'To tell you the truth, I've never been in precisely this sort of situation before,' Giles admitted. 'I'll probably try not to identify myself at all if I can get away with it, but if they ask me if I'm a relation of Poppy's I suppose I'd have no option but to say yes. It all depends on the receptionist, doesn't it? If we're up against a petty bureaucrat we won't get any information at all unless we claim to be family and maybe not even then.' He examined Fizz's face. 'Does that const.i.tute a big problem for you?'

Fizz had to smile. It was so liberating, after two years of Buchanan's conscience-searching, to be working with a man after her own heart. 'Whatever it takes,' she said. 113. Visiting time was half over by the time they found the hospital. It left them only three quarters of an hour to find someone who would take the time to answer their questions but at least the rush at the reception desk was over and the two receptionists, a man and a woman, were getting on with their paperwork. It was the woman, a blonde with fat, dimpled cheeks, who stood up and came forward to speak to them, so Fizz shut up and left Giles to charm the pants off her, which he proceeded to do.

'We're looking for a Mrs Poppy Ford,' he said, looking at her as though she was the most interesting woman he'd ever seen. 'She was admitted a week past on Sat.u.r.day, some time in the early hours of the morning. I'm afraid I don't know which ward she's in.'

'Poppy Ford,' Dimples repeated in a soft Highland accent, and her eyes swept Fizz with a quick appraisal as though she was wondering if she and Giles were an item. 'I can look it up on the computer for you. Bear with me a minute.'

Giles went on staring at her as her fingers jittered across the keys, and the faint curve of her full lips showed that she knew he was doing it. When she looked back at him her eyes showed a trace of not unpleasurable embarra.s.sment.

'Mrs Poppy Ford, Whiteadder Road, Chirnside?'

'That's her.' Giles nodded, flattering her with his eyes and patently amazed that any creature could be so clever and efficient as well as beautiful.

'I'm afraid Mrs Ford is no longer a patient here. In fact, her record shows that she was only kept in overnight for observation.'

'But . . . surely that can't be right? She hasn't returned home.' Giles pushed distractedly at his hair and looked at Dimples with troubled eyes. 'I've been in hospital myself since the accident -they took me to the burns unit in Edinburgh Infirmary -and I wondered why my sister Poppy -hadn't contacted me. They said she hadn't been seriously hurt but when I went to her house today she 114. wasn't there and there were signs that she hadn't been there since I last saw her. What on earth has happened to her?'

'I'm terribly sorry but I can't help you.' She was visibly so torn with sympathy that she was having to resist clasping his head to her bosom. 'All I know is that she was discharged on the morning of Sunday the fifth. Is there a relation she might have gone to stay with?'

'No. There's just the two of us now,' Giles told her, going, in Fizz's opinion, a trifle over the score with the pathos. 'If she had wanted company she might have gone to stay with her friend here.' He indicated Fizz with a jerk of his head that relegated her to the ranks of the insignificant.

'But, obviously, she didn't do that either. G.o.d, this is so worrying.'

'I wish I could help,' claimed Dimples, laying a hand to her cheek and caressing him with a droop of her lashes, 'but I don't know who I. . .' She paused, her glance fluttering to the phone at her elbow. 'I suppose I could find out if any of the nurses in Accident and Emergency remember her.'

For a moment Fizz thought Giles was going to shed a tear. 'Could you . . . would you do that for me? You're so kind.'

'I can try.' She turned to the phone with an expression on her face like Mother Teresa ministering to the poor, and started punching b.u.t.tons.

Fizz drifted a step or two away and dragged Giles after her. This is a dead end,' she muttered, keeping half an ear on the receptionist's end of the telephone conversation. 'If Poppy was in here only overnight it's very unlikely she'd have managed to be on chatting terms with any of the nurses. You know what night nurses are like. If you're not likely to pop your clogs during their shift they just give you a sleeping pill and get on with their knitting.' Fizz had never, touch wood, been in hospital overnight but she'd heard stories and that was enough for her. 'Let's get out of 115. here. I've thought of a better way to find out about Poppy.'

Giles snapped his eyes away from Dimples to look at her but, before he could say anything, the receptionist reclaimed his attention by saying, 'Yes, that's her okay.

You remember her . . .? Yes, well she hasn't returned home and her family's worried about her. I don't suppose you'd know . . . No, I didn't think you would. She didn't order a taxi to anywhere . . .? Oh? Did you see the driver? What kind of car? Maybe it'll mean something to somebody.

Okay, thanks, Maggie. See you later.' She dropped the receiver and turned to Giles. 'She was definitely here only a matter of hours. One of the nurses saw her out to the car that picked her up. A black Ford Ka, driven by a man in his thirties. Does that help you at all?'

Giles pretended to be searching his brain for a moment but Fizz had lost her patience and wanted out. Also, she wanted the matter closed in case Dimples thought of some way to use it as a link between her and Giles.

A Ford Ka!' she exclaimed with a grin that could have been seen from the Mir s.p.a.ce station. 'George drives a Ford Ka! Why didn't we think of George?'

