the complete truth about his day, otherwise there would be hell to pay.
At least, he decided, they would be able to close the case by the weekend and start fresh on Monday. He had bent over backwards for Bryant, exploring every avenue and finding nothing, because there was clearly nothing more to find. Sometimes the circumstances surrounding those who died alone encouraged Bryant to hunt for an esoteric cause. Perhaps he felt a need to make their deaths mean something more. Perhaps he was thinking of his own eventual fate. Bryant’s irascibility had prevented him from growing close to many people. He had no surviving relatives: Nathalie, his bride-to-be, the love of his life, had died long ago, and he had never been able to bring himself to marry. There weren’t many who would miss him—besides, he had already had one funeral in the past year, and his mourners might be reluctant to turn out a second time.
May looked down into the wet street at Mornington Crescent, watching the slow ebb of traffic on the one-way system. At one level, the nature of dying had changed little since the War. Families still gathered at bedsides to say their farewells; few were truly prepared when the time came, but it seemed to him that too many people died alone. The relaxing moral strictures that had freed families could sometimes turn independence into profound and devastating loneliness. Were the young couples out there truly happy with their freedom, or did some part of them secretly long for the ordered lives of their grandparents? Now you’re thinking like an old man, he told himself. Offer to buy Arthur a pint and stop being so maudlin. ‘Come on, Arthur—you too, Janice,’ he called out, ‘we’re going to the Pineapple.’
Kallie saw the three of them across the crowded bar: Bryant in his baggy scarf and squashed trilby, May erect and smartly suited, Longbright with her extraordinary movie-star hair, ledge-like bosom and heavy make-up.
She and Heather Allen had come over to meet Jake Avery for a drink, but he was already a quarter of an hour late. The producer was working on a new BBC sitcom, and had warned them that he might be held up if rehearsals overran.
‘Those detectives are back again,’ said Heather unenthusiastically. ‘What do they expect to find around here?’
‘They’re locals. They’re probably off duty.’
‘That type never goes off duty. I don’t like being watched all the time. They have no right to treat us like suspects.’ Heather was prone to exaggeration when she was upset, and tonight she was as tense as a cat on a wire, chewing her nails and stubbing out half-smoked cigarettes.
‘What’s the matter?’ asked Kallie. ‘You’re a bundle of nerves.’
‘George came back this afternoon and picked a fight with me over the divorce settlement, before heading off to stay with his new girlfriend at the Lanesborough. Do you know how much that place is a night? He’s never taken me there. I didn’t get married for love, Kallie. I know it’s a terrible thing to say, but I wanted security, and now he’s pulled that rug from beneath me. What am I supposed to do, just go quietly?’ She raised her head and looked around. ‘Where the hell is Jake? Why do men think women will always wait for them?’
‘The traffic’s probably bad. A lot of roads are flooded.’
Heather would not be mollified. ‘I’m not going to hang around for him.’ She drained her tomato juice. ‘I’ll go to the gym and run for a while.’ She swung her bag on to her shoulder. ‘Tell those damned people to stop spying on us.’
Intrigued, Kallie went over to join the detectives.
‘We meet again,’ said May, ‘and in rather more convivial circumstances.’
‘Is this your local?’
‘Not really, but I like the unusual mix of types you get in here.’
‘As opposed to the unusual types you’ve been interviewing in our street.’
‘Oh no, they’re fairly usual. You remember Sergeant Longbright and my partner Mr Bryant?’
‘Of course.’ She shook their hands. ‘Thanks for sending your officer round. Did she have any luck?’
‘We know the hostels where Tate is registered,’ explained Bryant. ‘It’s just a matter of waiting for him to turn up. We should be able to take him in shortly and have a word with him. I hope you won’t be troubled again.’
‘I don’t think he meant any harm, but it was unnerving, being watched like that.’
‘It’s not nice for a young woman alone in a house. I mean, with your boyfriend