Every surface was crammed with plants. Miss Maudsley had green fingers and the cuttings she had taken from her own plants and lovingly tended in a variety of oddly shaped receptacles picked up during her forays in the street markets had flourished despite the poor light. The resulting rampant greenery suggested that it had been cunningly deployed to conceal some sinister defect in the structure or decor. Cordelia still used Bernie's old oak desk, could still imagine that she could trace the outline of the bowl in which he had bled away his life, could still identify one particular stain of spilt blood and water. But then there were so many rings, so many stains. His hat, with its upturned brim and grubby ribbon, still hung on the curved wooden coat-stand. No jumble sale would take it and she found herself unable to throw it away. Twice she had taken it as far as the dustbin in the back yard but had been unable to drop it in, finding this final symbolic rejection of Bernie even more personal and traumatic than the exclusion of his name from the name-plaque. If the Agency did finally fail – and she tried not to think what the new rent would be when the lease came up for renewal in three years' time – she supposed that she would still leave the hat hanging there in its pathetic decrepitude for unknown hands to toss with fastidious distaste into the waste-paper basket.

The tea arrived. Sir George waited until Miss Maudsley left. Then, measuring milk carefully into his cup, drop by drop, he said:

'The job I'm offering is a mixture of functions. You'd be part bodyguard, part private secretary, part investigator and part -well, nursemaid. A bit of everything. Not everyone's cup of tea. No knowing how it may turn out.'

'I'm supposed to be a private investigator.'

'No doubt. Shouldn't be too purist In these times. A job's a job. And you could find yourself involved in detection, even in violence, although it doesn't seem likely. Unpleasant but not dangerous. If I thought there was any real risk to my wife or to you I wouldn't be employing an amateur.'