‘You’re a master at not answering the question,’ I stated with a wry smile.

George nodded, his mouth quirking at one corner. ‘Very well. No, I don’t particularly like Mr Durbridge. He’s too hungry for success for its own sake. You know the way a robber will steal from banks because that’s where the money is? Well, Mr Durbridge was hungry to become a politician not to serve the public, but because that’s where power lies if you’re not born into it. Mr Durbridge wants power and he can’t escape the feeling that he constantly has something to prove, and in my opinion that’s a lethal combination. He was fully prepared to use Mr Jeavons to get to the top, but, once there, Mr Durbridge wanted to swap horses and suddenly run a clean race. Mr Jeavons wasn’t going to have that. He wasn’t going to allow Mr Durbridge to just turn his back on him like that. There! Is that honest enough for you?’

I nodded, adding, ‘Tobey and Dan appeared quite chatty at the dinner party.’

‘Yes, they did indeed put on a very good show,’ said George.

Hmm …

‘Was working for Dan what you expected?’

‘It was … an eye-opener,’ said George carefully.

I bet it was. ‘You never … sought a change of scene?’

‘Mr Jeavons paid me very well,’ George replied. ‘Thanks to him, my daughter went to a very good boarding school and will be going to a top university in Zafrika with her full tuition already paid for, provided she gets the required grades.’

‘Good for her.’ I tried to serve him a smile. It was not returned.

George shrugged. ‘Anyway, I should get back to work. Is there anything else you require?’

‘There is one last thing, George,’ I began. ‘I understand there’s some kind of recording taken on the night of Dan’s dinner party. Is that true?’

‘Yes, ma’am. There are motion-activated cameras in all the rooms in this apartment except the bathrooms, and of course not in my living quarters,’ George explained, adding, ‘Mr Durbridge took the flash drive containing the evening’s CCTV recordings. He also made sure to delete the backup copy from the cloud.’

My stomach took on the weight of a bowling ball. I looked around, but could see nothing attached to the ceiling or the cornices. ‘Where’s the hidden camera in this room?’

George pointed to the half-bookcase against the wall adjacent to the door. On it sat a number of ornaments: a couple of paperweights, a sculpture of a dancer that looked like the genuine antique article and a modern art piece that was dull gold and polished black spheres and sculpted angles.

‘The gold one is the camera,’ said George.

Shit! ‘Did you watch the recording?’ I asked.