“No,” answered Harry after a pause. “She wasn’t having a baby.”

Ryan was staring at him. “Looks like an accident, Harry.” His voice was almost pleading. “What else? She wouldn’t commit suicide. And who in the world would want to kill her?”

“Mrs Bannister,” said Harry Grant.

Sparrow raised his thin eyebrows. “Now there’s an angle. But why?”

Harry knew why: ‘why’ was lying in front of him, enshrined in the thick wedge of typewritten sheets he had been working on for the past three hours. But the knowledge was not to be shared yet. He passed his hand over his eyes.

“I’ll work it out,” he answered. “Right now, it’s all mixed up … ” He turned back to Ryan. “There’s your story,” he said, pointing. “Do you want it?”

Ryan shook his head. “It’ll keep. You better go and see her.”

“Her?”

“Mrs Bannister.”

“I could do that,” said Sparrow.

“No,” answered Ryan. “Harry.”

“But the story,” said Harry, persevering. “Don’t you want it?”

“It’ll keep,” repeated Ryan. “Maybe for ever … Go and see her, Harry. And take it easy.”

Chapter Sixteen

There were no crowds yet round the Commonwealth Avenue apartment, no pressmen in the elevator, no photographers with their thumb on the bell. Sparrow’s police contact must be a very individual one … Harry Grant, making his way to the top floor – using this time the formal approach, where a few hours before he had crept secretly up, and down, by the fire escape – Harry Grant had few thoughts within his hollow brain. There was love, which he now knew must die. There was hatred, which would live forever. And there was a fearful remorse that he had left Esther alone in the apartment, instead of taking her away that same night. He should have known that Mrs Bannister, if ever she discovered what Esther planned, would never let her go; and she must have discovered it, as soon as she arrived.

He wondered how she had found out, but he did not have to wonder for long.

Mrs Bannister herself opened the door. When the two of them were face to face, she stood looking at him for a long moment, not barring the way, not seeming to consider the possibility that he would want to come in. Finally she said, with the edge of a sneer in her voice: “Back again so soon? You’ve certainly got a nerve!”

Taken by surprise, he said: “What do you mean, ‘back again’?”

She nearly smiled at him. “You left your handkerchief here. Initials and all … You as good as murdered her, Harry.”

“What the hell are you talking about?”

Mrs Bannister sprang to the attack, as clearly as if she had run up a flag. “Why did you creep in here last night? What did you do to her?” Her eyes were still meeting his, but they were perceptibly hardening, icing over. “You drove her to it. Or else you got her so worked up that she didn’t know what she was doing. Either way, it’s your fault – your fault!”