Carlyle stood shading his eyes in the middle of a massive empty space, the size of maybe half a dozen soccer pitches, five minutes from the Westway, halfway to Heathrow. Poking at some rubble with the toe of his trainers, he scanned the site, which was bathed in bright sunlight. It had been completely cleared and fenced off but, aside from a couple of Portakabins in one corner, there was no sign of any impending building work. ‘What is this place?’ he asked.Standing ten feet away, Alison Roche pushed her sunglasses back up her nose and said, ‘This was going to be the Lex West Central Business Park. Then came the financial crash and its Arab backers pulled out. They’re still arguing with the developers over who’s responsible for it. The Mayor’s been talking about letting local residents use it as an allotment.’‘The Mayor,’ Carlyle snorted, shaking his head. ‘Gawd bless him.’ He looked across at the crumpled body of Paula Coulter, who was being fussed over by a pathologist, with a couple of technicians in tow.
