“None, sir. They spent a few years paying Marks and writing to the Home Secretary and so on, but the conviction was considered solid. The family gave up eventually, and left for Canada two years ago to start a new life. I asked Mr. Colthorne if he recalls anything about Marks—”

“You asked him that?”

“It seemed sensible,” Challice said, looking a touch alarmed at his tone. “He might have remembered something. But he didn’t know the name at all; he looked quite blank. Should I not have done?”

Aaron would have strongly preferred that she hadn’t, but there was no point saying so now. They tossed around a few other ideas, but got nowhere. It was frustrating enough that Aaron took a long lunchbreak to walk off his annoyance.

When he got back, there was a message for him to call Sergeant Hollis.

***

“DONE AND DUSTED,” HOLLIS said jovially. They’d gone to a quiet pub, not one frequented by coppers, where you could reliably get a seat and a bit of distance to talk. That meant the beer was awful, but swings and roundabouts.

“You got your man? Already?”

“It went very nicely. Found the money, got a full confession.”

“Congratulations,” Aaron said, tipping his glass in a casual manner that he hoped would conceal his tension. “So what was the case?”

“An embezzlement job, in a stockbroker’s office.”

“Embezzlement. Nothing violent?”

“Not at all. It was very niftily done, in fact. The missing money wasn’t noticed for a while, and there were five clerks who would have been in a position to steal the funds. Tracks well covered. So, how shall we do this?”

“I have Wildsmith’s impressions here,” Aaron said, passing him the envelope. “I’ve kept it safe since our meeting. Do you want to check it’s untouched?”

Hollis had a good look. “Not tampered with at either end. May I?” He opened the envelope, ripping across Aaron and Wildsmith’s names. “Shall I read them all, or did he give a suspect?”

“He had several people who he thought were plausible candidates—”

“Ha. That’s how these people work. Any number of guesses and you just hear the one you want to.”

“True,” Aaron said. “But he did specifically say, for a crime on paper, he’d point the finger at number three.”

Hollis’s mouth dropped open. He fished out a paper from his pocket and checked it. “Damnation. Damn.”

“He was right?”

“Spot on. Number three is an older man who’d been passed over for promotion for the third time, and decided the business owed him something for his years of service. Sour piece of work with a face like a wet weekend.”

Aaron pointed wordlessly at the envelope. Hollis extracted the notes, found number three, read the paper with his brows rising steeply, and said, “What the devil.”

“Yes.”