Collis thrust his hands in his pockets. ‘Now why should I have wanted to do something like that? There’s no motive, you see. That’s where your story falls down.’

The wheat-coloured manager beamed. ‘It depends if I can remember you shouting at her before she fell, or not.’

‘Shouting at her?’

‘That’s right. It could be that I heard you calling her a slut, and a she-devil, and generally expressing your annoyance because she was teasing you for certain disabilities.’

‘Are you crazy? I ought to punch you in the nose.’

‘You don’t have to do that. It would be much better, all around, if you didn’t. We don’t want the police to think you’re a naturally violent man, do we? Not a man who’s easily aroused to punching people, or pushing them off parapets.’

Angus appeared at the door with the drinks on a small tray. The two men remained silent while he handed the manager his Madeira and then shuffled across to Collis with his sherry. He sniffed once and left, leaving the door slightly ajar. Collis called, ‘Door, Shaker!’ and after a slight pause it was closed, with a click.

‘I drink to your health,’ said the manager, raising his glass.

Collis ignored him. ‘Just tell me how much you want,’ he said. ‘I’m not in the mood for social pleasantries.’

‘Well,’ said the manager, with the air of a man trying to decide the price of a reasonable horse, ‘I’d say that five hundred dollars should settle it.’

‘Five hundred dollars? Are you out of your mind?’

‘Not that I know of. You have to look at the price objectively, if you see what I mean. At the moment, you’re free, and you’re walking around at your liberty, and so five hundred dollars seems like a lot. But imagine if you were locked up in a police cell. Imagine being incarcerated with a rabble of felons and drunkards. Five hundred dollars would seem a very small price to pay for your freedom then.’

‘It’s too much. I didn’t kill the girl, and that’s all there is to it. I’m not paying five hundred dollars to a scallywag like you to protect myself from the consequences of a crime I didn’t commit.’

‘You have forty-eight hours to think about it.’ The manager smiled.

‘Don’t you give me deadlines,’ warned Collis. ‘I’m not paying your damned blackmail now, nor in forty-eight hours, nor ever.’

The manager sipped his Madeira. ‘I’m sorry to hear you say that,’ he said. ‘It could have been a most amicable arrangement for both of us. Most amicable.’

Collis took a quick, angry breath. ‘The most amicable thing you can do right now is leave,’ he told the manager.