She spoke dismissively and it took all of Pascoe's courage for him to say, 'There are just a couple of questions, Mrs Spillings.'

'Like what?'

'Well, like, did you hear anything odd next door earlier this evening?'

Mrs Spillings looked at him in disbelief, then opened the door into the living-room, admitting a Force 10 gale of noise.

It was reply sufficient.

Mrs Spillings said, 'I'll let you two out the back way. That'll be the way he got in, you'll have worked that much out, I dare say. Me, I've got proper locks fitted and all, but Bob Deeks never bothered though I kept on telling him. Come on! Don't hang about.'

She opened the back door and with considerable relief the two policemen exited from the vibrant house. They found themselves in a tiny back yard with a brick washhouse, a bird-table and some kind of evergreen in a tub. Mrs Spillings unlocked a door in the high wall at the bottom of the yard and they went out after her into a narrow lane which ran between the backs of the Welfare Lane houses on one side and those of the Parish Road houses on the other. The lane acted as a wind tunnel, sucking icy darts of rain into it horizontally at vast speed. Mrs Spillings seemed indifferent to the weather. She walked a couple of paces to the next door and gave it a push. It was a ramshackle affair and lurched creakingly on one hinge.

'That's how the bugger'll have got in,' she re-affirmed. 'Listen. Bob Deeks were a miserable old sod, but I never found any harm in him. You lot want to get this sorted proper.'

'We'll get him all right,' assured Pascoe.

'Oh aye, you'll likely get him,' said the woman. 'It's what he gets that bothers me. Suspended sentence! I'd suspend the buggers!'