“Ta, Jack.” Wells flinched back as the flame from Frost’s gas lighter seared his nose. “You’ll never guess what Mullett’s latest is: He reckons the lobby wants brightening up. He only wants vases of bleeding flowers all over the place.”

Frost was only half listening. For some reason the face of Ben Cornish swam up in his mind, the dead eyes reproaching him for something he had overlooked.

Then he realized he hadn’t told Wells who the body in the toilet was.

“Ben Cornish? Oh no!” Wells slumped down in his chair. Cornish was one of his regulars, nothing too serious… public nuisance, drunk and disorderly… but lately he had been on drugs. Hard drugs. “He was only in here a couple of days ago, stinking of me ths and as thin as a bloody rake. I gave him a quid to get something to eat.”

“I doubt if he bought food with it, Bill. I don’t think he’s eaten properly for weeks. When I saw him tonight he looked like a Belsen Camp victim on hunger strike. I reckon the jar of his stomach contents tomorrow will be absolutely empty. Whatever he bought with your quid was squirted straight into his arm with a rusty syringe.”

“I bet his mother took it badly.”

Frost smacked his forehead with his palm. “Damn and bloody blast… I knew there was something I’d forgotten to do. I’ll have to nip round there. Any chance of some tea first?”

“Shouldn’t be long, Jack,” said Wells, adding with a note of smug triumph, “Webster’s making it.”

Frost stepped back in amazement. “How did you get him to do that?”

“Simple. I gave him an order. Why shouldn’t he make it? He’s only a bloody constable.”

“He may be just a bloody constable now,” said Frost, ‘but he used to be an inspector, and half the time he thinks he still is one.”