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pay good money for a room in a hotel when he lives only a few miles away?’
    â€˜Had he been drinking?’
    â€˜So Don says. After picking up his suitcase, he seems to have driven into the city and left his Rover in the hotel’s underground car park. If he was planning to meet someone in town and have a few drinks, why not simply take a taxi? He had an evening meal alone in the restaurant.’
    â€˜Ah.’ So one mystery was solved. Luke had not been Vera’s dinner companion at the Ensenada.
    â€˜Apparently the waitress who served him said he seemed tense and preoccupied. In his room they found an opened whisky bottle and an empty tumbler.’ She swallowed. ‘Nobody saw him fall. His room overlooked an inner courtyard, according to Don Ragovoy. A night porter whose cubby-hole is on the ground floor heard a thud outside and went to investigate. He found Luke’s body stretched across the gravel.’
    Harry flinched. More than once in his life he had seen the body of someone dead before their time. One corpse had belonged to his wife. The memory of his last sight of her always swamped him with nausea.
    â€˜An accident, perhaps?’
    â€˜Don Ragovoy claims it couldn’t have been. Although Luke’s room had a window opening out on to a tiny balcony, it would be very difficult for someone simply to slip to their death. The balcony isn’t for everyday use, it’s a design feature. Don showed me the corresponding room on the floor below. To get out, one would have to open the window to its fullest extent and then haul oneself over the railing. Not as difficult as Don made out, but far from easy.’
    â€˜You have to take what he says with a pinch of salt. He has the reputation of his hotel to protect and his own job to think about. If it turned out that the place he is running is a deathtrap, he would be finished.’
    â€˜Even so, he has a point. Why would Luke want to scramble out of his bedroom window in the early hours - unless he wanted to end it all?’
    â€˜Strange that he left no message.’
    She sighed. ‘I agree. He is - sorry, was - so precise, so well organised. And so considerate. That’s why I refuse to believe that he can have meant to commit suicide. Mind you, he was only an occasional drinker. If he’d drunk more whisky than was good for him, perhaps he became confused. And there are other possibilities. I’ve even wondered if it was some form of - oh, I don’t know - some form of a cry for help.’
    â€˜But think of the method he chose,’ Harry said. ‘Not an overdose. Not something where there was a chance someone might haul him back from the brink. You say his room was on the third floor. You don’t get a second chance if you fall from that height.’
    She gulped. ‘I suppose you’re right. It just seems so extraordinary. I can’t understand why he would want to do such a thing.’
    â€˜One thing I’ve learned,’ he said, ‘is this. No matter how well you think you may know another person, you can never know everything about them. You can live with someone for years and yet they may have secrets you never begin to expect.’
    She inclined her head and said softly, ‘You know about sudden death, don’t you? Your wife was murdered.’
    â€˜Yes,’ he said. ‘There was once a time when I reckoned I knew Liz inside out. Of course, I was deceiving myself. At least as badly as she deceived me.’
    Still facing out across the river, she said, ‘I cared for him, you know.’
    â€˜Yes, I know.’
    â€˜I’d known him slightly for years. He’d always been closely involved with the arts in Merseyside and at one time he was a non-executive director of the Museum. He knew about my singing and invited me on to the Trust board after he was appointed chairman. I don’t pretend he was always an easy colleague. He had such integrity. Most