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of something noble, an image that would define his life.
    Nothing came.
    He shut his eyes and pulled the trigger.
    â€˜It is Tuesday 27th February, 1996,’ the fat pathologist wheezed into the tape recorder hanging on his chest. ‘The time is sixteen-thirty-three hours. I am Doctor Sidney Lewis and I am conducting a preliminary examination on the body of an unidentified male. The body was brought to the coroner’s mortuary at Fulham by ambulance from St Agnes’ hospital, where the subject was declareddead on arrival at sixteen-oh-eight hours, this date.’
    Dr Lewis switched off the recorder and waited as an attendant led two constables and a plainclothes policeman into the autopsy room.
    â€˜I’m DI Latham,’ the plainclothes man said. ‘These are Constables Bryant and Dempsey. They were in pursuit of the dead man shortly before he died.’
    Lewis looked at them. ‘You’re the two who were chasing him when he panicked and shot himself?’
    â€˜If you care to put it that way,’ the taller one, Dempsey, said coldly.
    â€˜And why have you come here?’
    â€˜I wanted them to look at the body and tell me it’s the man they chased,’ Latham said. ‘There can be identity problems with Middle Eastern types, and since this case could turn messy, I want basic facts established before everything gets obscured by jargon.’
    Dr Lewis waved a hand at the corpse. ‘Well, then, gentlemen, is this the man in question?’
    â€˜That’s him all right,’ Dempsey said. Bryant nodded.
    â€˜Fine.’ Lewis grasped the handle at the top end of the tray holding the body. ‘Now, tell me before we go any further, are there any mysteries here? I mean, do we know how he died, for sure? Was it the way I’ve been told? He took his own life, without a shadow of doubt?’
    â€˜That’s clearly established,’ Latham said. ‘Butthere’s plenty of mystery, just the same. We don’t know who he is, we don’t know why the gun, or why he shot himself with it.’
    â€˜Shortly after shooting a woman in Mayfair,’ Constable Dempsey added.
    â€˜Not yet confirmed,’ Latham snapped. ‘But that’s likely,’ he told Dr Lewis. ‘He appears to have shot and killed a woman as she looked in a gallery window on Cork Street.’
    â€˜Who was she?’
    â€˜We don’t know that yet, either. All very confused at this stage. There’s a diplomatic angle. American. We’ll know more in an hour or so.‘
    â€˜I see what you mean by messy,’ Lewis said. ‘Never mind, in the meantime we can generate paperwork.’ He switched on a bright striplight above the autopsy table. ‘I don’t think we’re going to find much that isn’t obvious already. If one or both of you constables would help me with the clothing, it will speed matters.’
    He saw Bryant scowl and watched Dempsey work up a look of affront.
    â€˜Is there a problem?’
    Bryant shrugged sullenly.
    Dempsey said, ‘I don’t remember signing up for anything like this.’
    â€˜Blame your own bad timing,’ Lewis said. ‘You drove this poor soul to kill himself at approximately the same time a debt collector in Parsons Green pushed two of his targets against the plate-glass window of a betting shop with rather too muchforce. The glass gave way and the debtors were cut almost in half. They’re through in the other room being stripped at this moment by my only assistant - the bloodstained one who showed you in.’
    â€˜I don’t think you have the right to say we drove this man to -’
    â€˜It was a joke, for God’s sake!’ Lewis said. ‘A bloody
joke,
of which we need plenty in this charnel house.’ He shook his head at DI Latham. ‘A sense of humour should be a prerequisite for the job.’
    The body was stripped and the clothes bagged for examination at the