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much about the rules, Ed.’
    This was below the belt. Edgar remembered that Max always fought dirty.
    ‘The pictures are pretty disturbing,’ he said at last.
    ‘I’m a big boy. I can cope.’
    ‘All right. I’ll put a photo in the post tomorrow. Ring me as soon as you get it.’
    ‘Aye, aye, Captain.’
    There’s nothing more annoying, mused Edgar, putting the phone down, than being addressed as ‘captain’ by someone who technically outranks you.
    It was nearly the end of the day. Edgar sat at his desk listening to the now-familiar haunted-house noises as the old building settled down for the night. The police station at Bartholomew Square was built in the classical style. Outside it was imposing, with monstrous pillars two storeys high. The reception area boasted an Italian mosaic floor and marble busts of Brighton luminaries. But, as you descended the steps to the CID headquarters, you entered a different world. Tiled walls dripped with moisture and sometimes, turning a corner in one of the subterranean corridors, you could hear mice – or worse – scuttling ahead. Frank Hodges had told Edgar that this part of the building had actually been condemned in the 1930s, but the police stuck stubbornly to their gloomy suite of rooms.
    Naturally, the police station had its resident ghosts. The site was once a medieval monastery – St Bartholomew’s – and it was said that sometimes a monk could be seen moving casually through the thick stone walls of the basement. The monastery well was still under the floor somewhere, you could hear it gurgling away on stormy nights. But Edgar usually found himself thinking of amore recent spectre. Brighton’s first chief of police, Henry Solomon, was murdered at the station in the eighteenth century, killed by a petty thief he had brought in for questioning. Edgar often imagined the scene. Apparently Solomon had seated the man in front of the fire, attempting to calm him down. He had turned his back and the felon picked up a poker and battered him to death. The room where it happened was cold, even in summer, and a dark figure was sometimes seen standing by the marble mantelpiece or descending the steps to the cells. Edgar didn’t believe in the ghost, but he did think that the story contained a few important policing lessons. Don’t be too nice to suspects was one. Don’t turn your back on them was another.
    The Incident Room was empty, so Edgar was able to find the file marked, uncompromisingly, ‘Mutilated Girl’, and extract a photograph. Despite his words on the phone, Edgar decided to spare Max the worst. He selected a picture that showed the girl from the neck up. He was struck again how, despite the pallor and the closed eyes, it could be a glamour shot. Her face was symmetrical and perfect, full lips closed in what was almost a smile. In life she must have been a very beautiful woman. He put the photo in a brown envelope addressed, as instructed, c/o The Alexandra Music Hall, Scarborough.
    He decided to post the letter on his way home. After an overcast day, the evening was soft and mild. When he got to the top of the hill, Brighton was already lost in the summer smog. It was like walking through the clouds.Edgar thought about Max’s telephone call. Was the dead girl really Peggy Ollerenshaw, once part of a double act known as The Diller Twins? He wondered why he was so sure that the girl had theatrical connections. Partly it was the way the body had been found –
presented
was the word that came to mind – cut into three like a macabre version of Max’s famous trick. Partly it was her appearance, the long blonde hair, the legs. She wasn’t that young, though. Late twenties, Solomon Carter thought, which would tie in with Peggy again. Had this girl fallen on hard times, no longer young enough for the chorus line, desperate enough to become involved with a dubious character who turned out to be not so much seedy as murderous?
    When he reached his digs, his