Dawson, in evening clothes, the two ends of his bow tie hanging loose, was a short stocky man of about fifty with thinning hair, hard eyes, and tight, ruthless lips. Clare, his wife, was much younger and quite a looker, with dark hair, rich, creamy flesh, and the most sensuous mouth Frost had ever seen.

“Right,” said Frost, unbuttoning his mac. “We’d better have the details.”

The door bell chimed. Dawson jerked his head to his wife. “That’ll be the Taylors. Let them in.” Obediently, she tottered out of the room. “I want you to hear what this girl has to say,” he told the two policemen.

While they waited, Webster rose from his chair and wandered over to the second level, where he took a closer look at the guns. He removed a Lee Enfield Mark III from a rack and squinted down its sights. “Are these genuine, sir?” he asked.

“Of course they’re not bloody genuine,” snapped Dawson. “They’re replicas. I’ve got the genuine guns locked away.”

“I take it you have a gun licence, sir,” persisted the detective constable, forgetting he wasn’t in charge of the case.

Annoyed at this digression from the main business, Dawson jerked open the drawer of a long sideboard and pulled out some papers. “Yes, I bloody have. Do you want to waste time seeing it, or shall we talk about my daughter?”

Stubbornly, Webster held out his hand for the licence. Frost jumped in quickly before the constable got too entrenched in his detective inspector act. “We can spare the gentleman that formality,” he said firmly.

Reluctantly, Webster’s hand dropped. That’s right, you bastard, make me look small, he smouldered, his expression mirroring his thoughts.

Clare Dawson returned with Mr. Taylor, a nervous little man with a pencil moustache who entered the lounge hesitantly, as if not certain of his reception. He clasped the hand of his daughter, Debbie, whose face was hidden in the hood of a thick blue duffel coat.