The Vital Minute — Roger Ormerod

To Ken Beacham, Social Security Inspector, the question seemed quite simple: did Leonard Trent crash his car before or after contacting his Managing Director? On this simple fact rests the entitlement of Virginia Trent to an Industrial Death Pension.

But then the violent death of the Managing Director blurs the issue, and Ken Beacham finds himself investigating what could have been a murder. Steadily and insidiously, the background to Trent's death absorbs him -- as does his passion for Kaye Trotter, the last person to have seen Trent alive.