“Yes.”

“You still haven’t provided us with an e-fit of the killer.”

“Do you still need it?” I asked.

“Yes, we do,” he said. “There has been little or no progress with this case.”

Probably, I thought rather ungraciously, because the victim had been with a bookmaker. At the time, Chief Inspector Llewellyn had been convinced that I’d been the killer, but the numerous statements of the champagne revelers in the parking lot had all agreed that I hadn’t. And, much to his annoyance, they couldn’t all be wrong.

“I’d love to come in and do an e-fit,” I said. “I would have expected you to have chased me before this. It must surely be a bit late? Any potential witnesses who saw the killer will have forgotten him by now.”

“We already have some e-fits from the other witnesses in the Ascot parking lot, but, to put it mildly, they are not very consistent. Anything you can add may be helpful.” But don’t bank on it, his tone implied.

“Right,” I said eagerly. “When and where?”

“Any Thames Valley police station will do, provided it has the right staff and an e-fit computer.”

“Which one would be the nearest to Kenilworth?” I asked.

“Banbury, probably,” he said. “I’ll find out and call you back.”

He did so about five minutes later.

“It’s fixed for two this afternoon, at Banbury,” he said.

“Fine,” I said. “I’ll be there. And is there any news about the burial order?”

“I will inform the coroner that we have no further objection to the issue of such an order,” he said formally. Was it my imagination or was Detective Chief Inspector Llewellyn warming slightly? “But I still don’t trust you, Mr. Talbot.”

Yes, it must have been my imagination.

“I’m sorry about that, Chief Inspector,” I replied. But I suppose if I were honest, I would have to admit that he had good reason not to fully trust me. I wondered if I should ask him about a certain Mr. John Smith, but I decided it might complicate things and lead to rather more questions than I would be easily able to answer, so I didn’t.

Next, I again used my father’s mobile to call Paddy Murphy.

“Well, hello,” he said cheerfully, again with the emphasis on the final “o.” “I didn’t think I would have heard the last of you.”

“What’s the name of the man with his eyes too close together?” I asked, getting straight to the point.

“I don’t have his real name,” said Paddy.

“What name do you have?”

“Kipper.”

“Kipper what?” I asked.

“Just Kipper,” he said. “But it’s only a nickname.”

“Have you ever met him?” I asked.

“I haven’t rightly met him, but I believe I saw him once.”

“In Ireland?” I asked.

“Hell, no,” he said. “In England. Your dad was that frightened of him. Said he was a strange fellow, bit of a loner.”

If my father was as frightened of this Kipper as Paddy made out, why had he kicked out at him and told him to go to hell in the Ascot parking lot?

“What else did my father say about him?” I asked.

“He thought he was being paid too much for what he did,” said Paddy. “Moaned about it all the time, your dad did.”

“But how did he know how much this Kipper was being paid?” I asked.

“I don’t rightly know. Something about him bringing his share over from Australia,” Paddy said. “Your dad claimed that he should have been getting as much as Kipper ‘for delivering the merchandise,’ as he put it. Then he laughed, and said they’d find out soon enough that they should have been paying him more.”

“Who were ‘they’?” I asked.

“Search me,” he said.

“And what did he mean by saying they would find out soon enough?”

“I don’t know that either,” he said.

Paddy Murphy wasn’t being very helpful. He was suddenly backtracking. Perhaps he was now regretting having told me anything. I wondered if what my father had said about them finding out soon enough was to do with him stealing the microcoder.

“You told me that this Kipper worked for an insurance company,” I said. “Which one?”

“Well, to be sure, I don’t rightly know,” he said.

“Is the company Irish?” I asked. “Or English?”

“I don’t know that either,” he said. “All your father told me was that Kipper’s job was as an investigator looking into horse deaths. Maybe I just assumed he was with an insurance company.”

That wasn’t very helpful either.

However, he went on to tell me a few interesting things about the two missing counterfeit RFID chips that could turn out to be very helpful indeed, not least that a horse that had supposedly recently died from colic had, in fact, been switched using the fake RFIDs with a much less valuable animal, which had then been killed for a large insurance payout. And he indicated that the horse had been a winner at the Cheltenham Steeplechase Festival the previous March.

I remembered reading something only the other week in the Racing Post about a horse dying from colic.

“What was the horse’s name?” I asked him.

“No, no,” he said. “I’ve told you too much already.”

Indeed he had, but he had been boasting about his cleverness.

“Well, let me know if this Kipper fellow turns up at your door,” I said.

“Bejesus,” he bellowed. “I don’t want the likes of him here.”

“He’s dangerous, so keep clear of him.”

“To be sure, I will,” said Paddy.

“Also, let me know when you’re next in England,” I said. “Perhaps we can meet.”

“Well,” he said a little uncertainly, “I’m not sure about that.”

“Who are you anyway?” I asked. “What is your real name?”

“Now, that would be telling,” he said with a laugh, and hung up.

Detective Chief Inspector Llewellyn himself was at Banbury police station to meet me at two o’clock. He was accompanied, as always, by Detective Sergeant Murray with his notebook.

“Hello, Chief Inspector,” I said cheerfully as he appeared in the entrance lobby. “For what do I deserve this honor?”

“For telling me lies, Mr. Talbot,” he said without any humor. “I don’t like people telling me lies.”

Oh dear, I thought, he must know about my father’s luggage. How was I going to get out of this one?

“What lies?” I said, trying to keep my voice even. “I told you everything I know.”

“You told me that your father had given you nothing at Ascot,” he said.

“That’s right, he didn’t,” I protested.

“But I have reason to believe that he may have given you a black box like a television remote control.” He paused, and I stood there looking at him, saying nothing. “We understand from Australia that your father is thought to have stolen such a box. Now, quite by chance, one of my officers on the case helps with a club for young offenders in High Wycombe, and he tells me he saw a similar black box there last week. This morning, my officer called the person who had brought the black box to the club and, surprise, surprise, that person says that you gave it to him.”

Thanks, Luca, I thought. But he could probably have said nothing else.

“Oh, that thing,” I said.

“So you were lying,” he said almost triumphantly.

In fact, I hadn’t been. I had been completely truthful. My father had not given the box to me at Ascot, I’d actually found it with his luggage in Paddington.

“I’d forgotten about it, that’s all,” I said. “I was carrying it for him amongst our equipment. I found it the following day when I was setting up.”

Now I was telling lies, but Detective Sergeant Murray wrote them down nevertheless.

“You should have given the box to me immediately after you found it,” he said.

“Sorry,” I replied. “Is it important?”

He didn’t answer my question. “Where is it now?” he asked.

“I don’t know,” I said. Technically, that was not a lie.

“But what did you do with it?” he persisted.

“I threw it away,” I said. “It didn’t seem to do anything. I thought it must have been a garage-door opener or something. Perhaps from his home. It wasn’t much use to me, so I just dumped it in the trash.”