Dick looked at his watch; half past four already. The lunch had gone on far longer than he'd expected. The old boy certainly had stamina. Dick decided to walk back to St John's, his old college. He would go along the Backs. The frosty February air by the river would help to clear his head.

As he turned down Fen Causeway, he thought again about Sir Percy's reaction to his question about Molly's child. He'd obviously decided there was no point in denying it. That would not have fooled Dick. Instead, he had told Dick just enough but no more. He had also managed to issue a warning. Dick wondered how much more he knew, and had not told.

He crossed Silver Street and made his way along the Backs. King's College Chapel was romantically veiled in the early evening mist, with frost on the lawns sloping down to the river - a perfect tourist picture postcard. He entered St John's College by the rear gate, crossed the Pepys Bridge and made his way to the guest rooms in Chapel Court.

One of the privileges of membership of a Cambridge college was the right to a few nights free accommodation every year in the college guest rooms. Dick had never used this privilege before but he was glad of it now. He had not told Sally of his visit to Cambridge, and had no wish to meet her. It would only have led to disagreements over the divorce settlement. It was better to let the lawyers sort it all out.

He took a shower, then relaxed in the battered but comfortable armchair in his room. He felt that he needed to think things through, to somehow organise what he had discovered so far, so that he could make sense of it.

He knew for sure now that Vish and Molly had had some sort of special relationship with Keith Lennox in Delhi. The three of them had plotted to get rid of Dick, and then Nagarajan. Earlier, Dick had found out about Vish's crooked schemes and tried to have him dismissed. He had failed because Lennox had forbidden him to act against Vish. Why? Dick had only survived for a few months longer in the Madras factory, and he had been harassed with poison-pen letters and the death threat. But it was only when he had begun investigating the big Hosur factory contract that he had been sent on early retirement. What was the connection? And where did Molly's son John fit in? Who was his father? Was this the key to the whole affair?