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work.’
    â€˜You prefer to lead from the front, not from behind a desk, don’t you? Well, don’t decide anything in a hurry, Kate. There’s a lot to be said for catching all the experience you can get.’
    â€˜And for picking up the pay to match,’ Colin said.
    â€˜As to that, the rate she’s going, she’ll make it to inspector soon enough. Time I was reaching for my slippers and my knitting,’ Rowley sighed. ‘Be off with you then. Time to fight a bit of this crime we’re always hearing about. But don’t fall over my Zimmer on the way out.’

Chapter Three
    Kate was forcing those stiff joints and muscles to walk briskly back from the Fire Station when her mobile tweeted.
    â€˜That you, Kate? Alf here. I was wondering, could you get yourself back here before it gets dark tonight? Only I’ve found something in your garden you ought to see.’
    She hunched into a doorway to cut the traffic noise.
    â€˜What sort of something?’ she asked.
    â€˜Remains, like.’
    â€˜Remains!
Human
remains?’
    â€˜Not as such. Not a body, like. But it’s something you should see before I clear the rest of this shed.’
    â€˜I’ll try and be there by six,’ she promised.
    â€˜See you at seven – that’s what you mean, isn’t it! No, don’t wait till it gets too dark. Go and tell your gaffer you’re pursuing your inquiries or something.’
    Â 
    â€˜Something nasty in the woodshed, Kate? How wonderful!’ Graham passed her a mug of Darjeeling. ‘Diamonds under your bedroom floor and now something nasty in the woodshed. I wonder what lies concealed in the other houses in Worksop Road … Now – you don’t have a house name, do you?’
    She shook her head. He knew that as well as she did. She braced herself for the sort of laboured joke he made when he looked as tired as this.
    â€˜Well then, you could set a trend. Cold Comfort House.’ He drifted over to the window.
    She laughed obligingly. Should she risk a joke about finding a handsome, sexy Seth? No, perhaps not.
    â€˜So what do you reckon it is in your woodshed?’ He turned to face her.
    â€˜So long as whatever it is doesn’t involve coroner’s officers and inquests, I don’t care.’
    â€˜Well, you must care enough to get back in time to talk to Alf about it. Remember me to him, by the way. He did a grand job doing up my mother-in-law’s house.’
    Mrs Nelmes had sold up and moved into the same retirement home as Aunt Cassie, providing Cassie with an endless source of vindictive amusement. Especially now she’d discovered Graham’s wife was burdened with the name of Flavia.
    Kate nodded. ‘He’s a good man. Honest as the day is long.’
    â€˜All the more reason not to keep him waiting. You put in enough hours here not to worry about slipping off – provided, of course, that Sue Rowley’s happy about it,’ he added, smiling straight into her eyes. He poked a geranium cutting that had dried out too much. Wasn’t it time they were planted up now?
    â€˜Thanks. The Fire Service people’ – after all, this was what they were supposed to be talking about – ‘are pretty well convinced there’s an arsonist about, by the way. You remember that spate of school fires they had in the Black Country? We’ve got warehouse ones on our patch. Yesterday morning’s was the third.’
    â€˜Any connections?’
    Kate shook her head. ‘Nothing in common apart from the fact that they’re warehouses. One practically in West Bromwich, one in Selly Oak, one closer to home – Perry Barr, near the University of Central England. Chemicals – nothing toxic; fabric – that went up like the clappers; and household goods. Same modus operandi in each case – getting up on to the roof, prising open a roof-light, sprinkling petrol on to the floor