Which explained Gloria’s behavior. Great. I had a client in the right place at almost the right time. I had a witness who wasn’t admitting it yet, but who could put him there. And it was my lies to the police which had given him his non-existent alibi. Never mind Inspector Jackson, Bill was going to love this.

“Did you go straight from the kitchen to the rehearsal room, then?”

Jett bowed his head in assent. “That’s when I found her. I was only a room away, and I didn’t hear a damn thing.”

“Because the rehearsal room’s so well soundproofed?”

“That’s right. That’s why the police had to believe you and me when we said we didn’t hear a thing.”

There was no point in questioning him about what he’d seen in the room. I’d seen it too and it hadn’t told me anything except that Moira was battered to death with a tenor sax. Besides, he seemed to be retreating inside himself, and I figured I’d have to move the conversation into different channels if I wasn’t to lose him altogether. “Who do you think it was, Jett?”

“I can’t believe any of us did it,” he said in a tone that lacked conviction. “Shit, we’re always rowing in this business. Nobody ever got killed before.”

“She’d been arguing with Kevin, hadn’t she? Do you know what that was all about?”

“She thought he was ripping her off over her royalties. But that was only a little bit of it. She made me stand up to him to get the deal she wanted—you know, a profit percentage on the album, an increased royalty rate, and now she was pushing for a production credit too. She kept telling me I wasn’t getting my share either, that Kevin was taking too much of a rake-off. And she kept going on about how I was being ripped off on the merchandising. She

My ears pricked up. Moira knew about the schneids? I was so busy with my own thoughts I almost missed Jett’s next comment. “She was even hinting we should get shot of Kevin and manage ourselves. She said it wouldn’t take her long to get the job sussed, then we could ditch him. I didn’t want to, but she made me promise that if she got evidence that he was ripping me off, I’d go along with her.”

I took a deep breath. Could anyone be as naïve as Jett appeared to be? Here he was, handing me the strongest of motives on a plate, and he didn’t even seem to notice.

“Did you know someone kept dropping heroin on Moira?” I asked. The motorway petered out into dual carriageway. I barely noticed, only my automatic-pilot reflexes making me slow to within ten miles an hour of the speed limit.