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water in your pool for a moment. ‘Don’t you want to know how they ripped you off?”
    Paradise shakes his head again and smiles. You think he’s aiming for genial but he’s forgotten how to be anything but ruthless. The smile is a grimace.
    â€˜That long ago? Couldn’t give a fuck. I’ve done my share of shafting and been shafted since.’
    â€˜Do you still do business with them?’
    Paradise stands. ‘Leave them alone, pilgrim.’
    â€˜I know one of them is attached to an office in Siem Reap.’
    â€˜There you go then – you don’t need me.’
    â€˜I’m paying that office a visit next.’
    Paradise wags a finger at you. ‘If you try that there may not be any
next
for you.’
    Gilchrist told a constable to keep Rafferty and his house guest, now in a shirt and jeans, in the kitchen. She and Heap went into the hallway.
    â€˜We’ll have the first look then let Don-Don and the rest do the thorough stuff when they get here,’ Gilchrist said.
    Don-Don was Detective Sergeant Donald Donaldson, who was a loose part of her team. Or perhaps a loose cannon part of her team was a better description.
    â€˜Ma’am,’ Heap said.
    â€˜Obsessive-compulsive?’ Gilchrist said to Heap, gesturing around the long ground-floor room.
    â€˜Extremely,’ Heap agreed. ‘Remarkable when it’s so overstuffed with knick-knacks and all this fussy stuff.’
    â€˜No wonder he lives alone,’ Gilchrist said. ‘Who else could find shelf space? You live in Brighton, Heap?’
    â€˜Lewes, ma’am,’ he said, leading the way up the steep staircase to the first floor. ‘Brighton is too exciting for me.’
    The front room on that floor was a library, lined with books from floor to ceiling. All hardbacks. The master bedroom was at the rear with long French windows looking out over the well-kept garden.
    Neither these rooms nor the floor above held anything of immediate interest. The house was formidably tidy except for the guest room on the top floor scattered with Roger’s clothes.
    Gilchrist pulled the bedcover back. ‘And?’
    â€˜He’s been sleeping here,’ Heap said. ‘Whether he was last night I wouldn’t know.’
    They descended to the basement, which had been fitted out as a self-contained flat.
    A room at the front was locked and bolted on the outside. The key was in the door. Heap and Gilchrist exchanged looks. Somebody locked in here?
    There was and there wasn’t. When they walked in both stopped dead. It was a big sitting room with sofas and armchairs and, over against one wall, a dining table and chairs. And on every available seat were placed oversized dolls, in skirts and stockings, aprons and Bo-Peep hats.
    â€˜Has he been nicking the museum stock …?’ Gilchrist started to say when she realized something.
    Heap must have realized it at the same time because he suddenly clutched at her. ‘Christ,’ he said.
    â€˜My sentiments exactly,’ Gilchrist whispered, gently disengaging Heap’s hand from her arm.
    He looked down at what she was doing and the second realization dawned. He jerked his hand away from her and flushed bright red. ‘Sorry, ma’am,’ he said.
    â€˜It’s all right, Bellamy,’ she whispered, unsure why she wasn’t speaking in her normal voice. ‘We all get taken by surprise.’ She surveyed the room. ‘I’d say Keymer isn’t the first graveyard Mr Rafferty has robbed.’
    Bob Watts looked down on the promenade from his balcony. The seafront was busy in the sunshine but hardly anyone was actually promenading. Scarcely a walker to be seen. Jostling together were cyclists, joggers, then grown men and women on scooters or roller-blades or skateboards. There was also a new breed: people on skis with little wheels attached, propelling themselves along with ski sticks.
    One of the few people