Will had been leaning back in his chair as they talked. Now he jolted forward so hard that tea sloshed out of his cup. “What?”

Wrist tattoos were the mark of Zodiac, the criminal organisation with whom they’d had two very unpleasant run-ins. Their leader Lord Waring had branded his lesser accomplices to guarantee their loyalty. Will took a deep breath to question why Kim hadn’t told him this earlier, but he was already holding up a restraining hand.

“Hear me out. He wore a wristwatch with a wide strap, which I couldn’t undo without attracting the doctor’s attention, but I could see the edges of the tattoo around it, and it was rather larger than the usual Zodiac size. Almost certainly irrelevant, hence I didn’t think to mention it.”

“Fair enough,” Will said, settling down. “Anyway, surely the Private Bureau has arrested all the Zodiac bastards by now.”

“I would hope so. Probably they have and this is something else; the most unlikely people seem to acquire tattoos these days. All the same, I’ll ask Rennick if I can have a proper squint at the corpse, just to be sure.” He exhaled. “I should make those calls now.”

“Do you want me to stay?”

Kim shook his head. “You’ve a shop to run. Thank you, though. I’ll drop over later if I may.”

“I’ll have the kettle waiting. If you need me, I answer my telephone.”

Chapter Four

The day felt odd, possibly because Will was more used to experiencing trouble than to watching it happen to other people. He got on with work, for lack of any better ideas. He went out at lunchtime to buy the special editions, and found very little he hadn’t already known. Mainly he gathered that someone in the club was taking money from a journalist, because the report in the Daily Telegraph was pretty detailed. There was a brief interview with Eric Knowle, the Secretary, who flannelled politely, and two quotes from anonymous club members about the murdered man’s stand-up row with Lord Chingford, who was famous for his bad temper and physically strong. It probably wasn’t libellous, but you’d have to be fairly thick to miss the implication.

The Daily Mail had a useful spread on the Symposium Club for the delectation of its readers, none of whom would ever see its insides for themselves. It was a gentleman’s club founded in Regency times, with a famous chef presiding over the dining room, offering lavish luxuries and a home from home to the select few. There was a brief list of a few famous members, which included Chingford in a very non-committal way, and finished with Kim.