‘The Greenwich Apartments, it’s called,’ he’d said that afternoon. ‘Not too far from here. Maybe you know it?’

I shook my head. I’ve had my office in St Peter’s Lane for more than twelve years (I’d stopped counting at twelve), a stone’s throw from the Cross, but my work tends to take me out of the area. I could name a few nearby pubs but no blocks of flats. ‘No, afraid not,’ I said ‘is that why you came to me? For my local knowledge? If so, I ‘m sorry, I…’

He leaned forward. A big man, 50 plus with a heavy, forceful face and a manner to match. Expensive clothes, expensive teeth, not much hair and no nonsense. ‘I’m a bereaved man. Hardy. I don’t show it. I don’t go around crying. I go to work and get on with it but I feel just as bad as…’

‘As who?’ I said.

‘As her mother!’ He banged my desk with his fist: my notebook shifted and a little dust lifted and settled. There was nothing else on the desk.

‘I understand what you mean.’

‘You’d have seen the reports in the a paper… of Carmel getting shot.’ His mouth twisted bitterly. ‘Everybody’s seen them. That’s one of the worst things.’

‘I read something. She was twenty-one, I think it said. I don’t remember her job. No motive.’

‘She was a videotape editor and a filmmaker. Serious work. That didn’t stop the crummy headlines. “Video Girl Slain in Cross”. Crap!’

‘I remember now. There were a couple of hundred videos in the flat

…’

‘Not one of them was a dirty movie. Not one!’ The fist came down again. ‘But the papers made it look as if they all were. Her mother’s