Then over his shoulder in the vaporous wintry glow cast by a streetlight she’d glimpsed a figure, muffled, indistinct, not much more than an outline, but she had known it was Alex.

She’d closed her eyes as Mick’s lips found hers again. When he broke the contact she’d gasped, ‘Let’s go inside before you have to arrest us.’

And as they’d practically fallen across her threshold, she’d glanced along the quiet street once more and of course the phantom figure had vanished. And when she woke in the morning with Mick’s arms around her, she’d felt the past and all its sorrow had vanished too.

But of course it hadn’t. How could she have fooled herself? It had been lurking, in the mist, behind the lamplight, ready to step forward once more when summoned by something as simple as a magazine photo through the post.

She told Dalziel this, or a version of it, bowdlerized, but she guessed he got the picture.

‘And now I’ve started seeing him again,’ she concluded. ‘Crazy, eh?’

Her attempt at being casually dismissive was unconvincing.

‘Can you still see him?’

She looked into the garden and shook her head.

‘Not to worry, luv,’ Dalziel reassured her. ‘Happens to us all. Look at any crowd of strangers, you’re sure to see some guy who looks like some guy you know. I mean, when I looked just now, I saw someone who’s a dead ringer for my DCI.’

The difference being, of course, that Dalziel was absolutely sure it was Pascoe he’d seen, and could still see.

Things had become very interesting, he thought. Had it been the ‘bugger’ Gina had clocked? He could have asked, but at this stage he wanted to keep ahead of the game, particularly now he was certain there was a game, and a complex one at that. And telling her about the bugger would have meant telling her about Novello, and she was a card he definitely wanted to keep up his sleeve.

That the woman might be watched didn’t surprise him. Someone had brought her here, so presumably they’d want to keep an eye on her. But from keeping an eye on someone to bugging them was a large step, suggesting a worrying level of fore-planning.

‘So where do we go from here?’ he asked.

He had detected how troubled she was and from his own reading of the woman and from what Purdy had said about her, she needed an action plan, or at least the prospect of activity, to keep her demons under control.

She said, ‘I’ve thought about what you said this morning. I don’t want to turn my search into a circus that could frighten Alex off. But I’ve got to let him know I’m here so that, if he wants to see me, he can make up his own mind.’

For the moment he let pass her implied assumption that her husband was still alive, and close.

‘Mebbe you don’t need to let him know you’re here,’ said Dalziel casually.

She said, ‘You mean, it might be Alex himself who sent me the picture? But if he wants to contact me, why doesn’t he just pick up a phone?’

‘Mebbe he wants you up here to take a closer look without you seeing him,’ said Dalziel. ‘Check out if you’re likely to be tying a yellow ribbon round the old oak tree.’

At last she smiled and said, ‘Bach, Pal Joey, and now Tony Orlando. You’ve very catholic musical tastes, Mr Dalziel.’

‘You should hear my Al Jolson imitation,’ said Dalziel. ‘So?’

‘So, if that were the case, what form do you think the yellow ribbon or its absence might take?’ she asked.

‘Wedding ring, for a start. Which you’re not wearing. On the other hand, you’re not wearing an engagement ring either.’

‘To see that would mean getting pretty close,’ she said, glancing round uneasily.

‘Nay, good pair of field glasses would do the trick,’ said the Fat Man.

The plaintive wail of some reed instrument came drifting up from the garden.

‘Listen,’ she said. ‘Clarinet. I love the sound it makes.’

‘Aye,’ he said. ‘Like the bagpipes: fine at a distance out of doors if someone else is paying for it. What’s your weapon?’

‘Piano, mainly. But I play the violin too, and I can tootle a flute if I’m pushed.’

‘A real one-woman band,’ he said. ‘Alex musical too?’

‘Not so you’d notice. I mean, he doesn’t play anything. But he likes to listen.’

‘Good husband material then,’ said Dalziel. ‘So how’d you meet?’

‘At college. I was secretary of a music group. I wanted to book a room in the Union for a concert, Alex was on the Union committee, he was in charge of bookings, he had that kind of head, he was a very good organizer.’

Good enough to organize his own disappearance? wondered Dalziel.

‘So how’d you feel when he let on he wanted to be a copper?’ he asked.

‘No problem,’ she said, surprised. ‘Should there have been?’

He shook his head, smiling. He’d been drawing parallels with Peter and Ellie Pascoe. They too had met at university, but from what he’d gathered, the news that Pascoe was joining the Force had been greeted with rather less enthusiasm than if he’d announced he planned to make a living flogging his ring round Piccadilly Circus.

‘This job of yours,’ he said. ‘In a school, is it?’

‘No. I’m what you call peripatetic; that means I’m employed by Education Authorities to go round several schools. I give private piano tutorials too. What about you? Do you play anything?’

He grinned at her and said, ‘Only games that two can play. Thank God, here’s our grub. I’m fair clemmed.’

The waitress had appeared with their order. He checked the level of the Barolo. All this talking must have given him a thirst; it was well down. He was still working his way back to full capacity since his recent little set-back, and if he’d been officially on duty, he might have exercised restraint. But what the hell, this was his day off!

He picked up the wine bottle and flourished it in the air, causing the waitress and Gina a moment of serious alarm.

‘Another one of the same, luv, when you’ve a moment’ he said.

When Dalziel dropped the water jug, Vince Delay turned his head to look and said, ‘Clumsy bastard. Probably got the DTs. Only time them cunts hold their hands steady is when they’re getting a backhander.’

His sister said, ‘Don’t swear, Vince. And if all cops were as thick as you think, you wouldn’t need me to keep you out of jail.’

She was facing the garden terrace and had observed the Fat Man’s brief conversation on his mobile immediately before the accident. When, shortly after the table had been reset and the debris removed, she saw him take out his phone again, she leaned back in her chair and took a long pull on her glass of mineral water, letting her gaze drift round the other diners. She spotted three using mobiles, but two of them continued talking after the Fat Man had switched off.

The third was a young woman sitting alone on a table quite close to the Delays at the edge of the upper terrace. As Fleur watched, the Iti waiter who fancied himself approached with a tray bearing an open prawn sandwich and a glass of white wine. He engaged the young woman in conversation, gently flirtatious from his body language, and she smiled back as she replied, but she seemed to be asking questions, one of which made the young man glance across the garden terrace to the couple on the corner table.

Finally he made as if to move away, but the woman, instead of settling down to her lunch, started up from her chair, an expression of dismay on her face. She was looking across the lower terrace towards the gardens where a buffet party was taking place. Then she said something to the waiter and dashed past him into the hotel.

Fleur said, ‘Vince, sit tight. Make sure your phone’s switched on. OK?’

She stood up, nice and easy with no sign of undue haste, but she still moved fast enough for the young woman to be in sight as she went through the door into the hotel.