‘I want to go home with you,’ Philip said; he tried to smile at the constable, but the deceit was immature and unsuccessful.

‘I’d better go,’ the constable said. ‘There may be something wrong.’

‘Nonsense,’ the sergeant said. ‘It’s a woman’s job. Tact is what you need. Here’s Rose. Pull up your stockings, Rose. You’re a disgrace to the Force. I’ve got a job of work for you.’ Rose shambled in: black cotton stockings drooping over her boots, a gawky Girl Guide manner, a hoarse hostile voice. ‘More tarts, I suppose.’

‘No, you’ve got to see this young man home.’ She looked at him owlishly.

‘I won’t go with her,’ Philip said. He began to cry again. ‘I don’t like her.’

‘More of that womanly charm, Rose,’ the sergeant said. The telephone rang on his desk. He lifted the receiver. ‘What? What’s that?’ he said. ‘Number 48? You’ve got a doctor?’ He put his hand over the telephone mouth. ‘No wonder this nipper wasn’t reported,’ he said. ‘They’ve been too busy. An accident. Woman slipped on the area stairs.’

‘Serious?’ the constable asked. The sergeant mouthed at him; you didn’t mention the word death before a child (didn’t he know? he had six of them), you made noises in the throat, you grimaced, a complicated shorthand for a word of only five letters anyway.

‘You’d better go, after all,’ he said, ‘and make a report. The doctor’s there.’

Rose shambled from the stove; pink apply-dapply cheeks, loose stockings. She stuck her hands behind her. Her large morgue-like mouth was full of blackened teeth. ‘You told me to take him and now just because something interesting … I don’t expect justice from a man …’

‘Who’s at the house?’ the constable asked.

‘The butler.’

‘You don’t think,’ the constable said, ‘he saw …’

‘Trust me,’ the sergeant said. ‘I’ve brought up six. I know ’em through and through. You can’t teach me anything about children.’

‘He seemed scared about something.’

‘Dreams,’ the sergeant said. ‘What name?’

‘Baines.’

‘This Mr Baines,’ the constable said to Philip, ‘you like him, eh? He’s good to you?’ They were trying to get something out of him; he was suspicious of the whole roomful of them; he said ‘yes’ without conviction because he was afraid at any moment of more responsibilities, more secrets.

‘And Mrs Baines?’

‘Yes.’