Yes, it was.' He looked at the speaker with disproportionate pleasure. Another hand was waving urgently. Perhaps the floodgates had opened and all his cynical doubts about the ignorance of this generation were going to be washed away. He pointed at the hand-waver, nodded, waited to be amazed. 'Sir, it's half past. We're due in the gym with Sergeant Rigg-' He knew Sergeant Rigg. A no-neck Welshman with a black belt and a short way with latecomers. 'You'd better go, then.' He looked at his notes. He still had three sides to go. Before she left, Ellie had warned him to go easy on the midnight oil. (Trying to offer a pastoral substitute for scarcer emotional goods?) He pushed the distasteful thought away and concentrated on her words. 'You start by thinking if you speak very slowly you might spin it out for five minutes. You end by gabbling so fast you're incomprehensible, and even then you've still got bucketfuls of pearls left uncast.' He poured them back into his briefcase and followed the cadets from the room. 'Pete, how'd it go?' It was Jack Bridger, the grizzled Chief Inspector in charge of Mid-Yorkshire cadet training programme. 'So-so. I didn't find them very responsive.' Bridger regarded him shrewdly and said, 'They're just ordinary lads, not post-grad students. At that age all you think about is fucking and football. Secret is to ask the right questions.

Talking of which, sounds like they're going to be asking some funny questions about this Mickledore Hall business.' 'They've started. Full inquiry. Fellow called Hiller, Deputy Chief from South Thames, is leading it. Turned up yesterday even though the official announcement of the inquiry hasn't been made yet.' 'Hiller? That wouldn't be Adolf Hiller, would it?' He pronounced the name with a long A. 'This one's called Geoffrey, I think. Smallish fellow with crooked teeth. Looks as if he's stolen his suit.' 'That's him! Adolf was just his nickname. He were a sergeant here way back, but not for long. Too regimental for old Wally Tallantire. That's how he got his nickname. Some joker started changing his name on notices and lists to Hitler, and it soon caught on.' But he couldn't have been here during the Mickledore Hall case, surely, or he'd not have got this job?' 'No, it was after that.