Kevin’s eyes slowly widened. The sickly gray bands of light made him look transparent, like a projection flickering on a screen. “Ah, Jaysus, Frank. Ah, no.”

“I’m asking you a question. Just after I split, rats in the walls, yes or no?”

“Frank . . .”

“Yes or no.”

“It was only rats, Frank. They were all over this place. We saw them, a load of times.”

So that, by the time the weather warmed up, there would have been nothing left to cause a serious stink and start people complaining to the landlord or the Corpo. “And smelled them. Rotting.”

After a moment Kevin said, finally, “Yeah.”

I said, “Come on.” I got hold of his arm—too hard, but I couldn’t loosen my grip—and steered him up the stairs ahead of me, fast, feeling boards twist and splinter under our feet. By the time we got out onto the steps, into the sweep of cool damp breeze and fine rain, I had my phone in my other hand and I was dialing the Tech Bureau.

The tech I got hold of was not a happy bunny, either about working the weekend shift or about being dragged out of his nice warm geek-pen. I told him that I had information indicating that a body had been dumped under a concrete slab in the basement of Number 16 Faithful Place—I didn’t go into minor details, like dates—that I needed a Bureau team and a couple of uniforms, and that I might or might not be on scene by the time they arrived. The tech made weaselly noises about search warrants, till I informed him that any possible suspect would have been an intruder on the premises and therefore could have had no expectation of privacy, and—when he kept whining—that in any case the house had been in public use for at least thirty years and therefore counted as a de facto public place by right of seisin, no warrant needed. I wasn’t sure how well either of these would hold up in court, but that was some other day’s problem, and it shut the tech up. I filed him in my mental database under Useless Prick, for future reference.

Kevin and I waited for the tech and his buddies on the steps of the student gaff at Number 11, close enough to give me a good view, far enough that with a little luck no one would associate me with what was going to be happening. If this went down the way I thought it would, I needed the Place to see me as their homecoming homeboy, not as a cop.

I lit a smoke and pointed the packet at Kevin, who shook his head. “What are we doing?” he asked.

“Staying out of the way.”

“Do you not need to be there?”

“The techs are big boys,” I said. “And girls. They can do their job without me holding their hands.”