Читать книгу The Bernini Bust - Iain Pears, Iain Pears - Страница 8

Looking back on events later, Argyll viewed the following couple of hours with profound embarrassment. It was just his luck that, whenever something interesting happened, he would be elsewhere. It was simple enough; he was hungry and, no matter how many virtues oysters possess, no one can call them filling. Not like a burger and french fries, anyway, so after a few moments indecision, resolved when he decided that hanging around in the hope of shaking Arthur Moresby by the hand was a demeaning way of spending an evening, he sloped off in search of a halfway decent restaurant and sat feeling miserable for an hour or so.

Indeed, he regretted not latching on to Jack Moresby to spend the night getting drunk together. He also regretted agreeing to have breakfast with di Souza. He’d had enough of the man already, what with spending much of the afternoon booking him into the same hotel he himself was staying at, carrying his luggage around, and listening to him at parties. Quite apart from the fact that he knew who was going to end up paying for breakfast.

And he also regretted his choice of restaurant. The service was interminably slow. The waitress (who introduced herself as Nancy and was most keen that he enjoy his food) did her best, but it was one of those places where the cook evidently begins by grinding his own wholemeal. Alas, he shouldn’t have bothered. The end result wasn’t worth the effort.

It was nearly eleven o’clock by the time Argyll set out for his hotel, after two hours spent all on his own with ample opportunity to feel sorry for himself. Apart from that, completely uneventful, except for narrowly avoiding being run over by an ancient truck painted with purple stripes. It was his own fault; he crossed the wide boulevard which led past the Moresby and on to his hotel in the cavalier fashion he had adopted for dealing with Roman traffic, and discovered that drivers in California, while generally slower, are not nearly as accurate as their Italian counterparts. A Roman shaves past your legs and makes your trousers billow in the wind but disappears over the horizon with a triumphant hooting of the horn, leaving no real damage behind. The driver of this particular vehicle either had clear homicidal tendencies or little skill; he flashed past, saw Argyll, blew his horn and swerved at only the last moment, very nearly consigning Argyll to the hereafter in the process.

As he reached the opposite sidewalk and his heart – boosted by alarm and the remarkable turn of speed he put on to reach safety – calmed down once more, he reflected that it was quite in keeping with life as it was currently progressing.

Heaving self-indulgent sighs at regular intervals, his thoughts meandered in a haphazard fashion as he ambled mournfully towards the hotel. Such was his mood that he was nearly past the museum itself before it penetrated his consciousness that all was not quite as it was when he’d left to search out nourishment. The floodlights still illuminated the building with ostentatious discretion, cars were still parked all over the place. But the number of people engaged in wearing the lawn down to waste land had grown enormously, and Argyll was fairly certain that the place had not been surrounded by fifteen police cars, four ambulances and a large number of helicopters when he left.

Strange, he thought. Prompted mainly by the pessimistic view that, knowing his luck, something untoward must have happened to his Titian, he changed direction and headed up the driveway.

‘Sorry. No entry. Not ’til morning.’ This from a policeman of impressive dimensions blocking the way in a fashion that brooked no argument. Even without the heavy weaponry strewn about his person, Argyll would not for a moment have contemplated disagreeing with his pronouncement. On the other hand, the scene had tickled his curiosity somewhat; so he announced firmly that the museum director had asked him to come round immediately. Samuel Thanet. The director. You know?

The policeman didn’t, but wavered a little. ‘Little fat guy? Wrings his hands?’

Argyll nodded. Thanet to a tee.

‘He’s just gone with Detective Morelli into the administrative block,’ he said, uncertainly.

‘And that’s just where he told me to meet him,’ Argyll said, lying through his teeth in a fashion which made him feel rather proud. He generally wasn’t a very good liar. Even fibs gave him a hard time. He beamed at the policeman and asked most politely to be let through. So convincing was he that, seconds later, he was climbing the stairs in the direction of a faint hubbub of noise.

It came from Samuel Thanet’s office, a carefully designed piece of upmarket administrative chic; whatever the museum architect’s limitations on exterior appearance, he had worked overtime on getting the office space right. A slightly anonymous room to Argyll’s mind, he preferring a more cosy and cluttered look, but expensively tasteful, nonetheless. White-washed walls; off-white sofa; beige-white woollen carpet; tubular modern armchairs covered in white leather; black wooden desk. The whorls and lines of two harshly illuminated modern paintings from the museum provided the only colour in the whole room.

