Tyler remained in his office and it was after eleven when a very disheveled Spencer Gibbs walked in, carrying a mug of black coffee. He muttered ‘good morning’ to everyone as he walked over to his desk. There was already a pile of detectives’ reports regarding cases awaiting trial at the Crown Court for him to check over. Jane noticed that he needed a shave and, although she had been working with him for over five weeks now, this was the first time he had looked as if he had slept in his clothes all night.

Back in the days when they had worked together at Hackney, Spencer had often been the butt of jokes regarding his rock and roll attire. Then, when they were together in Peckham, he had changed his style. Spencer had discovered a second-hand gentleman’s outfitters and had turned up in an elegant tweed suit, waistcoat and trousers that had the telltale signs of being let down to accommodate his lanky six-foot frame. He took the jokes about him wearing a dead man’s outfit in his stride, and boasted that at least the winkle-pickers had been his own – until he found an elegant pair of two-tone brogues that he felt better suited his outfit. When he played with his band, however, he would wear flamboyant frilly shirts and cowboy boots.

‘I hear you had a gig last night,’ Jane said, turning her swivel chair towards him.

‘Yeah, but it was a pain in the ass. I’m getting too old for this. There were two punk bands on that were smashing the place up and I wasn’t going to let the buggers damage my speakers. I didn’t get out till after twelve, and we only got fifty quid each. Bloody disgusting.’

Spencer lit a cigarette. Jane hated the smell of smoke, which always hung in a cloud above his head. He still had thick curly hair that often stood up on end from his habit of running his fingers through it when he was concentrating. It appeared even more unruly now, as for some reason he had decided to cut the sides short. Spencer was still an attractive man, but his sense of humor seemed to have soured and he was often moody and impatient with probationers.

‘Well, this is all very exciting, isn’t it?’ he muttered. ‘This old lady in the fur coat has been arrested how many times? And we have to spend how many hours doing paperwork, taking her to fucking court just so some equally ancient judge will release her because of her age? Someone should tell our guys not to bother arresting her anymore.’

‘Have you seen the report about the woman who had her handbag nicked on the Old Brompton Road?’ Dors asked. ‘She had two thousand quid on her.’

Spencer shrugged his shoulders. ‘Really? Isn’t that fantastic. Held up at gunpoint, was she?’

‘No, a kid on a bicycle nicked it.’