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inflicted on the corpse and the efforts which had already been made to repair the damage in the hope that by the following morning a suitably cosmetic photograph could be issued to the media. But as it turned out the undertaker’s efforts were enough.
    Frank Earnshaw and his son stood pale-faced and rigid beside the gurney as the technician pulled back the sheet covering the corpse but their reaction was instant. The older man choked slightly and then nodded, jaw clenched, while Mower moved quickly to provide a steadying arm to his son, Matthew, who was visibly swaying.
    â€œYou’re sure that is your other son, Simon Earnshaw?” Thackeray asked, his own face rigid with tension.
    â€œIt’s Simon,” Earnshaw said, his voice hoarse. “How the hell did he come to fall down the Crag?”
    â€œHe didn’t fall, Mr. Earnshaw,” Thackeray said. “We have good reason to believe he was murdered.”
    â€œOh my God,” Earnshaw said, while his other son slumped against Mower, who grabbed him in a bear hug, before he vomited all over the floor and the sergeant’s shoes.

Chapter Five
    Sergeant Mower seized his companion’s arm fiercely as he came out of the main entrance to Bradfield Infirmary and pushed him to a stop against the wall at the bottom of the broad stone steps, holding his elbow across the younger man’s chest.
    â€œDon’t ever, ever, let your personal feelings go like that again,” he said. “It’s not helpful, it’s not professional, it’s not even safe. You were winding that girl’s father up, you idiot. Trying to get him to commit himself to something he can’t possibly judge at this stage. As if they haven’t got enough to cope with.”
    DC Mohammed Sharif, commonly known in CID as Omar, a name he accepted so amiably that Mower suspected that the joke was his own idea, pushed the sergeant’s arm away irritably.
    â€œYou can’t treat that sort of shit as if the girl’s grazed her knee,” he said angrily. “She’ll possibly lose the sight of that eye. Someone’s got to deal with these fucking racists. She’s going to be scarred for life, she’ll never marry …”
    â€œAnd how do you know that it’s not the work of a gang of Asians pissed off because she’s got a white boyfriend?” Mower snapped.
    â€œWhat?” Sharif said, his angry eyes suddenly uncertain. “Is that what they’re saying? Is that what she said?”
    â€œShe didn’t get a look at whoever threw the stuff,” Mower said, more quietly, aware that they were attracting curious glances from passers-by making their way in and out of the busy hospital. “You’re assuming it was a racist attack. You’re pushing her father into claiming it was a racist attack. And
you may well be right and of course we have to take that possibility on board. That’s the way it works. But we don’t know for certain. Not yet. So calm down and let’s try to behave like bloody detectives instead of emotional schoolboys, shall we? That’s what they pay us for.”
    Sharif pulled himself away from Mower’s restraining arm and walked ahead of the sergeant, back towards police headquarters. Mower caught up with him quickly.
    â€œWhen I talked to her father initially he was evasive, evidently not sure of what was going on with the girl,” Mower said in a fierce whisper, one cautious eye on a couple of Asian youths leaning against a wall. “I want you to talk to him and the mother, calmly and rationally. I’ll come with you but my Punjabi’s not up to it if she doesn’t speak much English. You know the rules: this is a racist incident if they say it’s a racist incident, but so far I’m not getting that message clearly enough. The girl can’t be sure. I’ll talk to the guv’nor when we get back because in the present state of tension we