‘What would I be looking for?’ I said.

‘Christ knows. Anything.’

I waited and then I said, ‘Drew, the force’s full of dick-heads but they don’t generally land up in homicide.’

‘It may not be about dickheadedness. It may be about something else.’

‘I think your client’s reaching parts clients don’t normally reach,’ I said.

‘Fuck off. Where’s your sordid little alley?’

‘Next sordid little alley after this one. How’d you get involved in the first place?’

‘I appeared for her on a little drugs charge. A long, long time ago. Her father came to court. I clearly made an impression on Sir Colin.’

‘Cut of your jib, the lapels. Why was he knighted?’

‘Services to something or other. Being rich. A complication is that the deceased had moved on to screwing Sir Colin’s younger daughter. Sarah’s gone into hiding now.’

‘What was Mickey’s secret? Screwing one Longmore woman would have been success enough for most men.’

‘Perhaps just another peak in the range. A climber, a stranger to the concept of enough. Upwards, ever upwards. I have no fucking idea.’

Drew was nibbling at his lower lip, something he did when unhappy. You notice things like this when you spend too much time with people.

‘Sarah wants me to do the trial,’ he said. ‘Compounding the stupidity of pleading not guilty. When her old man rang, I knew it was a job for Pratchett QC, freed more murderers than the stormers of the Bastille. But no. Me.’

We threaded the lane and parked across the street from my office. I said, ‘So, find further ways to harm poor dead Mickey Franklin. That’s the task.’

‘Dead but not poor,’ said Drew.

‘We’d just be taking her money, Wootton and I.’

‘I have no doubt that you will apply the standards expected of you as an officer of the court.’

‘I said that. Take money for no obvious return. Well, things are quiet.’