The harsh central neon light glared down onto the contours of the sheeting, and gouged back at Erlich's eyes from the white-tiled wall. He lifted the sheet nearer him.

A pale, sallow face. A neat, dark moustache. A half-crescent of recently cut hair set round a receding scalp. A scraped dis-colouration on the left cheek.

"Where he fell they were all body shots that took him."

Erlich lifted the sheet further and studied the two gaping exit wounds.

" W h o was he?"

The Station Officer said, "Dissident, Iraqi. Price on his life, living in Damascus. Harry had met him before. The guy was back in town, rang Harry. Harry liked to pump him… "

He laid the sheet back over the face. He skirted the two stretchers, then raised the sheet of the second.

He swallowed back the bile in his throat.

It would have been a back-of-the-head shot. A low-velocity round tumbling against the toughness of the skull bone.

The exit was a mess where the eyes and nose of his friend had been.

The mouth was what he would remember. Where the laughter was, where the good cracks were. Only the mouth told him that he looked on the face of his friend.

The Station Officer said, "There are six wounds on the joker

– Harry just took the one."

"Which means?"

Erlich knew the answer.

The Station Officer said, "Almost certainly it means, wrong place, wrong time."

"Makes my day."

" H e wasn't the target, just in the way."

" T h e Iraqis do their own people…?"