'Buy you a coffee?' I said.

Next morning we crossed into Idaho. The state licence plates all had 'Famous Potatoes' written on them.

'Potatoes?' Bel said.

'Potatoes. These are a proud people.'

We were about 800 miles from Seattle. I thought we should get as close as we could then stop for another night, so we'd arrive fresh in the city. Bel wanted to push on. The road really had become her drug. She could hardly relax when we stopped. Even in the motel she fidgeted as she watched TV, her knees pumping. Her diet now comprised hamburgers and milk shakes. Her skin and hair had lost 28l some vitality, and her eyes were dark. All my fault, I kept telling myself. She'd seemed better since last night though, a bit more together. Her voice was hoa.r.s.e from shouting, and her eyes were red-rimmed. But I didn't think she was going to fall apart again. She seemed more confident, tougher ...

and she was ready to rock.

'No,' I told her, 'we'll stop somewhere, pamper ourselves, take a little time off.'

Problem was, where did you pamper yourself in the wasteland between Salt Lake City and Seattle? A detour to Portland wouldn't make sense. The answer started as a sort of joke. We decided to stop at a place called Pasco, for no other reasons than that it was a decent size and Bel's mother's maiden name had been Pascoe. But on the road into town, alongside all the other cheap anonymous motels, there was a Love Motel, with heart-shaped waterbeds, champagne, chocolates, adult movies ... Our room was like a department store Santa's Grotto, done in red velvet and satin. There were black sheets on the bed and a single plastic rose on the pillow.

'It's like being inside a nosebleed,' Bel said, collapsing on to the bed. When it floated beneath her, she managed a laugh, her first in a while. But after a bottle of something that had never been within five hundred kilometres of Champagne, everything looked better. And lying on the bed, as Bel pointed out, was a bit like still being in the car. We didn't watch much of the p.o.r.n flick, but we did take a bath together. It was a spa-bath, and Bel turned the jets up all the way. We started making love in the bath, but ended on the waterbed. We ended up so damp, I thought the bed had sprung a leak. I'd not known Bel so pa.s.sionate, holding me hard against her like she was drowning. It was the kind of s.e.x you have before dying or going off to war. Maybe we were about to do both.

We fell asleep without any dinner, woke up late and went to an all-night store where we bought provisions. We sat on 282.

the floor of our room and ate burger buns stuffed with slices of smoked ham, washed down with c.o.ke. Then we made love again and drowsed till morning. We still had over 200 miles to go, and decisions to make along the way, such as whether it would be safer to stay in a motel out of town or a big hotel in the centre. It made sense to have a central base, but it also made sense not to get caught.

Snow-tipped Mount Rainier was visible in the distance as we took 1-90 into the heart of Seattle.

There were things I wanted to tell Bel. I wanted to tell her why I hadn't cried over Max's death. I wanted to tell her why I didn't do what she had done out on that parking lot. I wanted to tell her about bottling things up until you were ready for them. When I met Kline again, the bottle would smash wide open. But somehow I didn't find the words.

Besides, I couldn't see how they would help.

It was another hot dry day, and the traffic was slow, but no one seemed to mind too much. They were just happy to be here and not in some other more congested city. The placement and layout of Seattle are quite unique. From the east, we crossed on to Mercer Island and off it again on to the narrow stretch of land which housed the city itself, squeezed between Lake Washington and Puget Sound. We came off the Interstate into the heart of the downtown grid system, Avenues running north to south, Streets east to west. Last time I'd been here, I'd taken a cab from Sea Tac, which took you through a seemingly unending hinterland of sleazy motels, bars, and strip joints advertising '49 Beautiful Women ... and One Ugly One'. This was a much better route. There were a few prominent hotels, all outposts of known chains catering mostly to business travellers. The first one we tried had a vacancy, so we took it. It was a relief to garage the car and take our bags up, knowing we now had a base. We'd decided to stay central, since it would cut down travelling time. We checked in as Mr and Mrs West, 283.

since we'd bought p.a.w.nstore rings. Bel flicked through the city information pack while I made a phone call.

I spoke to someone on the news desk.

'Can I speak to Sam Clancy, please.'

'He's on a sabbatical.'

'That's not what I've read. Look, can you get a message to him?'

There was a pause. 'It's possible.'

'My name's Mike West and I'm staying in a hotel downtown. I'd like Sam to contact me. It looks like we've been following a similar line of inquiry, only I've been working in Scotland, near Oban.' I waited while he took down the details. 'That's 0-b-a-n. Tell him Oban, he'll understand.'

'Are you a journalist?'

'In a way, yes.' I gave him our room number and the telephone number of the hotel. 'When can I expect him to get this message?'

'He calls in sometimes, but there's no routine. Could take a few days.'

'Sooner would be better. All I'm doing here is pacing the floor.'

He said he'd do what he could, and I put the phone down.

Bel was still studying the information pack.

'I'll tell you what you do in Seattle,' I said. 'You go up the s.p.a.ce Needle on a clear day, you visit Pike Place Market any day, and you wander around Pioneer Square.'

'Michael, when you were here before ... was it business?'

'Strictly pleasure,' I said.

