A bribe. He was being offered a bribe to talk about Kim. Naturally there could be no meaningful relationship or loyalty between him and Lord Arthur Secretan. Of course Will would sell him out for the right price.

Kim would take the money and say something trivial, Will knew it. He’d paint himself as a betrayer but not a useful one, and be left alone for good. Kim was clever like that, and willing to let people think the worst of him if it served his purposes. Will was not Kim, and the very thought of taking the money ignited a deep red rage.

“If you want to buy a book, you can buy a book,” he said as levelly as possible. “For what it’s priced at. And when you do that, what you’ll get for your money is a book. You can leave now.”

The journalist opened his mouth, met Will’s eye, and retreated. He breathed in and out several times, for a count of ten. It didn’t help.

The phone rang half an hour later. He answered, desperately hoping it was Kim. It wasn’t. It was the Daily Express, and the next one was the Mirror, after which a man from the Evening Standard turned up in person with a five-pound note folded in his extended palm. Will closed the shop for stocktaking at that point because he was uncomfortably close to panic. He had no idea how to handle this sort of thing or why they were all descending on him at once, and if he made a botch of this, he could give Kim serious trouble.

Why the hell wasn’t Kim calling back?

He was probably besieged too, Will realised with a decidedly sinking feeling. Who’d want to talk to Will Darling if they could get at Kim Secretan? He telephoned the flat again, but there was no answer. Kim was probably doing something; Will bloody hoped it was something useful. He bought the lunchtime papers, horribly self-conscious and irritated to be supporting the vultures, but needing to know if he was in there.

He wasn’t yet, and there was still no arrest. An editorial in the Daily Mirror had strong opinions on that, wondering how it was possible for a murder to take place undetected in a closed building full of people, and remarked on the importance of justice being seen to be done at all levels of society. The implication was very heavily of a conspiracy in high life.

The day dragged on. He would have liked to go to the pub, to let a pint and a bit of normality soothe the itchy-scratchy feeling under his skin, but he couldn’t face the idea that the other regulars might have read the papers. The journalists had probably been in the Black Horse, come to that, buying drinks and listening.