Apart from the blood, of course, of which there was an appallingly large amount. But that was obviously a very recent addition rather than part of the decorator’s overall design concept.

And on the carpet lay the prostrate and immobile form of Samuel Thanet. Argyll stared horror-struck as he came through the door.

‘Murdered?’ he said aghast, eyes unable to tear themselves away from the sight.

A scruffy, tired-looking man, dressed in a casual fashion that would have been entirely unacceptable in the Italian polizia, and even in the carabinieri, looked up at him, wondering for a moment who this interloper was. He snorted contemptuously.

‘’Course he’s not been murdered,’ he said shortly. ‘He’s fainted, that’s all. Came in, took one look at that and keeled over. He’ll be all right in a few minutes.’

‘That’ being a man-sized mound behind the desk covered, appropriately enough, by a white cloth, part of which was stained crimson. Argyll peered at it and felt a little queasy.

‘Who the hell are you?’ the man, apparently Detective Morelli, went on with perhaps forgivable directness.

Argyll explained.

‘You work for the museum?’

Argyll explained again.

‘You don’t work for the museum?’ he said, proceeding inexorably towards the truth. Argyll agreed this statement summed the matter up admirably.

‘Get out, then.’

‘But what is going on?’ Argyll insisted, natural curiosity overcoming him completely.

The detective made no answer at all except to bend down and casually flick back the white sheet from the mound on the floor. Argyll stared at the figure underneath, wrinkling his nose in disgust. No mistaking those ears: seen once, never forgotten.

The sudden and unexpected demise of Arthur M. Moresby, President of Moresby Industries (among other things) had clearly been caused, as the unemotional language of officialdom would put it, by a shot in the head from a pistol at close range. It was not an appealing sight, and Argyll was heartily glad when the detective replaced the cloth and made the object once more a fairly unobtrusive shape under a sheet.

Morelli was in a bad mood. He had just been turned down for a promotion and felt a summer cold coming on. He’d been on duty for eighteen hours and badly wanted a shave, a shower, a decent meal and some peace. On top of that he had chronic gum inflammation and dreaded the prospect of a visit to the dentist. It wasn’t the pain; that he could cope with. It was the bill that would follow that alarmed him. As his dentist kept on telling him, fixing gums was an expensive business. The man collected antique cars, so it must be profitable as well. Detective Morelli wasn’t sure whether his gums were really going, or whether the dentist merely wanted a new carburettor for his 1928 Bugatti.

‘Do you need any help?’ Argyll asked, thinking it was a supportive thing to say. No harm in offering, after all.

The detective looked scornful. ‘From you? Don’t trouble yourself.’

‘No trouble at all, honestly,’ he said brightly.

Morelli was halfway through indicating that the Los Angeles homicide division, having managed without Jonathan Argyll for more than half a century, could probably stagger on without him for a bit longer when a pained groan came from the other recumbent form on the floor. Thanet, when he collapsed, had done so inconsiderately, straight in front of the door, causing a major bottleneck to traffic. The groan was caused by a large police boot inadvertently kicking him in the ribs.

‘Oh, the Sleeping Beauty,’ Morelli said, then turned to Argyll. ‘You really want to be useful? Bring him round and get him out of the way. Get yourself out of the way while you’re at it.’

So Argyll did, bending over the director and slowly helping him to his feet. Propping him up uncertainly, he called to Morelli that they’d be down the corridor, if needed. Then he steered Thanet in that direction, settled him on a sofa and fussed around vainly trying to open windows and, more successfully, to provide glasses of water.

Thanet was no great shakes at conversation for some time. He stared at Argyll owlishly for several minutes before the power of speech returned.

‘What happened?’ he asked, with a striking lack of originality.

Argyll shrugged. ‘I was rather hoping you’d tell me that. You were on the scene. I’m just a nosy passerby.’

‘No, no. Not at all,’ he said. ‘First I knew was when Barclay came running back to the museum, telling people to phone the police. He said there’d been some sort of accident.’

‘He must be a bit thick if he thought that was an accident,’ Argyll commented.

‘I think he was concerned not to let on too much to the newspaper men around. They always turn up. Can’t keep anything secret from them, you know.’

‘He found the body?’

‘Mr Moresby said he was going to use my office to talk to di Souza…’

‘Why?’

‘Why what?’

‘He could talk to him anywhere, couldn’t he?’

