Stands the church clock at ten to three?

And is there honey still for tea?

Well, go on! Have a look!”

“Of course it stands at ten to three,” she snarled, annoyed by his dramatics. “Because it is ten to three! You stage-managed that well.” She dared to ask: “Do you ever stop acting and just… well… live?”

He gave a laugh he would probably himself have described as “sepulchral,” she thought. It boomed out from some cold, empty space.

“And why this obsession with time?”

“I think I’ve already answered your question. Or, at least, The Bard has spoken for me. That’s why he’s so often quoted, Christina. Whatever our deepest thoughts, you can be sure that Shakespeare has already voiced them for us, but with ten times the nobility of phrase. If only we had the wit to profit by his wisdom, how many mistakes we would avoid, how much pain would be averted.”

Chris groaned. Why, after all these years, did she feel she was being tested? With a strange feeling that her response might be important for her also, she wrestled with memory and expression.

“Okay, your answer: the speaker’s the King, I guess because he’s using the royal ‘we.’ He’s saying life’s short. So we ought to live as good a one as we’re able. If we live on, well, that gives us an advantage over any dead king because you can take nothing with you when you go-not even kingly status. And if we die-so what? -it’s a brave death when princes are dying along with us.”

Jameson gave an elegant shudder. “Something on those lines,” he said repressively.

She looked again at the face, as handsome as it had been ten years ago, but subtly changed. The long-lashed dark eyes were shadowed, the mouth indecisive, tormented. Well, it was pretty much as you’d look if you’d decided to kill someone, she supposed.

But her training was taking over. She flexed her hands and feet, ready to call on instant supplies of adrenaline when the moment came for flight or fight. If she could only get out of the car and kick off her silly shoes, she thought she could probably outrun him. And, though he was strongly built, she’d put up a fight if it came to it. This victim wouldn’t go down without a murmur. There’d be tissue under fingernails, scratches on his face. She decided on a surprise preemptive attack, going for the eyes. He’d never expect it. But there was something she could try first. She was a sort of hostage, wasn’t she? Okay-she’d try out the prescribed technique. She might just pull it off. Avoid bloodshed. After all, it was unknown for serial killers to murder someone they already knew. That must work in her favour. Chris adjusted her blouse, pulled down her skirt, settled back in her seat, and looked out of the window.

“You’re right, Mr. Jameson-I say-may I call you Julius?-after all these years I feel I’ve caught up with you in age-it is perfection. Glorious countryside! And the best moment of the year! Easy to see why neither of us has moved away. (Establish a link.)

“And I may not be looking the part at the moment, but I have actually stayed a scholar of sorts. I played Desdemona in my first year in college…You inspired me-you inspired many of us… did you know Maisie Jones was madly in love with you, by the way? No? And Jennifer Hogg and Patrick Dewar? We were sure you must have guessed! (Feed his sense of self-importance.)

“Now this time when you deliver me to Mum, I want you to accept her cup of tea. Lots to talk about!” (Convey the idea that the man has a future beyond the present circumstances.)

Chris added an incentive her instructors had never thought of: “Yesterday was baking day… there’ll be a lardy cake and some chocolate brownies.” (Greed. What man could ever resist a brownie?)

Her girlish prattle faded away. His eyes were looking inward, dull and dark as Byron’s Pool, and she realised he hadn’t taken in a word she’d said. He turned to her. The swift smile he gave her was the sweetest she would ever encounter and was the more striking for its utter sincerity. Finally, he had dropped the mask of irony and she was being given a glimpse of the man below. But the face was frozen by agony, the man adrift and unapproachable.

“I’m glad you’re with me at the last, Christina,” he said softly. “I’d never have planned for it, but now the moment’s come, it feels right. I did always admire you, you know. Enjoyed our fencing bouts. If things had been different… Ah, well… brave death when princes die with us. Princess would have been good. But I’ll settle for a tart. Whatever… it’s nice to have company.”

She knew the signpost well. A few yards before the level crossing they were offered: Shepton 1 mile Foxfield 1 mile . He took the Foxfield turn, brought the taxi to a halt in the deserted lane facing the level crossing, looked at his watch, and listened.

The three-thirty goods train on the London line screeched its customary warning.

Gary Newstead scooped up the Monday copy of the Cambridge Observer from the mat and settled down with his mug of tea at the scrubbed table of his gran’s old kitchen. He grunted at the size of the headlines on the front page. Plenty of news today, then.

Fifth slaying! they shrieked. Body of victim found at Eight Bells Public House.

In a quiet village ten miles southwest of Cambridge, a day after she was reported missing, the latest victim of the Clock Killer has been found. Almost exactly where experts predicted.

A police spokesman tells the Observer that the corpse of a young woman was abandoned (possibly killed) in the orchard to the rear of the Eight Bells pub in Shepton. The modus operandi conforms to that of the four previous victims. There was no sign of sexual assault, and the death was by strangulation.

Police fear that the killer, by the significance of his choice of location (EIGHT Bells), may be taunting the forces of law and order. It had been widely predicted that the next attack would take place at nearby Foxfield, which lies exactly on the eight spot of the dial the police themselves had foreseen. It was late on Saturday night when the landlord became suspicious that something was amiss. The pub’s guard dog, released to perform his nightly duties, entered the rear snug, carrying a lady’s silver shoe in his mouth. The Alsatian (Butch) led his master and a selection of guests outside to the next grisly find by torchlight: a pink cardigan caught up on a rosebush.

Behind the bush, the grim discovery. A double shock awaited the investigating officers who hurried to the scene. An examination of the body revealed the victim to be one of their own: DC Sarah Sharpe (25), who had, by a strange quirk of fate, herself been working on the case.

DCI Rowe, who has been leading the enquiry, will pay his respects to the deceased in a news conference to be held at noon today. It is confidently expected that he will be announcing the arrest of a suspect.

The landlord, who is helping the police with their enquiries, told our reporter of his puzzlement. His pub, isolated and at the end of a cul-de-sac, had seen no traffic other than regulars and police vehicles coming and going at the weekend…

Gary read the article again carefully. He was so absorbed he didn’t hear their quiet arrival.

“Enough shock-horror in there to entertain you, Newstead?” The grating voice of the detective inspector. “Did they get it right?” Two heavy hands descended on his shoulders. He listened in silence to the rigmarole: “Gary John Newstead, we are arresting you for the murder of Sarah Sharpe…”

“Gerraway with you! You’re ‘aving a larf!” Newstead started to protest.

They couldn’t know! He’d offered her a lift back to the station and no one had even noticed them set off. So many squad cars milling about they hadn’t been given a second glance. They’d never trace the car. He couldn’t even remember which one he’d used himself. She’d come quiet as a lamb, believing every word of the story he’d fed her about instructions to redeploy to Foxfield. Her mind was still on her mate. She was even keen to get there and help out. He’d knocked her unconscious in a lay-by before they approached the village and fastened her arms behind her back. His usual M.O. He risked no scrapings from fingernails, no scratches on his face. Nasty moment when she’d come round in the shrubbery, but he was always a quick, neat worker. He’d left no more trace than with any of the other sluts. And she was a slut. No doubt about that. He’d watched her enjoying herself, tormenting the men. Making fools of them. A slut. Like his mother. Gran had had to throw her out in the end. Then Gran had got him out of the Home and brought him up herself. Strictly. Correctly. She’d have approved.