Milward shook her head, as Simon had known she would. The killer was hanging on to them, planning to use them again. A killer who knew how to stage a production, who liked melodrama, who had perhaps killed before . . . ‘You come across the name Martha Wyers?’ he asked.

‘The writer?’ Milward frowned. ‘What’s she got to do with anything?’

‘You’ve heard of her?’

‘Only since about an hour ago. She and Seed were part of a promotion that The Times and Vogue jointly—’

‘I know about that,’ Simon cut her off. ‘Mary Trelease did a portrait of Martha Wyers dead, with a noose round her neck.’

Incredulity flickered in Milward’s eyes. Then she said, ‘You’re not joking, are you?’

‘No. Kerry Gatti was part of the same promotion—a comedian. He can’t have been very funny, because he gave it up and became a private detective. He’s been following Ruth Bussey.’

Milward’s eyes narrowed. ‘On whose behalf?’ she asked eventually.

‘No idea. Tell Proust to lift his ban and I’ll go back to work and find out.’

‘We can find that out,’ Milward said through clenched teeth. ‘I’ve got to think this through: Mary Trelease painted a portrait of Martha Wyers? How did they . . .?’

‘Have you interviewed her?’

‘Mary Trelease? We’re working on it.’ Simon took this to mean that wherever Trelease was, she wasn’t at 15 Megson Crescent.

Milward leaned forward. ‘The witnesses who saw you outside Crowther and Elton’s flat say they saw an old woman there, too, after you’d gone. Unfortunately they were too busy making notes about you to pay much attention to her, but the one thing they were certain of was . . .’

‘Wrinkles and lines all over her face?’ said Simon quickly.

Milward nodded. ‘We’ve spoken to a bucketload of Mary Trelease’s reprobate neighbours at Megson Crescent. All any of them wanted to talk about was how old she looks, how much older than her real age.’

So Trelease had been at Gemma Crowther’s flat the night she was murdered. ‘I don’t think Martha Wyers’ suicide was suicide, ’ said Simon.

Milward threw her pen down on the table. ‘I don’t know whether to have you lynched or offer you a job,’ she said.

Neither option appealed. Simon didn’t want to work for Coral Milward. He wanted to work for that treacherous bastard Giles Proust. ‘Put me back where I belong,’ he said. ‘Let me help you as part of my team, helping your team—I know that’s what they’re doing, about a quarter as effectively as they would be if I was with them.’ He hadn’t meant to threaten Milward when he opened his mouth, but that was the way he seemed to be heading. Time to make it explicit. ‘It’s up to you,’ he said. ‘If you want anything else from me, you know what you need to do.’