Purdy eyed Max with the particular interest of a copper who’s facing a long Saturday-night shift and who could easily make dropping a drunk and disorderly off at the cells last at least a couple of hours. Paperwork to be done in the canteen with a cup of tea and a sandwich—curse this bureaucratic red tape that keeps good police officers away from the front lines where the action is. I disappointed Purdy by saying I’d take care of it.

The paramedics said they wanted to be off, but I told them to wait. I didn’t want to risk the body going astray before Dr. Walid had a chance to look at it but I needed to know whether this guy had been playing at the Mysterioso. Of the irregulars, Daniel looked the most upright.

“Daniel,” I said. “Are you sober?”

“Yes,” he said. “And getting soberer with every passing second.”

“I’ve got to go with the ambulance. Can you nip back to the club and get a copy of the playlist?” I gave him my card. “Call me on the mobile when you’ve got it.”

“You think the same thing happened to him?” he said. “As Cyrus, I mean.”

“I don’t know,” I said. “As soon as I know something I’ll call you guys.”

The paramedics called over, “You coming or what?”

“You all right with this?”

Daniel gave me a grin. “Jazzman, remember,” he said. I held up my fist and after a moment of incomprehension Daniel knocked knuckles with me.

I climbed into the ambulance, and the paramedic pulled the door closed behind us.

“Are we going to UCH?” I asked.

“That’s the general idea,” he said.

We didn’t bother with the blues and twos.

YOU CAN’T just deposit a body at the morgue. For a start it has to be certified by a bona fide doctor. It doesn’t matter how many bits the body is in; until your actual fully accredited member of the BMA says it’s dead, it occupies, bureaucratically speaking, an indeterminate state just like an electron, an atomic cat-in-a-box, and my authority to conduct what was tantamount to a murder investigation on my own recognizance.

Early Sunday morning in casualty is always a joy, what with the blood and the screaming and the recriminations as the booze wears off and the pain kicks in. Any police officer who’s feeling public-spirited enough to show his face can get himself involved in half a dozen exciting altercations often involving Ken and his best mate Ron and it weren’t like we were doing anything, Officer, honest, it was like totally unprovoked. So I stayed in the treatment cubicle with my nice quiet dead body, thank you very much. I borrowed a pair of surgical gloves from a box in a drawer and went through his wallet.