Giles smote his forehead and rolled his eyes in a parody of Sir Laurence Olivier. 'George! Obviously! Of course he would take care of her. Her boss,' he added to the enchanted Dimples. 'They're very close but, somehow, my mind was on other tracks. I can't thank you enough for your trouble. You've been so patient.'

'Not at all,' beamed Dimples, hanging on his lips. 'I'm delighted to have put your mind at rest.'

Fizz waited a second to see if she would ask if she could do anything else for him but she didn't. Personally, she would have awarded Giles's performance only a B-minus, but she was willing to admit that there were plenty of people less discriminating than she and Dimples was obviously one of them.

As they sped up the coast road to Edinburgh, Giles was not despondent. 'It wasn't entirely a waste of time,' he 116. claimed. 'We know that someone picked Poppy up and we know he drove a black Ford Ka. That information could be useful if we run across someone connected with the case who drives that model. I'll check out the Menzies family, any of Lawrence Gra.s.sick's staff, Vanessa's business partner -what's his name -Rudyard.

Do we know what make of car the Fords themselves owned?'

'Nope, but I dare say the Armstrongs could tell you.'

Fizz found it difficult to be as upbeat about their findings as Giles was. The news about the car and its driver might turn out to be evidential but it also eliminated both Niall Menzies and Lawrence Gra.s.sick, neither of whom could be mistaken for a man in his thirties. Either of them could, of course, have employed a menial to do the actual pick-up, but proving that would take a lot longer than having the nurse identify a photograph.

She forbore pointing out her reservations, however, because Giles was so chirpy it would have been heartless to slap him down. Only when they arrived at her flat did it emerge that his high spirits stemmed more from unfounded optimism than from job satisfaction.

'Don't I get a coffee?' he asked somewhat plaintively as Fizz made to leave the car. 'It's a long drive back to Chirnside.'

This, as far as Fizz was concerned, was definitely pushing his luck.

'Sorry,' she said very sweetly. 'I can't ask you up tonight.

I have an aunt staying with me over the weekend.'

If he didn't believe her at least he didn't make it obvious.

Instead, he slipped an arm round her shoulders and kissed her, taking his time with it. 'Maybe next time,' he said, making it a question.

'Maybe,' she said, looking willing, but thinking, And maybe not. Giles was a great meal ticket but he was a bit on the pushy side and Fizz didn't like to be pushed. Not yet, anyway.

He stayed in her mind for as long as it took her to walk 117. to the foot of her stairway and was then buried under the weight of her more pressing problems.

Time was pa.s.sing at an awesome rate and this investigation, which had looked like taking two or three days, at most, had now developed into something that had no end in sight. That was bad news for Buchanan, who was keen to get out of Gra.s.sick's hair as soon as possible, and it was bad news for her because she was falling behind with her studies.

Luck had been firmly against them all the way and the time was approaching when they'd have to start making their own luck. Fortunately Fizz had ideas along those lines, none of which were likely to grab Buchanan but hey!

-that had never stopped her before. If she had left things to Buchanan in the past at least two guests of Her Majesty's Prisons would still be at large and Buchanan himself wouldn't have been too healthy either.

All week she had been aware of the fact that Poppy and Jamie Ford's house was lying there empty and accessible and filled with all manner of interesting leads: address books, recorded phone messages, photograph alb.u.ms, and who could tell what else? The windows were merely boarded up and only the Armstrongs -who were too far away to hear anything -were in residence. The place was simply begging to be rifled. 118.

Chapter Ten.

Sometimes it seemed to Buchanan that Sat.u.r.day mornings

were the only thing that kept him going. After five days of

dashing about in a sharp suit, dealing with angry, worried,

or, frankly, criminal people, it was a delight to slob around

unshaved, lazily reading the papers and overdosing on

coffee. Selina was also into Sat.u.r.days in a big way, probably because Buchanan was around to talk to her all morning and because the various other neighbours who spoiled her with tidbits were usually at home in the afternoon. She was snoozing across Buchanan's lap when the bell of the entryphone shocked her awake and her claws went straight through his tracksuit trousers: just one of her sweet little habits that was beginning to make his thighs look like those of a heroin addict.

By the time he had collected himself she was already balanced on the transom of the front door peering out through the stained gla.s.s to see who was coming. Buchanan suspected he already knew. n.o.body but Fizz ever rang his bell on a Sat.u.r.day morning.

He wasn't sure whether he wanted to see her or not. He had spent a bad night wondering if she was still with Giles and, if so, what the h.e.l.l she was doing. What really annoyed him was that he was behaving irrationally, since it was patently none of his concern who Fizz spent her time with, and he had just succeeded in banishing such lacerating thoughts to the deep recesses of his consciousness. 119. Seeing Fizz this morning could bring about a swift return to the drawing board.

The bell rang again, twice, which meant she wasn't going to take a hint and go away. She knew he was in there.

Hastily grabbing a T-shirt from the selection of clothes and other rubbish around him, he wriggled into it as he joined Selina in the hallway.

'Yeah?'

'Smee.'