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was his reaction?’

      ‘He was furious. Wanted to know who it was, but I refused to tell him. He swore he’d run her down when he got out.’

      ‘Does Faulkner know about all this?’

      She nodded. ‘Yes, but he doesn’t seem particularly bothered. He thinks Ben will never dare show his face here again.’

      ‘He’s probably right.’

      She shook her head. ‘Bella got a letter a few days ago. More a note, really. It just said, See you soon – Ben.’

      ‘Has she shown it to her husband?’

      Jean Fleming shook her head. ‘I know this sounds silly, but it’s his birthday and they’re throwing a party tonight. An all-night affair. Dancing, cabaret, the lot. I’m looking in myself when I leave here. Bella’s put a lot into it. She wouldn’t like Ben to spoil things.’

      ‘I see,’ Grant said. ‘So what do you want us to do? He’s served his time. As long as he keeps his nose clean he’s a free agent.’

      ‘You could have a word with him,’ she said. ‘Tell him to stay away. Surely that isn’t asking too much?’

      Grant swung round in his chair, got to his feet and crossed to the window. He looked down at the lights of the city in the rain below.

      ‘Look at it,’ he said, turning to Jean Fleming. ‘Seventy square miles of streets, half a million people and eight hundred and twenty-one coppers and that includes the ones who sit behind a desk. By any reasonable standard we need another two hundred and fifty right now.’

      ‘Why can’t you get them?’

      ‘You’d be surprised how few men want to spend the rest of their lives working a three-shift system that only gives them one weekend in seven at home with their families. And then the money isn’t exactly marvellous, not when you consider what you have to do to earn it. If you don’t believe me, try standing outside the Exchange around eleven o’clock on a Saturday night when the pubs are turning out. A good copper earns his week’s money in an hour down there.’

      ‘Which is a roundabout way of telling me that you can’t help.’

      ‘I’ve got fifty-two detectives under me. At the present time eighteen have got flu and the rest are working an eighty-hour week. You may have noticed how quiet things are around here. That’s because Detective Constable Brady and I are the only people in the office at the moment. At the best of times we only run a token squad during the ten till six shift. Tonight, you could say things are thinner than usual.’

      ‘But there must be someone available.’

      He laughed harshly and returned to his desk. ‘There usually is.’

      She got to her feet. ‘It’ll be all right, then? You’ll see to it?’

      ‘We’ll check around,’ Grant said. ‘It shouldn’t be too difficult to find him if he’s in town. I can’t promise much, but we’ll do what we can.’

      She fumbled in her bag and took out a card. ‘I’ll be at Bella’s place in St Martin’s Wood for an hour or two. After that, I’ll be at home. I’m living in Miss Van Heflin’s old flat at the school. The number’s there.’

      She turned to the door. As Brady moved to open it for her, Grant said, ‘One thing I don’t understand. Why you? Why not Bella?’

      Jean Fleming turned slowly. ‘You don’t remember her very well, do you? She was never much of a one for positive action about anything. If it was left to her she’d just pretend Ben Garvald didn’t exist and hope for the best. But this time, that’s not good enough, because if anything, I stand to lose even more than she does. A scandal could ruin me, Mr Grant, destroy everything I’ve worked for. We’ve come a long way from Khyber Street, you said that yourself. Too far to be dragged back now.’

      When she turned and went through the main office, she found that she was trembling. She didn’t bother with the lift, but hurried down the three flights of marble stairs to the ground floor and out through the revolving door into the portico at the front of the Town Hall.

      She leaned against one of the great stone pillars that towered into the night above her and a gust of wind kicked rain into her face in an oddly menacing manner, ice-cold, like the fear that rose inside her.

      ‘Damn you, Ben Garvald! Damn you to hell!’ she said fiercely and plunged down the steps.

      ‘Quite a girl,’ Brady said.

      Grant nodded. ‘And then some. She couldn’t be anything else to survive a place like Khyber Street.’

      ‘Do you think there’s anything in it, sir?’

      ‘Could be. They didn’t come much tougher than Ben Garvald in his day. I don’t think nine years of Parkhurst and the Moor will have improved him any.’

      ‘I never knew him personally,’ Brady said. ‘I was pounding a beat in “C” Division in those days. Had he many friends?’

      ‘Not really. He was always something of a lone wolf. Most people were afraid of him if anything.’

      ‘A real tearaway?’

      Grant shook his head. ‘That was never Garvald’s style. Controlled force – violence when necessary, that was his motto. He was a commando in Korea. Invalided out in ’51 with a leg wound. Left him with a slight limp.’

      ‘Sounds a real hard case. Shall I get his papers?’

      ‘First we need someone to handle him.’ Grant pulled a file forward, opened it quickly and ran his fingers down a list. ‘Graham’s still on that rape case at Moorend. Varley went to a factory break-in Maske Lane way an hour ago. Gregory, sick. Lawrence, sick. Forbes, gone to Manchester as a witness in that fraud case coming up tomorrow.’

      ‘What about Garner?’

      ‘Still helping out in “C” Division. They haven’t got a plain clothes man capable of standing on his own two feet out there at the moment.’

      ‘And every man a backlog of thirty or more cases at least to work through,’ Brady said.

      Grant got to his feet, walked to the window and stared down into the rain. ‘I wonder what the bloody civilians would say if they knew that tonight we’ve only got five out in the whole of Central Division.’

      Brady coughed. ‘There’s always Miller, sir.’

      ‘Miller?’ Grant said blankly.

      ‘Detective Sergeant Miller, sir,’ Brady stressed the title slightly. ‘I heard he finished the course at Bramshill last week.’

      There was nothing obvious in his tone and yet Grant knew what was implied. Under the new regula­tions any constable who successfully completed the one year Special Course at the Police College at Bramshill House had to be promoted substantive sergeant immediately on returning to his force, a source of much bitterness to long-serving police officers who had either come up the hard way or were still awaiting promotion.

      ‘I was forgetting him. He’s the bloke with the law degree, isn’t he?’ Grant said, not because he needed the information, but mainly to see what the other man’s reaction would be.

      ‘So they tell me,’ Brady replied, a knife edge to his voice that carried with it all the long-serving officer’s contempt for the ‘book man.’

      ‘I’ve only met him once. That was when I was on the interviewing panel that considered his application for Bramshill. His record seemed pretty good. Three years on the pavement in Central Division so he must have seen life. As I remember, he was first on the spot after the Leadenhall Street bank raid. It was after that the old man decided to transfer him to the CID. He did a year in “E” Division with Charlie Parker. Charlie thinks he’s got just about everything a good copper needs these days.’

      ‘Including

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