The body lay in the kitchen. It wasn’t a nice kitchen and the body wasn’t much to look at either.

In Tom and Jerry, when Jerry batters Tom with a frying pan, a funny big lump swells up on his head. This woman’s brain had come out of her head. Not particularly amusing.

The culprit must have hit her several times with the frying pan. And when I say several times, I mean about fifty times. Her skull looked like a melon that someone had thrown from the eighth floor.

It showed that the frying pan was expensive. That means heavy. From steel and iron. It could easily have weighed two kilos.

“We have that kind of frying pan at home,” said Holub. “It’s a good one.”

“Yeah?” I said. “Zdenka and I were thinking about getting a similar one. Would you recommend it?”

“Do you see that checked pattern? That’s a nonstick surface. Titanium or something. And this red circle in the middle shows you when it’s hot. Magda does steaks for me on it.”

“Watch out that she doesn’t start doing brains,” I said, nodding towards the grey splatter on the floor.

“I wouldn’t worry about that,” said Holub.

“No? Cos you love each other?” It was hard not to be cynical, especially after this morning. But I was trying not to be.

“No, because Magda isn’t patient enough for this kind of thorough work. She would hit me once and that’d be it. To give someone a pounding like this, that person would really need to get on your nerves.” Holub thought for a moment. “Well, OK, maybe she’d hit me twice. Or five times.”

“You’re right, this pig really took the job seriously,” I admitted. “A thorough guy.”

The thorough guy was beng guarded by Richter and Slídová next door, in the living room. He was sitting on the leather sofa wearing slippers; he had a well-trimmed moustache, his fingers were yellow from nicotine and he was shaking uncontrollably. The husband. Exactly according to the statistics: in 95% of cases the culprit is a member of the family. The guys from homicide referred to these cases as domestic butchery.

“Oh yeah, build up your strength, swing, you’re a success,” said Holub, blowing his nose. “Good work for a right-hander.”

“A left-hander.”

“Eh?”

“He had the frying pan in his left hand. Look at the angle. And also which side of the head is more flattened.”

A white cat observed us from the kitchen units above us, ostentatiously licking its paws as though to show how he was washing his hands of the whole mess. Apparently the reincarnation of Pontius Pilate.

“I trust you’ve managed to trample all over the place,” came a voice from behind us. “Can you explain to me why you came into the kitchen?”

We turned round. Behind us stood a fat guy in jeans and a bomber jacket. This was a real giveaway. Almost everyone in homicides wears a bomber jacket; it’s their unofficial uniform. I had never seen the fat guy before – but there was nothing strange in that. I hadn’t been at many murders yet.

“We’re securing the crime scene,” reported Holub. “Until the response team arrives.”

“It’s just arrived,” said the fat guy, pointing his thumb at his chest. “And it certainly doesn’t need two local uniformed plodders messing up all the clues.”

We usually got on well with the investigators from the CID, mainly because as a rule they barely even noticed us. Fatty here was an exception. He noticed us all too much. “So, are you going to get out of here or what?”

Obediently we went around him into the hallway, leaving him to lord it over the crime scene. I saw Richter in the living room, standing above the husband, thumbs hooked into his belt, his peaked cap genially pushed to the back of his head. We exchanged glances; Richter looked towards the kitchen and mouthed the word Prick.

“When I said get out,” said the fat guy, leaning out of the doorway, “I didn’t mean just head into the hallway, which is even smaller than the kitchen. How do you think the technicians will get in when they want to take fingerprints and footprints? I meant get out completely. Out of the flat. Out of this case. Don’t you have some really important work to do? Like chasing some fuckers who steal manhole covers or something? Don’t worry, we can secure the scene ourselves.”

“I can see that,” I said, pointing into the kitchen. Pontius Pilate had jumped down from the cupboards and was licking the spilled brains from the floor behind Fatty’s back.

Fatty turned round. “Oh, for fuck’s sake! Shoo! Horrible old moggy! Fuck off!”

We left too.

(Translated by Graeme Dibble)