We were having a late breakfast in Smiths of Smithfield, sitting in one of the window seats, Scout focusing on her drawing while I let my porridge get cold as I watched the action across the street. Smithfield meat market was the scene of a murder investigation. The mortuary van had come and gone before first light but now the gang was all here. Where there were usually giant freezer trucks and white vans there were a dozen Rapid Response Vehicles, a couple of Specialist Search Team vans and the unmarked cars of detectives from Homicide and Serious Crime Command. White-suited SOCOs wearing blue latex gloves moved in and out of the tent that had been erected in front of the main entrance. Uniformed officers stamped their feet to keep warm as they patrolled the taped DO NOT CROSS perimeter that ran right down the middle of Charterhouse Street, up Grand Avenue, round Smithfield Long Lane at the back and looped down East Poultry. It had stopped snowing before dawn and Boxing Day was bright and cold, the memory of that unbroken white blanket in the early hours already fading like a dream.