Thanet frowned disapprovingly at the Englishman’s concentration on irrelevancies. ‘Di Souza wanted to talk about that bust and it’s in my office. Anyway, later on…’

Argyll opened his mouth to ask how much later on. This concentration on detail was a habit he’d picked up from Flavia over the years. But he decided it might throw Thanet off his stride, so shut it again.

‘…later on, Mr Moresby used the internal phone to call Barclay and told him to come over. He went, and found…that. We called the police.’

Argyll had about two dozen questions he wanted to ask, but made the grave mistake of pausing briefly to arrange them in order of importance. What was the conversation with di Souza about? Where was di Souza? What time was this? And so on. Unfortunately, Thanet took advantage of the momentary silence to wander off in pursuit of his own thoughts.

These came across as almost entirely selfish, although this was perhaps forgivable under the circumstances. Samuel Thanet had never liked Moresby; no one had. While it was dreadful that the man should be shot, to Thanet’s way of thinking it was much more terrible that such an event should take place in his office and in his museum. The worst thing of all was that it should take place before Moresby had made his announcement about the Big Museum. Had all the relevant documents been signed? He’d be frantic with worry until he found out.

‘I assume that all the papers were drawn up and signed in advance,’ he said. ‘But it really couldn’t have come at a worse time.’

‘You mean to tell me that Moresby was topped just before he publicly committed himself to this project? Doesn’t that strike you as odd?’

Thanet stared at him blankly. Clearly, everything struck him as odd at the moment. But before he could reply, the door opened and Detective Morelli, hair ever more rumpled and rubbing his inflamed gums in a thoughtful fashion, walked in.

‘Case in your room,’ he said flatly. ‘What is it?’

Thanet paused a moment while he collected his thoughts. ‘Case?’ he asked.

‘Big wooden thing.’

‘Oh, that. That’s the Bernini. It hasn’t been opened yet.’

‘Yes, it has. It’s empty. What’s a Bernini, anyway?’

Thanet’s mouth flapped around uncertainly for a while before he stood up and rushed out of the room. The other two trailed after him, and reached his office just in time to see him bent over the large wooden box scrabbling around desperately among all the packing inside.

‘Told you,’ Morelli said.

Thanet re-emerged with little bits of plastic padding in his thinning hair, white with shock.

‘This is terrible, terrible,’ he said. ‘The bust has gone. Four million dollars, and it wasn’t insured.’

It occurred to Morelli and Argyll simultaneously that Thanet was more obviously upset about the Bernini than he was about Moresby.

Argyll suggested that it was a little careless not to insure it.

‘The insurance came into operation tomorrow morning, when we were going to move it into the museum. The company won’t cover stuff in the administration building. It’s not secure enough for them. Langton had it put here temporarily so Moresby could inspect it if he wanted. We didn’t feel he should have to go down to the storerooms.’

‘Where is Hector di Souza?’ Argyll asked, finally deciding that this was the central point that needed to be answered.

Thanet looked blank. ‘I’ve no idea,’ he replied, looking around as though he expected to see the Spaniard emerging from a cupboard.

There was a brief interlude as Morelli asked who di Souza was and Argyll explained.

‘Señor di Souza brought the bust over from Europe. He was upset about something and wanted to talk to Moresby. They came over here to discuss it in Thanet’s office. Some time later, Barclay discovers the body and presumably by then the bust had gone as well.’

Morelli nodded in a fashion which communicated understanding and profound irritation in equal parts. ‘And why didn’t you mention this di Souza before?’ he asked Thanet. It was clearly a rhetorical question as he didn’t wait for an answer. Instead, he picked up a phone and gave instructions that di Souza was to be found as fast as possible.

‘If you ask me…’ Argyll began, thinking that Morelli would undoubtedly want the benefit of his experience.

‘I’m not,’ the detective pointed out kindly.

‘Yes, but…’

‘Out,’ he said, pointing helpfully to the door, lest there be any confusion about where the stairs were situated.

‘All I mean…’

‘Out,’ he repeated. ‘I’ll talk to you later to see if you have any relevant information. Now, go away.’

Argyll was displeased. He liked constructing theories, and generally found the Roman police receptive to them. Well, Flavia sometimes was. Evidently the Los Angeles police were less sophisticated in their approach. He glanced at Morelli, saw that he meant it, and reluctantly left.

Morelli breathed a deep sigh of relief, and scowled at the quiet snicker from a colleague who’d been listening to his attempts to restore control.

