There was a fitted wardrobe against the wall, several suitcases piled on top. She went across and reached up in vain.

‘Let me,’ Morgan said.

He grabbed the handle of the case which was bottom of the pile and eased it out. He frowned suddenly. ‘Feels as if there’s something in it.’

He put the case on the bed, flicked the catches and opened the lid. Inside there was a black plastic handbag, a silk headscarf, a nylon stocking and a high-heeled shoe.

Joanna Hartmann started to scream.

20

Strange, but it was so narrowly avoiding Miller in the park which finally made the Gunner’s mind up for him, though not straight away. He waited until the detective had disappeared before emerging from the rhododendron bushes, damp and uncomfortable, his stomach hollow and empty.

He moved away in the opposite direction and finally came to another entrance to the park. Beyond the wrought iron gate he noticed some cigarette machines. He found the necessary coins from the money Jenny had given him, extracted a packet of ten cigarettes and a book of matches and went back into the park.

He started to walk again, smoking continuously, one cigarette after the other, thinking about everything that had happened since his dash from the Infirmary, but particularly about Jenny. He remembered the first time he had seen her from the loft, looking just about as good as a woman could. And the other things. Her ironic humour, her courage in a difficult situation, even the rough edge of her tongue. And when they had made love she had given every part of herself, holding nothing back – something he had never experienced in his life before. And never likely to again …

The thought pulled him up short and he stood there in the rain contemplating an eternity of being on his own for the first time in his life. Always to be running, always to be afraid because that was the cold fact of it. Scratching for a living, bedding with tarts, sinking fast all the time until someone turned him in for whatever it was worth.

The coppers never let go, never closed a case, that was the trouble. He thought of Miller. It was more than an hour since the detective had walked past the shelter and yet at the memory, the Gunner felt the same panic clutching at his guts, the same instinct to run and keep on running. Well, to hell with that for a game of soldiers. Better to face what there was to face and get it over than live like this. There was one cigarette left in the packet. He lit it, tossed the packet away and started to walk briskly towards the other side of the park.