‘Don’t you believe it,’ Bert told Craig. ‘He’ll give you a run for your money.’

‘I’m sure he will.’ Craig dropped his towel on the bench. ‘I’ll go through a few routines till you’re ready, Bert.’

There was a full-length mirror on the wall and he stood in front of it and started to practise karate kicks, knee raised, flicking each foot forward in turn with lightning speed.

‘He’s good, isn’t he?’ Bert King observed.

‘Too damned good for comfort,’ Miller said and he turned and went out quickly, his face grim.

‘So he likes to take early morning runs in the park and he’s keen on judo,’ Grant said. ‘So what? Plenty of men of his age like to keep fit. Wish I had the time myself.’

‘But Duncan Craig is no ordinary man,’ Miller said. ‘I’ve been doing a little research on him. He took a B.Sc. in Electrical Engineering at Leeds University in 1939, joined a tank regiment at the outbreak of war and was captured at Arras when the Panzers broke through in 1940. His grandmother was French and he speaks the language fluently, which helped when he escaped from prison camp and walked to Spain. Special Operations Executive recruited him when he got home and dropped him into France on four separate occasions to organise the maquis. On his last job, he was betrayed, but managed to slip through the net again. They posted him to the Middle East after that and he spent the rest of the war working for the Special Air Service organizing guerrillas in the Cretan Mountains.’

‘He must have been a pretty hard apple,’ Grant observed.

‘You’re telling me. When the war ended he was twenty-seven and a Lieutenant-Colonel. D.S.O. and bar, M.C., Legion of Honour – you name it, he’s got it.’

The early March wind drove hail like bullets against the window of Grant’s office and he sighed. ‘Look here, Nick, don’t you think you’re getting this thing completely out of proportion?’

‘Do I hell,’ Miller said. ‘Can you imagine a man like that sitting back while his daughter’s murderer walks the streets a free man?’

‘Now you’re being melodramatic.’ Grant shook his head. ‘I don’t buy this one, Nick. I don’t buy it at all. Not that I don’t want you to stop keeping a fatherly eye on Max Vernon. He’ll make his move sooner or later and when he does, I want us to be ready for him. As for Craig – just forget about him.’