“Even so—”

“Even so nothing, ” said Briggs sternly. “I am your supervisory officer, and I give you orders, not the other way around. Do you understand?”

“Of course, sir,” said Chymes, surprised and taken aback by Briggs’s actually daring to stand up to him. “Did I read somewhere that you play the trombone? An Urdu-speaking, trombone-playing superintendent strikes me as just the sort of character the readers of Amazing Crime Stories might be—”

“Friedland?” interrupted Briggs.

“Sir?”

“Get out of my sight.”

“I’m sorry?”

“You heard me.”

Chymes went scarlet, turned tail and strode angrily from the room, his minions at his heels.

“Thank you, sir,” said Jack as soon as they had left.

“What the hell,” said Briggs, deflated. “I hate the trombone, and I’ve put in my thirty years. You’ve got until Saturday.”

And he was gone, leaving Mary and Jack in the empty anteroom. Next door they could hear the journalist from the Reading Daily Eyestrain snoring.

“Things are going to get hot, Mary. Sure you don’t want that transfer?”

“Not for anything, sir. You, I and the NCD are disbanded together.”

He smiled as they walked towards the elevators.

“I appreciate it. You can drop me at home and take the Allegro. Pick me up at eight-thirty tomorrow morning, and we’ll go and meet Giorgio Porgia.”

“The Allegro? For the whole evening?” asked Mary in a tone of mock delight.

“Yes. Look after it—and no drag racing.”