‘Are you on holiday?’ he asked.

‘Yes… two weeks here and one in Spain. We were supposed to have a week in Barcelona… but this isn’t helping find Lonnie! Why are you asking me these stupid questions?’ ‘Just trying to get the background, Mrs. Freeman,’ Farnham said. Without really thinking about it, both of them had adopted low, soothing voices. ‘Now you go ahead and tell us what happened. Tell it in your own words.’

‘Why is it so hard to get a taxi in London?’ she asked abruptly. Farnham hardly knew what to say, but Vetter responded as if the question were utterly germane to the discussion.

‘Hard to say. Tourists, partly. Why? Did you have trouble getting someone who’d take you out here to Crouch End?’

‘Yes,’ she said. ‘We left the hotel at three and came down to Hatchard’s Bookshop. Is that Haymarket?’

‘Near to,’ Vetter agreed. ‘Lovely big bookshop, love, isn’t it?’

‘We had no trouble getting a cab from the Inter-Continental… they were lined up outside. But when we came out of Hatchard’s, there was nothing. Finally, when one did stop, the driver just laughed and shook his head when Lonnie said we wanted to go to Crouch End.’ ‘Aye, they can be right barstards about the suburbs, beggin your pardon, love,’ Farnham said. ‘He even refused a pound tip,’ Doris Freeman said, and a very American perplexity had crept into her tone. ‘We waited for almost half an hour before we got a driver who said he’d take us. It was five-thirty by then, maybe quarter of six. And that was when Lonnie discovered he’d lost the address…’

She clutched the mug again.

‘Who were you going to see?’ Vetter asked.