Pink. He was in the Pink. Good, useful—but not priceless—Pink. How had Pink, of all people, tuned in to the Hampstead lot? But it didn’t matter, as long as this proved as sound as Pink’s previous offerings. And why should it not? The old fort, the old Roman place. That would be Richborough, Rutupiae, the legions’ depot. Pink was revealing unsuspected erudition. Richborough, Kent. The county would have to be asked to co-operate. And hovering—that sounded as if they would have to deal with a helicopter. He couldn’t think what other meaning to put on the word. The U.S. Air Force was stationed at Manston, close by; but there would probably be some technical, legal, difficulty in getting help from them. He would have to keep it a purely police occasion; and it was obviously going to be complicated. He blenched—leave stopped over a large area, the day before Christmas!

He picked up the phone, called for a taxi in five minutes, and raced upstairs, peeling off his bright silk clothes as he ran.

Part Three

Christmas Eve

“They say no one’s seen feather nor bone of Wacey,” said Beddoes. “That right?”

Nightingale wearily pulled out a chair and sat down. “Beddoes, your searing zeal is ghastly. Yes. I rang when I woke. How did I manage to wake, I wonder, after about three hours’ sleep.” He stared out of the window of his office, at the menacing midwinter dawn. The sky bore a dirty flush, like the face of a child with measles.

“Not surprising,” said Beddoes. “About Wacey, I mean,” he added hastily. “By the way, after you put me down at Charing Cross yesterday I thought as I was right on top of Vanbrugh Street I’d ring up and find out which bar Wacey had been seen in, then go and look about—I know you said go home. But it was dead easy. I don’t call that work. Just dropped in and started chatting in due time.”

“About Wacey?”

“I may have had a tap on the loaf,” said Beddoes tersely, “but it’s not hollow up there yet. I wafted out a description of Ivan the Terrible, and sure enough, they knew him. New customer, but he’s shown up quite often in the past two months or so. Never any trouble, never started shouting. May have spoken to other customers on the quiet, of course—”

“But no unbosoming?”

“No. And he was last there about six o’clock on the evening of the twenty-second.”

“Our night! He probably went along in the expectation of being met with his cut. I don’t suppose they ever intended to give it to him. After all, why waste money on someone who’s too dangerous to be left loose? They knew from their own, as it happened, advantageous, experience how garrulous he could become.”