Hard blue eyes stared back at him from the mirror as he soaped his battered face. The politicians, too, would be happy to see the whole affair interred. The Belgians, like the Post, would be embarrassed, but for different reasons. A British government minister shot dead in the Belgian capital. They would not be relishing the publicity. And the British government would be worried about electoral repercussions. They could not afford a scandal with a general election less than three weeks away. Du Maurier’s warning of political interference the previous day had been only too prescient.

Bannerman sluiced his face and neck with cold water and went back through to the bedroom to dress. He eased himself into a dark, crumpled suit and again sifted everything through his mind. He stared from the window across rooftops that shone black in the fine drizzle that drifted across the city.

He began with du Maurier’s certainty that Slater and Gryffe had been murdered. If he was to work from that basic assumption then it was clear that it would be necessary to find either the murderer or the motive. Find one and you would find the other, he told himself, but without much conviction. The difficulty was knowing where to start.

He turned away from the window and sat on the bed. The murderer, apparently, had left no clues. But there was a witness. Tania had seen him, though Bannerman doubted if the child would ever be capable of identifying him. A motive might be easier to unearth.

There was the hostile relationship between Slater and Gryffe, the file of cuttings on the Minister that Slater had kept in his office, the money in the suitcase in Gryffe’s study.

Bannerman got up and went through to the living room, lifting the phone to call the Post. He waited uneasily as the number rang distantly. He felt a lack of commitment to this story. Tait, he knew, would not want him to unearth anything that might bring the paper into disrepute, and he felt a disconcerting lack of personal motivation. It worried him.

‘Edinburgh Post.’

‘Put me through to the library, please.’ He waited until a receiver lifted.

‘Library.’ It was a woman’s voice.

‘Jean, it’s Neil Bannerman.’

‘Hello, Neil. You still in Brussels?’ And without waiting for an answer, ‘Poor Tim. What a terrible thing.’

‘Yes,’ Bannerman said. ‘Look, do me a favour, Jean. Search out any cuttings we’ve got on Robert Gryffe, as well as anything we might have on him in his obit file. I want to lay hands on everything we know about the guy.’

‘Are you in a hurry for it?’

‘Yes. Just photocopy the stuff, stick it in an envelope and give it to the editor. He’s flying over tomorrow. He can bring it with him.’

‘Okay, Neil.’