The leading firefighter, Gary Cullen, walked over to join them. It was Dennis he spoke to, of course; he always did. They were mates.

“What do you think?”

“Joyriders.” Dennis nodded toward the car. “We checked the number plate. Stolen from a nice middle-class residential street in Heaton Moor, Manchester, earlier this evening.”

“Why here, then?”

“Dunno. Could be a connection, a grudge or something. Someone giving a little demonstration of his feelings. Drugs, even. But that’s for the lads upstairs to work out. They’re the ones paid to have brains. We’re done for now. Everything safe?”

“Under control. What if there’s a body in the boot?”

Dennis laughed. “It’ll be well-done by now, won’t it? Hang on a minute, that’s our radio, isn’t it?”

Janet walked over to the car. “I’ll get it,” she said over her shoulder.

“Control to three-five-four. Come in, please, three-five-four. Over.”

Janet picked up the radio. “Three-five-four to Control. Over.”

“Domestic dispute reported taking place at number thirty-five, The Hill. Repeat. Three-five. The Hill. Can you respond? Over.”

Christ, thought Janet, a bloody domestic. No copper in her right mind liked domestics, especially at this time in the morning. “Will do,” she sighed, looking at her watch. “ETA three minutes.”

She called over to Dennis, who held up his hand and spoke a few more words to Gary Cullen before responding. They were both laughing when Dennis returned to the car.

“Tell him that joke, did you?” Janet asked, settling behind the wheel.

“Which one’s that?” Dennis asked, all innocence.

Janet started the car and sped to the main road. “You know, the one about the blonde giving her first blow job.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Only I heard you telling it to that new PC back at the station, the lad who hasn’t started shaving yet. You ought to give the poor lad a chance to make his own mind up about women, Den, instead of poisoning his mind right off the bat.”

The centrifugal force almost threw them off the road as Janet took the roundabout at the top of The Hill too fast. Dennis grasped the dashboard and hung on for dear life. “Jesus Christ. Women drivers. It’s only a joke. Have you got no sense of humor?”

Janet smiled to herself as she slowed and curb-crawled down The Hill looking for number 35.

“Anyway, I’m getting sick of this,” Dennis said.

“Sick of what? My driving?”

“That, too. Mostly, though, it’s your constant bitching. It’s got so a bloke can’t say what’s on his mind these days.”

“Not if he’s got a mind like a sewer. That’s pollution. Anyway, it’s changing times, Den. And we have to change with them or we’ll end up like the dinosaurs. By the way, about that mole.”

“What mole?”

“You know, the one on your cheek. Next to your nose. The one with all the hairs growing out of it.”

Dennis put his hand up to his cheek. “What about it?”

“I’d get it seen to quick, if I were you. It looks cancerous to me. Ah, number thirty-five. Here we are.”

She pulled over to the right side of the road and came to a halt a few yards past the house. It was a small detached residence built of redbrick and sandstone, between a plot of allotments and a row of shops. It wasn’t much bigger than a cottage, with a slate roof, low-walled garden and a modern garage attached at the right. At the moment, all was quiet.

“There’s a light on in the hall,” Janet said. “Shall we have a dekko?”

Still fingering his mole, Dennis sighed and muttered something she took to be assent. Janet got out of the car first and walked up the path, aware of him dragging his feet behind her. The garden was overgrown and she had to push twigs and shrubbery aside as she walked. A little adrenaline had leaked into her system, put her on super alert, as it always did with domestics. The reason most cops hated them was that you never knew what was going to happen. As likely as not you’d pull the husband off the wife and then the wife would take his side and start bashing you with a rolling pin.

Janet paused by the door. Still all quiet, apart from Dennis’s stertorous breathing behind her. It was too early yet for people to be going to work, and most of the late night revelers had passed out by now. Somewhere in the distance the first birds began to chatter. Sparrows, most likely, Janet thought. Mice with wings.

Seeing no doorbell, Janet knocked on the door.

No response came from inside.

She knocked harder. The hammering seemed to echo up and down the street. Still no response.

Next, Janet went down on her knees and looked through the letter box. She could just make out a figure sprawled on the floor at the bottom of the stairs. A woman’s figure. That was probable cause enough for forced entry.

“Let’s go in,” she said.

Dennis tried the handle. Locked. Then, gesturing for Janet to stand out of the way, he charged it with his shoulder.

Poor technique, she thought. She’d have reared back and used her foot. But Dennis was a second-row Rugby forward, she reminded herself, and his shoulders had been pushed up against so many arse-holes in their time that they had to be strong.

The door crashed open on first contact and Dennis cannonballed into the hallway, grabbing hold of the bottom of the banister to stop himself from tripping over the still figure that lay there.

Janet was right behind him, but she had the advantage of walking in at a more dignified pace. She shut the door as best she could, knelt beside the woman on the floor, and felt for a pulse. Weak, but steady. One side of her face was bathed in blood.

“My God,” Janet muttered. “Den? You okay?”

“Fine. You take care of her. I’ll have a look around.” Dennis headed upstairs.

For once, Janet didn’t mind being told what to do. Nor did she mind that Dennis automatically assumed it was a woman’s work to tend the injured while the man went in search of heroic glory. Well, she minded, but she felt a real concern for the victim here, so she didn’t want to make an issue of it.

Bastard, she thought. Whoever did this. “It’s okay, love,” she said, even though she suspected the woman couldn’t hear her. “We’ll get you an ambulance. Just hold on.”

Most of the blood seemed to be coming from one deep cut just above her left ear, Janet noticed, though there was also a little smeared around the nose and lips. Punches, by the looks of it. There were also broken glass and daffodils scattered all around her, along with a damp patch on the carpet. Janet took her personal radio from her belt hook and called for an ambulance. She was lucky it worked on The Hill; personal UHF radios had much less range than the VHF models fitted in cars, and were notoriously subject to black spots of patchy reception.

Dennis came downstairs shaking his head. “Bastard’s not hiding up there,” he said. He handed Janet a blanket, pillow and towel, nodding to the woman. “For her.”

Janet eased the pillow under the woman’s head, covered her gently with the blanket and applied the towel to the seeping wound on her temple. Well, I never, she thought, full of surprises, our Den. “Think he’s done a runner?” she asked.

“Dunno. I’ll have a look in the back. You stay with her till the ambulance arrives.”

Before Janet could say anything, Dennis headed off toward the back of the house. He hadn’t been gone more than a minute or so when she heard him call out, “Janet, come here and have a look at this. Hurry up. It could be important.”

Curious, Janet looked at the injured woman. The bleeding had stopped and there was nothing else she could do. Even so, she was reluctant to leave the poor woman alone.

“Come on,” Dennis called again. “Hurry up.”

Janet took one last look at the prone figure and walked toward the back of the house. The kitchen was in darkness.