Publisher's Synopsis
A killing in an antique, bric-a-brac shop. The weapon? A crystal decanter. The body found under the steps of a nightclub with a beer glass stuck in its face.
Another body in an auctioneer's showroom rolled up in a carpet.
The links between them? Antiques, obviously, but also the fact that both of the dead individuals are connected with a prominent local businessman, David Burchill, with a record of violence, especially towards women, and a known predilection for financial and commercial activities which are at the edges of legitimacy. The first body was that of Floyd Donnelly, a squatter in a property owned by Burchill and the second is a local thug who was on Burchill's payroll and part of an extortion racket.
DCI Jack Carston is aware of Burchill's record and frustrated by the fact that he has always, with the help of lawyers, managed to avoid conviction for any of his many transgressions. At first, an incident with two young girls in a hotel, in the course of which both girls were beaten and sexually abused, seems to open the possibility of a conviction, but pressure is put on the girls and their accusations are retracted. He's also reponsible for the brutal date rape of an antiques dealer who's working for him. And yet he emerges from all this with his reputation, officially at least, intact.
As the crimes are solved, Jack Carston, right to the end, despairs of ever catching him. But then comes the twist.
