It was almost midnight when she was ready. She pulled on her raincoat, picked up the suitcase, looked round the room briefly for the last time and walked out along the dark passage.

As she reached the door, someone knocked.

Oh, God, no. Oh, dear God, no. The cry rose in her throat and she turned and stumbled back along the dark passage to the room and behind her, the door opened.

She fell on her knees at the fireplace, her fingers scrabbling desperately in the broken glass. They fastened upon a large piece, curved like a dagger and as sharp. She arched her throat striking upwards and was aware of pain, pain like fire that flowed through the arm so that she dropped the glass with a scream. A hand pulled her to her feet, swung her round and sent her staggering across the room to fall across the bed.

She raised an arm to protect her face from the blow that always followed and then lowered it with a tiny whimper because it wasn’t Sammy Rosco who stood by the table looking down at her. This was a much younger man, someone she’d never seen before in an expensive blue raincoat with strange, dark eyes that seemed to look right through her.

7

Charles Edward Lazer, 45, musician, 15 Baron’s Court. American citizen. Joined RAF October 1939, demobilized June 1946. Rank, F/Lieutenant Navigator. Record – Excellent. Awarded DFC in May 1944. Four previous convictions including conspiracy to steal, suspected person, larceny and illegal possession of drugs. Not deported because of excellent war record and fact of all offences being concerned with subject’s addiction to drugs.

Nick went through the facts again in his mind as he waited outside the door in the dimly lit passage. There was no reply to his knock, and when he tried the handle the door opened to his touch.

The window was open, the curtains lifting in the wind, and rain drifted through in a fine spray. Nick looked briefly around the dirty, untidy room, his nostrils flaring at the stench of the unwashed bedding, then he turned, left the room and went downstairs.

The noise from the flat on the ground floor was tremendous, a steady, pulsating beat vibrating through the night as a blues and rhythm group really started to move. Nick knocked on the door a couple of times without getting a reply, opened it and looked inside.

There must have been at least thirty or forty people packed into the room, mainly students from the look of them, eating, drinking, dancing to the three-man group in the corner. In one case even making love on the floor behind the old-fashioned sofa.

A young man with tangled hair and a fringe beard was moving through the crowd, refilling glasses from a large enamel jug. As he turned from one group, he caught sight of Nick and came across.

‘Sorry, old man, no gate-crashers. Strictly private this time.’