I Was Jack Mortimer

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UP ON THE HILLTOP MARKET, (behind a row of cabs parked nose to tail, stood a small group of drivers, chatting and smoking cigarettes.

Flocks of pink-footed, iridescent grey-and-white pigeons pecked at the rubbish between the stalls of the steeply cobbled square, or from time to time took of and glided high above before settling on the house gables, in particular on a pink-washed palace, where most of them nested.

The sky was overcast. The rows of windows shone like burnished silver. The air was heavy with the smell of vegetables, flowers and fruit.

It was a mild November day.

Two cabs with passengers pulled out in close succession from the left of the rank and out of the square, and someone was already calling out the name of the next driver, who, with his coat undone and his elbows resting on the balustrade of the nearby memorial, was chatting to his mates.

He was a young man of about thirty with dark-blue eyes beneath brown eyebrows.

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