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blubbing now and struggling to show her gratitude. Awkwardly she stretched up to kiss his cheek. Goodfellowe’s emotions were equally unsettled. A dismembered bike and several missed votes. Seemed his tea supply had scarcely been Guandong Grade One, either.
    He would have been laden with considerably more apprehension had he known what was taking place inside the pub on the other side of the road. The Marquis of Granby was, in the finest traditions of the brewing trade, a watering hole, not dissimilar to the desert wells around which Arabs would tether their camels and retire to the shade in order to contemplate the hidden meanings of life. Since it was frequented by so many off-duty policemen, the Marquis was usually awash with hidden meanings which representatives of the national media were more than happy to divine. No need to put unscrupulous policemen on retainers to keep their press paymasters informed of who and what were passing through the hands of the Custody Sergeant; a few rounds at the bar of the Marquis were usually more than sufficient. Oscar Kutzman was one such desert dweller, a photographer whose duties were to find and photograph distinguished people in less than distinguished circumstances. The job required talent – a sharp eye, an excellent memory for faces, an exceptional lackof scruple, all of which Oscar had in abundance. He was also conscientious in paying for his tip-offs, one of which only last week had led him to the rear door of a Bloomsbury apartment block at precisely the moment a senior Catholic cleric emerged in the embrace of his four-year-old son.
    ‘Oscar, you find my stories that boring?’ his guest enquired, aware that Kutzman’s attentions had wandered elsewhere.
    ‘A thousand apologies, my dear Inspector,’ the photographer responded, fumbling in his bag. ‘You recognize that fellow with the Chinese girl?’
    ‘Beneath the lamp-post? Never seen him before.’
    ‘No matter, I’ve just remembered. I covered his drink-driving case a few months ago at Horseferry Magistrates.’
    ‘Seems safe enough now, with a bike. Or what’s left of it.’
    ‘But with a young girl like that? I fancy not – Oh, that’s great!’ he enthused, grabbing his Nikon and squeezing off several frames as he studied Jya-Yu reaching up to embrace Goodfellowe. Bound to be a bit grainy in the fading evening light, but with a little help from the darkroom and a judicious choice of neg, it could probably be made to look as though she was kissing him full on the lips. An exaggeration, of course, but scarcely a deception, since Oscar had few illusions as to what this public show of affection might mean in a private context. Not a story, not yet, maybe never, but he’d been around long enough to believe in rainy days when, without warning, the great compost heap of life bursts into flower and ontothe front page. This was definitely one for the compost heap.
    As the couple disappeared down the street, he turned to his colleague and smiled. ‘You know, we may just have paid for your next brandy, Inspector.’
    For the second time that evening, Goodfellowe had brushed against the world of Freddy Corsa.

TWO
    Corsa kept the scribe waiting, wanting from the start to establish the line of authority. Not that there was ever going to be any doubt on the point, but the gesture nevertheless had to be made. Like genuflecting in a church.
    The lift by which the journalist had ascended was glass-fronted, in keeping with the contemporary internal design of the converted warehouse, allowing sight of the first three floors of the building in which were housed the offices of the Granite Foundation, the charitable trust created by Papa and, as in all such matters, transformed by his son. The Foundation owned the building and leased the top two penthouse floors to Corsa at a rent so nominal that it would undoubtedly have been regarded as an abuse had the details been known by the Charity Commission, which they weren’t.