Dead Men's s Boots

I took the pledge eleven months and nine days ago, and I’m managing very well, all things considered.’

‘Still keeping count, though.’

She favoured the space where the steak had been with a very long, very serious stare. ‘Yes,’ she said, simply. ‘Still keeping count.’

‘What do you think happened to the hammer?’

She didn’t bat an eyelid at the change of subject, but then from my limited experience a demon’s brain is probably a bit like a hurricane in a box. The illusion of calm can only be maintained as long as you keep the lid nailed firmly down.

‘Hunter hid it somewhere, presumably.’ She ate a piece of the broccoli that had come with the steak: but the gesture lacked conviction in my opinion.

‘Somewhere in the hotel or somewhere out on the street?’

‘Why?’

‘I just want to know what you think.’

Juliet looked at me thoughtfully. ‘It’s not likely he could have taken it onto the street,’ she admitted. ‘Someone would have seen what he did with it, and it would have been recovered by now.

I nodded. ‘And if it was anywhere in the hotel, the police would have turned it up inside of ten minutes.’

She put her fork down, giving up on the broccoli. ‘That’ k16;f ts an interesting point, Castor,’ she acknowledged. ‘However, it’s a point that holds equally well no matter who killed Barnard. So it doesn’t particularly point towards Douglas Hunter being innocent.’

‘I know that,’ I said. ‘I’m not saying that Hunter is innocent – just that there may be more to the story than Coldwood is seeing right now.

Juliet tapped her incisors with the tip of one immaculate fingernail.

‘I think you are,’ she said. ‘Wasting your time, I mean. But yes, I can do that.’

‘Thanks. So when would be good for you?’

‘Now.’ She pushed the plate full of vegetables away with a decisive movement and stood.

The Paragon Hotel lived up – or maybe down – to all my expectations.

Like a lot of early-twentieth-century London architecture, it’s the type of building that was thrown up to take advantage of negative space: in other words, it fits into a gap between older buildings that somebody decided to exploit even though it had no rational shape.