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man?'
    'What did you say, Mummy?'
    'Nothing darling. Mummy thought she'd lost her purse.'
    'It's in your hand already, Mummy.'
    'Yes, it is.'
    'Silly Mummy.'
    'That's right. Too silly for words.'
    Laura's mind had jumped wildly from the strange man to the inquest.
    She was still puzzled at how Detlev's death had occurred. She had her own reasons for wondering what the verdict of the inquest might be.
     
    *  *  *
     
    One minute to ten o'clock. Professor Tom Fortius from the Centre for Entomological Research at Hull Wilberforce University, shuffled uncomfortably on the tiny island of his chair. Big framed and, apart from his spreading waistline, muscular rather than fat, he often had difficulty accommodating his six foot six body in spaces built for more average people. His pet aversion was being given lifts in tiny cars designed for under-size people to drive about town.
    Tom looked round the courtroom, his brilliant blue eyes almost hidden under a mass of near jet-black wavy hair, which as he leaned forward threatened to cascade down his forehead and prevent him seeing anything. He had too much on his mind to focus properly on the proceedings. It reminded him of a crematorium – not the kind of place you'd ever anticipate attending unless you had to. The usher had disappeared a few minutes ago through the door behind the coroner's bench. Those left in that sombre courtroom in Beverley, ten miles from Hull, sat in a silence strongly reminiscent of a religious ceremony.
    Tom had worries over and above his questions about Detlev's untimely death, about ten months ago. The funeral, a few days later, had taken place too close to the shock of his death and the immediate grieving, for considered reflection. It was different now. This occasion created that uniquely dramatic atmosphere, through the deliberate concentration of many hearts and minds on the circumstances surrounding the death.
    The courtroom was modestly small, with a raised desk and seats at the front facing a line of tables and chairs in the centre, and along each side two rows of chairs facing inwards. It was barely formal enough to serve its sombre purpose. The square seats in the courtroom, like the decor, were comfortable at a minimal level.
    When the usher returned, he didn't have to raise his voice to be heard clearly by the fifteen people present: witnesses, relatives, two police officers and two press reporters.
    The uniforms of the two police officers contrasted with the everyday clothes of most of the relatives and other witnesses. Constable Tebbutt displayed his nervousness at his first time giving evidence to a coroner's court by standing at the front table in the courtroom from soon after half past nine, whilst sorting and re-sorting his papers. Constable Birch, Scenes of Crime Officer, and very experienced at appearing in coroners' courts, was there as well, sitting down, more relaxed and conversational than her colleague.
    The rear table was occupied by the two press reporters, who came in at the last minute and kept themselves to themselves. Witnesses, including Detlev's friends and family who had flown over from Wolfach, their home village in the Schwarz Wald of Germany, were sitting to the left of the coroner, next to the usher.
    The usher, Frederick Blunt, his face as grey and his suit as plain and off-the-peg as his name, came in and stood, grey and bald like the butler in an old-style drama. He intoned in his sepulchral voice: 'The Court will stand.'
    James Wilkes, coroner, followed and then Faith Wistow, the clerk who for the past six years had taken a shorthand record of these proceedings. Wilkes appeared embarrassed at even this minimal ritual and spoke almost to one side as though he couldn't abide that people still stood there while he sat down first:
    'Please sit down.'
     
    *  *  *
     
    Robin Lovelace was lying on the unmade bed browsing through the pile of uninteresting morning mail. His eye caught an unwelcome view of the pudgy roll