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had more or less given up the habit of looking at girls’ figures, but even he could see that she had a jolly good one, beneath the shapeless bulk of the A4 Branch uniform. His detective’s sense for such things led him to conclude that she was about twenty-five, twenty-six: too young for him. But then all the A4 Branch women were too young for him, apart from those who were the same age as him, and so resolutely unattractive that it was no mystery to anyone why they had never married.
    She held open the door for him.
    “Policewoman Tring,” she said. “I’ve been assigned to drive you around today, sir.”
    She possessed all the attributes of fresh air, common sense and decency. He liked her.
    He tossed his hat and mackintosh on to the back seat and settled into the motor; she shut the passenger door, walked around to the driver’s side and got in next to him.
    “And how are you this morning, sir?” she asked as she started the motor.
    He felt a little like a young charge being taught manners by Nanny, but he didn’t mind.
    “Well, a nice kipper wouldn’t have gone amiss,” he said. “And I don’t mean one of those creosote-dipped frights they try and pass off on you these days either. Of course, you’re too young to remember the delights of the pre-War kipper.”
    She was manoeuvring skilfully out of the parking space.
    “Oh, I don’t really care for fish, sir,” she said, “and you have to queue such a long time for it, don’t you?”
    “I wouldn’t know.”
    “Oh no, I don’t suppose you would, sir. I meant your wife, of course.”
    “Afraid I’m not married.”
    He had no idea what made him tell her that. He hoped to God it didn’t sound like a pass.
    “Me neither,” she said.
    “Well, no – of course not…”
    She was laughing now.
    “Why? Am I really that frightful?”
    “Oh no, no – not at all.” He really was a damn fool.
    She glanced down at her uniform.
    “Actually,” she said, “they’re going to relax the marriage bar.”
    “Are they really? I hadn’t heard.”
    “Do you approve?”
    “We need all the chaps we can find at the moment.”
    “Even lady chaps?”
    He smiled and turned to look out of the window. She indicated left and headed towards Clissold Park.
    “Isn’t it a lovely day?” she said, after a little while had elapsed. “Not a cloud in the sky!”
    The park was dotted with dogs, skipping children, courting couples: all the usual evincements of hope. Everyone was supposed to believe now that there was a change in the air: a spirit of fairness and justice; an end to the inequities of the old pre-war world. All of that. Otherwise, everyone said, what had it all been for? He despised this popular notion almost as much as he despised the one that held that somehow everything had declined after six years of death and destruction. He, for one, did not miss the acridity, the brick dust clogging your lungs, the broken glass crunching underfoot, the flames blistering the sky, the bucket loads of decomposing flesh. And nor did he feel any nostalgia for Hitler and the obscenity of the horror camps; the reducing of human beings to scorch marks in a matter of seconds. He had no time for either point of view: as far as he was concerned war changed nothing. It didn’t last time and it won’t this time. He was certain of that. Everything will just keep ticking on until the next one.
    “Yes,” he said, “lovely day. Pity we have to spend it on a murder.”
    “Did you have plans, sir?”
    No, he had not had plans: even if he had genuinely believed this was to be his first day off in Lord knows how long, he would not have had plans. As it was he was probably relieved that work had spared him the guilt and misery of spending a lovely day alone in the flat, with a pipe and the gramophone.
    “I was planning to go into HQ at some point,” he said. “We nabbed a couple of wide boys last night.”
    “No peace for the wicked.”
    “No. Not really.” He thought for a