Hepton wafted the note in Christopher’s face. ‘Now will you believe that something’s going on?’ he said.

He had spent the past half-hour trying to make sense of his suspicions to Nick Christopher, but it seemed that the more he talked, the flimsier everything became. But now this. The granting of an immediate holiday, courtesy of Fagin.

Courtesy of Henry.

Christopher returned to the table and played a shot, but it went wide of the pocket and he sighed, putting down his cue.

‘Okay,’ he said. ‘Run through it again for me, starting at the beginning.’ And this time he was concentrating as Hepton told his story.

10

Hepton went to his dorm, pulled a suitcase out from beneath one of the bunks and started packing. Nine months ago, he’d taken out a year’s rental on a small flat in the market town of Louth, plumb in the middle of the town’s market area and not far from Binbrook. He’d reckoned it would make a little love nest for Jilly and him, whenever they could find a couple of days or more free to spend together. But then she’d taken the London job, forsaking her own local paper, where she had been something of a star. There had been a murder, made to look like suicide, and Jilly had investigated. She hadn’t exactly been able to prove anything substantial, but she had goaded the police into taking another look, and from there they had pronounced the suicide a murder. From where it was a short step to declaring the murderer (the dead woman’s son) found and guilty (twelve years).

Jilly’s story had found its way into the national press, and then the London Herald had jumped in with the offer of a job. Of course she’d been right to take it. It was the perfect career move at the right time. So the flat had gone unused and unloved, but Hepton had kept it on, using it for the occasional tryst, more or less unsatisfactorily.

He didn’t pack much, just enough to make people think he really was going to take a holiday. Then he waved farewell to Nick Christopher, who waved back, and made for his car.

At the security barrier, the guard came out of his hut.

‘Off again, are you?’

‘That’s right, Bert,’ said Hepton, smiling.

‘I don’t know, some people …’ Bert went back to his post.

Hepton waved at him, too, as he drove underneath the rising barrier and took a right turn onto the main road. Louth was less than twenty minutes away.