‘Very well. It’s none of my business. Have a nice day, ladies.’

Fred touched his forehead in salute, turned and left.

‘Oh, one last thing!’ Judith said, catching up with him.

‘What is it?’ Fred said.

‘Can you tell us about Stefan Dunwoody?’

‘You want to know about Stefan?’ Fred said, surprised.

He then looked up and down the street, saw that no one was in sight, and stepped behind a buddleia bush in a front garden.

The women followed him into the garden.

‘Now why do you want to know about Stefan?’ he whispered.

‘We’ve heard he was a bit of a crook. Working with Dudley. Apparently they had a number of scams going.’

‘I don’t know if you heard, but Stefan died last week. I don’t want to speak ill of the dead.’

‘But it could be important. We think someone killed him.’

‘What?’

‘I know. So anything you can tell us would be gold-dust.’

Fred wrestled with his conscience, but not for very long.

‘Okay, so Stefan was always charming. Always well turned out. Always interested in you. Polite to a fault. The perfect gent. But it was all an act. Because you’re right. He was a crook. Every bit as bad as Dudley.’

‘He worked for the auction house?’

‘As our art expert, back in the day. His trick was to misidentify art.’

‘And how did he do that?’

‘Well, someone who knew nothing about art would take a painting to Dudley’s auction house, he’d bring Stefan in as the expert to value it, and Stefan would say it was a second-rate copy, or some such. Dudley would then convince the owner to sell it to him privately for a knocked-down rate. Then, wonder of wonders, the artwork would magically reappear at the Marlow Auction House a few months later, this time properly identified as being the work of a well-known artist. Mind you, the sort of art we’re talking about was never worth tens of thousands, it was only a few thousand pounds here and there. But it was still illegal, and I know for a fact the pair of them were making a fair bit on the side each year. It was despicable.’

‘Did anything happen in 1988?’ Judith asked.

‘Like what?’

‘We think Stefan bought a painting from the Marlow Auction House the same year that Elliot left for art college.’

Fred thought for a few seconds before the memory came to him.