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an officer—’
    â€˜The idea that an officer killed Lieutenant Fortesque is quite out of the question,’ Carstairs said.
    Blackstone grinned. ‘That’s not what you said to Captain Huxton,’ he pointed out.
    â€˜I have since revised my position,’ Carstairs told him.
    Blackstone shook his head. ‘No, you haven’t. You were never prepared to consider it.’
    â€˜Are you calling me a liar?’ Carstairs demanded.
    â€˜No,’ Blackstone said. ‘I’m calling you a tactician .’
    â€˜And what exactly do you mean by that?’
    â€˜You didn’t want Huxton involved in this investigation, not because you think he’s a fool – which he undoubtedly is – but because you’d already decided I need to be tightly controlled, and he’s clearly not up to the job. That’s why you were baiting him from the moment I arrived. That’s why you pretended to agree with me about the possibility of the killer being an officer – because you wanted him to storm out, just as he eventually did.’
    â€˜Whatever I may have said, and for whatever reason I may have said it, my position now is quite clear,’ Carstairs told Blackstone, in the growling voice of a wounded beast. ‘I consider it unthinkable that one of my officers would contemplate, even for a moment, anything as dastardly as committing a murder.’
    â€˜That’s not quite what you mean,’ Blackstone said.
    â€˜No?’
    â€˜No. What you’re actually saying is that it’s unthinkable that any of the officers serving under you would contemplate killing one of their own kind .’
    â€˜That’s the same thing, isn’t it?’ Carstairs asked, sounding genuinely mystified.
    â€˜Not by a mile,’ Blackstone told him.
    Then he reached down for the whisky bottle and poured himself a shot.
    â€˜What the devil  . . .’ Carstairs exclaimed.
    â€˜You did offer me a whisky earlier,’ Blackstone said, looking him squarely in the eye.
    â€˜Don’t push me too far,’ Carstairs said.
    â€˜I’ll try not to,’ Blackstone promised. He took a sip of his drink. It was malt – far beyond the pocket of a humble police inspector. ‘In my time, I’ve arrested a wide range of people, from the lowest guttersnipe in an East End flophouse to members of the aristocracy in their own stately piles. And the main lesson I’ve learned from making those arrests is that, given the right circumstances, anybody is capable of killing anybody.’
    â€˜That’s preposterous!’ Carstairs said.
    â€˜Is it?’ Blackstone asked. ‘When I reached for your whisky just now, wasn’t there a brief moment when you wanted to kill me?’
    Carstairs looked distinctly uncomfortable. ‘I wouldn’t put it quite as strongly as that,’ he said.
    â€˜The feeling might have only lasted a split second, but for that split second, you did want me dead,’ Blackstone told him. ‘There’s no point in denying it, because I could read it in your eyes.’
    â€˜Balderdash,’ Carstairs said, unconvincingly.
    â€˜You wouldn’t have reacted like that if I’d been one of your young lieutenants,’ Blackstone continued. ‘You’d have been annoyed, certainly. You’d have torn a strip off him, undoubtedly. You may even have put him on some kind of punishment parade. But you wouldn’t have felt the rage . And why did you feel it when I helped myself to a drink – because I’m a jumped-up ex-sergeant who refuses to even call you “sir”!’
    â€˜It’s not as simple as that,’ Carstairs mumbled.
    â€˜It’s exactly as simple as that,’ Blackstone contradicted him. ‘If the circumstances are right, anyone can kill anyone. And that’s why I’m here – to find out what those circumstances were.’
    â€˜I want to make