"The bullet's been recovered. Again it went in one side of his temple, out the other, and stuck in the wall. Identical bullet to the one that killed Martin Rogers."

"Well, this is a turn up for the books, isn't it?" Bragg turned back to his team, who were standing behind him. "An Italian restaurant, you say?"

"I think restaurant would be a flattering name for it. It's more like a little pizza and spaghetti place called Papa Luigi's at the not-so-good end of Llandudno, next to an Indian take-away."

"And is the dead owner Luigi?" Jeremy Wingate asked.

"That's right. Luigi Alessi. Found by his wife, Pamela Alessi, when he hadn't come to bed when she woke around three a.m. She went down to the kitchen and found him slumped over the table, just like Martin Rogers."

"And he's really from Italy?" Evan asked.

"The genuine article. Been here twenty years, but apparently still spoke with a thick accent."

"A university professor in Bangor and an Italian café owner in Llandudno." DI Bragg ran his fingers through his close-cropped hair. "What on earth could they have in common?"

"That's what you blokes get paid to find out." DCI Neath grinned.

"Unless it was like you said," Evan suggested. "Missy Rogers threw the gun away when she was out walking her dog. Then the second gunman found it in the bushes."

"And only decided to kill Papa Luigi because he'd fortuitously found a weapon?" Bragg asked scornfully.

"No, I didn't mean that at all." Evan said. "He was planning to kill Luigi anyway, but finding a weapon with bullets still in the cartridge was too good an opportunity. It meant that he couldn't be tracked down by the weapon."

"That's not bad thinking, Evans." DCI Neath nodded as he digested what Evans had said. "But the odds of it happening must be astronomical. The right person was walking down a street at the right time to find a weapon at the very moment he was planning to shoot somebody." He went around the table and pulled out a chair for himself. "That really is the ultimate in coincidence. I'm not saying that I haven't seen such extreme coincidences in my career, but we can't risk working from that starting point. We have to assume that one person is out there with a gun, and he's already shot two people."

"Well one thing, we'll have to let Mrs. Rogers go now, won't we?" Wingate said. "You have to admit she's got the perfect alibi for the second shooting. And I can't see her having a vendetta against a pizza parlor owner ten miles away. What could he have done to her-not put on enough olives?"

"Don't be flippant, Wingate," Bragg snapped. It was clear that this latest development had really thrown him. He'd been like a dog, homing in on its quarry, and now suddenly to be denied was a bitter blow.

"Yes, I rather think you'll have to release Mrs. Rogers," DCI Neath said. "But if I were you, I wouldn't let her know about this second murder yet. At least not until we know what we're dealing with."

They made their way back to the interview room in silence and had Mrs. Rogers brought to them. She looked wary, clearly wanting to find out what this new piece of information might be and how it affected her case.

"Mrs. Rogers," Bragg said slowly, "you'll be pleased to know that you can go home to your dog."

Her face lit up. "You're letting me go? Oh, that is good news. It's been such a strain. First finding Martin like that, and then knowing that you thought I might have done it. I can't believe it's over." She pulled a lace-edged handkerchief out of her sleeve and pressed it to her nose and mouth. "I'm sorry," she murmured. "It's all been so terrible. And my poor dog. I've been so worried."

"One thing before you go, Mrs. Rogers," Bragg said. "Do you eat Italian food?"

"Italian food?" Her eyes registered her surprise. "What an extraordinary question. And the answer is no thank you. Martin was very conservative in his food tastes. Nothing with garlic or olive oil, no strong spices. Strictly a British meat and two-veg man, although he did enjoy the occasional curry."

"So you'd have no reason to visit a pizza parlor in Llandudno?"

"A pizza parlor in Llandudno? What on earth is this about? We very rarely go to Llandudno. The shops there are no better than in Bangor, and it's one of those seaside places with day-trippers. Martin couldn't stand that sort of thing."

"So the name Luigi means nothing to you?"

For a moment her eyes lit up. "Does this mean you've found the man who shot my husband? He was Italian?"

"No, Mrs. Rogers. We haven't found the person who shot your husband, but we may be closer to doing so. And if you could have provided us with any kind of link to a pizza parlor in Llandudno, we'd know better what direction to take."

She spread her hands in a gracious gesture, still clutching her handkerchief in one of them. "There's nothing more I'd like than to help you, Inspector," she said, "but I can't think of any possible link. I'm sure Martin's students eat pizza, of course. It seems to be a mainstay of the student diet these days, doesn't it? But I don't think you'd have got Martin to touch a slice."

Bragg nodded. "Thank you, Mrs. Rogers. You've been very help ful. You're free to go, only please don't leave the area without notifying us. We may need to ask you more questions as this inquiry progresses."

"Thank you, Inspector." She nodded to the officers then left the room.

