'He did tell you about it, sir,' said Sergeant Wield, shouting to make himself heard above the lashing rain.

Dalziel viewed him gloomily through the bespattered car window which he'd lowered by half an inch in the interests of more efficient communication. He was not a man totally insensitive to the comforts of his inferiors, but the sergeant was swathed in oilskins and the Fat Man could see no reason why the torrents niagaraing around their folds should be diverted to his vehicle's upholstery.

'Aye and my gran told me not to mess around wi' mucky women and I paid no heed to her either,' he said. 'Still, last time he were here, he wasn't much use, was he? OK, lad. Let's have it. What've we got?'

'Remains, sir.'

'Man? Woman? Child? Dog? Politician?'

'Remains to be seen,' said Wield.

Dalziel groaned and said, 'I hope you're not letting happiness turn you humorous, Wieldy. You've not got the face for it and I'm not in the mood. I were driving home to a warm bed when I were silly enough to switch me radio on and pick up the tail end of this shout. All Control could tell me was there was a body and there was a bunch of animal libbers and it was out at Wanwood. So is this another Redcar or what?'

Six months earlier in May there'd been an animal rights raid on the laboratories of Fraser Greenleaf, the international pharmaceutical conglomerate, located near Redcar on the North Yorkshire coast. As well as releasing the experimental animals, the raiders had vandalized the premises and, most seriously of all, left security officer Mark Shufflebottom, father of two, lying dead with severe wounds to the head. Several weeks later there'd been another raid, bearing all the hallmarks of the same group, on the research labs of ALBA Pharmaceuticals located on Mid-Yorks territory in a converted mansion called Wanwood House. Happily this time no one had been injured. Unhappily neither the Teeside CID in whose jurisdiction Redcar fell, nor the Mid-Yorkshire team led by Peter Pascoe, had met with any success in tracking down the culprits.