‘Which is what we did, Mr Wexford.’

‘Right,’ said Tony.

‘Leilie put Matthew in his cot and then the boys came round and she got us a bite to eat. She’s a good girl is Leilie. She went off to work about half seven, didn’t you, love? Then we did the dishes and had our game. Oh, and the lady next door came round to check up if four grown men could look after baby OK, very kind of her, I’m sure. And then at half eleven Pip went off home on account of his missus being the boss round his place, and at quarter past twelve Leilie came back. She got a lift so she was early. That’s right, isn’t it, love?’

Leilie nodded. ‘Except you never did no dishes.’

Wexford kept looking at the man’s huge feet which were no longer under the table but splayed out across the cheap bright bit of carpet. He wondered where the shoes were that had made those prints. Burnt, probably. The remains of the safe, once they had blown it open, might be in any pond or river in the Home Counties. Johnny Farrow was a notorious peterman or expert with explosives. He turned to Leilie and asked a question perhaps none of them had expected.

‘Who usually looks after the baby when you’re working?’

‘Julie next door. That girl you were talking to when you came earlier. I used to take him to my mum, my mum lives up Charteris Road, it’s not very far, but he started getting funny in the evenings, crying and screaming, and he got worse if I took him out and left him in a strange place.’ Wexford wondered if she was giving him such a detailed answer to his question because she sometimes left the baby unattended and thought she might be breaking the law. He remembered the other boy, the one with the fractured skull and broken arm, and he hardened towards her. ‘Then Mum had to go into hospital, anyway, she only came out yesterday. So Julie said to leave him here and she’d pop in every half hour, and she’d hear him anyway if he cried. You can hear a pin drop through these walls. And Julie never goes out on account of she’s got a baby of her own. She’s been very good has Julie because I reckon Matthew does cry most evenings, and you can’t just leave them to cry, can you?’

‘I’m glad to inform you, my dear,’ said Paddy with outrageous pomposity, ‘that my son did not utter a squeak last evening but was as good as gold,’ and on the last word he looked hard at Wexford and stretched his lips into a huge humourless smile.

Julie Lang confirmed that Paddy Jasper, Tony Jasper, Pip Monkton and Johnny Farrow had all been in the flat next door when she called to check on the safety and comfort of Matthew at eight-thirty. She had a key to Leilie’s flat but she hadn’t used it, knowing Mr Jasper to be there. She wouldn’t have dreamt of doing that because it was Mr Jasper’s home really, wasn’t it? So she had knocked at the door and Mr Jasper had let her in and not been very nice about it actually, and she had felt very awkward especially when he’d said, go in and see for yourself if I’m not to be trusted to look after my own child. He had opened the bedroom door and made her look and she had just glanced at the cot and seen Matthew was all right and sleeping.