‘The thing is, Tony, I was hoping we might have a little chat. In the light of what happened in the Court of Appeal this afternoon.’

The danger signs were flashing before his eyes. If Vance’s appeal had failed, nobody would care what he thought. ‘I’m sorry’ he stalled. ‘I haven’t heard the news today. What are you talking about?’

‘Nobody called you?’ Penny sounded surprised.

‘I’ve been teaching. I literally just walked through the door when you rang. What happened in the Court of Appeal?’

‘The judges decided that Vance’s conviction for the murder of Shaz Bowman was unsafe.’

Tony felt as if a pit had opened at his feet. A spasm of dizziness left him clinging with his free hand to the edge of the desk. Through the buzzing in his ears he could hear Penny Burgess speak. He compelled himself to listen to the words. ‘It’s not as bad as it seems,’ she was saying. ‘He was immediately rear-rested and charged with the murder of Barbara Fenwick. He’s back behind bars, on remand. According to a police source of mine, there was a witness statement from a market trader in the original investigation that completely undermined the case and made the CPS decide not to proceed on that charge back then.’

‘I remember,’ Tony acknowledged.

‘Well, apparently, a BBC radio reporter has been investigating the case, and she’s managed to get the witness on tape admitting that he only said what he did because Vance asked him to. He’s now completely recanted his earlier statement. So there’s going to be another trial, and I hear that the CPS are quietly confident. I wondered what your thoughts on the matter were.’

‘I’ve got no comment to make,’ he said wearily.

‘I’m not asking you to comment on the new charges, obviously that’s sub judice. But you must be upset that he’s walked free of the murder of someone you were mentoring.’

‘Like I said, I’ve got no comment.’ Tony gently replaced the receiver on its cradle. He wanted to slam it down hard enough to break the plastic casing, but the habit of self-control was too deeply ingrained for that. He closed his eyes and let out his breath in a long steady stream. That bastard Vance had once threatened to make his life a misery. It looked as though he was fulfilling his promise. He might well be convicted of other killings now, but he had wriggled out of the one murder conviction that really mattered to Tony. Not only that, but the relative anonymity he’d struggled to find had been shattered with a single phone call.