The lift in Kenneth Moore’s block was out of order and, as his flat number was 22, Jack figured he had to be on the eleventh floor. God, he wished he’d had the man’s phone number. He looked at his watch: 9:30. Across the street was a social club. He’d check there before tackling eleven flights of stairs. Jack’s “gut” was playing a big part in these two cases—the Rose Cottage fire and the search for Jimmy Nunn. He liked this change in himself and hoped it would be permanent.

Jack walked into the club and silence fell while everyone sized him up. They seemed to guess he was a copper.

“Is Ken Moore here?” he asked. “I think he might have known an old friend of my dad’s,” he lied. “Jimmy Nunn.”

From the far end of the bar, a round, heavily bearded elderly man shouted, “I’ll only talk to you if you pay me the seventeen quid he still fucking well owes me!”

Jack turned to the barman. “I’ll have a Beck’s and whatever Ken’s drinking, and one for yourself.”

The barman obeyed silently and the club instantly relaxed back into its previous conversations.

By eleven o’clock, Ken had drunk four pints compared to Jack’s two bottles, he’d not drawn breath, and had said absolutely nothing of interest about Jimmy Nunn. The old man had no sense of personal space and no awareness of how bad he smelt. Jack was squashed into the corner of the room trying to keep a safe distance, but it wasn’t working. Every now and then, Ken’s knee would brush against Jack’s and he’d pull away, fearful of what the brown stain down the front of Ken’s beige trousers might turn out to be. Eventually, Ken started a story that was actually interesting. He momentarily slapped his hand down on Jack’s knee, and Jack could feel the clammy dampness of his fat palm.

“I remember once, Jimmy was showing off to a couple of birds . . . You know that people say being in a rock band gets you all the women you want? You should try Formula One, Jack. Stone me!” He opened his mouth wide and howled a hot air combo of beer and beef crisps into Jack’s face. “Me and Jimmy quickly decided which bird we were gonna ’ave—and then, for some reason I’ll never fathom, he decided that the quickest way into her knickers was to climb the massive fence between them and us, instead of opening the gate . . . which was right there, by the way! Not locked or anything. Course he fell on his arse, didn’t he? Them women walked away laughing their beautiful tits off and Jimmy lay on the ground screaming at the top of his voice, ‘Me arm! I bust me arm!’ And he had. I thought he’d dislocated his shoulder, but he’d actually managed to chip the socket and snap his . . . You know, this bit . . .” Ken prodded Jack in the clavicle. “What a prick. This was just days before the most important race of his life. Jimmy could have been a big name in Formula One, but instead, he vanished without a trace.”