Book 16 in the Quiller series, 1992

I dropped the bundle onto the desk and pulled the string and opened up the crumpled newspaper and Tilney stood looking down at the stuff I'd brought in, the two blackened number plates, wrist watch, bunch of keys, ring, metal cigarette-lighter, the upper jawbone, the lower one, while the reek of burnt flesh began filling the little room, sickening me, sickening him too, I would imagine, Tilney, looking down at the stuff and then bringing his head up.

'That's all?'

That's all.'

'What does he look like?'

'Cinder.'

It was cold in here, or it felt like it. I shrugged a bit deeper into my coat.

'Nothing recognisable?' Tilney asked.

I gave him a dead stare. The object of the exercise,' I said, 'was to remove all traces of his identity. I did that.'

I suppose I would have put it differently if the rage hadn't been in me, burning in me like that bloody car, burning half the night out there among the trees.

In a moment: 'Have you had any sleep?' He'd caught my tone, the far faint echo of the rage. Others wouldn't have noticed.

'No. I had to watch over things.' A vigil over the dead, you could call it, but let's not be too dramatic.