‘Right,’ he said. ‘Let’s start again. From the beginning. Can you identify this man?’ he asked formally.

Thanet swayed once more, but managed to stay perpendicular. This, he said, was Arthur M. Moresby II.

‘No doubts?’

None whatsoever.

Morelli was deeply impressed. Northern Los Angeles, while not the battle zone of other parts of the city, undoubtedly had more than its fair share of mayhem. Generally speaking, however, the victims were not enormously illustrious. Only rarely did a member of the social register get himself disembowelled. Hollywood directors, television magnates, noted authors, fashion models and all the other exemplars of local industry were usually remarkably adept at keeping themselves alive.

It also made him rather nervous. He could not remember the figures, but he was willing to bet that the percentage of homicides where he successfully fixed the handcuffs on the guilty party was pretty small. Ordinarily, this was distressing but had few other consequences. People – and that meant his superiors – understood that a conviction was unlikely and didn’t for a moment attach any blame to him. He arrested people often enough to have earned himself a respectable reputation for general professionalism. He did his best and that was that. Better luck next time.

But he already had a strong feeling that a very large number of people were going to be keeping their eyes on him over this one. This time, doing his best was not going to be good enough.

‘I was wondering,’ he went on, ‘about the alarm system. You do have alarms, don’t you?’

Thanet snorted. ‘Oh yes. This place is wired like Fort Knox.’

‘So can we check if any doors except the main entrance were used?’

‘Sure. In theory the murderer should have been caught on film in the corridor. Although personally, I’m dubious.’

Thanet explained that their enormously complicated alarm system included concealed cameras in every room of the museum. Although the administrative block was less well endowed, it was still a bit like a maximum security prison. So they trooped off to the central security office, a room on the third floor crammed with enough electronic equipment to equip a small film studio. While they were eyeing it up and wondering where to start, a tall, balding man in his late thirties came in, radiating nervous excitement.

‘Who are you?’ said Morelli.

The man introduced himself as Robert Streeter, chief security executive, and his curiosity turned to alarm when he was brusquely told that his much vaunted system, responsible both for museum security and his salary, had not so far impressed the police.

‘To put it another way,’ the detective informed him, ‘it was a dead loss. If that man Barclay hadn’t discovered the body, no one would have known anything had happened until a hell of a lot later. What good is that?’

Streeter was also concerned, perhaps even more so than was the detective. After all, his job could depend on this. He had been brought in originally as a consultant when the museum was expanding, to give advice about how to protect the collections. However, as he had discovered, consultancy work was merely an elaborate way of being unemployed, and Streeter’s income had been somewhat erratic at the time. So, spotting his opportunity, he went for it. His report was disdainful, if not devastating. The place was, he concluded, about as secure as the average doll’s house. Not only did he set out a bewildering array of electronic necessities, he accompanied the report with elaborately printed flow diagrams of responsibility structures and integrated fast-response networks to demonstrate how, in the event of a break-in, the felony could be interdicted and the threat neutralised.

It was all Greek to the museum staff, who accordingly concluded that an integrated fast-response network was an absolute must for anyone who wanted to be on the cutting edge of the museum business. Besides, the man was recommended by Moresby. A college friend of his wife’s or something. So they did the only thing possible, that is, set aside a vast budget, created a new security department and gave Streeter the job of presiding over both. Who began by using the entire allotment to hire secretaries, administrative assistants and liaison personnel in order to lobby for more money. He now had a staff of twelve, another six to patrol the museum, enough electronic gadgetry to make the CIA jealous and was beginning to insist on having the final say on where pictures were hung. In the interests of security. He had even restarted his consultancy business on a sounder footing, and travelled the country giving lectures on ‘Museum security in the modern age’ for hefty fees. It also meant he had less time to spend in Los Angeles, so he was currently bidding for a deputy to take care of day-to-day operations.

Some people didn’t approve of what they considered Streeter’s imperial tendencies, and Thanet, sensing the growth of an alternative source of power to his own, was one of them. There was no need at all, he suggested, for either Streeter or the vast bureaucracy he had conjured into being. Streeter, not surprisingly, had disagreed quite strongly with this view, and the two men had been at loggerheads ever since. Clearly, a showdown was now in the offing. Recent events would either demonstrate the utter uselessness of all the security systems (victory for Thanet), or indicate the need to work even harder to turn the museum into a cross between Stalag Luft VI and an electronics factory (victory for Streeter). Or, of course, the museum could collapse entirely, and both would find themselves on the breadline.

