‘Late night news on the radio. Not that they were giving much away. Just said the body of a woman had been found near Jubilee Park.’

‘Dob Court to be precise.’ Miller swallowed some of his tea, coughing as the whisky in it caught at the back of his throat.

‘Dob Court? That’s just round the corner from here.’ Meadows looked grim. ‘Was it anyone I knew?’

‘A girl called Grace Packard.’

Meadows stared at him, the skin tightening visibly across his face. Quite suddenly he went to the sideboard, opened a bottle of brandy and poured a large dose into the nearest glass. He swallowed it down and turned, shuddering.

‘She was in here earlier tonight.’

‘I know, Harry, that’s why I’m here. I understand there was some trouble.’

Meadows helped himself to another brandy. ‘This is official then?’

‘Every word counts so take your time.’

Meadows was looking a lot better as the brandy took effect. He sat down at the table. ‘There’s a bloke called Faulkner comes in here a lot. Only lives a couple of streets away. He was in here earlier tonight with a friend of his, a solicitor called Morgan. Nice bloke. He handled the lease of this place for me when I decided to buy last year.’

‘What time did they come in?’

‘Somewhere around half-eight.’

‘Who else was here?’

‘Nobody. Trade’s been so bad in the evenings since this Rainlover business started that I’ve had to lay off the bar staff.’

‘I see. When did the girl arrive?’

‘About five minutes after the other two.’

‘You knew her name, so presumably she’d been in before?’

‘Two or three times a week, usually with a different bloke and she wasn’t too particular about their ages either.’

‘Was she a Tom?’

‘That’s the way it looked to me.’

‘And what about this boyfriend of hers?’

‘You mean Harold?’ Meadows shrugged. ‘He’s met her in here maybe half a dozen times. I don’t even know his second name.’

‘Was he picking up her earnings?’

‘Could be, I suppose. He didn’t look so tough to me, but you can never tell these days.’

Miller nodded, ‘All right, what happened between Faulkner and the girl?’

‘She sat on a stool at one end of the bar and he told me to give her a drink. It seems he and Morgan were going on to some posh do and Faulkner got the idea it might be fun to take the girl. She must have liked the idea because they all left together.’

‘And then Harold arrived.’

‘That’s right and he didn’t like what he found. Ended up taking a punch at Faulkner who got very nasty with him. I had to intervene. In fact I told Morgan to tell him he needn’t come back. I’ve had about as much as I can take.’