The copper on the other end of the phone wasn’t amused. “Is this some kind of hoax?” he demanded.

I pulled myself together and said, “I’m sorry. Unfortunately not.

“When did this happen, madam?” His voice was hard and cool.

“We’re not sure. The body’s only just been discovered.” I gave him the details. It seemed to take forever. When I returned, Jett was sitting exactly as I’d left him, hugging himself and rocking gently to and fro. What he needed was a cup of strong, sweet tea, but I didn’t rate my chances of finding my way to the kitchen and back again without a ball of string or a map. Instead, I sat down and put an arm round him. “Jett,” I said softly. “We’re going to have to get our story straight or the cops are going to get very heavy with you. Listen. I was passing on my way home from a job and I dropped in for a drink. We were talking for the best part of an hour, then you went down to the rehearsal room to get Moira to join us, and that’s when you found the body. I was already here. Understand?” I could only pray that the pathologist wouldn’t come up with a time of death that made a nonsense of the alibi I was handing him.

“I got nothing to say to the cops,” he informed me.

“Jett, unless you want to spend tonight in a cell, you’re going to have to stick to our story. In their eyes, you’re the number one suspect, especially if we tell them the truth. Promise me you’ll keep to my version.” I repeated the tale to him and made him recite it back to me.

We were interrupted by the distant sound of the gate intercom. Jett showed no signs of moving, so I headed back towards the hall. Gloria had beaten me to it. She was wearing a heavy red silk kimono with, appropriately enough, black and gold dragons embroidered all over it. Either she had ears like a bat or she’d been on her way downstairs anyway when the intercom sounded. She was carrying out her usual friendly interrogation over the entryphone when I butted in and said curtly, “Let them in. Jett knows all about it.”

She pressed the gate release button then turned furiously towards me. “I don’t know what you think you’re playing at, police in the middle of the night. I suppose Moira’s doing drugs or

I already felt put upon, which is the only excuse I can offer for snapping back at her, “Moira won’t be doing drugs or anything else ever again. Somebody made very sure of that tonight. Moira’s dead.”