Concealed by a shroud of dirty brown velvet, the woman’s body lay between a silver Escort and a dark-blue Lancia. In the desolate shopping centre parking lot, Wexford had been too preoccupied to notice. Burden calls him at home later that evening with grim news: the woman had been attacked from behind, perhaps with a thin length of wire. But before Wexford can delve any deeper into this curious homicide, he, too, faces death.