Umber turned. Walsh was leaning casually against the fridge, arms folded, dressed as if for golf, in mustard-yellow polo shirt, generously cut chocolate-brown trousers and two-toned brogues.

'I was just going to come and look for you. Thanks for saving me the effort.'

'What are you doing here?'

'Marilyn sent me.' Walsh smiled his gleaming smile. 'Well, that's not strictly true. I sent her yesterday. And now I've come myself.'

'What do you want?'

'These, obviously.' Walsh picked up the Juniuses from the work-top where Umber had left them. 'For starters.'

'Starters?'

"The main course is Chantelle. What do you know about her, Umber? What have you found out?'

'Nothing.'

'Worse luck for you if true, which I doubt. Let me explain the situation to you. Then you'll understand why you've no choice but to cooperate.' Walsh glanced at his watch. 'Wisby will have been picked up at the Airport by now. By the police, I mean. Acting on a tip-off. That money you gave him? Hot. Very hot. The serial numbers of the notes match those on a vanload of cash stolen from Securicor in Essex six months ago. Wisby will have a lot of explaining to do. As will the man videoed delivering the money to him at La Rocque earlier today. If and when the film comes to the attention of the police, that is. You catch my drift?'

'I catch it.'

'So, what can you tell me about Chantelle?'

'Like I said: nothing.'

Walsh dropped the Juniuses back on the worktop, pushed himself upright and took two slow steps towards Umber. 'You know who she is, Umber. You've worked it out. And according to what you told Marilyn you've recently met her. Well, I'd like to meet her too. Very much. So would one or two other people I know. Can you arrange that for us?'

'No. I can't. I wouldn't know how to.'

'I find that hard to believe.'

'Many things are.'

'Too true.'

The man moved like a snake striking. Umber had half-expected something of the kind, but his reactions were far too slow and Walsh was far too quick. The next thing Umber knew was that his face was pressed against the frame of the door to the main room, the edge of the wood grinding against his cheekbone, his right arm doubled up behind him several degrees beyond its natural limit.

'You're a lucky man, Umber,' Walsh rasped in his ear. 'Knowing more about Chantelle than anyone else means you get the chance to wriggle out of this situation. But don't push your luck. I'd be happy to reopen those stitches I can see in the back of your head with a few taps against this doorpost. More than happy. So, I suggest you start talking. I really do.'

'There's nothing… I can tell you.'

'Wrong answer. You're going to have to -'

'Stop!'

It was Chantelle's voice. Umber could not see her, but he heard the front door bounce against its stop, setting the letterbox rattling, and glimpsed her shadow in the hallway from the corner of his eye.

'Let go of him.'

'Happy to.' Walsh released Umber's arm and moved back. 'Now you're here.'

Umber turned in time to see Chantelle advancing towards Walsh, her right arm tucked behind her, and guessed in that instant what she was about to do.

'Good to see you again, Cherie,' said Walsh. 'It's been far too -'

The blade plunged into his stomach, deep and hard. He rocked on his feet, clutching at her as she pulled the knife up, tearing through his flesh and innards and the fabric of his shirt, blood spilling and spreading between them. His mouth opened wide. But no words came. Only more blood and a clotted, strangulated groan.

He lolled forward against her. His weight pushed her back. The knife came out of him. There was yet more blood. And something thicker and darker, sagging from the wound. He dropped to his knees, then fell sideways into the kitchen doorway.

He moaned and pressed his right hand to his stomach. The sound in his throat became a gurgle. His feet scrabbled at the thin mat beneath them. Then, suddenly, they stopped. His body slackened. His hand slid away from his stomach. He twitched twice. And then he was still.

'What are we going to do?'

It was the third or fourth time Chantelle had asked the question and Umber was no surer how to answer it. They were sitting on the bed, facing the Catherine-wheel window, neither caring to glance back at the shape in the kitchen doorway. Umber had covered Walsh's body as best he could with the hall mat, though that did nothing to conceal the pool of blood on the tiled floor of the kitchen or the patches of it on the hall carpet. Chantelle had removed her blood-smeared T-shirt and trousers and was now enveloped in Jeremy's dressing gown, but bloodstains remained on the trainers she would at some point have to put back on. Walsh's death and her responsibility for it were facts they could not ignore.

'What are we going to do, Shadow Man?' Chantelle's voice was tremulous and plaintive. But the we was important. Umber had asked her to trust him. And now it seemed she did.

'We can't stay here,' he said, forcing his brain to reason its way through the shock of what had happened. 'They'll come looking for him sooner or later. And you know who they are, don't you, Chantelle? Or should I call you Cherie?'

'Chantelle's my name now. And I don't know who they are. Or what they are. The people my parents work for, I mean. My foster parents, I ought to call them. My false parents. That man…' She gestured with her chin towards the door.

'Walsh?'

She shook her head. 'Waldron. Eddie Waldron. Uncle Eddie, he wanted me to call him. But I never did. I was always frightened of him.'

'You don't have to be frightened of him any more.'

'He'd have forced you to tell on me. When I saw his car and realized it wasn't Marilyn who'd come…' Her head sank. 'I knew it was him or me.'

'We've got to get out of here, Chantelle. That's about all I'm certain of. We've got to get out.'

'I was going to make a run for it,' she went on, hardly seeming to hear him. 'I wasn't sure of you. I reckoned it was safer not to trust you. But when I saw the car… I went back for the knife. I thought, finish Uncle Eddie this time, girl. I thought… stop him ever hurting you again.'

'You did that, Chantelle. You truly did.'

'You're not going to let me down, are you, Shadow Man?' She looked up at him, her eyes moist and red-rimmed. 'I don't think I can… go on alone.'

'We'll get out of this. Together.'

'How?'

'Is there anything in this flat or the office or the boat store to lead them to you?'

'No. Nothing. Jem was always careful about that.'

There were questions – a host of them – Umber longed to put to her. But they would have to wait. The need now was to act. And to make sure they acted for the best. 'My car's just round the corner. We'll walk to it and drive away.'

'What about Eddie?'

'We leave him here. He'll be found soon enough, but I'm betting those who find him won't want to set the police on us. On you, anyway.'

'I can't walk down the street looking like this.'

'Could you put some clothes of Jeremy's on?'

'I suppose.'

'Do that. And fast. We should go as soon as we can. But there's something I have to do first.'

She made no move and merely went on staring at him.

'Please, Chantelle. Do it.'

She flinched at the forcefulness of his tone, which he instantly regretted. But it had its effect. 'Sorry,' she murmured, rising unsteadily and stumbling across to the chest of drawers. 'Sorry.'

Leaving her to it, Umber jumped up and hurried out into the hall. Taking a deep breath, he pulled the rug clear of the body of the man he now knew as Eddie Waldron. Deliberately avoiding a glance at the bloody, oozing mess of the fatal knife wound, he unclipped the small bunch of keys he had seen hanging from one of Waldron's belt-loops. The remote for the BMW was among them. Noticing the bulge of a wallet in Waldron's hip pocket, he took that as well. Then he folded the rug back into place.