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sawing or cutting marks and turned the pictures on the walls to see if there was any hiding place behind them. They searched thoroughly the beds, the wardrobes, the cupboards and the drawers. They even checked for any hollow-sounding places in the walls. The stairs were just as carefully scrutinized for loose floorboards. In fact, they looked every possible place where drugs or a stash of cash could be concealed. Nothing.
    Angel knew that downstairs the team would be just as thorough, and that they would examine every package containing foodstuffs in the kitchen cupboard as well as everything in the refrigerator and deep freeze.
    After two hours, Angel and Galbraith went down the stairs to the sitting room. He saw the DCI was still interviewing Mrs Swithenbank and her mother. By the look on his face he might just as well have been talking to Mrs Buller-Price’s pot poodle Fifi.
    With a nod from the DCI, Angel and the rest of the team packed up their traps and left the house almost as quickly as they had arrived. The raid had obviously not provided sufficient evidence for a charge. They gathered outside in the street.
    â€˜Well, thank you, everybody,’ Gardiner said. ‘You’d better return to your own respective offices. I regret the waste of time. This tip-off was, regrettably, a turkey.’
    The dog handler said, ‘Sir. The dog did react positively at a cupboard in the kitchen. I pulled everything out and let him have a good old sniff around, but there was nothing to be found. It was spotlessly clean. Also on the kitchen table. Even though it would have been wiped down, even scrubbed, the dog did detect the recent presence of a Class A drug on the top. Perhaps it had been used in the preparing of twists or packets.’
    The DCI looked skywards and ran his hand through his hair.
    â€˜Can you rely on that dog?’
    â€˜Absolutely, sir.’
    He rubbed his hand across his mouth.
    â€˜Who checked the vacuum cleaner?’
    WPC Baverstock put up a hand.
    â€˜I did, sir. There was hardly anything in it. The bag must have been changed recently. I emptied it out on a sheet of newspaper. There were no signs of H or any other illegal substance.’
    â€˜Did the dog sniff it?’
    â€˜Yes, sir. But there was nothing. I also checked the carpet sweeper, and got the same result.’
    â€˜Did anybody find anything … anything else at all unusual in the house … or garden?’
    Nobody said anything.
    Gardiner threw up his arms.
    â€˜Right. Thank you, everybody. Let’s go.’
    He leaned forward to get into the car.
    Angel called out: ‘She was tipped off, sir.’
    The DCI’s head shot back out.
    Â 
    â€˜I’ve got more to do with my time than oversee time-wasting raids on old biddies scratching out an existence on a council estate,’ Harker said with a sniff. He was drumming his fingers on his desk while licking his lips and shaking his head.
    Angel looked down at him. He was uglier than usual. He’d seen better-looking orang-utans – and his moustache could do with trimming. He recalled that he’d started growing it that way about the same time the postman had delivered a book addressed to him at the police station in a cellophane cover called The Love Life of Josef Stalin .
    â€˜It wasn’t like that, sir,’ Angel said.
    â€˜The DCI says the intelligence was rubbish.’
    â€˜I don’t think it was, sir. When we arrived, everything was just too perfect. It was ten o’clock in the morning. The beds were made. There were no pots in the sink. All signs of a meal had been cleared away. Everywhere had been vacuumed and tidied round, just as if they had been expecting visitors. Also, neither of the women worked; Gloria Swithenbank said they had no savings and no debts, therefore we are expected to believe that they survived solely on her mother’s pension. The rent is eighty-four quid a week. Swithenbank had sixty quid