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laughing, leering young Americans. Kolankiewicz gazed forlornly after his lost scone, and watched as the waitress lined up a multiple date for the evening. Troy tapped the table to seize his attention.
    ‘As a rule that kind of information would have taken you days to come up with. How did you happen to have it at your fingertips?’
    ‘Easy peasy. I still had all the reference books and records out that I used last year.’
    ‘Last year?’
    ‘That other German. The one they found on Tower beach with bullet-hole in his cheek. I got out all the stuff on fabrics, hallmarks and you know what then. I identified him as German from the clothes. Labels cut out, but the fabric was a giveaway. It just happens that I never bothered to send the stuff back. You know me. I work best in a little chaos.’
    ‘When last year?’
    ‘April. May. I don’t know.’
    ‘How is it that I haven’t heard of it? Where was I?’
    ‘How the fuck should I know? It wasn’t in the Met area. City Police you know. I believe their man handled the case. Idiot name of Malnick.’
    ‘Oh God. Not Malnick.’
    Malnick had been a uniformed Inspector with the City of London Police in 1939 when Troy was in his first few days at the Yard. The City Superintendent had requested help from the Yard when the case of the drowned eight-year-old boy seemed to have ground to a halt. Inspector Malnick had had his nose put thoroughly out of joint when Onions sent a twenty-four-year-old Troy, still only a constable, as the specialist help he thought they needed. He had earned Malnick’s everlasting enmity by solving the case in forty-eight hours.
    ‘I was in Liverpool in April. Could it have been then?’
    ‘Possibly. But they didn’t send for the Yard. Their man insisted on tackling it personally. But, like I said, he was an idiot.’
    ‘Did they catch anyone?’
    ‘Not to my knowledge. If the case ever came to trial they neversent for anything from Hendon. My file is still open.’
    ‘Why didn’t you tell me this on Friday?’
    Kolankiewicz swigged his tea and played for time.
    ‘I forgot,’ he said with a shrug, ‘It was my assistant, Anna, who remembered.’
    ‘Was there any other similarity besides the clothing?’
    ‘That I’d have to look up. As you’re asking me to compare a whole body to an arm and a bag of bones, I should say not much.’
    ‘Shot in the face, you said?’
    ‘Oh, that I do remember. It seemed, as you English would say, caddish. Certainly less than sporting.’
    ‘A shot to the forehead badly aimed?’
    ‘Don’t ask me to guess. It’s like pissing into the wind.’
    ‘Any attempt at dismemberment?’
    ‘No. I had a whole cadaver. Troy, why don’t you talk to Anna? She can get out the file and tell you anything you want to know.’
    At the back of the café Troy got through to Hendon on the phone. But Anna could not find the file. She told him she’d ring back. Troy hogged the phone and stood by it to prevent anyone else making a call. He watched Kolankiewicz slyly swap his empty cup for Troy’s full one, and as the phone rang saw him snatch his coveted scone from a tray as the waitress had her head and her common sense turned by a provocative remark from one of the soldiers. He would hate to have to get between the cocksurety of any young soldier and the righteousness of Kolankiewicz.
    ‘It’s not there,’ said Anna. ‘I don’t know what he’s done with it. Even the cards are missing. I think that’s why he didn’t want to tell you, but I told him you’d ask.’
    ‘What cards?’
    ‘One of Spilsbury’s methods, that we copied – everything that would go into a file also goes on quick reference cards. I fill in Kolankiewicz’s. But they’ve walked or he’s had them out and not put them back.’
    ‘Do you remember anything about the case?’
    ‘Yes. Mainly what a buffoon Malnick was. Kolankiewicz got right up his nose as you can imagine. Apart from that, the body was a man of about forty I’d say. I