He was walking from the Charing Cross Road towards Leicester Square, when, from a doorway ahead of him, a couple emerged.

They did not turn his way but preceded him, so that he only saw their backs.

But he had no doubt who one of the couple was.

The fair hair, the tall, slim, long-limbed figure, the perverse sloppiness of dress which could not quite obscure her grace of youth, betrayed the disdainful prodigy of Rackham Park.

The creator of Linda Spavinsky swam ahead of him.