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come to me in the middle of the night, I expect.’
    He sounded committed to his music-making. He’d moved on. Good. Bea hoped the television people would be understanding if his connection with Josie ever came out, but there was one troubling point. ‘I’m told the girl was under-age.’
    â€˜I thought she was Clarissa’s age, eighteen. Maybe a spot older. She told me she was eighteen, and I never doubted that it was so. In very young girls, there’s a certain look about the neck; unlined, slender. I can see that if Josie were under-age, it would make everything look worse, but . . . You know, I’ve seen other men – and women teachers, too – destroyed by false allegations from pupils. Usually there are warning signs: a pupil who’s always wanting to be counselled, or feels hard done by a particular teacher, or is so consumed by hate or disgust with their family that they go around flying flags of anger at the world in general. Those are all danger signals to an experienced teacher. But I didn’t see any of these things. What sort of idiot does that make me?’
    â€˜Didn’t Josie’s minder threaten to go to the police if you didn’t pay up?’
    â€˜Blackmailers don’t, do they? They want money, not publicity.’
    â€˜Did they not know about the work for television? I’d have thought they’d have threatened to expose you there, as well.’
    â€˜I don’t think I ever talked to Josie about it. I write music under another name, you know.’
    CJ had told her that, hadn’t he? So what had CJ been after, when he’d arranged this meeting? Was it really to confirm CJ’s conviction that Jeremy Waite was innocent of murder? Bea snorted. The little man’s innocence was shiningly obvious. So what had CJ really been after?
    Jeremy polished off the last crumb of food, looking at his watch, playing five-finger exercises on the table. ‘Do you know, I rather think I’ve solved it? I can bridge into a different rhythm while shifting into the next key. Do you mind if I get on with it now? You’ll send me a contract in the morning, right? Lovely to have met you. CJ really has been my guardian angel, last night and now today.’
    He got to his feet, and bustled away, leaving Bea to stare at her untouched pot of tea.
    Her phone rang. ‘CJ here. Just checking how your meeting went. What did you make of Jeremy?’
    â€˜Genuine. Innocent. I’m going to fix him up with some domestic help.’
    â€˜Good. I’d like you to keep an eye on him, all right?’
    The phone went dead. Bea looked at it, disillusioned. What did CJ expect? A round the clock supervision of an eccentric genius? No way. He didn’t want her to investigate Josie’s murder, did he? No way in spades.
    At the back of her mind, she heard her mother say, ‘No good deed goes unpunished.’
    Nonsense. She shook the thought away and turned her mind to more pressing matters, such as what was wrong at the agency.
    Thursday afternoon
    â€˜Nance, are you there? I’m still in the restaurant. I don’t think she’s his wife. It’s more like a business meeting. Could she be his solicitor?’
    â€˜His wife’s a redhead in her late forties.’
    â€˜This one’s ash blonde and older. So it’s not her. He’s leaving. And she’s still here. Shall I follow him – or her?’

THREE
    Thursday late afternoon
    T he moment Bea stopped puzzling over the little man, her own problems flooded back into her mind and it seemed that the few hours away from the agency had given her a new perspective on things.
    The thought popped into her head that the agency had perhaps expanded too fast. The words ‘a runaway success’ presented themselves to her. Mm, yes. But a runaway car might be a hazard to other road users. Was it, perhaps, time to apply the brakes?
    She gathered herself together and