“Actually, I’m going to walk to the edge of the Blackdown Hills and get a cab from there.”

“That’s a very nice way to end the day, Jack. Bye now.”

With that, Connie waddled back indoors and Jack headed off down the hill toward the memory of teenage walking with his now-dying dad.

Connie put the glasses on the draining board, leaned on the edge of the sink and bowed her head to aid getting her breath back. She shakily poured herself a gin, added a pointless splash of tonic and a slice of lemon. Her mind raced. She took out her mobile and looked at the blank screen. She put it away while she silently drank the first of two gins and relived her interview with Jack. Connie took out her mobile again. And dialed.

“That copper from the Met’s been round. I said exactly what we agreed, don’t worry . . . I can still act the dumb blonde when I need to. I just wanted you to know that he might be heading your way.”

Chapter 12

The call from Ridley had been another bollocking.

“Why am I calling you?” Ridley had asked rhetorically. “Tomorrow morning. Eight o’clock. You’re first up.”

It was now ten o’clock and Jack was standing in the center of his spare room, looking at his “evidence wall.” It displayed dozens of photos of Trudie: some with him as a baby, some without; black and white photos of a very young-looking Jimmy Nunn, standing with Formula One heroes such as Jackie Stewart and James Hunt; his own birth certificate, change of name deeds and foster papers from the day he was signed away by his Aunt Fran.

On a separate wall, were three photos—Tony Fisher, Harry Rawlins and Dolly Rawlins. These three seemed directly connected to Jimmy Nunn’s past. The photo of Harry Rawlins was the best of a very bad bunch—he was at a racetrack, shades on, standing behind a woman who hid the bottom half of his face.

Maggie walked in with two glasses of red wine and handed one of them to Jack. She looked around the walls and her eyes stopped on the mugshot of Tony Fisher.

“He’s who you’re going to see in prison? He’s not an embezzler, you bloody liar! He’s a . . . What is he?”

Jack faltered. “He’s in for manslaughter.” Maggie glugged her wine. “He used to run a club in Soho with his brother, Arnie.” As Jack explained in more detail, Maggie couldn’t believe that he actually sounded excited. “They took over Harry Rawlins’s patch when he died the first time—the time he was supposedly blown up in the Strand underpass armed robbery, not the time his wife shot him. They got forced out eventually and when Arnie died, Tony had no one to hold on to his leash, so he very quickly ended up inside.”

“No, he doesn’t look like the brains of the operation,” Maggie remarked. “He looks like an awful man, Jack—those horrible beady eyes—and I don’t like the idea of you going to see him.”