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in the morning paper might have on them?’
    ‘Screw the family. This is news.’
    ‘Wow. I’m impressed. You really are a hard-ass, aren’t you? Well, you can take it up with my chief. This photo comes back to Miami with me.’
    Not in the least perturbed by the stand-off, the detective glanced around the office. Its walls were covered with framed front pages and awards citations. Pride of place above the door was taken
by the screaming headline: ‘CASTRO FIASCO!’ – a reference to America’s disastrous rag-tag army invasion of Cuba’s Bay of Pigs the year before.
    He nodded towards an impressively large but empty desk opposite a picture window which offered sweeping views over Key Largo’s Buttonwood Bay and its myriad uninhabited – and
uninhabitable – mangrove islands. ‘So where’s your boss today?’
    ‘The editor’s on a fishing trip down in Key West,’ Henry replied sourly. ‘He’s sure as heckfire on his way back now, though. When I tell him about the little stunt
you’ve just pulled he’ll probably go straight from the airport to police headquarters. He’ll have your badge for this.’
    The policeman yawned. ‘Well, I’ve been on the force for twenty years so frankly he’ll be welcome to it. Mind if we sit down?’
    The news editor glared at him for a few moments longer before reluctantly indicating the small conference table at one end of the editor’s office. ‘Over there.’
    ‘Thanks.’ The detective stretched unselfconsciously. It had been an exhausting few weeks since the first murder and he was damn tired. He felt more like seventy than forty.
    ‘So . . .’ He slid off his suit jacket and hung it on the back of his chair, removing a notebook and pen from his hip pocket before repeating: ‘
So . . .
like I said,
I’m Lieutenant Frank Coulter. And you are? Full names, please.’
    ‘Henry Stewart – I’m news editor here.’
    ‘Glen Morton. Picture editor.’
    ‘Thanks. OK, gentlemen, I’m going to ask you some questions. But anything I say in here is strictly off the record. That understood?’
    The news editor frowned. ‘No, it isn’t. We have some questions for you too –
on
the record.’ He pointed to the bagged photo that was protruding from
Coulter’s jacket pocket.
    ‘Obviously that’s Lucy Twain, the Keys victim from a couple of days back. In spite of that God-awful thing sticking out of her head she’s pretty recognisable from the family
photos we ran yesterday.’ Stewart leaned forward. ‘But you guys never mentioned
that
little detail. Which leads me to ask – did he do the same thing with the other two?
And if so, does he do it before or after he kills them? Why have you been holding out on us?’
    Coulter gave the journalist a cold stare before saying quietly: ‘Back up, friend. I’ll go first with the questions. And I decide how much I tell you about this case. Let’s not
let the tail go wagging the dog here, OK?’
    The news editor’s gaze was just as icy. ‘Fine. Ask your questions, detective. Then it’s my turn.’
    Coulter decided to park the point for now.
    ‘Hmm . . . well now, let’s see . . . you say the photo was delivered by hand. Was it in an envelope?’
    Morton nodded. ‘Yup. A regular white one. It had “For Picture Desk” printed in biro on the front. It’s still on my desk across the passage there.’
    ‘Anyone touch it apart from you?’
    ‘The girl on the front desk when it was given to her, I imagine, and the in-house courier who brought it up to me.’
    Coulter sat up a little straighter. ‘Hold on. You mean it was handed in in person to the front desk? Not dropped into the
Courier’
s mailbox by the lobby entrance?’
    ‘You got it, detective. We have the girl standing by for you to talk to.’
    But the girl was of little use. Yes, the envelope had definitely been brought in by a man, she said, but she had barely glanced at him. She’d been on the phone to the circulation
department. She’d had the