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victim is struck on the head. It was the next step in the sequence of events that didn’t sit right. From all appearances, the assailant then chucked his victim into the Thames to drown. Rather vicious behavior for your garden-variety thief. Such things happened of course, but they usually involved drug deals gone wrong or crimes of passion in which the individuals involved were known to each other. The more he thought about it, the more muddled he became.
    It was in this pensive state of mind that he wandered into the Fitzrovia. Celia Cross was behind the bar.
    Powell looked around. “Jill not working tonight?”
    The publican looked worried. “She was supposed to start an hour ago,” she said as she filled Powell’s glass. “It’s not like Jill to be late, Mr. Powell. I rang ’er flat but ’er boyfriend said she wasn’t ’ome. I don’t know what to think.”
    “I shouldn’t worry too much. She’ll probably turn up in a few minutes.” He tried to sound reassuring.
    She brushed a strand of blonde hair off her forehead with the back of her hand. “Normally I’d agree with you, but what with Saturday night and all …”
    “Saturday night?”
    She looked at him with an odd expression on her face. “I don’t suppose you’ve ’eard, ’ave you?”
    “Heard what?”
    “ ’Ere, you’d better come round the back. Bring your pint with you, and I’ll pour meself a nip of gin.”
    Celia Cross had presided over the Fitzrovia Tavern since her husband died some twenty years ago. A large woman in her fifties who looked ten years younger, she possessed both boundless energy and a good-humored acceptance of the human condition and was quite capable, as she had proven on more than one occasion, of physically removing undesirables from her premises.
    That night, however, she looked her age as she sat in her cluttered office with Powell. Unpaid invoices, lists of reminders, and pay sheets papered the surface of her desk. A woman after my own heart, Powell thought.
    “Jill said she was going to ring you,” Celia said.
    Powell remembered the phone call yesterday morning. “I’ve been, er, busy,” he said guiltily.
    “It ’appened Saturday night,” she began. “Jill was looking poorly, so I sent her ’ome early. Somebody followed her and scared the poor girl half to death. A bleedin’ stalker! She ran back ’ere and I called the police, but by the time they got ’ere, the bloke was long gone.” She tossed him a disgusted look.
    “Any idea who it might have been?”
    “Jill thinks it might be an odd bird who comes in ’ere fairly regular—fancies ’imself a writer, apparently. ’E hasn’t been back since,” she added significantly. “The constable said to let ’im know if ’e shows ’is face in ’ere again.”
    “I take it this chap was here on Saturday night then.”
    She nodded.
    Powell had slipped unconsciously into the role of detective. “Did anything out of the ordinary take place between them?”
    “Not that I can remember, but …” She suddenly frowned.
    “What is it?”
    “Well, Mr. Powell, there was something, but it didn’t involve ’im.”
    “Oh, yes?”
    “It was that bloke what got murdered last night. Clive Morton.”
    This caught Powell’s attention. “Really. What happened?”
    She screwed up her face as if she had just swallowed something nasty. “ ’E was bothering Jill and generally making a nuisance of ’imself. Not behaving like a gentleman, if you get my meaning.”
    “A shame about Morton,” Powell observed.
    “You won’t see me shedding any tears,” the publican pronounced emphatically.
    Powell thought for a moment. “If Jill doesn’t turn up in the next hour or so, you’d better inform the local police.”
    She nodded somberly.
    As Powell sat in the pub nursing his pint, he could not suppress a growing sense of unease.

CHAPTER 6
    Powell sat in Merriman’s office the next day being subjected to the Assistant Commissioner’s “advice”—a