Concealed by a shroud of dirty brown velvet, looking like a heap of rags, the woman’s dead body lay between a silver Escort and a dark-blue Lancia.

In the desolate shopping centre car park, Wexford has been too preoccupied to notice anything out of the ordinary - only the teenage girl in the red car, driving past him rather too fast. It was Burden who called him at home with the grim news later that evening: the woman had been attacked from behind, perhaps with a thin length of wire.

But before Wexford can delve any deeper into this curious murder, he, too, faces death … Can Burden solve this mysterious crime without the help of his worldly Chief Inspector?