Trudy and Clement left the disgruntled Vincent with the far less interesting task of ruling out Geoffrey Thorpe once and for all. Although he’d agreed to be a ‘silent’ partner given Trudy’s superior officer’s likely reaction to his interference, it didn’t mean he had to like it. Besides, although they’d given him Thorpe’s address, he wasn’t all that sure how, exactly, he was supposed to find out if the dead man’s business partner really had been at his neighbour’s house on New Year’s Eve.

It was all right for his father and Trudy – they had experience of this sort of thing.

Did he just go to the houses either side of the Thorpe address, ring the bell, and ask them straight out? Or was he supposed to come up with some ruse or other? Either way, he knew he had to figure it out, as he was due to meet Trudy at a café near her police station at twelve-thirty, to give her an update over lunch.

*

Oblivious to Vincent’s predicament, Clement and Trudy drove cautiously along St Giles, and on up the Woodstock Road, having to stop on the way to help the driver of a black Austin 35 dig his car out of a snowbank. They weren’t the only good Samaritans out on the road, however, and all together they made quick work out of hauling the water-beetle-shaped car out of its difficulties and allowing it and its driver to get back on their merry way.

Millie Vander hadn’t yet risen when they knocked on her door ten minutes later, and it was left to Juliet to go and rouse her, whilst Jasper reluctantly ‘entertained’ them in the drawing room until his mother could put in an appearance.

Trudy and Clement both took a seat at opposite ends of a large, four-seat sofa whilst Jasper lounged against the mantelpiece of an unlit fire. Since the whole house was toasty warm from the central heating, the inhabitants of the house didn’t have to worry about lighting real fires.

‘So, Mr Vander,’ Trudy said, not about to miss an opportunity to question a witness for a second time. ‘We’ve heard that Mr Parker may have had a passenger in his car when he left your house the other night,’ she began, rather surprised to find her opening gambit got an instant reaction. For there was no doubting Jasper jerked visibly, and a flash of alarm shot across his handsome, petulant face, before he could prevent it.

‘Did you see who it was, sir?’ she asked quickly, not wanting to give him time to recover.