So he had not been mistaken. He was, indeed, for all his fancy footwork, firmly fixed in someone’s crosshairs. And had been for some time. Sufficient time to set up this farcical banqueting scene. His encounter with Rendlesham in the market square had not been by chance. He’d dismissed these men as eccentrics, sickening but harmless. But he’d deceived himself. Losing his sharp edge? The death of Richard Dunne, he judged, was firmly on the menu for at least one of these men tonight. The bonne bouche, he calculated, rather than the aperitif. They would spin out his mental torment until boredom set in. And all thanks to wretched Oily’s maneuvering. We could make a stand in the marketplace . . . Well, come and play cards with me and Edith . . . You’re mad to attempt it, but if you insist on going into that college, at least wear a tie. He’d been given a choice, three choices, his decision delicately steered towards one. A choice of three killing grounds. Any one would have been acceptable to this adaptable, light-stepping killer.

But who would attempt the killing blow, and when? A gunshot would never be risked within a college building. For discretion, the blow would have to be delivered by hand. Up close. Eye to eye. None of these five clots was capable of that. He reckoned that, if he took them by surprise and knocked out the vigorous-looking Digby first, he could lay low the whole boiling in seconds, the ones that hadn’t fled the scene screaming. So where was their weapon? Who was their weapon?

With a chill, he remembered the number of place settings. Seven. Where, then, was the seventh man? Surely it must be approaching seven o’clock by now? Seven guests for the seventh hour? That’s what they were waiting for. His muscles tensed, his breathing quickened, his eyes flicked from side to side. A professional assessing the danger, realising from where it would come and preparing his muscles for the collision. Eager young Digby, in his inexperience, had given away the game too soon and had put him on his guard.