No 27 Rochester Road was a mid-terrace house with a front door leading directly into the into front room and a passageway which served two houses and led to the rear gardens. The front garden was not much more than a flower bed, some five feet deep, fronted by a low brick wall topped with spiked cast iron railings. Roses in bloom, some of which needed dead-heading, filled the front garden in a myriad of yellow, white and red splashes of colour, just about the only colour in the entire street that Harding could see. The street wasn’t exactly run-down, just tired and dispirited, and Marcus was surprised that an apparently wealthy man, house builder and owner of several properties around town, would let his girlfriend live in a street like this.
It did not improve his opinion of the soon to
