Five
Carl and Harry arrived at the station shortly before eight, after a hot breakfast in the same dining room they had eaten in the night before.
The duty constable directed them into a conference room with a heavily scratched wooden table taking up most of the available space. The chairs around the table looked like they’d been reclaimed from salvage. The walls of the room had the dull glow of a surface that hadn’t seen a fresh coat of paint in living memory. Inspector Norris and the sergeant from Forensics were seated at the end of the table under the window opposite the door, the only bright spot in the room.
After exchanging greetings, they got down to the briefing.
‘The pathologist reckons he was dead before midday, yesterday. Maybe as early as ten o’clock,’ said the sergeant fro