Going instantly on the offensive, the security man took a perverse pleasure in pointing out that, in fact, he didn’t really have quite the equipment he had wanted.

‘I did indicate at the time the dangers of cutting corners on security. For optimum coverage…’

‘Please. That’s not what we’re here for,’ Morelli said, rubbing an inflamed gum and too tired to get involved in domestic squabbles. ‘Why don’t you just show us what you’ve got, not what you wanted.’

Not before the guided tour. As Streeter set it all out, each room in the museum was covered by a camera system whose lenses swept across a minimum of eighty-two per cent of the area every minute. Equally, they could be automatically directed to particular spots when pressure pads were activated or light-beams cut. The entrycard system automatically logged the entry and exit of everybody employed by the museum, correlated their personal codes to the telephone system so the administration knew where and when they were dialling. More sensors picked up the cards as people moved from room to room, permitting a read-out of their movements. Finally, microphones in every gallery could pick up conversations, in case any visitors were planning a break-in. And, naturally, all the rooms were fitted with smoke detectors, metal detectors and explosives sniffers.

‘Christ,’ said a surprised Morelli as this explanation finally came to an end. ‘You’re all ready for Doomsday here. You seem more intent on watching the staff than anything else.’

‘You may sneer,’ said Streeter, affronted. ‘But because many of my recommendations were ignored, our employer has been murdered. And now my system is going to tell you who did it.’

Even Thanet thought that Streeter’s voice lacked its normal conviction as he said this, but Morelli paid no attention, being too busy watching the man manipulate an extraordinary system of controls on the central console. ‘Naturally, the administrative block is less comprehensively covered, but we have adequate visual coverage. I’ve directed the image outputting to this VDU unit,’ he said, pointing a finger.

‘He means the picture will be on that television screen,’ Thanet explained helpfully. Streeter glared at him, then turned disdainfully to watch the screen. It remained resolutely blank.

‘Ah,’ he said.

Director and detective looked at him inquisitively as he rushed over to his console again and began scanning buttons and levers.

‘Damn,’ he added.

‘Don’t tell me, let me guess. You forgot to put a film in?’

‘Certainly not,’ Streeter said, manipulating wildly. ‘It doesn’t use film. A visual recording node seems to have malfunctioned.’

‘Camera’s bust,’ Thanet said in a loud stage-whisper.

Streeter rolled back a video, explaining as he did so that the image should come from a camera in the corridor leading to Thanet’s office. Still nothing. Careful checks revealed that it had stopped working at a little after 8.30 p.m. Subsequent investigation revealed that the cause of the problem was nothing more hi-tech than a pâté sandwich stuck over the lens.

Morelli, who had a deep-seated distrust of all gadgetry, was not in the slightest bit surprised. He would have been much more amazed – pleasantly, admittedly – had the video shown some miscreant trotting down the staircase wiping bloodstained hands on his handkerchief. Fifteen years in the police, however, had taught him that life is rarely so kind. Fortunately, there was always good old-fashioned police procedure to fall back on.

‘Who did it?’ he asked Thanet, who looked taken aback by the question.

‘I’ve not the faintest idea,’ the director said after a moment to gather his thoughts.

‘What happened, then?’

‘I don’t know.’

Morelli paused, standard procedural techniques having proven less than immediately effective, and thought a moment.

‘Tell me what happened when the body was discovered,’ he said, thinking this might be a good place to start.

Thanet, with the occasional interruption from Streeter, gave his account. Moresby had arrived at the party, circulated awhile, then was approached by Hector di Souza, who insisted on talking to him.

Streeter put in that di Souza seemed agitated and had insisted on privacy.

‘What were his exact words?’

‘Ah, now, there you’ve got me. Ah, he marched up to Mr Moresby, and said something like “I understand you’ve got your Bernini.” Then Mr Moresby nodded and said, “At last,” and di Souza said was he sure? And Moresby said he – di Souza, that is – was going to have to do a lot of explaining.’

‘Explaining about what?’

Streeter shrugged, closely followed by Thanet. ‘No idea,’ he said. ‘I’m just telling you what I heard.’

‘Time?’

‘I’m not entirely certain. Shortly after nine, I’d guess.’

Morelli turned to Thanet. ‘Do you know what it might have been about?’