For a moment there was silence, then Bragg sighed. "Back to square one," he said. "Damn. I was so sure it was the widow. Damn and blast that bloody pizza parlor. Oh well, I suppose we better get down there and see for ourselves."

Papa Luigi's was in a row of shops behind the train station. The others were a laundromat, a corner grocery, Yvette's Beauty Salon, and the Taj Mahal Take-out Curries. It was in the old part of town that had been built in Victorian times and probably seen better days. Now it had a seedy air about it. The larger houses opposite were all divided into flats, and some looked in desperate need of a coat of paint. News of the murder had obviously leaked to the population because there was quite a crowd loitering with interest-boys on dirt bikes, mothers with prams, and some scruffy-looking youths with various facial piercings.

"The couple lived over the shop," Bragg informed the others as they parked on a double yellow line and emerged from the car.

"Then you'd think the wife would have heard the shot," Evan said.

"Yes, you'd have thought so. And so should the people above the other shops." He pointed out several brown-skinned faces peering down from above the curry take-out.

"Perhaps gunfire is so usual in this neighborhood that nobody thinks twice about it," Pritchard ventured.

"This is Wales, boy, not Chicago," Bragg said dryly. "I don't know where you live, but I've yet to find a corner of Wales in which gunfire is a usual occurrence." He looked around at the youths, lounging against a betting shop on the other side of the road. "I'm not saying a place like this won't have its share of drugs and violence and gangs. Hello-" he broke off. "It looks like forensics have beaten us to it this time."

Evan spotted the white police vehicle tucked in behind a delivery van. There was crime scene tape across the front of the shop.

"Let's take a look around first, to get our bearings before we go inside," Bragg said. He led them across the street. The crowd watched with interest. Beside each of the shops there was a front door. The one beside Luigi's was open, presumably leading up to the flat over the shop. The curtains upstairs were closed, however. Bragg led them down the side street to the alley that ran behind the block of shops. It was wide enough to take deliveries, and, indeed, there was a van parked behind the laundromat. Each of the shops had a back door that opened onto the alley. On the far side of the alley was a high wooden fence, concealing the small back gardens of the houses beyond. And the toot of a diesel horn and then the approaching rumble was a reminder that the railway lay just on the other side of those houses.

There was tape across the alleyway. Bragg was about to duck under it when a man in a dark, roll neck sweater stepped out to block him.

"Where do you think you're going?"

"Who the hell are you?" Bragg demanded.

"Police Constable Parry, and this is a crime scene. You need to step away."

"Police Constable Parry, are you? What's this then?" Bragg pointed at the black combat pants and sweater.

"New uniform," Parry said. "Now if you'll just go back the way you came."

Bragg whipped out a warrant card. "I'm Detective Inspector Bragg, son."

"Inspector Mostyn didn't tell me you were coming." The young policeman stood his ground.

"Inspector Mostyn?"

"In charge of this case."

"The hell he is. Wasn't he told we'd be taking over?"

"Taking over?"

"We're the Major Crimes Unit from headquarters. Where is he?"

"In there with the forensic team. Shall I tell him you're here?"

Bragg's ears had turned distinctly red. "What you can do is get out of the bloody way," he said. "Come on, men. Let's get in there. I knew this was going to happen."

He pushed up his sleeves as if he anticipated a real fist fight and stomped down the alley. One by one Evan and the others ducked under the crime scene tape and headed for the back door of the pizza parlor. The door was ajar and in the wall beyond it a good-sized window opened onto the alleyway. An arm was hanging out over the sill.

"At least they haven't moved him yet," Bragg said, and stalked inside.

The back door led to a narrow hallway with stairs going up. On one side an open door led into the restaurant kitchen. One wall was taken up with a pizza oven and a stove top. A stainless steel table ran along the front of the kitchen. The wall above it was open with a glimpse of vinyl-topped tables and chrome chairs beyond. Pots and pans were neatly stacked on shelves. On one of the shelves there was also a small TV set. Nothing out of order in the spotlessly clean room except for the corpse, who was sprawled across a stainless steel food cart in the window, eerily similar to Martin Rogers. Except that this person was nothing like Martin Rogers to look at. He was big, overweight, olive skinned, and balding. Lying there in his grubby white T shirt and white apron, he looked like a beached whale. His head was turned away from them, toward the open window, but one puddle of blood had soaked the T-shirt, while a second had collected on the floor.

There were five other people in the room, three men and one woman, in white coats, who were busily engaged with fluoroscopes, tweezers, and plastic bags, and one man in a raincoat. They looked up as Bragg barged in.

"What's this then, some kind of delegation?" The man in the raincoat came toward them. He was middle aged, with a receding hairline and the beginnings of a paunch.

"Are you Mostyn?" Bragg asked.

"Yes, and who the hell are you?"

"Bragg. Major Crimes Unit from HQ. Obviously they didn't tell you we were coming."

