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motive for the killing. Police believe Sweet may have been the victim of a gangland revenge killing, and that he may have been mistaken for someone else.
    Charles put down the fish and chips and poured a large Scotch. He could feel his thoughts beginning to stampede and furiously tried to hold them in check.
    Certain points were clear. He ordered them with grim concentration. Marius Steen must have killed Sweet: Sweet had put the pressure on about the photographs, Steen had fixed to meet him and shot him. Charles grabbed an old AA book that was lying around. Yes, the Theale turn-off was the one you’d take going to Streatley. Sweet was shot Sunday night or Monday morning. Marius Steen was in London certainly on the Saturday night, because he was at the Sex of One . . . party. And in Streatley during the week. He was therefore likely to have been driving through Theale late on Sunday. As Harry Chiltern had said, there was always a gun in the glove compartment. A glance at the map made Charles pretty sure that that gun was now in the Thames.
    Other facts followed too. Mrs Sweet was holding out on the police. It was nonsense for her to say no one had a motive for murdering her husband. As Charles had discovered, she knew about the Sally Nash party photographs. All she had to do was to tell the police about her husband’s blackmailing activities and very soon the finger would point at Steen. For reasons of her own, she wasn’t doing that. Probably just didn’t want to lose a profitable business.
    But the most chilling deduction from the fact of Bill Sweet’s murder was the immediate danger to Jacqui. If he’d shoot one person who challenged him, Marius Steen would do the same to anyone else he thought represented the same threat. He’d tried to frighten Jacqui off with the telephone messages and vicious note, but if she persisted . . . Charles shivered as he thought what might have happened if Jacqui had been in the flat when her ‘visitors’ called that morning. He looked over to the child-like form on his bed and felt a protective instinct so strong he almost wept.
    Confrontation with Marius Steen couldn’t wait. Charles must get down to Streatley straight away. If the man was down there . . . Better ring the Bayswater house to check. But he hadn’t got the number. It seemed a pity to wake Jacqui. He opened her handbag, but the address book revealed nothing.
    No help for it. ‘Jacqui.’ He shook her gently. She started like a frightened cat, and looked up at him wide-eyed. ‘Sorry. Listen, I’ve been thinking. I want to get this sorted out, like as soon as possible. There’s no point in your being in this state of terror. I am going to try and see Steen tonight. Get it over with.’
    â€˜But if he’s in Streatley—’
    â€˜That’s all right. I don’t mind.’ He tried to sound casual, as if the new urgency was only a whim. ‘My daughter lives down that way. I wanted to go and visit her anyway.’
    â€˜I didn’t know you’d got a daughter.’
    â€˜Oh yes.’
    â€˜How old?’
    â€˜Twenty-one.’
    â€˜Nearly as old as me.’
    â€˜Yes.’
    â€˜Like me?’
    â€˜Hardly. Safely married at nineteen to a whizz-kid of the insurance world—if that’s not a contradiction in terms. Anyway, the reason I woke you was not just bloody-mindedness. I want to ring Steen’s Bayswater place and check he’s not there. It’s a long way to go if he’s just round the corner.’
    Both the phone numbers Jacqui gave were ex-directory. Charles paused for a moment before dialling the Bayswater one, while he decided what character to take on. It had to be someone anonymous, but somebody who would be allowed to speak to the man if he was there, and someone who might conceivably be ringing on a Saturday night.
    The phone was picked up at the other end and Charles pressed his