Bannerman nodded slowly. ‘I believe you,’ he said. ‘But my instinct is a journalist’s instinct. If Slater went to the trouble of putting together a folder of cuttings on Jansen and Lapointe and filed it along with his cuttings on Gryffe, then there was a reason for that. They might be connected with what happened, and they might not. But my instinct is to check it out.’

Du Maurier shrugged. ‘Then you’d better follow your instinct.’

‘I always do.’

The Inspector smiled wearily and finished his drink. He pushed back his chair. ‘I must go.’

‘There’s more,’ Bannerman said quietly.

Du Maurier’s face set. ‘What more?’

Bannerman signalled the waiter and ordered another two drinks. A group of working men in the far corner raised their voices in laughter. Some bawdy joke. Du Maurier set fire to another cigarette. ‘Slater was planning to leave,’ Bannerman said.

Du Maurier looked at him with resignation. ‘You have had a busy day.’

Bannerman nodded. ‘You didn’t tell me.’

‘There are many things I haven’t told you. Things I am not going to tell you. Things you will have to find out for yourself. Things that only I could have told you – and there are people who would know that. I am prepared to help you, for reasons of my own, but I am not going to be your sacrificial lamb.’ He paused as the fresh round of drinks arrived then leaned across the table again. He lowered his voice. ‘Slater had a flight booked Sunday evening for himself and his daughter. London, and then a connecting flight to New York. Tickets and passport were in his inside jacket pocket.’

Bannerman felt needles of shock prick his skin. For the first time he began seriously to doubt that there had been a third party. Doubt the interpretation of the child’s drawing. ‘It is just possible then that Slater went with a gun to the Rue de Pavie intending to kill Gryffe, take the money and skip the country.’

‘Possible,’ du Maurier conceded, ‘but I doubt it. It is a theory with very little to support it. Don’t forget all that I told you yesterday. Before I was instructed to drop my investigation, we found no way of connecting the gun to Monsieur Slater. In fact, I don’t think we ever would. The registration number had been filed off, and I’m sure that ballistics would have told us that they have no record of it. It was a professional’s gun, Monsieur. A once-only job. And Monsieur Slater was not a professional. Neither was he stupid. A man is shot dead, a man who others knew was meeting Slater in his house that morning. Slater disappears. Those are the actions of a stupid man. And Slater’s flight to London was not until Sunday evening. Even if he had meant to murder Gryffe and run, he would not have waited nearly twelve hours. He would never have reached the airport.’