‘I was talking about the countryside and the people.’

‘The countryside is all right but I don’t like the look of the people. All we’ve seen so far are scrawny old men and ugly peasant women. I loathe the French.’

‘But they’re our allies.’

‘That doesn’t mean I have to like them.’

‘I’m hoping to learn some French while I’m here.’

Cochran was mystified. ‘Whatever for?’

‘So I can talk to them in their own language.’

‘That’s stupid, Gatty. If they want to talk to us, let them learn English. The only time we might need French is if we go on leave and find a brothel. Two words will do — “How much?” That’s unless we can get it free, of course.’

Gatliffe was uncomfortably reminded of the incident on their final night in England but he did not bring it up again. Cochran had told him to forget all about it and that was what his friend was trying and failing to do. After another pull on his cigarette, Gatliffe looked ahead.

‘What do you think it will be like, Ol?’

‘Where?’

‘At the front.’

‘I’ve got no idea.’

‘You hear such terrible stories.’

‘I just ignore them,’ said Cochran, airily.

‘Aren’t you afraid of the Germans?’

‘No, Gatty, I’m more afraid of the bloody Frenchies. They’ll let us down. They can’t even defend their own borders. If it wasn’t for us, the Germans would have occupied Paris by now.’

‘Why did you join up?’

‘You know why.’

‘I know you got that white feather — so did I. But was that the real reason? I enlisted because my cousin was badly wounded at Mons. They shipped back what was left of him and he hung on until this year before he died.’ Gatliffe hunched his shoulders. ‘Pete was just nineteen. When he first came home, I couldn’t bear to look at him. He’d lost both legs and an eye. I wanted to hit back at the Germans who’d done that to him.’ He went off into a reverie for a few minutes. When he jerked himself out of it, he turned to Cochran. ‘What about you, Ol?’

His friend blew out a smoke ring. ‘I was bored, Gatty.’

‘What — bored with living in Ewell?’

‘I was bored with everything. I was bored with my job, for a start. Mending roofs all day is no fun, I can tell you. I was bored with living at home and arguing with Dad time and time again. Most of all, I was bored with being asked by people why I hadn’t joined the army and gone off to fight for my country. In the end, I just wanted a bit of adventure so, when you decided to enlist, I did so as well.’

‘Weren’t you scared of the danger?’

‘No,’ said Cochran, emphatically. ‘You’re used to danger if you work as a roofer. I’ve seen two men badly injured after falling from a ladder and one killed when he slipped off a church roof. It can’t be much more dangerous than that at the front.’

‘Nothing ever seems to frighten you, does it?’ said Gatliffe, enviously. ‘I wish I was like that.’ A memory stabbed him like the thrust of a bayonet and he winced. ‘I also wish that we hadn’t bumped into that girl in London.’

‘Are you still worrying about that?’

‘I keep seeing her face, Ol.’

Cochran laughed. ‘I keep feeling her body and tasting her lips and remembering how I shot my spunk into her. It was terrific, Gatty, every second of it. You don’t know what you missed.’

Ruth Stein sat on the edge of the bath with the box of tablets in her hand. In her febrile mind, they seemed to offer an escape from the ruins of her life. She opened the packet, put a tablet in the palm of her hand and stared at it.

David Cohen was on the verge of tears as he stood outside what had once been his place of work. All that was left of the shop now was an empty smoke-blackened shell. A waist-high fence had been erected to keep anyone from actually entering the premises but, since there was nothing left to steal, it was largely redundant. Acting as a second line of defence was a solitary policeman. Cohen was bound to wonder why he and his colleagues had not been on duty there the day before to safeguard the premises.

Harvey Marmion had agreed to meet him in Jermyn Street rather than at Scotland Yard because he wanted to view the full extent of the damage in daylight. The two men stood side by side on the opposite pavement.

‘Mr Stein didn’t stand a chance,’ said Cohen, sorrowfully. ‘He was trapped upstairs by the fire.’

‘That’s not what happened,’ said Marmion, gently. ‘According to the pathologist conducting the post-mortem, your employer might have been dead before the fire even reached him. I’ve issued a statement to the press to the effect that Jacob Stein was murdered.’

Cohen was horror-struck. ‘Murdered — but how?’

‘He was stabbed through the heart, sir.’

The news was like a hammer blow to Cohen. He needed minutes to recover from the shock. Dabbing at his eyes with a handkerchief he plucked from the sleeve of his jacket, he looked up to heaven in supplication. Cohen was the manager of the shop, the person entrusted to run it and handle any initial enquiries for the high-quality bespoke tailoring on offer. Since the man had worked there for well over fifteen years, Marmion deduced that he was good at his job. Otherwise Stein would not have kept him. Cohen was a slim, sinewy man of medium height in a superbly cut suit. Marmion put him somewhere in his early fifties.

‘What sort of an employer was he?’ asked Marmion.

‘You couldn’t wish to work for a better man,’ said Cohen, loyally. ‘It was a pleasure to be a member of his staff. He expected us to work hard, of course, but he set us all a perfect example.’

‘Did Mr Stein follow a set routine?’

‘Yes, Inspector — he was always the first to arrive and the last to leave. When the shop was closed, he’d take any cash and cheques from the till and put them in the safe upstairs. He was very conscious of security. That’s why all the doors had special locks.’

‘So when he went upstairs yesterday evening, he would have locked the door to the shop behind him.’

‘There’s no question about that.’

‘What about his other employees? I gather that apart from you, there were three full-time tailors and one man who worked part-time. Would they have had keys to all the doors?’

‘Oh, no,’ said Cohen, anxious to stress his seniority. ‘Only Mr Stein and I had a full set.’

‘What about the key to the safe?’

‘Mr Stein had that, Inspector. He kept a duplicate at home in case of loss. However, the key alone wouldn’t have opened the safe. You’d need to know the combination as well.’

‘Did anyone apart from Mr Stein know the combination?’

‘Nobody on the staff was told.’

‘What happened to the day’s takings if Mr Stein was not there and you had no access to his safe?’

‘It was only very rarely that he was absent during business hours. On such occasions,’ said Cohen, ‘I’d put everything in the night safe at the bank. He was such a kind man,’ he continued, wiping away a last tear, ‘and generous to a fault. Who could possibly have wanted to kill him?’

‘I’m hoping that you might point us in the right direction, sir.’

Cohen was nonplussed. ‘How can I do that?’

‘By providing more detail about him,’ said Marmion. ‘Mr Stein was clearly well known but success usually breeds envy. Is there anyone who might have nursed resentment against him?’

‘I can’t think of anybody.’

‘What about his business rivals?’

‘Well, yes, there were one or two people who felt overshadowed by him. That’s in the nature of things. But surely none of them would go to the length of killing him,’ argued Cohen. ‘When the shop was burnt down, we’d effectively have been put out of business for a long time. Wasn’t that enough?’

‘I’d like the names of any particular rivals.’

Cohen was circumspect. ‘I’m not accusing anyone, Inspector.’

‘That’s not what I’m asking you to do, sir,’ said Marmion. ‘I just want an insight into the closed world of gentlemen’s tailoring. Nobody is universally admired and none of us look benevolently upon all our fellow human beings. We tend to like or loathe. Is there anyone about whom Mr Stein spoke harshly?’