‘You sure it’s just a spasm?’ Hardy didn’t want to cut the thing up if it wasn’t dead yet.

‘It isn’t the cha-cha, Diz. Pull on that thing, will you?’

Hardy pulled and the shark came out of the water, slow and heavy. Hardy guided it onto the gurney. He waited while Pico hauled himself out of the pool.

‘I am reminded of a poem,’ Hardy said. ‘Winter and spring, summer and fall, you look like a basketball.’

Pico ignored him and reached for his coffee mug. ‘Need I take this abuse from someone who steals my coffee?’

‘There was coffee in that?’

‘And a little brandy. Cuts the aftertaste.’

They flipped the shark on its back. Pico went into his office and came out a minute later with a scalpel. He traced a line up the shark’s belly to its gills, laying open the stomach cavity. Slicing a strip of flesh, he held it up to Hardy. ‘Want some sushi?’

The tank gurgled. Hardy leaned over the gurney, careful not to block the light, while Pico cut. He reached into the stomach and began pulling things out – two or three small fish, a piece of driftwood, a rubber ball, a tin can.

‘Junk food,’ Pico muttered.

‘Leave out the food part,’ Hardy said.

Pico reached back in and brought out something that looked like a starfish. He pulled it up, looking at it quizzically.

‘What’s that?’ Hardy asked.

‘I don’t know. It looks -’ Then, as though he’d been bit, Pico screamed, jumped back, throwing the object to the floor.

Hardy walked over to look.

Partially digested and covered with slime, it was still recognizable for what it was – a human hand, severed at the wrist, the first finger missing, and on the pinkie, a sea-green jade ring.

2

Hardy expected that the guys in blue would be first on the scene. He would likely know them from the Shamrock, where the police dropped in frequently enough to keep the presence alive. Sometimes your Irish bar will get a little rowdy and it helped to have the heat appear casually to remind patrons that a certain minimum standard of decorous behaviour would be maintained.