‘I was late. When I turned up she’d got involved with another bloke.’

‘And she went off with him.’ Harold nodded. ‘Do you know who he was?’

Harold shook his head. ‘Never seen him before, but the landlord seemed to know him. That’s the landlord of The King’s Arms near Regent Square.’

‘What time was this?’

‘About half eight.’

‘Did you come straight home afterwards?’

‘I was too upset so I walked around in the rain for a while. Then I had a coffee in the buffet at the railway station. Got home about half nine. Me mum was in bed so I took her a cup of tea and went myself.’

‘Just you and your mother live here?’

‘That’s right.’

‘She goes to bed early then?’

‘Spends most of her time there these days. She isn’t too well.’

Brady nodded sympathetically. ‘I hope we haven’t disturbed her.’

Harold shook his head. ‘She’s sleeping like a baby. I looked in on my way down.’ He seemed much more sure of himself now and a strange half-smile played around his mouth like a nervous tic that couldn’t be controlled. ‘What happens now?’

‘I’d like you to come down to Central if you wouldn’t mind, just to have a few words with Chief Superintendent Mallory – he’s in charge of the case. The girl’s father is already there, but we need all the assistance we can get. You could help a lot. Give us details of her friends and interests, places she would be likely to visit.’

‘Glad to,’ Harold said. ‘I’ll go and get dressed. Only be five minutes.’

He went out and the Panda driver offered Brady a cigarette. ‘Quite a technique you have. The silly bastard thinks he’s got you eating out of his hand.’

‘Glad you noticed,’ Brady said, accepting the cigarette and a light. ‘We’ll make a copper out of you yet.’

There was a white pill box on the mantelpiece and he picked it up and examined the label. It carried the name of a chemist whose shop was no more than a couple of streets away. The Capsules—one or two according to instructions—it is dangerous to exceed the stated dose.

Brady opened the box and spilled some of the white and green capsules into his palm. ‘What you got there?’ the Panda man demanded.

‘From the look of them I’d say it’s what the doctor gave my wife last year when she burnt her hand and couldn’t sleep for the pain. Canbutal. Half a dozen of these and you’d be facing your Maker.’

He replaced the box on the mantelpiece, a slight frown on his face.

‘Tell you what,’ he said to the Panda driver. ‘You go and wait for us in the car and bang the door as hard as you like on the way out.’