Rafferty gave his partner a what-does-it-matter frown. ‘How long?’ he asked.

Brierly shrugged. ‘Two, three hours. The rain didn’t start until around ten: we were driving home from the Kennedy Centre when it began. It stopped around ten-thirty. The ground under him is dry.’

‘Age?’ asked Johannsen, going through the list.

‘Forty-five?’ guessed Brierly.

‘Anything more than the gunshot wounds?’ pressed Rafferty. ‘Beating? Torture? Stuff like that?’

‘Nothing obvious,’ said the coroner. ‘I’ll know after the proper autopsy.’

It began to spit with rain again.

‘Guess that’s all then,’ said Rafferty, anxious to get somewhere dry. He’d had covered seats for the Orioles game.

Brierly looked back to the body. ‘You think it’s a Mafia killing?’

‘We’re running a book on it,’ said Rafferty.

‘Don’t,’ called one of the scene-of-crime technicians. He straighted from the body, holding already filled exhibit bags; separating one from the rest, he offered it to the two detectives.

The DC driving permit carried a picture of a plump, serious-faced man. The name was Petr Aleksandrovich Serov; the address listed – 1123, 16th Street – was that of the Russian embassy.

‘Holy shit!’ exclaimed Rafferty, the cynicism slipping.

‘What’s the captain going to do about that!’ demanded Johannsen.

‘He’s going to get the fuck out of it, that’s what he’s going to do!’ predicted Rafferty.

Just across the Potomac a man within a thread of being flashily dressed, which he should not have been, left the anonymous grey Ford at the far end of the National Airport car parking lot, hurrying to reach the New York shuttle terminal before the rain got heavy. The clothes were new and he didn’t want to get them wet. He’d already assured himself there were no blood splashes. He’d enjoyed America. He wished he didn’t have to go back so soon.