Diamond Dust

But at least he got inside the building. Picked up weeks of junk mail heaped on the floor to his right and - eureka! - found a seed catalogue addressed to E. Dixon-Bligh. Without a date stamp, unfortunately. Showed it to the woman, pointing to the name, but she didn't understand.

He moved past her to the door of the ground-floor flat. There was a note pinned to it: Sally and Mandy are at the shop all day. Didn't sound like Dixon-Bligh. He went upstairs, past the punk's door, to the second floor. The woman in the sari followed. No one answered when he knocked at the door of the second-floor flat. According to the bells downstairs the occupier was a V. Kazantsev. He was probably at work, spying on the Foreign Office.

The woman joined him on the second-floor landing. The child was asleep.

He tried once more. 'Edward Dixon-Bligh?' Used his fingers to mime an RAF moustache, though he had no idea if Dixon-Bligh had one. This was desperation time.

She shook her head.

He returned downstairs, frustrated, and sorted through the junk mail and found a couple more addressed to Dixon-Bligh. No clue as to how long they'd been there. It was unhelpful that the Post Office didn't frank mass mailings.

What next?

He wouldn't leave this building without a result. Up he went to the punk's level. The door was vibrating to enormous decibels from inside. Pity the people upstairs and down. He hammered on it with both fists. At the third attempt he was heard. The punk looked out and said, 'Piss off, mate. You're wasting my time.'

Diamond's foot was against the door and he grabbed the man by his T-shirt. 'Who's the landlord?'

'Get off, will you?'

'The landlord.'

'How would I know? I pay my rent to the agent.'

'Which one?'

'Pickett. North End Road.'

The woman in Pickett's was guarded. 'We never give information about clients.'

'This one seems to be an ex-client.'

Her eyes widened. 'Who's that?'

'A Mr Dixon-Bligh.'

Client confidentiality no longer applied. 'Certainly we know a Mr Dixon-Bligh. He was a tenant in one of our Blyth Road properties for three years, but he moved out at the end of February.'

'Where to? Do you know?'

She gave a bittersweet smile. 'I was hoping you would tell me. He left no forwarding address. We'd like to trace him ourselves. He owes two months' rent.'

'You didn't give him notice?'

'He did a flit. The first we knew of it was when Mr Kazantsev came in and said he'd heard there was an empty flat.'

'Kazantsev? So Dixon-Bligh had the second-floor flat?'

She checked the card index. 'Second floor. Yes.'

'Do you think Kazantsev knew him?'

'No. He heard from one of the other tenants. Blyth Road is a desirable address. Places there are snapped up fast.'

'Do you know what line of work Dixon-Bligh was in?'

'We never ask.'

'References?'

'Not these days. If they can put down the deposit - and he did - we take them on.'

In case the agency traced their runaway tenant, he left his phone number, but he rated the chance no better than a meeting with Lord Lucan.

He sat in a North End Road cafe eating a double egg and chips and pondering the significance of what he had learned. Dixon-Bligh had upped sticks at the end of February, just about the time of the shooting. He may well have returned from the murder scene in a panic, determined to vanish without trace. He was top of the list of suspects now.

But the trail stopped here.

He had no idea where to go looking for Dixon-Bligh. He doubted if it could be done without help.

Well, he'd served in the Met. That was the obvious place to start. He'd look up his old nick in Fulham. See if any of the team had survived into the new century.

The sight of the tarted-up new building was not encouraging and neither was the face across the desk. They were getting younger all the time. This one probably had to shave once a week.

'Afternoon, sir.'

'Is it already?' Diamond said. He introduced himself and asked if anyone was there who had served in the mid- eighties, and almost added, 'Before you were born.'