Redfyre swallowed to see that people were making way for them with speculative glances as she steered him onto the road. He decided that the only thing to do was adopt his routine for facing enemy fire. Straighten your spine, square your shoulders and freeze your face. Perfect preparation, he thought, for the challenges of the tango.

Dorine was a delight. Medea one moment, sylph the next, her touch, varying between whiplash and feather stroke, guided him through it. He even began to enjoy the dance and actually caught himself growling in her ear once. Remembering her short way with Alexis, who had ended his dance spiked on his back in the dust, he didn’t try it a second time. In an abandoned moment, he discovered that if he swung her sideways and upwards, she seized the chance of showing off some very intriguing scissor kicks. He had strong arms, and lifting her slim frame was no effort. He did it again. The manoeuvre also had the advantage of drawing attention away from his feet, which were often uncertain about direction, and length of step.

He stiffened for a moment as Digby Gisbourne stalked by with a pretty girl barging deliberately into his shoulder. Dorine pulled Redfyre close and whispered in his ear, “He dances the tango like a Cossack. You dance it like a Frenchman.” He thought he would never hear anything more flattering said of him and finished the dance cock-a-hoop, with the crowd-pleasing Gallic flourish of a hand-kissing for Dorine.

The excuse-me ended too soon for the crowd, leaving them shouting for more. This was not unexpected as Earwig, who seemed to have appointed herself commère for the occasion, jumped up onto the wall in front of the grinning band and announced that they would now have an encore.

Dorine leaned to him and whispered a suggestion Redfyre was delighted to take up.

A minute later, he was raising his glass of lemonade to hers in the select bar of the Eagle. “Santé, Dorine! A huge success! We’ve earned this. But won’t you—”

“All’s well! Earwig can manage. And this won’t take long. I wanted to speak to you as a policeman. About Ricardo de Angelis. Chiqui. Five years ago. He was stabbed to death. No one was ever arrested for the murder. I’ve always wondered . . .”

But never quite managed to come to the station and make an appointment, Redfyre thought suspiciously. Why this moment? Aloud, he enquired, “Did you know him well?”

“I was his professional dancing partner in those days. I took over the school later from the owners when they retired. I identified his body. He had no family in the country, no close friends. I’m the only one who would think to ask about him.”