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apartment of Clara Mortimer, here were family photographs by the score, but he saw no sign of any interest in music or books. The only reading matter was a scattering of tabloid newspapers, a television guide with the day's viewing already marked and women's magazines of the celebrity worshipping variety. These battled for space on the small coffee table with TV and video zappers, cigarettes, an overflowing ashtray and a veritable Highland Clan of miniatures of Scotch whisky.
    Mrs Atkins must have observed Rafferty's interest in the latter for, perhaps in order to staunch any suspicion that she was into solitary morning drinking, she was quick to explain them away.
    ‘The apartment residents bring them back for me from their various exotic holidays; probably bought on the plane home as last-minute gifts for ‘Poor Rita’, who never goes anywhere.’
    Although she laughed and tried to make a joke of it, Rafferty caught a hint of resentment in her voice. He couldn't really blame her if she should dislike being patronised in return for miniatures of the least expensive whisky on the market, especially as it didn't seem likely that Rita Atkins would be in a position to frequently jet off to exotic climes.
    He felt a brief urge to ask her if she could spare him one or two of the full miniatures; thankfully the urge passed.
    Although she had been quick to explain that she hadn't bought the bottles herself, Rafferty noted that, although the full ones were artfully placed round the outside as if to act as a shield, most of the collection of twenty or so were empty. He wondered why she kept them. But a quick glance around the living room told him that Rita Atkins was a collector of the trifles that other people threw away; empty miniatures, curling postcards, even personally addressed junk mail seemed to be treasured. The hoarding of the latter indicated that Rita Atkins received little in the way of personal mail.
    Invited to sit down, he and Llewellyn perched companionably on a scarred, red leatherette two-seater settee and waited for Rita Atkins to squeeze past and settle on the matching armchair set at right angles to the settee before he asked her if she could provide him with a list of Clara Mortimer's known visitors.
    She fetched a writing pad and pen from the top of the TV cupboard and jotted down some names. It didn't take long. As Mrs Atkins kept up a running commentary while she jotted down the names, they learned that the victim's only visitors had been her daughter, Jane Ogilvie, Darryl somebody – surname unknown – the daughter's current live-in boyfriend and a woman, Mary Soames, who, as Rita Atkins explained, until Clara Mortimer's recent move to the sheltered apartments, had been a close neighbour and long-term friend of the victim.
    ‘Nice woman. Always has a friendly word,’ she remarked.
    Unlike whom? Rafferty wondered; the late Clara Mortimer, perhaps? Though if Mrs Atkins had considered bringing any grudge against Mrs Mortimer to its ultimate conclusion, Rafferty couldn't see the tiny, bird-like Rita Atkins in the role of murderer, not least because she was unlikely to instil frozen panic in anyone, certainly not the much taller and stronger-looking Mrs Mortimer.
    A few minutes’ questioning of Rita Atkins elicited the information that Clara Mortimer had been more or less estranged from her family.
    ‘They rarely visited,’ Rita Atkins was quick to confide, as though anxious for them to know that for all her evident wealth, Clara Mortimer didn't share her rich endowment of family ties. ‘All the other residents noticed and remarked on it.’
    Rita Atkins skin, which Rafferty guessed would normally be as pallid and washed out as her dressing gown, this morning bore mottled red patches, though whether these were caused by nerves or drink, he had no idea.
    ‘Her daughter, Jane Ogilvie – or whatever she's calling herself this week – was only an occasional visitor. Even when she turned up, she never