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He moved through it and stood in the soundless dark. A line of light showed beneath a door in the far corner and he moved quietly towards it and stood for a moment listening. There was no sound. He opened the door and stepped through.

He was in the garage at the rear of the building. Before him, great double doors stood open to the night and a concrete ramp sloped steeply to a loading platform in the basement. As he stood there looking about him, there was the sudden roar of an engine and a truck turned in through the doors and rolled to a halt beside him. Jenny O'Connor looked at him in surprise for a moment or two and then she switched off the engine, applied the handbrake and jumped down from the cab.

She was wearing the black leather driving jacket and tight jeans. Her hair gleamed in the harsh white light of the lamp. She looked altogether lovely and desirable. A peculiar smile appeared on her face. 'Well, Hugh, what is it this time?'

'You lousy rotten bitch,' Marlowe said, in a dead voice.

Something flickered in her eyes. 'So you know?' She laughed harshly. 'Poor Hugh, you were so sure of yourself. So sure of your strength in every way. But I made a fool of you, didn't I?'

He shook his head slowly from side to side. 'All that stuff about your father,' he said. 'All lies. And the tales you told me about O'Connor.' He made an exclamation of disgust. 'And to think you were sleeping with that fat slug.' He shook his head again. 'What kind of a woman are you?'

Anger flared in her eyes. 'I was born in a tenement in Poplar,' she said. 'Maybe that doesn't mean anything to you, but it did to me. Five in a bed, filth and squalor and poverty.' She shook her head. 'That wasn't for me. All my life I've struggled to get on and when I met O'Connor, I seized my chance with both hands. Marrying him meant everything. Comfort, luxury and security.'

'And no price was too high to pay,' Marlowe said. 'Even to killing a poor old man who never harmed you.'

She shrugged. 'The old fool got in the way and, anyway, you were supposed to be in that truck.' She laughed in a curious brittle fashion. 'You know I liked you, Hugh Marlowe. I really liked you more than any man I've ever known. I gave you your chance and you wouldn't take it.' Her voice hardened and she said contemptuously: 'The trouble with you is that you're soft underneath. Really soft.' She shook her head. 'You'll never amount to anything.'

Marlowe was having difficulty in contracting his burnt fingers. He wondered in a detached way how he was going to kill her. 'Your little scheme to sick my old pals from London on to me came unstuck,' he said. 'Faulkner's dead and the other two are in the hands of the police.'

A frown appeared on her brow that was quickly erased. 'That's their hard luck,' she said.

Marlowe was beginning to feel a little faint. He passed a hand over his brow. 'Papa Magellan's death was murder. Doesn't that worry you?'

For a moment she was surprised and then an expression of amusement appeared on her face. 'Don't make me laugh,' she said. 'Even if they can prove anything, they can't put a finger on me. My late lamented husband was the boss here as far as anyone knew. He'll take any blame that's going and he's dead.'

She gazed around her at the building and the trucks parked on either side and said with satisfaction, 'Yes, he's dead and all this is mine now.' She smiled at Marlowe pityingly. 'And you could have shared it.' She took a deep breath and said harshly, 'Go on, get out of here, you stupid fool. You're on my property.'

She turned and walked away down the ramp towards the loading bay at the bottom. When she reached it, she took down a vehicle schedule and stood against the loading platform with her back to Marlowe and examined it.

Marlowe looked through the open door into the cab of the truck. In her hurry she had omitted to put the truck into reverse gear and it was held on the steep slope only by the handbrake.

Marlowe looked at the heavy truck, at the steep slope and Jenny O'Connor