Nick Miller replaced the receiver and stepped out of the telephone box into the heavy rain. Mallory’s instructions had been quite explicit. He was to drop the Faulkner enquiry and return to Headquarters at once and yet the Scotland Yard man was wrong – Miller still felt certain about that. It was nothing he could really put his finger on, something that couldn’t be defined and yet when he thought of Faulkner his stomach went hollow and his flesh crawled.

But orders were orders and to disobey this one was to invite the kind of reaction that might mean the end of his career as a policeman. When it finally came down to it he wasn’t prepared to throw away a life that had come to mean everything to him simply because of a private hunch that could well be wrong.

He crossed to the Mini-Cooper, took out his keys and, above his head, the studio window of Faulkner’s flat dissolved in a snowstorm of flying glass as a chair soared through in a graceful curve that ended in the middle of the street.

There was a heavy silence after Miller left and Faulkner was the first to break it. He crossed to the bar and poured himself a large gin. ‘I can feel the noose tightening already. Distinctly unpleasant.’

‘Stop it, Bruno!’ Joanna said sharply. ‘It just isn’t funny any more.’

He paused, the glass half-way to his lips and looked at her in a kind of mild surprise. ‘You surely aren’t taking this thing seriously?’

‘How else can I take it?’

Faulkner turned to Morgan. ‘And what about you?’

‘It doesn’t look too good, Bruno.’

‘That’s wonderful. That’s bloody marvellous.’ Faulkner drained his glass and came round from behind the bar. ‘How long have you known me, Jack? Fifteen years or is it more? I’d be fascinated to know when you first suspected my homicidal tendencies.’

‘Why did you have to bring that wretched girl back with you, Bruno? Why?’ Joanna said.

He looked at them both in turn, his cynical smile fading. ‘My God, you’re both beginning to believe it, aren’t you? You’re actually beginning to believe it.’

‘Don’t be ridiculous.’ Joanna turned away.

He swung her round to face him. ‘No, you’re afraid to give it voice, but it’s there in your eyes.’

‘Please, Bruno … you’re hurting me.’

He pushed her away and turned on Jack. ‘And you?’

‘You’ve a hell of a temper, Bruno, no one knows that better than I do. When you broke Pearson’s jaw it took four of us to drag you off him.’

‘Thanks for the vote of confidence.’

‘Face facts, Bruno. Miller’s got a lot to go on. All circumstantial, I’ll grant you that, but it wouldn’t look good in court.’

‘That’s your opinion.’