CRYPTIC CROSSWORD

15, 539

Across

1. Evil in South America? It can spread (7) 5. Large rug for VIP (6) 9. Curative drink improved feet in airline once (4, 3) 10. A cold state bordering US makes claim in court (7) 11. I leave after earl (3) 12. Cherie is hysterical about stale drink (5, 6) 13. Friendly Islands national wearing old robe (5) 14. Innumerable nobles governed the French (9) 16. Pound offer is expected at the start (9) 17. Do well — catch over 90 (5) 19. Aggravated old cabaret comic approaches editor (11) 22. Nice individual acquires rare vessel (3) 23. It picks up signals from insect girl brought back (7) 24. Omitting stages, investigators work here in lab (2,5) 26. Member of Celtic family in British school (6) 27. In some way a lecturer is a psychotherapist (7)

Down

1. Citizen about to board navy and air force craft (7) 2. Drunk ran home fretting — about this? (3,7, 5) 3. Upend container to find egg (3) 4. Animal, one with fur on (5) 5. Smell articles lying around old American lakeside shelter (9) 6. Reptile, oddly grey, cold, very good when climbing (5) 7. Few restrictions here, yet U.S. for certain needs to change (3,1,4,7) 8. Tool suppliers ban drink (6) 12. Furious buccaneer loses head (5) 14. Bill roams in China, distraught and footsore? (9) 15. Nurse defends radical style (5) 16. A poet worried about copy right and digital security (6) 18. Hooligan carries in English jumpers at Twickenham (4-3) 20. Hemingway ignored European surrealist (5) 21. Cold forest and one of its denizens, I hear (5) 25. Initially, vessel is almost through (3)