The woman's body lay between a silver Escort and a dark-blue Lancia. Concealed by a shroud of dirty brown velvet, it looked just like a heap of rags.
In the desolate, subterranean car park of the Barringdean Shopping Centre, Detective Chief Inspector Wexford had been too preoccupied to notce anything out of the ordinary - only the teenage girl in the red car, driving past him rather too fast.
It was Inspector Burden who called him at home with the grim news later that evening. The car-park victim had been attacked from behind, with a thin length of wire, perhaps?
But before Wexford can delve deeper into this curious homicide, he too confronts death.