Score!

Surrounded by the fresh-faced young turks of the inquiry team, he felt old, edgy, almost a figure of fun. Particularly, as if to rub salt in the wound of Charlie’s death, the dandified ego-maniac Gerald Portland had teamed him up with the only black on the inquiry team, Karen Needham.

Karen, who had watched every instalment of Prime Suspect, intended to be the first woman head of Scotland Yard. A dusky Cleopatra, with long shiny hair drawn back in a dark blue bow, she had an undulating body and legs so long they made all skirts look like minis. Whenever she swayed through the incident room, the telephones and word-processors fell silent.

Karen, like Debbie Miller, was messianically into the peace interview. You made witnesses and suspects feel you were fascinated in them and what they had done. You utterly understood their trespasses, whether they had abused a tiny child or bashed up an old lady. Faced with her sweet smile and big kind eyes, everyone sang to the rooftops.

All the young turks told Gablecross he was a lucky sod to be paired with someone so pretty and clever. But Gablecross, who liked women, felt he was being sexist if he told Karen she looked beautiful, and racist if he complained about her slow driving and the even slower way she took down evidence in her clear round hand. Otherwise she had only one drawback: she couldn’t contain her laughter, even during interviews, over the absurdities of life.

Chief Inspector Portland was crazy about her. In his most paranoid moments Gablecross imagined their pillow-talk.

‘Who would you like to work with, Karen?’

‘I’d like to zap that arrogant, geriatric, racist, homophobic pinko-basher Tim Gablecross.’

Gablecross found Portland hell to deal with. One of a breed known as ‘butterflies’, the handsome Chief Inspector had moved from station to station, upping his status and his salary, ironing out his accent. He had a rich wife, children at private day schools, their photographs prominently displayed on his desk, and an old house outside Rutminster, much modernized and crammed with inglenooks. Portland had been so busy going on courses he had never had time to be a policeman. Although he was a good manager and, out of laziness, able to delegate, he didn’t want anyone stealing his limelight. He would have preferred a team composed entirely of keen, deferential youngsters, but to crack this murder and cover himself with glory he needed Gablecross’s local knowledge and his genius at nosing out a killer.

Despite a shower, Gablecross felt crumpled and sweaty when he rolled up for the first early-morning briefing on Tuesday. Portland, on the other hand, his chestnut hair matching his smooth brown face, looked as sleek and shining as a new conker. Having hung his coat, with the Cardin label, on the back of his chair, loosened his tie and rolled up his very white shirtsleeves to show off suntanned arms, he smiled briskly at Gablecross.

‘Lady Chisledon phoned to complain you didn’t have enough identification, Tim, when you popped in yesterday. Said the photo on your ID card makes you look more villainous than any of your suspects. Suggest you get a more flattering one and stop frightening the witnesses.’

Sitting and standing around Portland’s office, laughing deferentially, were the Inner Cabinet. They consisted of two boffins from the incident room, where a Home Office computer was gathering all data on the murder, two reps from the uniformed house-to-house task force, and twelve plain-clothes officers in teams of two. These included Gablecross and Karen, Gablecross’s bitter rival, the fit, flat-stomached Kevin Fanshawe and Debbie Miller, who’d fallen foul of Rupert yesterday, the blushing DC Lightfoot, who’d been traumatized by the Valhalla orgy, and the aggressive DC Smithson, who was, above all, present and politically correct, sir.

From now on the Cabinet would meet every morning to absorb what had happened the day before. Gerry Portland’s job was to read autopsy reports, printouts and statements, corroborate all the evidence and give each team lines to follow.

And then go and sleep on the sunbed, thought Gablecross.

On the wall, beside group photographs of Portland’s various courses, was a map of Paradise and Valhalla with Rannaldini’s watch-tower, the tennis court and Hangman’s Wood ringed in red. A day chart, listing the pairs of the inquiry team and the leads they were following, was flanked by a blow-up of Hype-along Cassidy’s photograph of the entire unit.

The meeting began with a debriefing. Some officers had been unravelling the tangled skeins of Rannaldini’s last hours, when he seemed to have upset everyone, some talking to the family, others touring the houses of Paradise.

‘Problem with this lot, guv’nor,’ said Fanshawe, ‘is they’re used to dodging awkward questions and evading the press. They’re lying, but they’re all shit scared. They can’t believe the reign of terror’s over.’