Chapter 27
FAREWELL APRON STREETIt was a quarter past two in the morning by the freckled-faced wall clock, and the air of the office was blue with tobacco smoke, when Jas Bowels raised a weary but still cautious eye to see how he was doing.
The coffin had been removed and its occupant was still in the hands of the police surgeon. Luke and Campion were in shirt-sleeves and Yeo, puffy-eyed with lack of sleep, was yet still alert. Sergeant Dice, melancholy as ever, sat at the end of the table with a pile of notes before him, and in the corner the inevitable bareheaded uniformed boy scribbled unceasingly in shorthand.
‘It was done out of kindness.’ The undertaker spoke with dogged obstinacy. ‘Put that down in writing and never let it be forgot. ’Unted animals, that’s ’ow I saw them, and th
