The police were looking from character to character as if they had missed the start of a play.

‘You got a tricky situation,’ iPlod said to Gordon. His partner continued jotting.

‘You don’t know the half of it.’

‘Right,’ iPlod said. ‘Anyway, we did get a noise complaint but we came to deliver this. Not strictly our job, but the station’s often doing the courthouse’s work. Cost cuts, you know.’

He was holding a urine-yellow envelope in a significant way. Gordon decompressed. They were not getting busted for the fight. Dog’s pot smoke had blown away. Carl had not decked one of the cops. The night was looking up.

iPlod regarded the assembled company and looked momentarily like Poirot about to deliver the solution. But he sighed heavily and said, ‘Good luck with the family and that.’

‘I’ll show you out,’ Kelly said.

When Kelly came back, Gordon had opened the envelope. She stood at his shoulder and read the council letter demanding a statement of occupancy: how many people were living in the premises, how many bedrooms, what were the purposes of the dwelling, was any commercial business being undertaken. Please provide details. (Even, Kelly thought, if the answer is no?) The letter mentioned fines, costly improvements, unspecified legal action, or eviction if the building’s purpose under zoning laws as a residential dwelling with a maximum occupancy had been violated. It had Frontal’s fingerprints all over it. No, that wasn’t very deductive: it had Michael Abottemey’s signature at the bottom of it.

‘Frontal’s made his move.’ Gordon handed Kelly the letter and started to right the chairs and couch.

‘I don’t know what to say,’ Kelly said. ‘This place looks like fucking Animal House.’

‘Language,’ Ron rumbled.

‘And how are you?’ Kelly asked sourly. ‘Isn’t it about time you went home?’

‘I told you, I’m staying the night,’ Ron snapped, throwing an air punch in Kelly’s direction.

‘Leave the cleaning to us,’ Lou said to Gordon. Jude Oxenford was on her knees, gathering up the shards of the broken Japanese china. ‘You take your father home. Are you parked above or down? Are you under the limit?’

‘I’m fine,’ Kelly said. To Gordon’s inquiring look she added, ‘Dud date.’

As Kelly and Gordon lifted him out, Ron began to bleat about illegal evictions and how he would call the police, if not on the phone then at the top of his lungs. But the poor fellow was so weak, so heartbreakingly light, that they were able to cart him down the stairs without breaking a sweat. By the time they got to the beach, Ron was unconscious.

‘Well that was a success,’ Kelly said.

‘What a debacle.’ Gordon had to stop to pull up his falling-down trousers. Ron lay in a heap at his feet.

‘It’s been coming ever since Carl showed up.’

‘Let’s get this one buckled in.’