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and began to study the former Mr Black in detail. The hair was very dark, almost black, like the eyes. The mouth, half open, showed perfect teeth. Aidan couldn't take his eyes away from the man's lifeless face. He looked familiar, in fact he could swear that he knew him from somewhere. But that wasn't possible, he thought, because he never forgot a face. His visual memory was faultless, and that had always served him well in the job. But his intuition was screaming at him that he was missing something this time.
    "You can take a photo," Lance said behind his back. "You don't have to stay there all day staring."
    "You know something?" Aidan said standing up. "Look closely. Does his face look familiar?"
    "Are you saying it does to you?" Lance leaned over and studied the face, "I've never seen this bloke in my life."
    "I don't know why," Aidan said, thoughtfully, "but I could swear I know him from somewhere."
    "Let's hope he's not one of the lawyers," Lance said, smiling.
    "Very funny. Now tell me what you found out."
    "A seriously interesting story. It seems the killer entered the house and started a fight with this poor bastard," he said, looking at the head on the floor. "The pair of them drew medieval swords and this here was the result. As far as Mrs Black knows her husband had never had a sword in his hand his whole life. She didn't even know he owned one. Wait, wait!" he said, stopping Aidan interrupting him, "I still haven't told you the best. The killer was dressed exactly the same as her husband, except he was dressed in white.
    "Did she sound affected by the medication?"
    "Let me finish, mate. You're going to love this. The killer looked exactly the same as her husband. She was explicit on this point. They were identical except for two details. The killer was blond with blue eyes. Everything else matched down to the finest detail. What do you make of that?" Lance opened his hands and smiled as if he'd just performed some magic act and was waiting for the applause. "This is going to be the best case we've ever had. And the press is going to love it, especially when they get wind of this. What I liked most about it was the suits. We're going to be famous, mate. We'll be a feature in all the tabloids. The investigators of a medieval murder. No, you don't like that. What about detectives investigate sword duel? Yeah, that's better."
    Aidan looked at William Black's head again. He wasn't crouching but his eyes hadn't left the head. He hadn't even heard Lance's last words; he was too absorbed in trying to work out why William Black seemed so familiar. For the first time he concentrated on his surname and something clicked. It had to mean something. He was vaguely conscious of Lance speaking at his side. He ignored him deliberately and then an idea came to him. He crouched down quickly and extended his hand towards the head.
    "Hey!" someone from the pathologist’s team called out. "Nobody can touch it. At least not without gloves."
    "You'll know that these prints are mine," Aidan explained after closing William's eyes.
    "Why did you do that?" Lance asked, intrigued.
    "Now the hair," he murmured to himself.
    "Are you going to tell me why? Come on, I don't like being ignored. What's happening?"
    "I've got it!" Aidan exclaimed, pulling himself away from staring at the head and turning to his partner. "Did Mrs Black say whether her husband had family in London?"
    "I didn't ask her about that," Lance answered defensively. "She's too knocked up by what's happened to answer any more. I just kept my questions to the murder."
    "Go back and find out if William had family in London, in particular, a twin brother."
    "What?" Lance asked, frowning. "What gave you that idea? I leave you a few minutes alone with this head here and you've gone nuts. You haven't been drinking, have you?"
    "Stop playing the fool and do what I asked you to. It might lead to a good clue about who cut our friend's head off here."

CHAPTER 4

     
     
    "Look,