‘Because of the secrecy I’ve been trying to investigate how they work,’ Spoder said. ‘How do you join an AMBA, for example? What do they invest their money in? Why are they never advertised? And so on. I called a few banks and was stonewalled. They know nothing, they say, even when I managed to get through to higher levels of management. There’s no information about them online, except a few comments on random sites, mostly asking the same questions I was thinking of. The whole point of AMBA funds seems to be that they are surrounded by watertight secrecy and security. No one but the beneficiary knows where the money came from.’

‘Any idea what they mean by a mutable annuity?’ I said, having noticed yet again the re-surfacing of the word that had recently drifted into my life.

‘I think it means something that changes.’

‘I think you’re right,’ I said. ‘So how does this affect the murder of Dever Antterland? And for that matter, of Lew?’

‘The killer wanted the money, knew it was there. Presumably the killer was in on the secret – perhaps even he was also funded by an AMBA. Maybe even the same one? What’s odd is that the money doesn’t seem to exist. The cash you say that Dever stole from his brother doesn’t show anywhere, and even today, ten years later, there’s no sign either that Dever was robbed, or where his and Lew’s money might be.’

‘Presumably, when Dever was killed the capital invested in the fund went to whoever he left his estate to?’

‘No, and that’s the key to the problem. The money ceased to exist. The investment died with him.’

Throughout this conversation I was staring at the screen-saver on my computer. The fact that it had appeared was a clue to how long Spoder had been talking to me. I was being drawn into the Antterland murders again. I felt restless, felt my time available for my novel was slipping away. My document with the novel was saved – I shut down the computer.

‘What sort of amount are we talking about, Spoder?’ I said again. ‘Thousands of thalers? Millions?’

‘Yesterday I was talking to a former colleague who works in the Serious Fraud department. She said no one with an AMBA has less than millions.’

‘This colleague – did she give any idea about how the fund works?’

‘She had heard of them, but she said no one in the department had any actual experience of one. She’s a cop. She wasn’t stonewalling me.’

I was tiring of the conversation, becoming irrationally and perhaps unfairly irritated by Spoder’s continued interest in a subject that, after all, I had started him on.

‘So where does this leave us?’ I said.

‘I think that if we could trace whoever killed Dever, that would lead us—’

‘Spoder, I think we should drop it.’