‘Thanks, Doris,’ Marcus shouted, bounding down, two steps at a time. Only when he was near the bottom did he see the face of the person who had come a-calling. He stopped dead.

‘Hi, Marcus,’ I said. ‘Fancy a chat?’

‘Not with you.’

‘Who with then?’ I asked. ‘The BHA Integrity Department?’

He looked confused, as well he might.

‘Can I come in?’ I asked.

‘No, you can’t. Go away.’

‘I assure you I won’t be doing that,’ I said. ‘I will just stand here and tell everyone who passes that I’ve come to talk to you but you won’t let me in.’ I looked up and down the road as if selecting who to talk to next. ‘In the end, Marcus, you will have to speak to me. The only choice you have is when and whether the police are also involved.’

‘The police?’

‘Yes, the police. Especially the ones down the road investigating Gary Bremner’s death.’

‘But I know nothing about that, I swear to you.’ As I’d hoped, he was seriously rattled by my mention of the police.

‘In that case you have no reason to worry about talking to me. So can I come in?’

He stuck his head out of the door and looked up and down the road. There was actually no one in sight either way.

‘Quickly, then, before someone sees you.’

I stepped past him into the cottage and he closed the door behind me.

‘Upstairs.’

We went up to his bedsit on the first floor.

His room was not at all as I had expected. I had imagined that a twenty-year-old young man, probably living away from home for the first time in his life, might have let things slip somewhat in the tidying-up department. But I was totally wrong.

The place was spotless, with a neatly made single bed in the corner behind the door, a clutter-free bedside cabinet, a smart sofa facing a large flat-screen TV fixed to the far wall—on and tuned to the racing channel—a sparkling glass-topped coffee table and, in the corner opposite the bed and partly hidden behind a curtain, a small kitchenette with a sink, a shelf above holding some crockery, a teapot and two saucepans and an electric mini-oven, together with integral hob on top. And all of it as neat as a new pin with no discarded dirty socks kicked under the bed, or any lingering washing up waiting in the sink.

And it wasn’t because he had been expecting me, that was for sure.

‘Delightful,’ I said.

He seemed to sense that I was mostly referring to the cleanliness.

‘My father was in the army,’ he said. ‘He spent eight years as a regimental sergeant major. He’s obsessed with just two things—horse racing and tidiness—and I suppose they’ve both rubbed off on me.’