“Have you told him yet? Your good news, I mean? From St. Catherine’s?”

“I thought you’d got there, Joe Plod. Yes. I told him an hour ago.”

“Was he pleased?”

“Hard to tell.” Julia gave her Cockney Sparrer shrug and grin. “Stunned, I’d say. Though that could have been the whack on the head. I’ll tell him again when he’s feeling more himself. It’s a bit of a facer for a bloke, isn’t it? To want to have a child and then find it’s on offer but from the wrong quarter. I mean there was only the one time. Last Easter in Vienna. Wasn’t right. He was upset—hitting back at Natalia, I’ve always thought. We both put it to the backs of our minds and went on as if it had never happened. But then fate bites you in the bum. You don’t ask if I’m pleased but I’ll tell you anyway. I am. I love the old bugger, Joe. Always have. I could have wrung Natalia’s neck, the way she treated him. If I’d known the real reason she was doing it—I would have done. Anyhow whatever he thinks, I’m glad to be having it. There’s no way, Joe, I could ever have made use of the other facilities on offer. Know what I’m talking about?” She waited for his nod. “No, this kid’ll have a good life. Better than mine. I can afford it now. The rotten little cow left me all her money, did you know? Most of it came from Cornelius but I’m damned if I’m giving it back! I’m keeping it for the child. He’ll understand. The lawyer says he can get it to me in good time. Money coming across an ocean on a wire—takes some believing!”

“And Armiger? Any regrets?”

“Of course I have! Always will. You can’t kill a man and not have it hanging round your neck for ever more like the bleedin’ albatross in that poem I could never stand. But sometimes, you’re faced with a beast that just has to die before it does more damage. When it comes to protecting the man you love, you don’t have a choice. Or time to think.”

“Not quite sure I believe that. You made a choice—not an easy one—and set up your stalk with the skill of a tiger hunter. I must say, I felt rather like a tethered goat out there in the park.”

“The hunt may not yet be over, Joe.” She drew him back into the shadows and spoke quickly. “He’s going to have a tough time when he gets back. He kept going on about Hydra heads and said I was to be sure to pass this over to you at the last minute.” Julia reached down, pulled her skirt up to her knee and slid a hand into her boot. “He didn’t want to be caught with this on him. It was safe enough here, we reckoned. Who’s ever going to frisk a cripple?”

She handed Joe a folded sheet of Claridge’s writing paper. “Names. More names. Blokes worth watching. He said someone over here’d better know who not to trust. He thinks you’ll know what to do with it.”

“Me?” Joe was suddenly uncertain as he took the sheet from her. “I’m just a policeman …”

“Who else? You’re different styles but cut from the same cloth.”

He pushed the paper into his inner pocket. “I’d like to know you’ve both arrived safely but I suppose …”

“You read the papers, Joe. If there’s news of good things happening in Tennessee, Cornelius says you’ll know his watch is still ticking. Does that make sense? That reminds me to pass on something else he wanted to say. He made me learn a couple of lines to whisper in your ear. Annoying me with his quotations again! He said I was to say it without laughing or sneering and to be sure to mention that he’s changed the words a bit and apologises to Kipling for taking the liberty. Well, here goes …” She straightened her spine, clasped her hands and launched into a recitation in her best classroom manner:

“But there is neither East nor West, Border, nor Breed, nor Birth,

When two strong men stand back to back, though they come from the ends of the earth.”

Joe chuckled. “Down to two are we? But, no mention there of strong women! Julia, we’d neither of us have survived if …”

She cut short his thanks. “Who is there to assassinate the assassin? Muggins at the bottom of the pile. Dirty work. There’s no pride in that.”

Joe smiled, remembering. “ ‘It wasn’t the airplanes that got him. It was Beauty killed the Beast. Better than this one deserved.”

He took her hand and passed her up into the safe grasp of a Thames River policeman. “Goodbye and good luck, Beauty!”