He spoke to himself as he turned on to the Embankment where traffic was thin but would soon get congested for the roads would be thronged with home-going workers from the City and the West End.

He ignored the thirty-miles-an-hour limit, cursed at every traffic light that turned red against him, slid past other cars and cut in with an abandon which brought many protests and drew dark scowls from at least two policemen. He drew near the Houses of Parliament and the Abbey, swept along the wide road between them, swung round Parliament Square and was lucky with the traffic. He reached Westminster Bridge, which was already thronged with pedestrians, and was forced to slow down by a line of trams and traffic several cars deep; if the luck went against him, this would become a serious traffic-block. He glanced towards the Thames on the left and saw the two big buildings of Scotland Yard, one white, one red; he smiled. Then the traffic began to move again.

He had a good run to Cannon Street; then met more dense traffic and felt an increasing sense of frustration as he crawled behind an empty lorry. London’s narrow, twisting streets prevented speed and he was in a desperate hurry, although he did not quite know why. There was nothing tangible in the evidence— except the implication that the message to Judith had been in the form of a suicide note. The note was evidence the police would be sure to find and could easily be accepted as a confession. Already the police and the public believed Mellor to be a murderer; and it had been an ugly, brutal murder. There would be no compassion for the killer once he was found.

Rollison knew the East End well. He slipped along East Cheap, with broken buildings and empty sites on either side, the pavements thronged with office-workers who had grown used to the desolation of bombing and scurried past to bus and train. At Tower Hill he swung towards the approach to Tower Bridge, was held up for three minutes and felt almost as much on edge as Judith Lome had felt. Then he had a clear run and his knowledge of the mean, twisting streets became important.