‘I’m not mixed up in one now,’ said Albert, showing the whites of his eyes. ‘Choose your words.’

‘You’re withholding information in a homicidal investigation, aren’t you? D’you know what that means?’

‘Here!’ said Albert. ‘You can’t swing that across me.’

‘You’ll be lucky if you don’t get a pair of bracelets swung across you. Haven’t you been in trouble before?’ Albert looked at him indignantly. ‘Come on, now,’ Alleyn persisted. ‘How about a charge of theft?’

‘Me?’ said Albert. ‘Me, with a clean sheet all the years I bin ’ere! Accusing me of stealing! ’Ow dare yer?’

‘What about Mr Rubrick’s whisky? Come on, Black, you’d better make a clean breast of it.’

Albert looked at the piano. His dirty fingers pulled at his underlip. He moved closer to Alleyn and peered into his face. ‘It’s methylated spirits they stink of,’ Alleyn thought.

‘Got a fag on yer?’ Albert said ingratiatingly and grasped him by the coat.

Alleyn freed himself, took out his case and offered it, open, to Albert.

‘You’re a pal,’ said Albert and took the case. He helped himself fumblingly to six cigarettes and put them in his pocket. He looked closely at the case. ‘Posh,’ he said. ‘Not gold, though, d’you reckon, Mr Losse?’

‘Well,’ Alleyn said. ‘How about this whisky?’

Albert jerked his head at the piano. ‘So he got chatty after all, did he?’ he said. ‘The little bastard. OK. That lets me out.’ He again grasped Alleyn by the coat with one hand and with the other pointed behind him at the piano. ‘What a pal,’ he said. ‘Comes the holy Jo over a drop of Johnny Walker and the next night he’s fixing the big job.’

‘What the hell are you talking about!’ Fabian said violently.

‘Can—you—tell—me,’ Albert said, swaying and clinging to Alleyn, ‘how a little bastard like that can be playing the ruddy piano and at the same time run into me round the corner of the wool-shed? There’s a mystery for you, if you like.’

Fabian took a step forward. ‘Be quiet, Losse,’ said Alleyn.

‘It’s a very funny thing,’ Albert continued, ‘how an individual can be in two places at once. And he knew he oughtn’t to be there, the ruddy little twister. Because all the time I sees him by the wool-shed he keeps on thumping that blasted pianna. Now then!’

‘Very strange,’ said Alleyn.

‘Isn’t it. I knew you’d say that.’

‘Why haven’t you talked about this before?’

Albert freed himself, spat, and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. ‘Bargain’s a bargain, isn’t it? Fair dos. Wait till I get me hands on the little twister. Put me away, has he? Good oh! And what does he get? Anywhere else he’d swing for it.’

‘Did you hear Mrs Rubrick speaking in the wool-shed?’