“Hold on, Cliff. Let me think. Yeah, I reckon I can do it. What about a beer around about six tonight?”

“I thought you didn’t have time to drink beer. I got the feeling that if you did drink beer, you wouldn’t have time for a piss afterwards.”

“Don’t joke. This could be serious. You’ve been mentioned in evidence given in the Lenko trial.”

“What?”

“That’s what Griffin tells me.”

Beni Lenko was an alleged hitman accused of shooting and killing the husband of Didi S teller. Didi was a society woman with much more money than sense who’d ordered the hit on her hubby and then taken a kilo of sleeping pills. Beni complained about being short-changed on his fee and had talked his way into a murder charge. I’d read about the case in the papers but, to the best of my know-ledge, I’d never met Didi, Beni or the late husband, whatever his name had been. I stood on Frank’s beige carpet with my mouth hanging open. “That’s crazy,” I said.

“I’ll try to find out more about it and fill you in at six. Meantime, you’d better get on to Cy Sackville.”

“I will. Thanks, Frank. I don’t under-stand this.” An indifferent day had got worse, much worse, but I wasn’t going to drop my bundle. Not Hardy. “What about the Madden matter?”

“You can collect a copy of the file and a few other bits and pieces from Room Ten, second floor.” Parker scribbled on a sheet of notepaper, came out from behind his desk and handed it to me. He straightened his tie and worked his shoulders inside his well-tailored suit jacket. “Give them this. Sorry, Cliff, I really have to go. Six tonight at the Brighton?”

“Sure. Have a good meeting.” I went out of the room and was picked up by another fresh-faced constable at the end of the corridor and escorted to Level 2, Room 10.