Jane hurried out and was so annoyed with herself she almost threw her fish and chips onto the passenger seat of her car. What a fool! She knew she must be flushed, her cheeks red with embarrassment.

It took only ten minutes to get back to her flat in Malcomb Street. She had just locked the car and was heading to the front door when Spencer appeared. He had a takeaway bag and a bottle of scotch tucked under his arm. Given the circumstances, he was the last person she wanted to see.

‘Spence . . . ’

‘I’m sorry about this, Jane. The wife’s kicked me out. I’ve got us a burger.’

‘D’you want to stay the night here?’ Jane asked without enthusiasm, as she unlocked the front door.

‘Just for tonight. I had a bloody nightmare session with that fucking Harry Belafonte lookalike. He’s a sarcastic bugger. He questioned virtually every fucking thing I’ve written in every fucking report. I felt like saying to him that from the little I know about so-called fucking profilers, he should have been sitting down with Paul Lawrence and the pathologist, questioning the bloody forensic scientists.’

Jane laughed. ‘I felt the same way with Miller.’

She unlocked the front door.

‘You know one of the things in my report that he picked on? My fucking description of that Mandy Pilkington’s security guy. He tapped my report with his pen and said, “What is this?” You know me, Jane, I just put in brackets: “Looks like Odd Job from Goldfinger”. It’s a pretty good description of him.’

As Spencer passed her and went into the hall to go up the stairs, Jane was about to shut the main front door and thought she was imagining it for a moment as she heard the deep vibrations that could only come from a Porsche. She was right; it was Dexter slowly driving past her flat. He glanced towards her as she looked out of the door and he gave her the lopsided smile that she loved so much, but he didn’t stop. He couldn’t have been heading home, as it was the wrong direction. If Dexter had been intending to drop by, seeing her with Spencer had obviously made him change his mind.

She closed the door and trudged up the stairs to her flat, where Spencer was slumped onto the stool in the kitchen, heaving for breath. ‘Bloody hell, three floors and those stairs are steep!’

She got two glasses and he poured them both large ones. They were both exhausted, and so hungry that they ate mostly in silence – she ate her fish and chips and Spencer consumed both burgers and chips, and in the end had three large glasses of scotch.