"Obviously they didn't." Mostyn eyed him belligerently.

"Well, no matter. We're here now, and we'll be taking over."

"Is that a fact?" Mostyn asked.

"Weren't you at the meeting the other day? They've established a Major Crimes Division to be deployed in cases like this."

"Yes, so I heard," Mostyn said. "I couldn't make the meeting personally. We had a nasty case of an old woman being beaten up and her handbag stolen. I thought that took precedence over listening to some windbag."

"Well, we've been deployed, and we're here." Bragg said bluntly. For a second the two men faced each other like two dogs, fur bristling. Then Mostyn said, "You'd better get on with it then."

"So let's hear how far you've got," Bragg said. "The call came in when?"

"Three o'clock this morning. The wife noticed that her husband hadn't come to bed. She got up and found him lying here, dead."

"Three o'clock this morning, and we've only just been notified?"

Mostyn shrugged. "Nothing to do with me, boyo. I wasn't told to notify anybody. And I'm not obliged to call for backup unless I need it. They called me, and I got here just after four. Then the doctor came and certified time and cause of death."

"And the time of death was?" Bragg asked. His manner was only just shy of insolent.

"Before midnight."

"Midnight, eh?" Bragg glanced back at Wingate, Evans, and Pritchard, who were standing in the doorway. "Someone must have heard a shot around midnight. Have you ascertained who heard it?"

"It was shots actually." The forensic tech looked up from where he was crouched on the floor. "Three shots fired. One missed altogether and stuck in the wall over there. The victim took one to the chest and one to the forehead."

"So the shooter wasn't quite as tidy as the last one," Bragg said.

"Last one?" Mostyn looked around at the other men.

"This is the second time in three days that a man has been shot dead at an open window, using what seems to be the same weapon."

"Probably was the same weapon, sir." One of the techs looked up from the floor. "The bullets are identical anyway."

"Holy shit," Mostyn commented. "Nobody told me that. Who was the other one?"

"A professor at Bangor University. Big house in Bangor."

"That's odd." Mostyn scratched his head. "What can he have to do with this man?"

"I don't know. What can you tell us about Alessi?"

"Nothing much. This place has been operating since I came on the force here, and that was fifteen yeas ago. Of course, this isn't the best of neighborhoods. We get break-ins, kids selling dope, slashed tires. The kind of things you find in any urban neighborhood with a high unemployment rate. And Mr. Alessi was known to us-the occasional drunk and disorderly, disturbing the peace. Let's just say he was a loud and belligerent drunk, but no real harm in him."

"So no Mafia connections, that kind of thing?"

"I suppose he might have been paying protection money. I know some shops around here have got themselves involved in that kind of thing."

"And he might have got behind with his payments?" Bragg suggested.

"Possible."

"Anybody I should go to talk to about that?"

"Try the local Catholic church," Mostyn said dryly. "They all go to confession, don't they?"

"So there's not a real underworld boss on your turf that you'd know about?"

Mostyn's look was scornful. "This is Llandudno, mate. Nice little seaside resort. We've got our petty crime, the same as anybody, but as for suggesting that the Cosa Nostra is alive and flourishing up here, then that's just bloody nonsense."

"All right. Keep your hair on," Bragg said. "You know as well as I do that sometimes these petty criminals start getting ideas above their station. One of them sees himself as a kingpin, gets a few blokes into a gang, and you've got a full-blown protection racket going."

"Yeah, true enough." Mostyn nodded. "I've seen it. But I think we'd have heard if anything organized was going on around here. In my experience it's only been the ethnic restaurants, Chinese, Vietnamese, targeted by their own people."

"Have you asked the widow?"

"Frankly I couldn't get much out of her. She'd taken a sleeping pill, see. And she was still groggy when we questioned her. Maybe she's woken up by now."

"Right." Bragg rubbed his hands together. "Let's get started, boys." He turned back to the others, still waiting in the doorway. "Mostyn, thanks for your spade work. We'll keep you posted. And you can do something for me."

"Oh yes?"

"You know the criminal element that operates around here. Have a word and see whether Alessi was paying protection money to anyone."

"All right." Mostyn gave a grudging nod. "I can do that, I suppose." He looked around the room at the technicians. "Thanks for your help, boys." And then he pushed past Evans and Pritchard without waiting for them to step aside.

"There go some toes seriously stepped upon," one of the techs muttered.

"What else am I supposed to do?" Bragg asked. "We've been appointed by the Chief Constable and sent out on this case. If he'd been at the meeting, he'd have bloody well known that."

"Oh, I think he knew it all right," Wingate said. "He just wasn't willing to hand over his turf. I expect you'd have felt the same, sir."

"I probably would have." Bragg agreed. "Right. Let's get to work, boys. We're wasting valuable time. The widow first, I think. Come on then."

He led the way out of the kitchen.