Intrigued, he led her through to the smoking room and closed the adjoining door. ‘What is it?’ he asked, wondering if she had remembered something else about her conversation with Hartley.

‘The photographer from The Times isn’t who he says he is.’

‘What?’ Penrose stared at her, utterly unprepared for what she had just said. ‘What do you mean?’

‘Mr Fielding – he is a fraud. Didn’t you notice yesterday, when we arrived? He had no idea what photographs he wanted to take, and he was so clumsy with the camera …’

‘But that was nerves, surely? You’re a little out of his league, and I’m not surprised he was intimidated. I was, too, the first time I met you.’

‘Were you? You did not show it.’ She smiled, but it soon faded. ‘Please take what I am saying seriously. How did he behave when you asked him to take your photographs?’

‘He was competent, I suppose, but …’

‘Competent? But he is supposed to be one of their best men. Believe me, Archie, I have met thousands of photographers in my lifetime, and he is not the man that The Times would send on an assignment as important as this one.’ He thought 232about what she had said, remembering how awkwardly Fielding had behaved on the tower, and how reluctant he had been to go in the first place; again, Penrose had put that down to nerves and the horrific circumstances of the task, but perhaps there was more to it. ‘I gave him a test just now,’ Marlene admitted, ‘because I thought you would ask me for something more than instinct.’

‘What sort of test?’

‘There is a photograph in Wednesday’s newspaper that has his name on it, but he knows nothing about it. It was taken at dusk, and I talked to him about the magic hour and the technicalities of the light, but I could tell he was out of his depth. He did not correct me when I talked about the shutter speed, and he had obviously never heard of the magic hour. You know about it?’ Penrose shook his head. ‘It’s that moment at twilight, before the sky goes completely black, but the phrase is misleading because it’s never an hour, just a few minutes. The man who took that photograph understands that with every fibre of his being. The man in there’ – she gestured towards the dining room – ‘does not.’

‘Does he know you tricked him?’

‘No.’

‘Good. Let’s keep it that way for now, and don’t mention this to anyone else. I’d rather not alert him to our suspicions until I’ve had a chance to check him out with the newspaper. But you’re sure?’

Marlene nodded. ‘It doesn’t make him your murderer, I know, and there might be a perfectly innocent explanation. Perhaps The Times had to send someone else at the last minute and didn’t want to admit that he was a junior, or perhaps the wrong name is on the photograph. But if Alex 233Fielding took that picture, then this man is most certainly not Alex Fielding.’