“My new best friend Superintendent Carver. He says the men he put on Paul Warner report that minutes after our lad got home, he was out again with a black bin bag, which he proceeds to put in the back of his van. They followed him into the Wytherton Household Waste Recycling Centre and apprehended him before he could dispose of anything. He made a fuss about his rights and lawyers and blah-blah. And the long and short of it is, he’s on his way to the station and we’d better get back there to welcome him.” She paused and glanced at her watch. “On second thought, it’ll take a while, so let’s have another drink, or more, it’s a nice evening. A Friday, too. And things are starting to go our way. We can invite Alan and Winsome down here, too, if they’re free.”

“What do we do about Warner?”

“Don’t worry, I’m not inviting him. If we charge him we can’t talk to him again. I’ll call Doug at the station and we’ll have him arrested on arrival. Then we’ll have twenty-four hours. Let him cool his heels overnight. We’ll see if we can put a rush on the Nuttall van forensics and get a couple of lab people to put in a bit of overtime and get started on the contents of that bin bag. Apparently, in addition to a pair of Doc Martens, some jeans and a polo shirt, there are some drugs. And we’ll go carefully through Mimosa’s possessions when we get them. All that should give us enough ammunition to take on Warner again.”

“But what do we do with Albert Moffat in the meantime? We’ve already got him arrested under suspicion.”

“We keep him where he is. We arrest Warner for conspiracy to commit murder.”

“Do you think they were in it together?”

“It’s an interesting possibility, isn’t it? Your shout, I think.”

LINDA PALMER was sitting in her garden that evening working on her memoir, girding herself to approach the main event. It was the dusk of another beautiful day, and she kept looking up from the page to watch the kingfisher scanning the water for fish. She had got herself as far as the Blackpool hotel, through the preamble of autographs, promises of help with her career, the ride in the plush car, the champagne. She was in the hotel suite now, on her second glass . . .