Sighing, he had put the Times aside and begun on the Guardian when his superintendent's secretary appeared at his desk.

"You're working late, Gladys," he said, pushing the hair from his brow with grimy fingers.

Gladys was a well-padded girl, with a propensity for flowered prints and tightly crimped hair, but was good natured enough to rub along with the guv'nor, no mean accomplishment. Now she gave him a concerned look. "His Highness wants to see you, in his office."

"What now?" Gavin looked down at his newsprint-blackened hands and his loosened collar and tie.

"Bee under his bonnet about something. I'd go soonest, if I were you. I'm off." She favored him with a toothy smile. "Cheerio. Hope you're not for the block."

"Thanks, Gladys," Gavin muttered under his breath. He slipped into his jacket, but took the time to stop in the lav and wash his hands, pull up his tie, and comb his hair. There was no point in facing his guv'nor at more of a disadvantage than necessary. The super was a man of moods and best approached with discretion on a good day.

Francis Tyrell was an Irish Catholic who wore his ambition on one shoulder and a chip on the other, so that one's reception depended on which side one faced. Gavin knocked at the open door, and when Tyrell looked up at him with a scowl, Gavin's heart sank.

"Sir. Gladys said you wanted to see me."

Tyrell nodded towards the chair, a hard-seated, slat-backed affair that always made Gavin think he might be tied up for an execution. Occupants of the chair were not meant to be comfortable, nor were they made any more so by the superintendent's looming bulk and florid face. Tyrell's still-thick hair was of a color that many a new officer had learned at his peril was not under any circumstances to be called ginger.

"This case you're working on," Tyrell said without preamble. "This business of the murdered Jew."

The pejorative use of the word Jew raised Gavin's hackles immediately. Tyrell was known for his prejudices, but this sounded ominously political.

"David Rosenthal," Gavin corrected. "A husband, a teacher, and a scholar. Brutally stabbed as he sat in Cheyne Gardens-"

"I know the facts of the case, man," Tyrell said impatiently. "And I know that those facts are all you've got. You're wasting your time, Hoxley, and the department's resources. The man was robbed and killed. No suspects. End of story."

Gavin stared at him, shocked. Then he said, "I don't believe for a minute that this was an ordinary robbery. David Rosenthal's possessions were removed to hide his identity-"

"And you have what proof of this?" Tyrell's face was turning an unbecoming shade of puce, a clear danger signal.

"I have a number of leads, sir-"

"You have a desk full of moldy newspapers, and about as much hope of finding anything as a blind man looking for a tit. Drop it, Gavin."

"But, sir, I have reason to believe that Rosenthal saw something in the newspaper the day he died, something that sent him to Chelsea. And I think that either he met someone or he was waiting for someone-"

"I don't give a fig what you think. You don't have a shred of evidence, and that's the end of it."

"But-"

"Inspector, unless you want to lose your job, you'll leave this alone."

Gavin made an effort to stop an angry retort. This was beyond a reprimand, and certainly beyond issues of CID manpower.

Superintendent Tyrell shifted in his chair and looked, for the first time, uncomfortable. "You're a good copper, Hoxley. Don't make a balls-up of this. This is coming straight from the top. I can't ignore it, and you'd be a fool to."

"The top?" Gavin still wasn't quite believing what he was hearing.

"Whitehall, man. So save us all a load of grief. Go home, and forget you ever heard of David Rosenthal."

The gig had finished a little before midnight. They'd played in a public hall in Guildford, and Andy Monahan thought for the hundredth time that they were going to have to take a stand, the three of them, and tell Tam, their agent, not to take any more bookings in places like that.

The room had been filled with teenagers intent on snogging; drinking anything they could get their hands on; or smoking, inhaling, or ingesting likewise. There had been a few kids, up towards the front, who had actually listened to the music, but at the end of the evening he always felt they might as well have been playing for sheep.

Tam called these bread-and-butter bookings, but in Andy's opinion they didn't generate enough income to be worth the time and disappointment. And it was time they might have spent playing in a club where someone who mattered might have heard them.

They'd had to load up their own equipment, of course, then cross their fingers as usual and hope that George's van made it back to London in one piece. As Andy hadn't been driving, he'd drunk his share of the bottle of vodka going round in the back, but rather than making him mellow, by the time they reached Oxford Street, he was more pissed off than he'd been when they left Guildford.

George slowed at Hanway Street and pulled into the curb. "Close enough, mate?" he asked. "Don't want to try to get the van round that corner." Hanway Street made a sharp right into Hanway Place, where Andy lived in a housing-authority flat, and if anyone had parked illegally, the van would have to be backed out into Oxford Street, no mean feat even for the entirely sober.

"Yeah, thanks." Andy climbed out, cradling his Stratocaster in its case. His amps he would leave in the van, as they had another gig tomorrow night-or tonight, he reminded himself, glancing at his watch, which showed it had just gone two.

Nick, who had drunk more than his fair share of the vodka, leaned out the window and intoned with great seriousness. "Chill, Andrew. You've got to chill, man."

Andy's frustration flared like a lit fuse. "Fuck you, man," he shouted back, and aimed a vicious kick at the side of George's van. But George was already pulling away, and the attempted blow only made him lose his balance. "Fucking morons," he muttered, teetering for a moment, then righting himself, holding the Strat case to his chest as if it were a child.

Maybe it was time he started looking for another band, one that really wanted to make music. And maybe he'd drunk a bit more than he'd thought, he decided as he trod carefully up the narrow street. Had to watch where you put your feet, people were always leaving bloody rubbish on the pavement. He'd stepped over a paper McDonald's bag, a broken beer bottle, and what smelled suspiciously like a puddle of urine, when he saw what looked like a large plastic bin liner lying in the middle of the street, just after the bend. A bin liner with things spilling out, even worse. But it was an odd shape, with what looked like arms and legs, except the angles were wrong.

Andy slowed, squinting, wishing he wasn't too vain to wear his glasses to a gig. Reaching the bundle, he pushed at it with his toe and met a slightly yielding resistance, and then the shape resolved into a human form, a man in a dark suit, lying in the street. Drunk, Andy thought fuzzily, but no one could lie like that, even if they'd passed out, legless. And the face-the face was turned away from him, but he could see that its shape was wrong, too, as if it had been mashed by a giant hand. Worse still, even distorted, it was a face Andy recognized.

Dear God. Andy backed up until his heels hit the curb, sat down with a graceless thud, and vomited right down the front of his Stratocaster case.