"I went to make my calls from my old station. A very kind young lady offered to fetch me a sandwich. I could hardly refuse."

"Some people have all the luck." Wingate said. "The very least you could have done was to have her bring one for me too."

"Next time I will. For all I knew, Bragg might have decided to take a lunch break."

"Not him. Works till he drops, I fear."

"Are the forensic boys still in there?" Evan looked at the white van still beside the front door.

"Yeah, still at it. It will probably take them twice as long with Bragg breathing down their necks. I can't tell you how glad I was to get out on my own for a while. I expect you felt the same."

"Pangs of regret, I have to confess," Evan said. "Still, it's hard when everyone keeps telling you it's a step up the ladder."

"Hopefully a quick step." Wingate grinned.

"So did you learn anything from the neighbors?"

"Not much. As you'd expect, you don't have a good view of the street from most of these houses. And there must be several professional couples. Nobody was home at either of those houses across the street, which is annoying, as they'd be the only ones with a clear view of who was going in and out of this gate."

"What about next door?" Evan indicated a large, redbrick house, half hidden by large evergreens.

"Crusty old bugger-an ex-colonel from the south of England. He lives alone since his wife died. It seems that he and Professor Rogers have had their run-ins over the years. He thought she was pleasant enough, but as they both like to keep themselves to themselves, they only exchanged the odd word when they were gardening."

"And he hadn't noticed anything unusual this morning."

"He had a gripe about the fact that someone was out there mowing before eight. He said the noise disturbed his breakfast. He couldn't hear the news properly. He was about to come out and complain when the sound stopped."

"I wonder why she was mowing?" Evan said. "If they have a gardener, you'd have thought she'd have left that to him. Heavy work, lugging a mower, even a power one."

"She's obviously a fanatic where her garden is concerned. You look at all those beds. Not a weed in sight. Maybe she found a few blades of grass that the gardener missed, and she couldn't stand to see them."

"Maybe." Evan nodded, pushing other, more disturbing thoughts to the back of his mind. "So what's next, do you think?"

"We have to wait until the great man emerges and pronounces judgment, I suppose. Well, talk of the devil." They looked up at the sound of feet scrunching on gravel and saw DI Bragg coming toward them.

"Finished already?" he called, looking at Wingate.

"Yes sir. Nothing much to report from the neighbors. Several houses unoccupied at this time of day. Some of the neighbors I spoke to knew the Rogers. Thought he was a pleasant chap. She was rather standoffish. Said 'good morning' but not much more. The man next door complained about the lawn mower being used this morning, but he didn't see or hear anything unusual."

"So no strange cars parked on the street?"

"No sir."

"And anyone hear a shot?"

"No. One woman thought she heard an engine backfire while she was upstairs getting dressed, but the shower was running in the bathroom and she didn't think any more of it. Most of these houses have double glazing installed, and the traffic on the Holyhead Road is quite noisy at that time in the morning."

"That's too bad. Let's hope someone will come forward after they hear about it on the news. You contacted all the local media, did you, Evans?"

"Yes sir. All done. It will be on this evening's news and in tomorrow's papers."

"Good man. Well, I can report that forensics are getting along nicely. They've located the bullet. Dug it out of the wall."

"Out of the wall?" Evan blurted out.

"That's right. It went in through one side of the head and out the other apparently. This is particularly lucky because now they can work on an exact trajectory and be able to tell us where it was fired from. The ballistics chap is inclined to go along with our theory of firing through the open window, by the way."

Evan thought he remembered that Bragg had discounted that theory when he presented it. Now, suddenly, it had become "our" theory.

"What about fingerprints?" he asked.

"They've finished dusting for fingerprints, and there is one set of prints we can't yet identify. I suspect it will turn out to be the cleaning lady's because they are all over the house."

"What about on the window latch?" Evan asked.

"Nothing. Just his and hers."

"Maybe the killer wore gloves," Evan suggested.

"You can't shoot very well in gloves. He'd have had to take them off to fire the gun."

"Unless they were latex. I expect you can shoot just as well in those," Sergeant Wingate said.

"True. In which case he departed wearing them. We didn't find any in the rubbish bin. And you didn't find any dumped in the bushes outside, did you?"

"No sir. Nothing dumped in the bushes. The whole garden is meticulously neat."

"What about the cartridge?" Evan asked. "If the shot really was fired through the window, wouldn't the cartridge have been ejected outside?"

"Again, unless he looked for it and took it with him," Wingate said.

