“Help yourself to a gargle,” he croaked.
I poured myself a large Jim Beam, and looked around the room enviously.
The rumours were that Bowles’ walking problem was psychosomatic, all in his head. Induced by guilt. Whatever the cause, he was almost a recluse these days, like a downmarket Howard Hughes.
I sat on the massive black leather sofa and sipped my drink. Bowles put an envelope containing my fee on the table in front of him and glared at me.
“Well?” he said.
Bowles had hired me because he was convinced that Louise, his wife – who the red tops, in a rare moment of veracity, had described as ‘young and vivacious’ – was playing away from home. After a couple of weeks of being a Peeping Tom, however, it became apparent to me that Bowles had put two and two together and made sixty-nin
