Miller nodded and went out into the corridor, Brady at his heels. ‘All right, Jack, you’re Doyle in a hurry in bare feet and a dressing-gown. What do you do?’

Brady glanced left along the quiet end of the corridor and led the way. He paused at the lift, frowned, then opened the door and peered down into the dark well of the concrete stairway. ‘On a hunch I’d say he went this way. A lot safer than the lift.’

They went down quickly and at the bottom Miller pushed open the outside door and looked out into the rain. ‘Not very likely. He’d need clothes.’

The other door led into a narrow corridor lined on one side with half a dozen green painted lockers. Each one was padlocked and carried an individual’s name on a small white card. They were aware of the gentle hum of the oil-fired heating plant somewhere near at hand and in a small office at the end of the corridor, they found the Chief Technician.

Miller showed him his warrant card. ‘Looking for the bloke that skipped out are you?’ the man said.

‘That’s right. He’d need clothes. Anything missing down here?’

‘Not a chance,’ the Chief Technician shook his head. ‘I don’t know if you noticed, but all the lads keep their lockers padlocked. That was on advice from one of your blokes after we had a lot of pinching last year. Too easy for people to get in through the side door.’

Miller thanked him and they went back along the corridor, and stood on the steps looking out at the driving rain.

‘You’re thinking he just walked out as he was?’ Brady suggested.

Miller shrugged. ‘He didn’t have much time, remember. One thing’s certain – he couldn’t afford to hang about.’

Brady shook his head. ‘He wouldn’t last long in his bare feet on a night like this. Bound to be spotted by someone sooner or later.’

‘As I see it he has three possible choices,’ Miller said. ‘He can try to steal a car, but that’s messy because he’s got to nose his way round till he finds one that some idiot’s forgotten to lock and in that rig-out of his, he’s certain to be noticed.’

‘He could always hang around some alley and wait his chance to mug the first bloke who went by.’

Miller nodded. ‘My second choice, but it’s still messy and there aren’t many people around the back streets on a night like this. He could get pneumonia waiting. My own hunch is that he’s making for somewhere definite. Somewhere not too far away perhaps. Who were his friends?’

‘Come off it, he didn’t have any.’ Brady chuckled. ‘Except for the female variety. The original sexual athlete, the Gunner. Never happy unless he had three or four birds on the go at once.’