‘Let’s not have your views on that now, Mike,’ said Wexford. ‘Presumably Hannah Kingman didn’t die because her husband didn’t come to her a pure virgin.’

Burden flushed slightly. ‘I’ll tell you about this Corinne Last. She’s very good-looking, if you like the dark sort of intense type. Her father left her some money and the house where she and Kingman lived, and she still lives in it. She’s one of those women who seem to be good at everything they put their hands to. She paints and sells her paintings. She makes her own clothes, she’s more or less the star in the local dramatic society, she’s a violinist and plays in some string trio. Also she writes for health magazines and she’s the author of a cookery book.’

‘It would look then,’ Wexford put in, ‘as if Kingman split up with her because all this was more than he could take. And hence he took up with the dull little school-meals lady. No competition from her, I fancy.’

‘I daresay you’re right. As a matter of fact, that theory has already been put to me.’

‘By whom?’ said Wexford. ‘Just where did you get all this information, Mike?’

‘From an angry young man, the fourth member of the quartet, who happens to be Hannah’s brother. His name is John Hood and I think he’s got a lot more to tell. But it’s time I left off describing the people and got on with the story.

‘No one saw Hannah fall from the balcony. It happened last Thursday afternoon at about four. According to her husband, he was in a sort of office behind the shop doing what he always did on early-closing day – stock-taking and sticking labels on various bottles and packets.

‘She fell on to a hard-top parking area at the back of the flats, and her body was found by a neighbour a couple of hours later between two parked cars. We were sent for, and Kingman seemed to be distraught. I asked him if he had had any idea that his wife might have wished to take her own life and he said she had never threatened to do so but had lately been very depressed and there had been quarrels, principally about money. Her doctor had put her on tranquillizers – of which, by the way, Kingman disapproved – and the doctor himself, old Dr Castle, told me Mrs Kingman had been to him for depression and because she felt her life wasn’t worth living and she was a drag on her husband. He wasn’t surprised that she had killed herself and neither, by that time, was I. We were all set for an inquest verdict of suicide while the balance of the mind was disturbed when John Hood walked in here and told me Kingman had attempted to murder his wife on a previous occasion.’

‘He told you just like that?’

‘Pretty well. It’s plain he doesn’t like Kingman, and no doubt he was fond of his sister. He also seems to like and admire Corinne Last. He told me that on a Saturday night at the end of October the four of them had a meal together in the Kingmans’ flat. It was a lot of vegetarian stuff cooked by Kingman – he always did the cooking – and one of the dishes was made out of what I’m old-fashioned enough, or narrow-minded enough, to call toadstools. They all ate it and they were all OK but for Hannah who got up from the table, vomited for hours, and apparently was quite seriously ill.’