‘Tash,’ he whispered, in greeting and in warning. She heard it inhis voice, pulled back holding his shoulders in her hands. Her facesharpened in concern.

‘What? What’s happened?’

‘Tash, it’s Saul.’ He’d told the story so often today he’d becomean automaton, just mouthing the words, but this time it was difficultall over again. He licked his lips.

Natasha started. ‘What is it, Fabe?’ Her voice cracked.

‘No no,’ he said hurriedly. ‘Saul’s fine. Well, I guess… He’sin with the pigs.’

She shook her head in confusion.

‘Listen, Tash… Saul’s dad… he died.’ He rushed on beforeshe could misunderstand. ‘He was killed. He was lobbed out of awindow two nights back. I… I think… I think the police reckon Sauldid it.’ He reached into his pocket and brought out the scrunched-upnews story. Natasha read it.

‘No,’ she said.

‘I know, I know. But I suppose they heard about him and the oldman having arguments and that, and… I dunno.’

‘No,’ said Natasha again. The two of them stood quite still,staring at each other. Eventually Natasha moved. ‘Look,’ she said,‘come in. We’d better talk. There’s this bloke here…’

‘The one playing the flute?’

She smiled slightly. ‘Yeah. He’s good, isn’t he? I’ll get rid ofhim.’

Fabian closed the door behind him and followed her up the stairs.She was some way ahead of him and, as he approached her inner door,he heard voices.

‘What’s happening?’ It was a man’s voice, muffled and anxious.

‘A friend’s in a bit of bother,’ Natasha was saying. Fabianentered the sparse bedroom, nodded in greeting at the tall blond manhe saw over Natasha’s shoulder. The man had his mouth slightly open,was fingering his ponytail nervously. In his right hand was a silverflute. He looked up and down at the two in the doorway.

‘Pete, Fabian.’ Natasha waved her hand vaguely between the two ina cursory introduction. ‘Sorry, Pete, but you’re going to have tosplit. I have to talk to Fabe. Something’s come up.’

The blond man nodded and hurriedly gathered his things together.As he did so, he spoke rapidly.

‘Natasha, do you want to do this again? I felt like we were…really getting into it.’

Fabian raised his eyebrows.

The tall man squeezed past Fabian without taking his eyes offNatasha. She was clearly distracted, but she smiled and nodded.

‘Yeah. For sure. Do you want to leave me your number orsomething?’

‘No, I’ll come by again.’

‘Do you want my number, then?’

‘No. I’ll just come by, and if you’re not in, I’ll come by again.’Pete stopped in front of the stairs and turned back. ‘Hope I see youagain, Fabian,’ he said.

Fabian nodded abstractedly, then looked into Pete’s eyes. The tallman was gazing at him with a peculiar intensity, demanding aresponse. The two were locked for a moment, until Fabian acquiescedand nodded more pointedly. Only then did Pete seem satisfied. Hedescended the stairs, followed by Natasha.

The two were speaking, but Fabian could not make out any words. Hefrowned. The front door slammed shut and Natasha returned to theroom.

‘He’s a bit of a weirdo, isn’t he?’ Fabian asked.

Natasha nodded vehemently. ‘Strue, man, do you know what I mean? Ithrew him out at first, he was kind of getting leery.’

‘Trying it on?’

‘Kind of. But he was going on and on about wanting to play withme, and I was intrigued, and he started playing outside. He was goodso I let him back in.’

‘Suitably humbled, yeah?’ Fabian grinned briefly.

‘Damn right. But he plays… he plays like a fucking angel,Fabe.’ She was excited. ‘He’s the original nutter, you’re right, Iknow, but there’s something very right about his playing.’

There was a short silence. Natasha tugged at Fabian’s jacket andpulled him into the kitchen. ‘I need a coffee, man. You need acoffee. And I need to know about Saul.’

In the street stood the tall man. He stared up at the window, theflute limp in his hand. His clothes twisted in the wind. He was evenpaler in the cold, in front of the dark trees. He was quitemotionless. He watched the tiny variations of light as bodies movedin and out of the sitting-room. He cocked his ear slightly, pulledhis fringe out of his eyes, twisted a lock of hair in his fingers.His eyes were the colour of the clouds. He raised the flute slowly tohis lips, played a brief refrain. A little group of sparrows wheeledout from the branches of a tree, circled him. The man lowered hisflute and watched as the birds disappeared.

Two eyes stained yellow by death gaped stupidly. All theimperfections of the human body were magnified by utter stillness.Crowley ran his eyes over the face, took note of the wide pores, thepockmarks, the hairs sprouting from nostrils, the patch of stubbleunder the Adam’s apple that the razor had missed.

The skin folded up under the chin and became a tightly wound coil,a skein of flesh wrung out to dry. The body was chest-down, limbsuncomfortable, and the head was facing the ceiling, twisted roundnearly 180 degrees. Crowley stood and pushed his hands into hispockets to disguise their trembling. He turned and faced hisentourage, two burly officers whose faces were identical portraits ofdisbelieving revulsion, scarcely more mobile than their fallencomrade’s.

Crowley paced through the small hall to the bedroom. The flat wasfull of busy people, photographers, pathologists. Fingerprint dustsat in the air in flat layers, like geological strata.

He peered round the frame of the bedroom door. A suited mancrouched on the floor before a figure sitting with splayed legs,leaning against a wall. Crowley looked at the seated man and made asmall disgusted noise, as if at rotten food. He stared into theruinous mess of the other’s face. Blood was smeared across the wall.The dead man’s uniform was saturated with it, stiff like an oilskincoat.

The suited doctor removed his tentative fingers from the bloodymess, and glanced behind him at Crowley. ‘You are…?’

‘DI Crowley. Doctor, what happened here?’

The doctor gestured at the slumped figure. His voice was utterlydetached, exhibiting the defensive professionalism Crowley had seenbefore at unpleasant deaths.

‘Ah, this chap, Constable Barker, yes? Well… he’s been hit inthe face, basically, very fast and very hard.’ He stood, ran hishands through his hair. ‘I think he’s come here to the front of theroom, opened the door and been walloped with a… a bloody piledriverwhich sent him into the wall and onto the floor, at which point ourassailant has borne down on him and cracked him a few more times.Once or twice with his fists, I think, then with a stick or a club orsomething, lots of long thin bruises across the shoulders and neck.And the line of damage here…’ He indicated a particular trough inthe bone-flecked pulp of the face.

‘And the other?’

The doctor shook his head, and blinked several times. ‘Never seenthat before, to be honest. He’s had his neck broken, which soundsstraightforward enough, but… well, my God, you’ve seen him, yes?’Crowley nodded. ‘I don’t know… do you have any idea how strong thehuman neck is, Inspector? It’s not so very difficult to break a neckbut someone has turned his the wrong way round… And they’ve had todislocate all the vertebrae completely, so that tension in the fleshdoesn’t send the head back round to the front. So they didn’t justturn his head round, they pulled upwards while they were doing it.You’re dealing with someone very, very strong, and, I shouldn’twonder, with some sort of karate or judo or something.’

Crowley pursed his lips. ‘There’s no real sign of struggle, sothey were fast. Page opens the door and has his neck done in half asecond, makes a little noise. Barker moves to the door of thebedroom, and…’