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Dublin?’
    â€˜Liverpool, la,’ Kate said tersely. She was tired of being identified only by her accent.
    â€˜Oh, yes,’ Lamb said. ‘You must be the one whose poof of a brother was in trouble earlier in the year. Still seeing Harry, are you? Someone told me he was carrying a torch for you.’
    â€˜I’m not seeing him,’ Kate snapped. ‘I just asked his advice and he gave me your name because you’re here in Notting Hill, and this is where the problem is.’
    Lamb raised a disbelieving eyebrow and then glanced at his watch. ‘OK, so tell me about it,’ he said.
    When Kate had finished he shook his head slowly. ‘I don’t know exactly who owns the house you’re living in, but this sort of thing has been going on for years. And believe me, the tenants never win. If the landlord wants these people out, he’ll have them out. And you too, if he wants to redevelop the whole caboosh. There’s a lot of money to be made out of property round here. Don’t you have a name on the rent book?’
    Marie shook her head. ‘We got our flat through an agency,’ she said.
    â€˜I’m just staying there for a little while,’ Kate added. ‘Someone comes round for the rent every Friday, don’t they?’ She glanced at Marie who nodded.
    â€˜You’re supposed to have a rent book,’ Lamb said. ‘But that wouldn’t help you much if they wanted the house emptied. It’s what happens these days. Happens all the time. It used to be a bloke called Rachman, but he’s dead and there’s been a lot of buying and selling going on, people trying to take over his empire. I’ll try to find out who owns your house, but to be honest, if they’ve got the dogs out, I should start looking for somewhere else to live. It won’t be just the one flat they want to empty, it’ll be all of them. They split them up and let them to the West Indians. Looks like you’ve hit the beginning of the process.’
    â€˜Surely it can’t be legal?’ Kate said.
    Lamb gave a careless shrug. ‘It’s not illegal enough for us to go chasing up every tenant who’s eased out,’ he said. ‘There’s a lot of fingers in the property pie, and a lot of money to be made. The little people don’t count.’
    â€˜These people aren’t being eased out, they’re being shoved,’ Kate said.
    â€˜Well, that’s what life’s like in the big city, darling,’ Lamb said unsympathetically, getting to his feet. ‘You’ll have to get used to it if you decide to stay.’ And with that the two women had to be content. But when they had left the police station Kate happened to glance back and saw Lamb follow them out and cross the road to a red telephone box on the other side to make a couple of phone calls it looked as if he did not want to be overheard.
    â€˜Come on hurry up, we’ll be late,’ Marie said. ‘We can pick up the tube at Holland Park instead of walking all the way back to Notting Hill Gate. It’s the same line.’
    â€˜Right,’ Kate agreed, hurrying after her friend. ‘But next time those thugs come round I might see if I can get a couple of shots of them. If the bizzies won’t help, we’ll just have to help ourselves.’

THREE
    D S Harry Barnard took a detour on the way into work that morning. It was a sunny day and he opened the windows of his red Ford Capri and stripped down to his shirt sleeves. He might as well enjoy the trip, he thought, as he veered south and east from Highgate, down the Holloway Road, round the northern edge of the City of London, where every other plot appeared to be a building site as the scars of the war were finally beginning to be removed, and at last headed into the shabby bustling bazaar of small businesses and shops along the Whitehapel road. He parked eventually outside the side-street gym where Ray