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Creesforth Road, passing two houses. He peered into their front gardens, stopped, turned round and walked back to the house and looked at the gardens of the two houses at the other side. There were no laurel bushes. It was becoming apparent that the laurel leaf could not have dropped on to the victim’s carpet at his bedside without human involvement.
    Angel dashed inside and called up the stairs, ‘Don Taylor there?’
    ‘ Here, sir,’ Taylor replied. His head appeared over the banisters.
    ‘ Don, is any part of the house still under crime scene protocol?’
    ‘ No, sir,’ Taylor said as he descended the stairs.
    Angel wasn’t pleased. ‘And you’ve nothing more for me?’
    ‘ Sorry, sir.’
    Angel blew out a length of air. He was searching for a forensically aware murderer, and he didn’t like it.
    Taylor knew he was disappointed. He would have liked to have said something supportive to him, but he couldn’t think of anything appropriate at that time.
    Angel stood there, looking round and rubbing his chin.
    Taylor said, ‘Can I help you with anything, sir?’
    ‘ Yes. Photographs, Don. Home snaps. You know the sort of thing. Sometimes helps you to build the picture of the victim.’
    ‘ Photographs? There are stacks on the walls of that room up there, sir,’ he said and pointed along the hall to a room at the end. ‘It’s a sort of study.’
    ‘ Oh, right, Don. Thank you,’ he said as he walked down the hall.
    Taylor returned upstairs.
    Angel found the room had a big desk in it, a filing cabinet, a couple of chairs, a set of golf clubs, and a TV set with a big screen. The walls were covered with a hundred or more framed photographs of the victim, Redman, in every conceivable role: as husband, father, bank manager, president of the Rotary Club, chairman of the golf club, the cricket team, on holiday in Santiago, St Petersburg, Lucerne, Paris, and so on. There were formal photographs of him taking part in local stage productions of The Gondoliers , Nero , The Importance of Being Ernest , Charley ’ s Aunt , Ladies In Retirement , Aladdin and lots more. He was there, singing The Messiah with the local choral society at Christmas, enjoying a boat trip on the Flamborian sailing out of Bridlington harbour in the summer, and simply peering at unusual objects being petrified in Mother Shipton’s cave in Knaresborough in the autumn. The photographs seemed endless. Some showed him alone and some with one or two others and in large groups of thirty or more. Each picture was carefully, neatly captioned in meticulous detail giving names, dates, places and occasions.
    Angel was marvelling at the busy life Luke Redman had led when his thoughts were disturbed by the ring of his mobile phone. He dived into his pocket for it. The LCD showed him it was Superintendent Harker. An encounter with his boss was never pleasant, and in anticipation of an unpleasant encounter, Angel’s face assumed the appearance of a man with toothache waiting to see the man from the Inland Revenue.
    ‘ I’ve just had a triple nine call,’ Harker said. ‘A dead woman found in the back room of her florist’s shop at 221 Bradford Road.’
    It could hardly be more serious. Angel’s heart began to thump.
    ‘ Name given as Ingrid Underwood,’ Harker said. ‘Appears to have been stabbed in the chest. Same place as in that Redman case.’
    Angel ’s innards turned a somersault.
    ‘ Uniform are in attendance,’ Harker said. ‘I have advised Mac. Can’t raise SOCO.’
    ‘ Right, sir,’ Angel said. ‘SOCO are with me. I’ll direct them.’
    He pocketed the mobile and made for the hallway. In his head, he heard Harker’s voice again say the words: ‘Appears to have been stabbed in the chest. Same place as in that Redman case.’
    He called up the stairwell to Taylor, gave him the news and the name and address of the shop where the dead body had been reported found, then dashed outside to his car.
    He was at the premises in four