“Then they will be showing their hand, and this time may not get away with it.”

“All the same, I’m going to ask at reception when they are leaving. If it’s not very soon I shall move in here with you.”

“You will not!”

It did not take her long to return, with the news that Mr. Dell and Mrs. Brockman would be leaving directly after their next meeting.

“Come on then, Annette. I want to walk along the Embankment. If we see the pair of them, I shall stare them out. Did you ever do that as a child? You’d stare at your friend until one of you blinks?”

Bright sunshine reflected on the sweet and smelly Thames. We watched a pleasure cruiser, a Tyne collier barge and a small motorboat gliding and chugging. A child waved to the passengers on the pleasure cruiser and some waved back. No sign of Eliot and Gertrude.

By the time we came back to the hotel, a kind of fury had grown inside me. Gertrude had been willing to sacrifice the children, scatter them to the winds, send them across oceans. She and Eliot had committed murder, and now they were presenting themselves as respectable business people. Trust your money to us. Sink your funds into the deepest mine in Britain, perhaps the deepest mine in the world.

“Where are you going?” Annette asked, as I began to climb the stairs.

“Into the meeting.”

“For heaven’s sake, you’ll have us thrown out of the hotel.”

“Worse things happen.”

I charged up the stairs. She was a few steps behind me, talking, urging caution, but I wasn’t listening. With no idea of what I would say or I do, I walked along the corridor.

DC Martin Yeats was standing by the door of the meeting room. I felt like screaming. Not only had they got away with murder, but they had police protection.

“What are you doing here?” I demanded.

“I was about to ask you the same thing.”

The door opened. I would have gone in, but someone was coming out. In fact, several people were leaving the room, headed by Chief Inspector Emsley from Wakefield CID. He stared at me. His mouth opened, but no words came. It was quite something to be able to astonish such a self-possessed man.

Behind him came Gertrude, handcuffed to a detective constable. The look on her face was of puzzlement, and disbelief. It reminded me of a time decades ago, when her pony refused to jump across a stream. She never understood when things did not go her way. Eliot followed, handcuffed to a burly constable. He gave me a look of pure hatred.

When they had gone, Martin Yeats said, “Well, what are you doing here?”

“Pure coincidence.”

He glanced from me to Annette. “I’m not sure I believe in coincidences.”