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have dental records, and in Awan’s case, DNA. Baraniq isn’t positive yet but we’re eighty percent sure.”
    “You’ve shown these pics to Hector?”
    “Naturally. Could be his sort-of-darkie was Awan, and the other possibly Baraniq, though he’s even vaguer there. I’ve tried to push him beyond sort of funny, not so much a darkie but no luck. I hope we never have to have poor Hec up on the witness stand.”
    She spoke with a smile.
    Pascoe thought, Two minutes on our patch and already she’s making our jokes.
    He said, “Look, what Hector doesn’t see is most things. But what he says he does see, you can usually rely on. His shortcomings are verbal rather than optical.”
    This wasn’t just a knee-jerk Hector-might-be-an-idiot-but-he’s- our -
    idiot reaction. Pascoe had once spotted Hector sitting on a park bench, notebook open on his knee, eyes fixed on a pair of sparrows dining on a discarded cheeseburger.
    “Making notes in case you have to arrest them, Hec?” he’d inquired jocularly as he came up behind.
    Hector had reacted as if caught committing an indecent act, jumping up so fast he dropped his pencil stub, the while regarding Pascoe as if he carried a fl aming sword. At the same time, he was ripping the page out of his notebook, but not before Pascoe glimpsed what looked like a sketch of the two birds.
    “Can I have a look?” Pascoe had asked.
    With great reluctance Hector had handed the sheet over.
    Smoothed out, it revealed what proved to be a lively and accurate depiction of the feeding sparrows.
    “Please, sir, you won’t tell anyone, please,” said Hector tremulously.

    d e a t h c o m e s f o r t h e fa t m a n 53
    “This is good,” said Pascoe, returning the sketch. “I didn’t know you could draw, Hec.”
    “But you won’t tell anyone,” repeated the constable anxiously.
    It now struck Pascoe that it wasn’t being reported for misuse of his offi cial note-book that bothered Hector so much as the idea of his colleagues knowing that he drew pictures. Everyone needs a secret, Pascoe thought. Most of us have too many. But if you’ve only got the one, how precious must that be.
    “Of course I won’t,” he said. “Carry on, Constable!”
    And he’d kept his word, not even sharing Hector’s secret with Ellie.
    So he certainly wasn’t going to be specific with Glenister, who said doubtfully, “If you say so, Peter. Now is there anything else we can bring you up to speed on?”
    “Maybe.”
    He went to the computer table and tapped the shoulder of the operator who looked to have the least happening on his screen.
    “Could you bring me up the Mill Street SOCO file?” he said.
    The man glanced up at him, blank faced. Blank was the right word here. He had a regularity of feature which made you think android. His mirror and photographic images were probably indistinguishable. In his thirties, Pascoe guessed, but metro-thirties rather than up-north-thirties. The jacket draped over the back of the chair and his open necked shirt said bet-you-can’t-afford-me loud and clear. His blond hair had more gel in it than Dalziel would have let pass without some crack about an oil change. And he had eyes the color of slate and just as hard.
    The eyes held Pascoe’s for a moment then the man turned to look at Glenister.
    Pascoe also turned to face her, his head cocked to one side, his lips pursed in exasperation, his eyebrows raised interrogatively.
    She said, “Listen in, laddies. This is DCI Pascoe. What he asks for, you give him. No need to come running to me like I’m your mam and you need your nose wiped. OK?”
    “Yes, ma’am,” the other two responded with a crispness born, 54 r e g i n a l d h i l l
    Pascoe guessed, of past refusals by their boss to hear anything that wasn’t loud and clear, but the blond’s only response was to bring up the file. He then rose and offered Pascoe his chair.
    Glenister said, “Peter, meet Dave Freeman He has been known to speak.”
    A smile