Dalgliesh thought that vagueness and teasing would be the least of his problems with his prospective father-in-law. He had noticed that men of distinction in old age were given to exaggerating the eccentricities of youth and the middle years, as if these self-defining quirks of personality were a defence against the draining away of physical and mental powers, the amorphous flattening of the self in its last years. He was uncertain what Emma and her father felt for each other, but surely there must have been love—in memory at least—and affection. Emma had told him that her younger sister, playful, biddable and prettier than she and killed in childhood by a speeding car, had been his favourite child, but she had spoken without a note of criticism or resentment. Resentment was not an emotion he associated with Emma. But however difficult the relationship, she would want this meeting between father and lover to be a success. It was his job to ensure that it was, that it didn’t remain an embarrassment or a lasting disquietude in her memory.

All that Dalgliesh knew of Emma’s childhood had been told in those desultory snatches of conversation in which each explored with tentative footsteps the hinterland of the other’s past. On his retirement, Professor Lavenham had rejected Oxford in favour of London and lived in a spacious flat in one of Marylebone’s Edwardian blocks dignified, as most of them were, by the description “mansions.” The block was not too distant from Paddington Station, with its regular train service to Oxford where the professor was a frequent—and, his daughter suspected, occasionally too frequent—diner at his college’s high table. An ex–college servant and his wife, who had moved to Camden Town to live with a widowed daughter, came in daily to do the necessary cleaning and returned later to cook the professor’s dinner. He had been over forty at the time of his marriage and, although now just over seventy, was perfectly competent to look after himself, at least in essentials. But the Sawyers had convinced themselves, with some conniving on his part, that they were devotedly caring for a helpless and distinguished old gentleman. Only the final adjective was appropriate. The view of his former colleagues visiting Calverton Mansions was that Henry Lavenham had done very well for himself.

Dalgliesh and Emma took a taxi to the Mansions, arriving, as arranged with the professor, at half past ten. The block had recently been repainted, the brickwork an unfortunate colour which Dalgliesh thought could most accurately be described as filet steak. The commodious lift, mirror-panelled and smelling strongly of furniture polish, took them up to the third floor.

The door to number 27 was opened so promptly that Dalgliesh suspected that their host had been watching for their cab from his windows. The man facing him was almost as tall as he, with a strong-boned handsome face under a thatch of steel-grey undisciplined hair. He was supported by a stick but his shoulders were only slightly bent, and the dark eyes, the only resemblance to his daughter, had lost their lustre but regarded Dalgliesh with a look that was surprisingly keen. He was slippered and informally dressed but looked immaculate. He said, “Come in, come in,” with an impatience which implied that they were lingering at the door.