Will opened the door and stepped back. Chingford hauled himself to his feet. His face was scarlet and looked unpleasantly swollen, and he gave Will a look of pure hatred, which was fair. “You—”

“If you’d talked days ago, we wouldn’t be here,” Will said. “So keep your trap shut now.”

“Well said,” Kim remarked. “Console yourself, dear brother, with the thought that you’re not going to hang.”

“Are you certain?” Flitby was gripping the edge of his desk, knuckles white. “Are you absolutely sure of that?”

“Pretty much. It’ll take a little while to play out, but once Knowle is arrested, it should be easy enough to demonstrate what really happened.”

The Marquess groped for his chair, sat heavily, and put his face in his hands. Kim looked down at him. “No, you didn’t believe him either, did you, sir?”

“Chingford is innocent,” Flitby rasped. “His name will be cleared.”

“I didn’t say that,” Kim said. “Actually, I expect a great deal of his dirty linen will be exposed in the process, because he is nothing like innocent. He didn’t kill Fairfax himself, but he was happy for it to be done on his behalf. He is guilty of taking bribes in public service, undermining the war effort, betraying the men who fought. He is guilty of stealing from you when you paid his extortion money. He’s guilty of whatever else he was being blackmailed for. He is guilty as sin.” Kim let that hang in silence for a few seconds. “But he won’t swing for murder. Come on, Will. I need air.”

“Got your knife in there,” Will said, as they walked down the corridor, leaving brother and father behind them.

“It needed saying.” Pause. “I wanted to say it.”

“Did it help?”

“No.”

“Are you all right?”

Kim exhaled hard. “Could you behave as if I am?”

Will slung an arm round his shoulders, a swift hug to which nobody could object and fuck ’em if they did. “You’re fine.”

Chapter Twenty-One

Will would have liked nothing more than to get in the Daimler and have Kim put his foot down. He might even have encouraged him to more speed, for once, but they weren’t going anywhere.

“Your face is right now in several newspapers as a murderer,” Kim said, as they took a bit of fresh air in the garden after a lunch served by staff with extremely blank expressions. “DS will be contacting me here to let me know when Knowle’s been collected, at which point we can sort that out with the Met and then Fleet Street.”