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girls eating greasy food out of greasy paper bags.
    Paula pulled a face. 'I don't see any nutrition any where.'
    She closed her window. A heavy overcast hung low over the city. The 'air' in the street was a mix of petrol and diesel fumes, pressed down by the overcast.
    'London is turning into a mob hell,' she remarked.
    'Talking about hell,' said Newman, 'what did you think of Marienetta's second painting of Roman? Made him look like an ogre.'
    'A monster,' retorted Paula.
    'Like many painters,' Tweed explained, 'she's influenced by famous artists. In her case Picasso. And in sculpture by Henry Moore.'
    'Picasso's worst effort was never as brutal as the one she painted of Roman,' Paula commented.
    The traffic had started to move. Soon they were turning into Park Crescent. A man was sitting on the steps leading into their building. Newman groaned.
    'Him I can do without. That's Sam Snyder, chief crime reporter on the Daily Nation. His name should be spelt Snide. He's good, I'll grant him that, but ruthless where people's feelings are concerned. Don't let him inside.'
    Tweed got out first, was about to hurry up the steps when he was accosted. The reporter had stood up, spoke rapidly.
    'Mr Tweed. Thought you might like to know I have a splash story in tomorrow's paper. About the first one in the state of Maine. I'm just back from America. Mur der.'
    What he'd said stopped Tweed. He paused before pressing the bell, stared straight at the reporter.
    'Which murder?'
    'The caretaker who was beheaded at a dot on the map called Pinedale, south of Portland. Head missing there too. Like Holgate.'
    'And you want to talk to me about it? Come upstairs.' He pressed the bell.
    As they followed the two men to Tweed's office Paula looked at Newman. He raised his eyes to Heaven as much as to say, 'Tweed's blown it.' She poked a finger into his arm and whispered.
    'Keep quiet. Tweed usually knows what he's doing . . .'
    Inside the office Monica sat behind her desk, hammering away at her word processor. Tweed ushered his visitor into an armchair, sat behind his desk.
    'I'm Sam Snyder
    'I know. I'm afraid I haven't much time. You talk, I will listen.'
    'My story also mentions that the Vice-President has a wreck of a mansion just outside Pinedale.'
    'He's going to love that,' Tweed commented. 'And he has just arrived in London.'
    'I simply report the facts. I thought it was interesting. Russell Straub arrives here three days ago. Now Holgate's beheaded body is discovered out near Bray.'
    'You're linking the three events in your story?'
    Snyder smiled. He was a strange impressive figure. He had a hawk-like face, long and cadaverous. His nose reminded Paula of the prow of an ice-breaker; his eyes were dark and very still. His well-educated voice was commanding and he sat erect in the armchair. His age was difficult to guess. Forty? Fifty? Sixty? Later Paula asked Newman and he told her Snyder seemed ageless, always had. Despite disliking his arrogance Newman admitted he was a formidable force.
    'Link those three events, Mr Tweed?' Snyder again gave his peculiar smile. 'Of course not. The facts merely appear in different sections of my story.'
    'So why did you fly to America?'
    'I read a long account in the New York Times a few days ago. This was before Holgate's murder. I was struck by an item reporting that the pathologist - or medical examiner as they call them over there - was brought up from Boston. Why not the local man in Portland? I was over there twenty-four hours, flew straight back. Yesterday a member of the FBI detachment at the American Embassy phoned me. That decided me. I wrote the story.'
    'What did the FBI man ask you?'
    'I didn't take the call. The pathologist from Boston was a Dr Ramsey. Quite a reputation.'
    'What made you suspicious of this business? Something you found out apart from the medical examiner coming from Boston?'
    'Outside Pinedale there is a nursing home, really a lunatic asylum. Hank Foley, the decapitated caretaker,