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‘Twelve-forty-five? You sure about that?’
    ‘Give or take five minutes, yes. I’d only just gone to bed as a matter of fact. Watched some stupid TV documentary about the Iraq war. Why, is it important?’
    Fulton’s heart was racing. Damned right it was. If McGuigan had received the envelope then, it meant that Lyall’s body must have been left tied to the swing at least half an hour before it was found by police. He was conscious of McGuigan staring at him intently and tried to conceal his excitement, but it was too late.
    ‘You think that envelope was deposited by the murderer, don’t you?’ the pressman breathed.
    Fulton ignored the question. ‘I need everything you were sent,’ he snapped. ‘And I mean everything.’
    McGuigan slipped a hand inside his anorak and produced an A4-size envelope, folded in two, which he slid across the table towards him. ‘Got it all here for you. I was going to give it to you anyway.’
    Fulton stared at the envelope in disbelief. ‘You’ve been carrying this around with you ever since? How the hell could you have known you’d run into me?’
    McGuigan grinned. ‘I found out you were the SIO, so I sat on your tail when you left your bungalow for police HQ this morning. Not difficult to spot your battered Volvo on the double yellow lines outside this place.’
    Fulton lumbered to his feet. ‘You cheeky bastard.’
    ‘True, but cheeky is my middle name. So, do we have an arrangement?’
    ‘Arrangement? You’ve got to be joking.’
    McGuigan’s hand shot out to retrieve the envelope, but Fulton’s meat hook was quicker and snatched it away. ‘The only arrangement you should be thinking about,’ he grated, ‘is under the plea-bargaining process when they throw the book at you for impeding a police murder inquiry.’
    The journalist sat back in his chair and studied him as he swung for the door. ‘You always have been an awkward sod to deal with,’ he said.
    ‘Yeah, well awkward is my middle name,’ Fulton threw back over his shoulder. ‘And I’d rather go back to issuing parking tickets than doing a deal with you.’
    McGuigan chuckled. ‘Well, at least that’s better than receiving them,’ he sniped, ‘I saw a nice young lady in uniform sticking one on your windscreen when I came in here just now!’

chapter 4
    SADDLER STREET POLICE station was an ugly Victorian building, dating back to the 1880s, which had once accommodated the business of ‘H Cotton, Upholsterers and Saddlers’, going by the faded lettering still visible on the brickwork above the arched entrance. The place was due for closure when the new police station opened for business on the outskirts of town, and for those who for far too long had had to put up with its shabby, draughty rooms, flickering lamps and dirty leaded-light windows – which admitted only a greyish light but could not be replaced because of a misguided preservation order – closure could not come soon enough.
    However, while the building would ordinarily have passed into total obscurity without a soul shedding a tear when that auspicious day actually arrived, a lot had changed in the last twenty-four hours. Due to the gruesome murder of Herbert Lyall, Saddler Street nick had suddenly achieved a level of notoriety that assured it a small but permanent place in the annals of crime history and when Fulton finally returned to the station, he was faced with an aggressive, clamouring throng of reporters and camera units camped outside its doors like a besieging army.
    The office of the LIO (or Local Intelligence Officer), which was buried in the basement and sandwiched between the found-property store and archives, was Fulton’s first port of call and he burst into the office with characteristic aplomb, all but removing the door from its hinges.
    PC George Oates looked up quickly from his computer and swung his swivel-chair round to meet his visitor, almost dislodging a pile of papers on the corner of his desk as he did so.