“Are you one?”

Reg Makepeace looked up from his paperwork.

“Am I one what?” he said.

“One of them, Guv,” Dave Wilson said, deadpan.

Makepeace grinned and lit a cigarette.

“No, Sergeant,” he said. “I am a happily married man. Despite my dear wife telling me every other day that smoking will kill me.”

“I agree with her,” Wilson said. “It will. Eventually. But that’s not what I meant. I meant—are you a Freemason?”

The faint flush that crept up Makepeace’s neck told Wilson he’d hit something.

“Well, if I were,” Reg said, exhaling smoke, “it’s a secret society, isn’t it? I wouldn’t tell you anyway.”

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