‘Here we go,’ he said.

They collected the canvases from the car and walked to the Alleyns’ house which was at the end of a blind street near Montpelier Square. It was such a natural and familiar thing for Nicola to take this evening walk that her anxieties left her and by the time they reached their destination and Troy herself opened the door to them, she felt nothing but pleasure in their expedition.

Troy was wearing the black trousers and smock that meant she had been working. Her shortish dark hair capped a spare head and fell in a single lock across her forehead. Andrew stood to attention and carried his canvases as if they were something rather disgraceful that had been found in the guardroom.

‘I’m in the studio,’ Troy said. ‘Shall we go there, it’s a better light.’

Andrew fell himself in and followed them.

There was a large charcoal drawing on the easel in Troy’s studio. A woman with a cat. On the table where Troy had been working were other drawings under a strong lamp.

Andrew said: ‘Mrs Alleyn, it’s terribly kind of you to let me come.’

‘Why?’ Troy said cheerfully. ‘You’re going to show me some work, aren’t you?’

‘Oh, God!’ Andrew said. ‘So Nicola tells me.’

Troy looked at him in a friendly manner and began to talk about the subject of the drawing, saying how paintable and silly she was, always changing her hair and coming in the wrong clothes, and that the drawing was a study for a full-scale portrait. Andrew eased up a little.

Nicola said: ‘There are one or two things to explain.’

‘Not as many as you may think. Rory rang up an hour ago from Little Codling.’

‘Did he tell you about Andrew’s step-father?’

‘Yes, he did. I expect,’ Troy said to Andrew, ‘it seems unreal as well as dreadful, doesn’t it?’

‘In a way it does. We – I didn’t see much of him. I mean –’

‘Andrew,’ Nicola said, ‘insists that the Cid has got him down among the suspects.’

‘Well, it’s not for me to say,’ Troy replied, ‘but I didn’t think it sounded like that. Let’s have a look at your things.’

She took her drawing off the easel and put it against the wall. Andrew dropped all his paintings on the floor with a sudden crash. ‘I’m frightfully sorry,’ he said.

‘Come on,’ Troy said. ‘I’m not a dentist. Put it on the easel.’

The first painting was a still-life: tulips on a window-sill in a red goblet with roof-tops beyond them.

‘Hal-lo!’ Troy said and sat down in front of it.

Nicola wished she knew a great deal more about painting. She could see it was incisive, freely done and lively, with a feeling for light and colour. She realized that she would have liked it very much if she had come across it somewhere else. It didn’t look at all amateurish.