“Well, that explains the smell,” said Annie. “But as for harassing racial minorities, come off it, sir. In the first place, the Asians didn’t seem to be a minority in the area, and in the second, I didn’t harass anyone. Nor did DC Masterson. Maybe I didn’t wear kid gloves, but I treated them all in exactly the same way I treat everyone else I question in a homicide investigation.”

“Well, if that’s the way you go around—”

“Did you discover anything more on this Strip?” Banks cut in. Carver glared at him.

“No. Apart from the smell. We talked to some guys in the minicab office next door, but that’s all. Everything else was pretty much closed, and there weren’t a lot of people about. None of the ones we talked to admitted to knowing Mimosa. It was as if she didn’t exist. I got the feeling that someone’s got these people scared, or well trained, sir. They—”

“This is pure balderdash,” fumed Carver, getting to his feet. “Just because you couldn’t get any leads in your investigation, you accuse a whole community of being involved in a cover-up. If they said they didn’t know her, it was probably because they didn’t. I suppose you think my officers are part of the conspiracy, too?”

“I never said that, sir,” Annie answered. “But if the cap fits . . .”

“You certainly implied it. Don’t you think your time might have been better spent asking them if they had noticed anything, instead of pestering local cafe owners and businessmen?”

“That’s enough of that, Superintendent Carver,” said Banks. “Let’s leave implications out of it for the moment. Sit down.”

Carver didn’t look happy, but he subsided into his chair.

“And we did ask Reg and Bill if they’d noticed anything,” muttered Annie. “Or if they recognized Mimosa Moffat.”

“By which time you’d already alienated them.”

“Did they, by the way?” Banks asked him. “Notice anything?”

“No,” said Carver. “I talked to them about it once we knew why your officers were nosing around. And none of my men saw anything on the night in question, either. Reg and Bill weren’t even on duty. But the fact remains,” he went on, “that Wytherton is a racially sensitive community. The place is like a tinderbox. It could go up at any moment. You don’t go marching into such an area and start pushing people around and making arbitrary insinuations. If you go in there at all, you go there with all your facts straight—and preferably with specific names, warrants, evidence, the lot.”

“More than if they happened to be white?”

“Damn right,” said Carver.

“We didn’t push anybody around,” Annie said. “I don’t get it. Is this some sort of positive nondiscrimination?”

“Think about it, DI Cabbot,” said Banks. “Call it post-colonial guilt, if you like.”

“Even that doesn’t explain it.”

“Then just accept it.”