As he opened the door, she turned to face him.
‘Adam, please think about this. Can’t you see how dangerous…?’
‘Don’t let’s go al over that again,’ he said, a sudden rasp in his voice. ‘You’l begin to bore me.’
‘I’m sorry, but do think about it, darling, before it’s too late. Don’t blame me if something horrible happens. I can’t keep warning you.’
‘Have that engraved as one of those mot o things, pet,’ he said, ‘and I’ll hang it over my bed. Good night and sweet dreams.’
He gently pushed her into the passage and shut the door.
V
Jack Burns sat in his car, a cigarette hanging from his lips and a heavy scowl on his fat face. From time to time he shot his cuff and stuck his arm out of the window to see the time by his wrist-watch in the light cast by the street standard. It was getting on for a quarter-past one, and still no sign of Ainsworth.
He yawned and cursed Ainsworth, using all the bad words he knew. It took a little while to run through his entire vocabulary, and when he had finished, he felt a little less annoyed.
If only this punk Baird would go to sleep, he thought, he’d chance it and go home, but so long as the light burned in the top window, he knew he couldn’t take any risks.