The man and woman looking through the suits exchanged looks, stopped feeling the ski-suits and made to leave the shop. Pasqual watched them vacantly for a moment until she realized they were leaving without a purchase. As the door closed behind them, she turned slowly to the big square-built, tanned boy on the other side of the counter and compressed her already tight face.

‘You know what would help me here, Donald?’

‘What’s that, Miss Weaver?’

‘Stop gossiping and sell some stuff, you prick.’

He watched her go, expelled all the air from his lungs as she slammed the back office door, and thanked God that his fitness programme would never let him get that screwed up. He came out from behind his counter to pick up the spilled shades and in a few seconds was swinging his hips and humming a Red Hot Chili Peppers track, dreaming of the powder he would shred with his snowboard tomorrow if the weather let up. In the back office a small dark-haired woman was being sick into her waste-paper bin.

Becker looked defeated, and for the first time Craig felt something approaching sympathy as he watched the man replace the phone on its hook.

‘They’ve taken off. It’ll be less than an hour.’

Craig moved his eyebrows. ‘Even in this weather?’

‘Yeah. They’ll be here.’

Craig balanced a hip on the edge of the desk that used to be Martin’s and was now Becker’s, swung a leg and crossed his arms. ‘And what now? While we wait for the big boys?’

‘We find the son of a bitch and bring him in.’

‘On what charge?’

Becker looked up at Craig with eyes that said go to Hell, but his mouth was still driven by a policeman. The sympathy dropped from Craig like a silk scarf from marble as Becker answered him in a cool tone, ‘He was out of sight of our men for the entire duration of the three murders. He could have been in his house, but he could just as easily have not. He was then tailed, staggering around like a madman, acting like a grade-one crazy until he deliberately and skilfully slipped that tail. That’s enough for me, and more than enough to stall any fucking reserve-bought lawyer who tries to get him bail on grounds of being another untouchable target of white victimization.’

Craig thought of fighting, then thought again. ‘The press. They’ll burst vessels in their necks.’

‘So let them. I want that bastard off the streets. In an hour it won’t be our problem.’