“No,” said Banks, “don’t change it for me. It’s someone I’ve been meaning to get into for a while. All I know of Mahler is the soundtrack from Death in Venice.”

“Ah, yes. Magnificent.” Linda paused. “I heard about Danny Caxton on the news,” she said. “Are you in trouble?”

“Famous TV personality has stroke in police custody? I should think so. There’re bound to be repercussions. There’ll be an inquest, maybe even an investigation. They take anything unusual that happens in police custody seriously these days. On the plus side, his lawyer was there. He saw everything that happened, and he said we couldn’t have responded faster. It was so quick. And Caxton had never told us before that he had any problem with his heart. I probably shouldn’t tell you this, but there’s not much chance of a trial now, so what the hell. According to a disgruntled employee on the staff at Caxton’s home, Xanadu, his doctor had warned him to be careful with his health, prescribed various drugs to combat hypertension and elevated heart rate. But Caxton didn’t take them. He said they interfered with his sex life, which, according to our source, was mostly catered to by high-class call girls shipped into Xanadu on a fairly regular basis. He didn’t change his lifestyle either, kept on smoking cigars, drinking cognac. Too arrogant to listen to the doctors, I suppose. The only indication he’d given was that he said he wasn’t feeling well, but nobody feels well when they know they’ve been caught.”

Linda smiled. “There’s an irony in that, isn’t there,” she said. “The great man brought down by his own perverse desires. But surely the lawyers will argue that the stress of being interrogated must have had something to do with it?”

“No doubt that’s what they’ll say. But we played it by the book and it’s all on record, audio recording and video. There was no use of restraint, not that we’d be likely to need it with an eighty-five-year-old man. Caxton arrived under his own steam, with his lawyer, and he was well treated at all times. He behaved quite normally at first. Nevertheless, there’ll be trouble, you can be sure of it. They’ll want their pound of flesh.”

“Will you lose your job?”

“Maybe. If they need a sacrificial lamb. Or perhaps I’ll just be demoted, or promoted to chief constable, where I can do no harm. It was, after all, my first major investigation as superintendent. I enjoyed being detective chief inspector, though, so demotion wouldn’t bother me too much. Chief constable I’m not so sure about.”

“You’re being very flippant about it, but I feel terrible.”