‘Derek Paul Johnson, the husband, is an estate agent in the city. During the war he served in the RAF and was shot down over Cologne while piloting a Lancaster bomber. He was a prisoner of war in Germany for two years.’

It wasn’t difficult to see where the reporter’s fancy was leading him. He was selling the notion of a blood feud at the Palette Group. Johnson’s grilling was news and had to make up the headline, but the pedal of sympathy had been touched in the last paragraph. Was it the Palette Group that was worrying Inspector Hansom, too?

For a moment Gently was tempted to put a call through to Hansom, then he shrugged and hurried up with his marmalade and toast. It wasn’t his business yet, and perhaps it wasn’t going to be. Since they’d made him a Super he was being kept more at home; he had seen several likely jobs being handed on to his juniors.

‘I’ve ordered a joint for tonight, Superintendent. Do you know if you’ll be home for dinner?’

He shouldn’t have been irritated by that reasonable question, and yet he wanted to snap at Mrs Jarvis. All the way on the Tube he was brooding over the Johnsons. They clogged him up the Embankment from Charing Cross Station.

It was the beginning of July, and fine weather to boot, with the surface of the Thames a-dazzle in a bright sun. Several of Gently’s colleagues were away on vacation, and his own was due in a fortnight’s time. For the first week he was going to Bridgit in Wiltshire — a family sacrifice this, since his brother-in-law bored him. But the second week he was spending at a fishing inn in the Fens, near where, according to report, there were big bream and plenty.

A whole week of fishing! He’d been dreaming about it since Easter, when, while out on a case, he’d first heard about the spot. He had made a few inquiries and booked a room at the Fenman’s Arms. A local angler who had figured in the case was going to join him for the weekend.