‘Don’t be hasty,’ Spoder said. ‘I heard this morning—’

‘I know what you said. I’m sick to death of promises from people like you.’

‘I’m a retired cop too.’

‘Yes, but you’re on a pension.’

‘Mine collapsed last week,’ Spoder said.

Jeksid glanced away with irritation.

‘What seems to me went wrong was Lew cashing in his part of the fund,’ I said. ‘Is that right?’

‘Absolutely,’ Frejah said. ‘He acted like the common serf he had become. He and Dever had never been close, and after Raffe Antterland disappeared their relationship went from bad to awful. Lew was jealous of Dever because both of them had once planned to be magicians, perhaps even working together. But Dever went on with it, practised his tricks every day, started performing, started making a living from it. All Lew had was the house, which was beginning to need major and expensive repairs, and the monthly annuities. They were no better than anyone else’s. Lew let it be known that he had had enough of the annuities, and was going to take out as much of his capital share as he could. He saw it I think as a way of getting at his brother. Dever went round to argue with him about it, a major row developed, and – you know what happened next.’

‘Lew committed suicide,’ Jeksid said. ‘That’s what the court said.’

‘Let’s speak plainly,’ I said, ignoring him. ‘Dever murdered Lew, and disappeared with the cash. But what did Dever do to get himself shot five years later?’

‘He kept Lew’s cash,’ Frejah said, while Jeksid looked increasingly restless. ‘He lied and lied. First he said he didn’t have it, then he said he’d paid it back into the fund. If he did, we would never know, except that our annuities had gone down and they never went up again. Or not to an amount that would tell us the fund had been restored. Dever was difficult to pin down to the facts – you know what he did for a living. He was slippery, tricky. He would disappear for several weeks, then afterwards pretend he had been in his little magic theatre all the time. This went on for about two years, but then Hari lost patience with him. He had just been transferred to Salay for his work, and—’

‘He killed my son,’ Jeksid said with a growling sound. ‘I lost both my boys!’

‘Afterwards, Hari located the cash. It was still in the leather bag that Lew had used, stuffed under the bed in the mobile home where he slept. Hari paid it back into the fund.’

‘So why was Hari killed?’