have had to come clean about why he’d made an enemy of us. He was a mug, but not an idiot.
    ‘If the cops questioned him about my dad’s murder he’ll know where to find us. No way that bastard’s going to bring trouble to my mom’s house.’Rink was building a case for pre-emptive action. I wasn’t usually averse to the idea, but this time we’d have been targeting the wrong person.
    ‘It wasn’t Chaney,’ I repeated. ‘His head wasn’t fat enough.’
    ‘You should’ve let me shoot Chaney, saved everyone a heap of trouble.’ He checked on his mom. Yukiko looked frail and bewildered, not an image I’d ever had of her before. Before this she had always epitomised strength and tranquillity, but now she was jittery as she glanced back and forth between her concerned friends. Then she would look elsewhere, and again I got the impression she was searching for another face.
    ‘Forget about him,’ I said. ‘Let’s concentrate on finding the man who did murder your dad.’
    He scowled, but knew I was speaking sense. ‘You think that was him? That asshole in the car?’
    ‘I doubt it.’
    ‘But it could have been, and we just missed our opportunity to catch him.’
    ‘We’ll have other opportunities,’ I said. ‘In places less public than this.’
    He understood what I was saying. When we did find the murderer, we didn’t want a bunch of innocents caught in the crossfire. We definitely didn’t want witnesses.
    ‘Got to see to my mom first,’ he said. ‘Then we’ll get started.’
    Ordinarily a wake would have been held to honour Andrew’s memory. However, having just come out of hospital, and still weakened by her injuries, Yukiko was in no state to play host to a gathering offering their sympathies. Rink had taken the decision that his dad’s memory was honour enough and that a wake wouldn’t help his mom’s recovery. But he saw some value in having someone close by her.
    ‘I’m going to ask her friends to stay with her for a while. It will do her good. She won’t talk to me about losing my dad, but she might with them.’ Rink walked away to approach the trio of elderly ladies and I saw him kiss each of them on the cheek. I allowed him the privacy, taking the opportunity to scan the cemetery once more.
    The three acquaintances of Andrew had already climbed into their respective vehicles and were pulling away. Lawrence Parnell and Rodney Faulks were still near to Andrew’s grave. They had