Hanna frowned. ‘Leave Barstow to me.’

I took a deep breath. ‘Thanks.’

‘For what? I’ve not done a thing.’

I grinned at him. ‘Thanks, anyway.’ My instinct had been right. Hanna was a good copper who rebelled at seeing an investigation swept under the rug for political reasons. But I wouldn’t give a bent penny for his chances of promotion.

He stood up. ‘Thanks for the drink, Mr Kemp. I’ll buy the next when I have more time.’

I walked out with him and we stood on the pavement outside the Rainbow Rooms. ‘Tell me,’ I said. ‘Did you discover where Mrs Salton went?’

‘New York,’ he said simply. ‘What are you going to do now?’

‘I’ve already advised my office to settle with Mrs Salton, so that’s out of the way. Now I have to check into Salton Estates Ltd. My firm has a big stake in the business.’

He nodded. ‘As long as you stick to that, Mr Kemp, you’ll be all right. But don’t get underfoot on this Ogilvie thing – that’s my job.’

‘Okay, Superintendent. But if I stumble over the bastard by chance, you’re likely to have another corpse on your hands.’

His eyes flickered and he shook his head deliberately. ‘No. You shout “copper” and I’ll come running. Promise?’

‘All right, I promise.’ I took the business card he handed me.

‘I wouldn’t want to take you in for breaking the law,’ he said, and turned on his heel and walked away, leaving me standing in the hot sun.

II

Marshalltown was a plushy development at the base of Spanish Point, the eastern trunnion of Campanilla’s bell. The houses were big and stood in well-manicured grounds and looked as though they’d been plumbed for hot and cold running champagne. The school here was no corrugated iron shack but a modern building, pleasantly tree-shaded. Most of the kids on the green playing fields had white faces.

Gregory Plaza was a spanking-new high-rise apartment block with its own golf course on one side and a private beach on the other. I parked the car and went in, through the foyer and out the other side to the beach. The long white combers surged up on to the pink sand with a soft roar, bearing with them the joyous surf-riders. I looked at the recumbent figures scattered over the beach, each flanked by the inevitable bottle of sun tan oil. Any one of them could have been Leotta Tomsson.

I went back into the foyer and pressed the button for the lift and then instructed it to take me to the fourth floor. Number 432 was an uninformative door with a bell push which I pressed to hear soft chimes. It was pleasantly cool in the corridor and there was nothing to be heard but the soft and expensive sighing of the air conditioning.