Asham Street was near the river—and near the Red Lion. If you knew your East End, you knew your pubs. This was an old one with a wall shored up by heavy timbers because dozens of houses on one side had been blasted out of existence during the war. He remembered coming here the day after the raid and seeing the “Beer as Usual” sign chalked on a board perched on the rubble. He drove past the red doors of the pub and saw a young man, carrying an attache case, on the other side of the road.

He pulled up.

“Hop in,” he said and leaned across and opened the door. “All quiet?”

Snub Higginbottom got in, jammed the corner of his case against Rollison’s arm, said “Sorry” and grinned. He was a young man to whom smiling came easily. He had a merry face and a snub nose, fair, rather curly hair and a genial ugliness which most men and nearly all women found attractive.

“No one’s thrown any bombs or broken any windows and I haven’t had my face pushed in. Expecting trouble?”

“I don’t know.”

“That sounds lovely and ominous,” said Snub and pushed the case over into the back of the car. “That’s just for show,” he said. “If you have a case you presumably have some business in these ‘ere parts. I wouldn’t like to be a rent collector around here, would you? What’s she like?”

“Too good for you.”

“All that her photograph promised?”

“She’s all right,” said Rollison. “She had a note which was phoney and makes me think that Mellor might be about ready for the high jump. He’s at Number 51—or that’s what I’m told.”

“Might have been sold a pup, eh?”

“Well, it’s possible. I once gave you a job.”

Rollison slid the car to a standstill outside Number 43 and climbed out. He glanced up and down the street and, although no one was in sight, knew that he was observed; no one driving this year’s model in Asham Street would be ignored. It was a long, narrow, dreary street with tiny houses packed closely together on either side. All the houses looked exactly the same—a drab grey, like the pavement and the road. At intervals were grey-painted lamp-posts, the only things which broke the dreary line of desolation.