He had a new family now, coagulated by comradeship, camaraderie and curry. What he didn’t have was the time or opportunity for romance. Not that he hadn't tried, but Tubal had zero ability to read lascivious cues and lacked the confidence to pursue primal attraction, leaving him prone to surrender to sexual trysts with insatiable cousins or sloppy drunken kisses from disconsolate girls at parties. He lacked the wherewithal to resist and, frankly, it would be impolite. But, for now, Tubal’s work absorbed him.

The hotel oozed decadent parties, flappers flouncing on the lawn and penguin-suited bon vivant cads clutching cigars and whisky. Or so Tubal imagined as he focused on shards of light tumbling from the crystal chandeliers within. Closer look attested that these once salubrious beacons now shone friendless behind the distemper-painted frames of rot-pitted windows, the lost glory days only offered to him by fogged monochrome photographs hugging the entrance hall walls. This was what the office finances tolerated when they were not entrenched on one of Allonby’s fools’ errands: coach tour meccas bedding down weary pensioners for the night; coroner on speed dial, a pyramid of cold toast piled on the breakfast table for expediency.

Tubal felt sure that Sweeney lacked both the speed and agility to escape. He kept the thought to himself as he could be wrong. A desperate man could find the inner strength to defy expectation. He imagined Sweeney crashing through the feather-edged fencing and escaping into the woods. They would soon find him, but the thought of transporting Sweeney back to London with his pyjamas caked in an entomological soup of putrefied badger and fox shit was not a pleasant one. No, best to cover the back exit.

Martindale had suggested that somebody was on the take. The two of them had to decide who, if anybody, could be trusted within BIO. The reputation of the perceived non-corruptible might be tarnished by the actions of a colleague. It was unthinkable. Tubal had seen the effect on workplaces where a corrupt colleague was suspected. Everybody was treated with suspicion. Rumour-mongers thrived on misinformation and conjecture until the perpetrator was exposed.