"A thoughtful, well-organized murderer." Bragg said the words slowly. "Maybe we can start to put together a profile. What have we got so far?"

"He must have observed the Rogers's morning routine," Evan said. "He knew when Mrs. Rogers left to walk the dog. He knew Professor Rogers sat at the window to eat his breakfast and that the window was likely to be open."

"So a carefully planned crime. Nothing impulsive about it."

"And someone who knew the victim," Wingate added, "ruling out any kind of burglary or home invasion."

"Right." Bragg looked up as two members of the forensic team came out to the van. One of them came up to the detectives.

"We're off for a bite of lunch," he said. "We should have you cleared to move the body this afternoon. We'll schedule the morgue pickup and the clean-up crew so that the widow can use her kitchen again by tonight. I don't suppose she'll want to make herself a cup of tea with blood spatters on the walls."

"So we're definitely dealing with a homicide?" Bragg said. "No possibility that he shot himself?"

"Blew his brains out and then went to dispose of the weapon?" the technician said with a chuckle.

"The wife could have disposed of the weapon."

"And why would she do that?"

"She was ashamed that her husband killed himself?" Bragg suggested.

"Usually it would be the other way around. They kill somebody and then stick the gun into his hand to make it look like suicide. But no, in this case the victim was definitely shot by someone standing about six to eight feet away. Small-caliber weapon."

"Will you have any way of knowing if the bullet was fired from an antique weapon? The one missing from the collection?"

The technician shrugged. "You'll have to ask Freeman; he's the ballistics expert. But judging by the imprint left on the velvet in that drawer, the missing gun looked identical to the dueling pistol beside it. And that would be logical, wouldn't it? You always had dueling pistols in pairs-one for each party." He grinned. "And if my memory serves me correctly, they didn't fire bullets in those days but round balls. Whether they could be adapted to fire modern bullets, I don't know. As I said, ask Freeman. I have to go now, or Huw will leave without me. He's like a madman if he doesn't get his nosh on time."

He didn't wait for an answer but ran to hoist himself into the rapidly reversing van.

The woman police constable appeared at the front door. "It's past lunchtime, and I really think Mrs. Rogers should have something to eat," she said. "Is it okay to take her to a café? They're still working in the kitchen, and the body's still there."

"That's fine with me," Bragg said. "Take her out if she'll go. It might be a good thing. You could try chatting to her in the car and see if she opens up at all. I get the feeling she knows or suspects more than she's letting on. Someone must have hated her husband enough to have wanted him dead. It might even have been her."

"Oh surely not, sir," the WPC said. "She's in shock, poor woman. Ashen gray."

"Not exactly showing grief though, is she? Or surprise? When we opened that drawer and saw a gun was missing, I was watching her face. No surprise registered at all. It was almost as if she knew it wouldn't be there."

"But why on earth would she want to murder her husband?" the WPC asked.

"That's what we've got to find out."

DI Bragg showed no indication of wanting to take a lunch break, and Evan silently thanked Glynis again for the gyro. When Pritchard and Wingate muttered about needing at least a cup of coffee, Bragg relented and sent Pritchard off for fast food.

"Bunch of pansies," Bragg said. "Obviously never been through army training."

"Oh, so you served in the army, did you, sir?" Wingate asked, giving Evan a knowing look.

"I did. Seven years. Saw action in Kuwait and then in Bosnia. I tell you boys, I've seen stuff that would make your hair curl. There's no crime you'll encounter here to compare with some of the attrocities I've seen."

That explained a lot, Evan thought. He tried to think more kindly of DI Bragg. Anyone who had seen atrocities in Bosnia would have to have come back a changed man.

"Right, don't hang about here doing nothing. Just because someone's gone on a food run, doesn't mean the rest of us can take a break. Evans, you can drive. We're going to talk to the charwoman. Wingate, you can see if the gardener's home. He only lives around the corner."

"Anything particular you want me to ask him, sir?" Wingate asked innocently.

"Use your initiative man," Bragg snapped. "I presume you must have shown some resourcefulness in the past or you wouldn't have been promoted to sergeant."

"Right you are, sir." Wingate set off.

Evan suspected that Wingate was going to get his kicks by baiting their senior officer. While it might be amusing to watch, it made for an atmosphere of tension and that would be no way to work in the long run. It was probably as Sergeant Jones in Caernarfon had suggested-they were jostling for pecking order at the moment, testing each other's strengths and weaknesses.