‘I’m not having any of that. Dobermanns are the best. I mean, they’re guard dogs. They can be dangerous if you don’t introduce them to people properly. Or they think their owner is under threat. Or anyone they know for that matter. So yes, don’t get on the wrong side of a Dobermann pinscher or they’ll tear your arm off, and the females are more vicious than the males if you ask me, but Emma’s the sweetest dog you’ll ever meet.’

Judith waited for Suzie to continue. She didn’t.

‘And Emma is Iqbal’s dog?’ Judith prompted.

‘Damned right she is,’ Suzie said, her engines firing up again. ‘But not originally. First of all she belonged to his neighbour, an old guy named Ezra. Ezra Harrington, I think. But Ezra got cancer last year, poor man. And he lived on his own. So if Ezra needed to go to the hospital, or pick up any medication, Iqbal took him in his taxi and never charged him. All out of the goodness of his heart. I mean, I wouldn’t have done it for any of my neighbours, and I’ve known them for years!’

Judith smiled politely, not quite finding Suzie’s joke as funny as she did.

‘Anyway, things got bad for Ezra. He only had months left to live. Weeks. And he was in a panic because he didn’t know who’d look after his dog when he died. So Iqbal, who I can tell you, didn’t know the first thing about dogs, said he’d take Emma in. And that’s what he did. He took Emma in when Ezra died. This was last year. And anyone else would have got rid of Emma as soon as they could. That’s what I’d have done. But the way Iqbal put it to me, he’d made a promise to a dying man, he couldn’t break it. So, Emma became Iqbal’s dog. And seeing as Dobermanns needs a lot of exercise, he got me in every day to walk her. When Iqbal was asleep after working nights. And that’s all you need to know about Iqbal. There’s no way he could be mixed up in anything dodgy. He was nothing less than a saint.’

‘Even so, someone had reason to shoot him dead.’

‘Doesn’t mean it had anything to do with Iqbal.’

‘It must have had something to do with him.’

‘That’s not how I see it. What I’m thinking is, he’s a taxi driver. He could have had some criminal in the back of his car and overheard something. Or seen something. And this criminal, whoever he was, realised Iqbal could put him in prison. Or whatever, I don’t know the details. So he heads over to Iqbal’s house and rubs him out.’

Judith realised that, for all her bluster, Suzie had a point.