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have a boyfriend?’
    ‘Boyfriend?’
    ‘She wasn’t exactly a virgin.’
    Mixer began dabbing again with his unfortunate handkerchief. As fast as he mopped it away the sweat came beading out afresh.
    ‘How should I know? Perhaps she did – I didn’t follow her about the whole time.’
    ‘You were living in the same flat.’
    ‘That’s not to say I kept an eye on her.’
    ‘You would know if anyone slept there with her, or if she stayed out at night.’
    ‘She had her own key, that’s all I can say. You can think what you like about the rest.’
    ‘I think that she was your mistress.’
    ‘And I say she wasn’t! Can’t a man have a pretty secretary without going to bed with her?’
    Mixer seized his glass and gulped down about half the contents. He had a voracious way of drinking which made his small eyes bulge at each swallow. When at last he lowered the glass he exhaled his breath in a panting gasp.
    Had Rachel Campion noticed it, or didn’t she pay attention to such things?
    ‘Where did you pick up with her?’
    ‘She came through an agency.’
    ‘We shall check up on that.’
    ‘All right then – I met her at The Feathers in Oxford Street!’
    ‘What do you know about her background?’
    ‘I never knew she had any. She was living in rooms in Camden Town, and if she had any people she never mentioned them to me.’
    ‘Hadn’t she got some friends?’
    ‘Only blokes running after her.’
    ‘What about women?’
    ‘She didn’t get on with them.’
    ‘Didn’t she have any letters?’
    ‘From blokes – she showed me some of them.’
    ‘Can’t you remember any names?’
    ‘No – and she used to burn the letters.’
    ‘Would you say she was an educated woman?’
    ‘She was a Londoner like me. There wasn’t nothing upshus about her, just one of the girls.’
    A Londoner … Gently savoured the phrase, addingit to the picture he was striving to build. A Londoner like Mixer, a child of the grey streets. With a twang in her voice, a savoir-faire , a naïve gaiety: a native-born Londoner. And a proper lush girlie.
    He moved over to the varnished bookcase and stared in at the unlikely contents. In the glass panel he could see Mixer clutching at his drink and throwing odd glances towards him. It was the bookcase, no doubt, which contributed that peculiar smell to the room.
    ‘Was she hard up when you took her on?’
    ‘Bits of stuff like that aren’t never hard up.’
    ‘How much did you pay her?’
    ‘As much as she was worth.’
    ‘Enough to give you the right to be jealous?’
    ‘Who says I was jealous?’
    ‘Everyone in the place – and also that you had a quarrel with her.’
    This time Mixer didn’t jump in with an immediate denial. Quite clearly, reflected by a set of Harmsworth Encyclopedias , a frown was making lines on his sloping forehead.
    An ugly man! What in the world had she seen in him? With her attractions she might have had a handsome as well as a moneyed lover.
    ‘Well then, suppose I did?’
    He wasn’t even clever. It had taken him thirty seconds to decide that this was his best answer, that it would give a little colour to his subsequent behaviour. Obviously, something had to explain his going off to Starmouth alone.
    ‘What did you quarrel about?’
    Again he was stumped for the quick answer.
    ‘Which of them had gone to bed with her?’
    ‘It wasn’t like that! It was some letters.’
    ‘Letters? What letters?’
    ‘Some I wanted her to type.’
    ‘How did that bring a quarrel about?’
    ‘She – she wanted to go to that film show in Hamby.’
    ‘But she didn’t, did she?’
    ‘How should I know what she did?’
    ‘And she didn’t type the letters – nor did you stay to dictate them to her.’
    ‘It led to words, I tell you. I just got the car out and scarpered.’
    Perhaps it wasn’t such a bad story, considering the heat. Worse ones, told with conviction, had been known to influence juries. The fact it was a string of lies wasn’t terribly