They were still involved in a detailed appreciation of the film as he approached. Joe decided to test the girl’s memory and give Armitage a further opening. “Ah!” he said, setting down their glasses and making an attempt at a tough American voice: “Some big, hard-boiled egg gets a look at a pretty face and, bang, he cracks up and goes soppy.”

They turned surprised faces to him and with one voice corrected him: “sappy!” They resumed their criticism of the script.

“That line comes quite early on,” Armitage offered. “It gets better. I liked the scene at the end where the guy looks at the body of the ape and says: Well, Denham, the airplanes got him.”

“Oh, no, it wasn’t the airplanes … it was Beauty killed the Beast.” Julia supplied the response and they laughed.

“A lesson we beasts should take to heart, Bill,” Joe said lightly to cover his irritation. He decided to try again. “Hang on a minute. Can I have got this wrong?” He produced a small notebook from his pocket and flipped it open. “I’m sure I had a call from police HQ … some request for emergency staffing … Yes, here we are: an incident at the Empire. Bomb hoax or some such. I had to divert an element of the Flying Squad—all we had available. They had to close and evacuate the theatre in mid-performance tonight at six o’clock.” He turned a questioning face to Julia and watched as her animation faded. She took a large gulp of her gin and began to cough. Time wasting. But he recognised—he found he was relieved to recognise—all the reactions of an amateur liar. Under her bluff and bluster, he calculated there was hiding a very frightened girl. The kind who would crack in five minutes and tell you all you wanted to know.

It was Armitage who responded. “No, you’re not wrong. It was the Empire all right. But the Empire, Hackney. Bit of a rathole,” he explained kindly to Julia. “They’re always having problems. Someone sets the seats on fire, sticks a knife in someone’s ribs. I used to go over and sort them out when I was a police constable with the Met. I’d have thought you’d have closed it down by now.”

“We’re over-tolerant of criminality—I hear that often. Yes, you’re right, Bill. The Hackney Empire goes along on its rackety way, causing problems as it ever did,” Joe said easily, conceding defeat.

Armitage had refused the same easy fence three times. A disqualification in anyone’s book.

Joe gulped down the remains of his whisky sour and, with a dry smile, prepared to make his excuses and leave the two of them to spend their evening deceiving each other.

Before he could find the words, a page boy scurried to their table. “Mr. Sandilands? I’ve got a note for Mr. Sandilands. The gent said it was urgent.”

Joe took the note from the tray and read it in silence. He passed it to Armitage, who leapt to his feet, muttering, “Come on, Julia! We’re wanted upstairs.”

He grabbed the girl by her arm and practically carried her along to the lift with Joe making a way for them through the press of people arriving for dinner. On the way up, Joe read again the scrawled note from Kingstone. Joe! Get here! Bring William and Julia.

They entered the silent corridor on the third floor, both men adopting the cat-like movements of a team approaching a possible ambush. Joe located the CID man left on guard who mimed in some surprise that there had been nothing untoward going on and that it was safe to approach. Armitage, nevertheless, drew his gun and distanced Julia from the door of Kingstone’s suite by a few yards. The girl nodded, understanding his gestures.

Joe took up his place opposite Armitage at the door jamb, knocked lightly and called out the senator’s name. To their relief, Kingstone’s voice rang out in reply. “It’s all right. I’m alone. I’m coming to open the door.”

The senator was certainly not the subject of ambush or attempted killing but there could be no doubt that he was suffering anguish. He pulled them inside and closed and locked the door behind them. He’d taken off his jacket and tie and was evidently preparing to settle down as he’d said he intended, to work at his desk. A tray of lobster and salad, enough for two, Joe noted, sat untouched on a low table along with champagne in a silver bucket.

“It’s over there on the dressing table,” he said, his voice gruff with emotion. “I don’t know when it was delivered. And perhaps that’s something you ought to be asking yourself, Sandilands. I thought there was security in operation in this hotel. I only just noticed it. When I went to take off my collar. Take a look.” And, unsteadily, he added: “Not you, Julia! It’s not pretty.”

Joe slipped on a pair of white evening gloves from his pocket, picked up the box and examined the outside. Plain gold wrapping paper was almost intact. A label swung from a matching gold ribbon, bearing the name of a west-end chocolate shop. Kingstone had slit the paper neatly with a paper knife to open it.

He read the message in Joe’s frowning eyebrows. “I know! I know! Should have left it alone until one of you guys vouched for it. Lucky it didn’t blow up in my face. What’s in there’s a whole lot more subtle than explosive. They’re the ones I like—those chocolates. They’re what Natty always buys me. I took it for a sign that she’d come back and left it there for me to find while she went looking for me. A making-up present. Sort of thing she does. I thought there might be a note inside. You know—in those fancy shops they always offer you the chance of writing something smart on a little card. Well, someone’s done that all right …” He ground to a halt, unable to go on.

Certain that he knew what he was about to uncover, Joe steeled himself and shot a warning glance at Armitage. Kingstone put a detaining hand on Julia’s shoulder, holding her at some distance from the package. Joe wondered briefly why the American had requested her presence since he seemed determined not to let her get a sight of whatever was lurking in the box.

“Fingerprints?” Armitage suggested.

“Probably not worth bothering,” Joe muttered. “Professional care will have been taken if this is what I think it is. But we’ll go through the motions and do it by the book shall we, Sarge?” The familiar old rank and the polite formula of command slipped out before he could stop himself.

Armitage seemed not to notice. He certainly didn’t object and hurried to fetch a towel from the bathroom and spread it over a coffee table to receive the box and wrappings.

The outer layers removed and the lid lifted, the two policemen stared in fascination and disgust at the contents.

Remembering the pathologist’s phrase, Joe murmured: “Digitus primus pedis. I think that’s what we have here.” Even to his ears it sounded pompous but the Latin term was all he could summon up to cloak in dignity the sorry little piece of flesh and bone. Nestling inside the chocolate box, it looked as pathetic as a scrap of offal from a pet-food bin under a butcher’s counter. “You saw this, Kingstone?”

“It’s her toe, isn’t it? Natty’s? What lunatic bastard would cut off her toe and send it to me? They took her and held her and … Did they kill her first? What kind of an operation are you running, Sandilands, where such a thing could happen? Look—I want Armiger here to deal with this. Should have insisted right from the start.” Kingstone was beside himself with rage and pain. “They snatched her, tortured her and sent part of her back here in evidence right under your nose! And it’s not as if it’s her little finger! Oh, no! You know what this is saying? It’s saying she’ll never dance again … which means she’ll never truly live again … even supposing they’ve left the rest of her alive.”

Julia shook herself free from his grasp. “Toe? Natalia’s? No! Can’t be!” For a moment Joe thought she would collapse but, recovering a little, she stood upright and breathed deeply. “I see now why you asked me to come up, Cornelius. You’re going to ask me to identify it? Yes?”