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Scotland Yard.’
    The officers entered a wide entrance hall, thickly carpeted, with stained and polished panelling on the walls, and a wide staircase angling up to the first floor. From the entrance hall they were shown into a room just to the right of the front door, which was clearly used to entertain official visitors. Evidently only guests were allowed to enter the inner areas of the house. Officials, and especially police officers, were kept by the door. The room itself was spartan in the extreme, with no floor covering, though the floorboards had been sanded and varnished, and four inexpensive, office-style easy chairs stood round a glass-topped coffee table. Though the room was still larger, Brunnie guessed, than the living room of his flat in Walthamstow, E17. The wallcovering was of green embossed wallpaper, which seemed to Vicary to be of the same vintage as the house and, when needed, the illumination would come from a single light bulb, which hung from the ceiling and was enveloped in a yellow, bowl-like glass shade dating from the 1930s. The room seemed to Vicary to be deliberately arranged to be uncomfortable, cold, unwelcoming and very hostile, and it had, he thought, a hard cell-like quality, with nothing, nothing at all such as a print on the wall or a plant in a pot, to offer any form of softening.
    â€˜Do take a seat, please.’ The man spoke in a perfunctory manner. The words kept to the script, but the tone of voice was as cold and as hard as the room. Vicary, Brunnie and the householder sat down; Vicary and Brunnie side by side, the man opposite them, with the coffee table separating him and the officers. ‘So,’ he said, ‘how can I help you, gentlemen?’
    â€˜You are?’
    â€˜William Pilcher.’
    â€˜You own WLM Rents?’
    â€˜Yes, WLM of course being derived from my given name.’
    â€˜I see.’
    â€˜And yes, WLM Rents is my little portfolio.’ He smiled. ‘The stock market was . . . useful to me once.’
    â€˜So we understand from Mr Dunwoodie.’
    â€˜J.J. Yes, he’s a good little beaver to have working for me. So, how can I help you?’
    â€˜We are particularly interested in one of your properties in Kilburn.’
    â€˜They are all in Kilburn. I began buying up Kilburn when I realized the properties were undervalued and the area was set for gentrification. Close enough to fall into the spill of the beam from Hampstead and Golders Green.’
    â€˜The property on Claremont Road, 123 Claremont Road; Mr Dunwoodie described it as an ancillary property.’
    â€˜Yes, awaiting development.’
    â€˜Mr Dunwoodie described it as a “grace and favour” house.’
    â€˜He did?’
    â€˜Yes, he did.’
    â€˜He does tend to be . . . don’t know the word . . . but yes, I let people live there and they work for me, low-grade gofers really. They pay no rent, but if I need a favour, they oblige.’
    â€˜So Mr Dunwoodie explained.’
    â€˜Did he?’ A menacing growl entered Pilcher’s voice to the extent that Vicary felt a sudden chill of fear for the welfare of J.J. Dunwoodie. Working for Pilcher evidently did not mean you enjoyed the man’s protection.
    â€˜We are making enquiries into a man called Michael Dalkeith.’
    â€˜Irish Mickey? What about him?’
    â€˜He is deceased.’
    â€˜Oh, I’m sorry to hear that. I knew he had gone, seemed that he did a moonlight, but he didn’t owe me any money so I wasn’t too upset.’
    â€˜So how did you know him? In what capacity did you know him?’
    Pilcher shrugged in an uninterested way. Vicary thought that he did not seem at all concerned about the death of Michael ‘Irish Mickey’ Dalkeith. ‘He was an odd-job man. He did a little work now and then. He was no craftsman, just the old donkey jobs.’
    â€˜Donkey jobs?’
    â€˜Fetching and carrying,