“It came up in our inquiries,” Winsome said. “So you’ve got two cases now, only weeks apart, both nipped in the bud, and both starring Danny Caxton. What do you think of that?”

“I don’t know what to think. If I’d known at the time—”

“Oh, come on, Simon,” Banks cut in. “Surely you’ve got a bit of imagination.”

“Well . . . I suppose, you know, if Monaghan was queer and he was connected with someone high up—”

“Like Caxton? Or a senior police officer?”

“Maybe the chief constable. Or a local politician, bigwig, whatever. Well, if there was a such a connection, maybe a little influence had been brought to bear. They’d want to keep something like that quiet, wouldn’t they, legal or not.”

“Do you think DI Chadwick knew about this connection?”

“No. I very much doubt it,” said Bradley. “I think they kept him as much in the dark as they did me. Like I said, he seemed pissed off at being told to give it up. See, there was always one thing that rankled.”

“Oh?” said Banks. “And what was that?”

“It was the body. I mean, it was gruesome enough, and all, no doubt about that.”

“So what was wrong?”

“The position, partly. It just didn’t seem right, Chiller thought, didn’t seem natural he would have fallen the way he had.”

“But you don’t know for certain that’s what happened?”

“It’s what the pathologist said at the scene. Course, we never got a proper postmortem report. Not that I ever saw.” He shook his head slowly. “Look, I’m bloody gobsmacked by all this. Are you sure you’re right?”

“We only have a few facts, Mr. Bradley,” said Winsome. “That’s all. What we’ve told you is true as far as it goes. Obviously, we need to know a lot more. Can you think of anything else?”

“Just something Chiller said. I wouldn’t have known because it was my first, like.”

“What was it?”

“There wasn’t enough blood. If he’d been killed where we found him, he wouldn’t have fallen the way he was lying and there would have been a lot more blood.”

“Did the pathologist remark on this?” Banks asked.

“I think so. It’s a long time ago. But if he did, it was in a sort of offhand way, like it might not mean anything, or there might be a simple explanation. I’ve since found out that not all knife wounds bleed a lot. The cut ends sort of form a seal. But one of the thrusts had severed a major artery, the femoral. There should have been more blood. But, like I said earlier, the weather was foul and we certainly didn’t find any traces of blood in the park.”

“So DI Chadwick suspected that your student might have been right about what he saw, and Tony Monaghan was killed elsewhere and dumped in the toilets?” Banks said.

“I’m not sure he actually came out with it like that, but yes, it seems that way.”