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Janet?’
    ‘Wouldn’t you like to know?’
    He stubbed out his cigarette in the dried-out earth of a dying potted plant. ‘I’m too busy to play games, Janet.’
    ‘Ah, busy again are we, Jack? The famous detective superintendent has another case to solve, has he?’
    ‘Come on, Janet. This is stupid. Tell me where you are.’
    ‘You’re the detective, Jack. Why don’t you find out?’
    Before he could say anything else the telephone went dead.
    Cursing, he checked the answerphone – only to be rewarded by the automated voice telling him the caller had withheld their number. Slamming the receiver back on its rest, he reached for his whisky glass and drained it. Brilliant! Now, as well as a high-profile murder inquiry, which looked to be heading straight into a cul-de-sac, he had a psychotic wife who was intent on playing some kind of off-the-wall game of hide-and-seek with him.
    He lurched to his feet. Well, she could play the game on her own. He had more important things to do – like taking a shower, for instance – and the phone could ring as much as it liked for the next half-hour.
    In fact, it rang again within ten minutes, choosing the worst possible moment just after he had settled himself on the toilet seat with the morning newspaper. Sticking to his decision, he ignored it completely, but that was a mistake, for the next moment the mobile chirped in the pocket of his trousers.
    ‘What now?’ he rapped, clutching the phone to his ear and waiting for Janet’s soft voice to start mocking him again.
    ‘What now indeed?’ a familiar male voice commented.
    He grinned, recognizing the speaker as Detective Chief Superintendent Andy Stoller, the head of force CID. ‘’Morning, Andy,’ he said. ‘I thought you were someone else.’
    There was an unimpressed grunt. ‘Where are you, Jack?’
    Fulton grinned. ‘On the bog at the moment,’ he replied.
    ‘Oh … nice. Well, when you’re off it, perhaps you’ll come and see me – and make it like yesterday, will you?’
    Fulton had never attached much importance to the police hierarchy’s obsession with urgency, aware from past experience that in the final analysis it was seldom justified, and as he knew that the journey to headquarters only took about half an hour anyway, he insisted on having a quick shower before going to see his chief. But that turned out to be a mistake, for when he eventually left the house twenty-five minutes later and went to his car parked in the driveway, he found he was facing a substantial handicap: the two nearside tyres of the Volvo were completely flat.
    For a moment he just stood there, studying the buckled rubber with a mixture of anger and disbelief. There was no way he could have incurred a double puncture accidentally – that was stretching coincidence much too far – which meant that some little toe-rag must have actually sneaked up his driveway and slashed the tyres while he was in the shower. The bloody cheek of it!
    With fists tightly clenched and head thrust forward belligerently, he headed for the gateway in a futile attempt to spot any likely offender lurking in the vicinity, but the street was empty and he was on the point of turning back to re-examine the damage, when for some reason his attention was drawn to a red MG sports car pulling out of a lay-by a couple of hundred yards to his right. The car, which had its hood down, slowed as it drew level with the driveway, suggesting it was about to stop, but when he stepped to the edge of the pavement, it suddenly revved up and accelerated away with squealing tyres. He glimpsed a thin-faced man in the driving seat and a blonde-haired woman sitting beside him, who waved extravagantly in his direction as they drove off, then the car was gone, careering round a bend in the road, its horn blasting as it went.
    Realization dawned immediately and his face was grim as he jerked his police notebook from his pocket. ‘Janet,’ he grated, quickly jotting down the