‘Brrrr … it’s perishing,’ Trudy said in greeting, the moment she spotted the coroner walking towards her down the pavement. A path had been cleared with just enough room for people to walk single file through the snowdrifts. ‘Luckily, we don’t have far to go. The address is just down here somewhere.’

They walked carefully down the hill, slipping and sliding a little where the compacted snow had turned almost into ice. Trudy checked the numbers on the shops and office entrances for the one she wanted. Her caller had been clear in his directions, however, and she found the place a few minutes later.

She paused, looking at the gold lettering on the pane of glass in the door. ‘Prescott, Watts and Cummings.’

‘Solicitors?’ Clement guessed, reading it over her shoulder.

‘Close. I looked them up in the phone book before I left. They’re accountants.’

Clement raised an eyebrow. ‘And where there are accountants, there’s usually money involved.’

Trudy nodded happily. ‘Interesting, isn’t it? “Follow the money” was one of my old training sergeant’s favourite maxims! So let’s see what he has to tell us.’

Chapter 12

Philip Prescott was a small man in every way. Shorter than Trudy by some inches, he had small feet, small hands, and a small, neat face. He could have been aged anywhere between forty and sixty, for although his face was unlined it did not seem particularly young. His hair was a nondescript brown, as were his eyes.

He was dressed in a neat three-piece suit of charcoal-grey with a plain white shirt and black tie. His office was small, like the man, but the view from his window was impressive – a view of Christ Church college itself, and its sweeping gardens, now, of course, obliterated by a seemingly habitual white blanket of snow.

‘I must say, I’ll be glad when all this white stuff disappears,’ the accountant said, by way of an opening gambit once Trudy and Clement had introduced themselves and were sitting opposite his desk.

‘Yes, I think we’re all getting rather tired of it,’ Clement agreed with a brief smile.

Preliminary courtesies over, Prescott nodded, leaned forward and put both bent elbows on the top of his desk. He then neatly placed both hands, palm-to-palm in front of him, making his fingers into a steeple. Throughout the course of the following interview, he would periodically and gently butt the underside of his chin with these steepled fingertips. It was almost certainly a subconscious habit, Clement mused. He wondered idly how he had acquired it and if he was aware he was even doing it.

Trudy, a little surprised at first by the eccentricity, quickly became used to it.

‘Thank you for getting in touch with us, sir. I take it you knew Mr Parker?’ she began conventionally.