Thanet shook his head. ‘No idea. I had words with di Souza earlier myself. He was upset about the bust, but wouldn’t tell me why. Just said he urgently wanted to talk privately to Moresby about it. Maybe there was some dispute over the price.’

‘An odd time to start having second thoughts.’

Thanet shrugged. No accounting for art dealers.

‘You didn’t by any chance have a microphone in the director’s office, did you?’ Morelli asked.

Streeter looked thunderstruck for a moment, then switched to being outraged. ‘No,’ he said shortly. ‘I did once suggest that office space be monitored more closely, but Mr Thanet here said he’d take me to the Supreme Court if necessary to stop me.’

‘A monstrous, unconstitutional and illegal idea,’ Thanet huffed. ‘How anyone can so lose sight of basic civilised…’

‘Oh, shut up, both of you,’ Morelli said. ‘I’m not interested. Can’t you keep your minds on the fact that Arthur Moresby has been murdered?’

As they clearly couldn’t, he told them he’d take statements properly later, and got a junior officer to usher them out. Then, taking several deep breaths to calm himself down, he ran his fingers through his hair and began to organise his investigation. Press to be talked to, names to be taken, statements to gather, bodies to be moved, someone to go round immediately and find di Souza. Hours of work stretched before him. And he couldn’t really face it. So, instead he settled down and watched the video of the party, to see if that produced any real leads.

It didn’t help him, nor did it greatly illuminate more professional analysts who looked it over later. The multiple interaction patterning, as the experts termed it, concluded that Thanet was having an affair with his secretary; that no less than twenty-seven per cent of the guests departed with at least one piece of museum cutlery in their pockets; that Jack Moresby drank too much, that David Barclay, the lawyer, and Hector di Souza, the art dealer, both spent extraordinary amounts of time looking at themselves in mirrors and that Jonathan Argyll was a bit lost and ill at ease most of the evening. They also noted that Mrs Moresby arrived with David Barclay, and didn’t speak to her husband once all the time he was there. Finally, they saw with disappointment that the pâté sandwiches were singularly popular, although no one was seen secreting one about his person for unorthodox purposes.

They also watched Moresby talking to di Souza and leaving the party with the Spaniard at 9.07 p.m. and later on saw Barclay be summoned to the phone, talk into it, and walk out of the building at 9.58 p.m. The body was discovered moments later and Barclay came back to phone the police at 10.06 p.m. After that, everyone hung around and waited, with the exception of Langton who could be seen on the phone at 10.11 and again at 10.16. Simple enough, he explained later, he was phoning Jack Moresby and then Anne Moresby to inform them of the disaster. He was, it seemed, the only person who even thought of telling them. All the rest were too busy panicking.

Apart from that, they came up with a list of people who, at various stages of the evening, conversed with Moresby. Surprisingly enough there weren’t all that many; almost everybody greeted him in one way or another, but he responded in such a frigid manner that few had sufficient courage to pursue the dialogue further. The party may have been thrown in his honour, but Arthur Moresby did not look as though he was in a party mood.

To put it another way, dozens of expert man-hours and all the techniques of advanced social-scientific investigation devoted to analysing the tape produced no useful information whatsoever. And Morelli had known they wouldn’t, all along.

Jonathan Argyll tossed and turned in bed, his mind churning over recent events with a degree of manic obsessiveness. He had sold a Titian; he hadn’t been paid for it; he had to go back to London; the prospective buyer had just been murdered; he wasn’t going to get paid for it; he was going to lose his job; he had nearly been run over; the cheeseburger was in violent dispute with his stomach; Hector di Souza was the likely candidate for gun-toting connoisseur; the Spaniard had smuggled a bust out of Italy.

And he had no one to talk it all over with. A brief conversation with di Souza himself might have cleared his mind enough for him to get some sleep, but the infernal man was nowhere around. Not in his room, anyway; policemen there were aplenty, but Hector himself had, apparently, come back to the hotel, then left again shortly after someone phoned him. The key was with the reception. Maybe he would turn up for breakfast, unless the police got to him first, in which case he might be otherwise engaged.

Argyll rolled over in the bed for the thirtieth time, and looked at the clock with eyes that were not in the slightest bit weary, try as he might to convince them that they needed a rest.

Four in the morning. Which meant that he’d been lying in bed for three and a half hours, eyes open, brain rotating.

He switched on the light, hesitated and finally took the decision he’d been wanting to take ever since he got back to his hotel room. He had to talk to someone. He picked up the phone.