‘You know when she got here, you know when she left. There wasn’t time for anything else.’

‘Can you remember what you talked about?’

‘There wasn’t much time for conversation either. I told her to strip and get up on the platform. Then I saw to the fire and poured myself a drink. As soon as she got up there I knew it was no good. I told her to get dressed and gave her a ten-pound note.’

‘There was no sign of it in her handbag.’

‘She slipped it into her stocking top. Made a crack about it being the safest place.’

‘It was nowhere on her person and she’s been examined thoroughly.’

‘All right, so the murderer took it.’

Miller decided to keep the information that the girl had had intercourse just before her death to himself for a moment.

‘There was no question of any sexual assault so how would the murderer have known where it was?’

There was a heavy silence. He allowed it to hang there for a moment and continued, ‘You’re quite sure that you and the girl didn’t have an argument before she left?’

Faulkner laughed harshly. ‘If you mean did I blow my top, break her neck with one devastating karate chop and carry her down the back stairs into the night because she refused my wicked way with her, no. If I’d wanted her to stay the night she’d have stayed and not for any ten quid either. She came cheaper than that or I miss my guess.’

‘I understand she was found in Dob Court, Sergeant?’ Morgan said.

‘That’s right.’

‘And are you seriously suggesting that Mr Faulkner killed the girl here, carted her downstairs and carried her all the way because that’s what he would have to have done. I think I should point out that he doesn’t own a car.’

‘They took my licence away last year,’ Faulkner admitted amiably. ‘Driving under the influence.’

‘But you did go out after the girl left?’

‘To the coffee stall in Regent Square.’ Faulkner made no attempt to deny it. ‘I even said hello to the local bobby. I often do. No class barriers for me.’

‘He’s already told us that. It was only five or ten minutes later that he found Grace Packard’s body. You left Joanna’s gloves on the counter. The proprietor asked me to pass them on.’

Miller produced the black and white gloves and handed them to Joanna Hartmann who frowned in puzzlement. ‘But these aren’t mine.’

‘They’re Grace Packard’s,’ Faulkner said. ‘I pulled them out of my pocket when I was looking for some change, as you very well know, Miller. I must have left them on the counter.’

‘The man at the coffee stall confirms that. Only one difference. Apparently when he commented on them, you said they belonged to Joanna.’