'What sort of pleasure?' She wasn't looking at me as she spoke.

'Whale-watching,' I said. Now she looked at me.

'Whale-watching?'

'I took a boat up to Vancouver Island and went whallS watching.'

She laughed and shook her head.

284.

'What's wrong with that?'

'Nothing, it's just ... I don't know. I mean, you're so normal in a lot of ways.'

'You mean for a hired killer?'

She had stopped laughing now. 'Yes, I suppose I do.'

'I'm still a killer, Bel. It's what I do best,'

'I know. But after this is over ...'

'We'll see.'

The phone rang, and I picked it up. It was Sam Clancy.

'That was quick,' I said.

'I have to be careful, Mr West. The desk downstairs tells me you only checked in twenty minutes ago.'

'That's right.'

'You're not losing any time.'

'I don't think either of us can afford to.'

'So tell me your story.'

He didn't sound far away at all. He had a soft cultivated accent, which just failed to hide something more nasal and demanding, a New York childhood perhaps. I told him my story, missing out a few details such as my profession and my true involvement in the whole thing. I said I was a journalist, investigating the murder of one of my colleagues.

I told him about Max's death, and how the gun dealer's daughter was with me in Seattle. I told him about the Americans we'd met on the road out of Oban, just after a visit to the Disciples of Love. I probably talked for twenty or thirty minutes, and he didn't interrupt me once.

'So what's your story?' I said.

'I think you already know most of it. There have been two attempts on my life, neither of them taken very seriously by the police. They couldn't find any evidence that someone had tampered with my car brakes, but I found a mechanic who showed me how it could be done without leaving any trace. Never buy an Oldsmobile, Mike. Anyway, since Seattle's finest weren't going to do anything about it, I thought I would. Then the paper ran my story, and that 285.

merely confirmed for the police that I was seeking publicity, nothing more.'

'You think the Disciples were responsible?'

'Well, I asked my ex-wife and it wasn't her. That doesn't leave too many enemies. Jesus, it's not like I wrote The Satanic Verses or anything, all I was doing was asking questions.'

'About funding?'

'That's right.'

'What did you find?'

'I'm still finding. It's just not so easy when I have to wall everywhere with my head in a blanket.'

'I could help you.'

'I've got people helping me.'

'At your newspaper?'

'No names, Mike. I still don't know that I can trust you.'

'Could we meet? I want to talk about the Disciples.'

'I don't know ... Do you have any proof you could give me? I mean proof of anything you've said, of who you are?'

I thought about this. The answer was, no. 'I think you'd find the murdered man's daughter proof enough, Sam.'

He sighed. 'Is she there with you?'

'She's right here.'

'Put her on.'

I pa.s.sed the phone to Bel. 'He needs convincing we're genuine.'

'Mr Clancy?' said Bel. 'You've got to help us. If you saw what they did to my father. I mean, they didn't just kill him, that wasn't enough for them. I want them caught ...

whatever it takes. With you or without you, we're going after them.' She handed me the receiver.

'All right,' said Clancy, 'let's have dinner.'

Where?'

'There's a little Mexican place near Green Lake. Do you know where that is?'

'I can find it.' He gave me the name and address of the 286.

restaurant. We agreed eight o'clock, and the call ended there.

'Sounds promising,' I told Bel, giving her a kiss. 'Is there a street map in that pile of stuff?'

'Only a downtown one.'

'Then let's go do some shopping.'

It's very hard to get lost in American cities, so long as you stick to the grid system. You'll nearly always find the right road, though you may then have trouble finding the right building, since there doesn't always seem to be much sense to the way street numbers run.

That evening, we got on to Aurora and followed it for miles. I don't think Bel had ever seen a street so long, and when we came off at Green Lake, Aurora still had a long way to run. Green Lake was busy with joggers and walkers, skateboarders and roller-skaters, and people just enjoying the air.

We'd had a good afternoon, walking the streets, sitting in coffee shops, making new friends. As I'd promised Bel, the coffee here was definitely a cla.s.s above the stuff they doled out in diners. She'd already had three cups of Starbuck's, and the caffeine was showing. Every cafe we sat in, when people heard our accents they wanted to talk to us. So we learned a bit more about the city. Ballard was the district where the descendants of the Nors.e.m.e.n lived. The streets east of the Kingdome were to be avoided. The Mariners were having another lousy season, and were now owned by Nintendo. We'd missed the annual Folklife Festival. There was a drought. A couple of local micro-breweries were Producing excellent dark beers .. . Some of this I already knew, but some of it was new to me, and I appreciated all the information I could get. Jeremiah Provost, after all, was on home ground. It was important to know as much about the city as he did. That way, we'd be less likely to fall into Bny traps.

287.

So far, Seattle had looked distinctly free from traps. I showed Bel Pike Place Market, pointed out the bicycle cops in Pioneer Square, and steered her around the street people and panhandlers nulling around the streets near the waterfront. The p.a.w.nshops were doing good business in Seattle. They had guns and guitars in their windows, but I didn't stop to look. I wasn't carrying a gun with me, but when we headed off for dinner with Sam Clancy, I hid the pistol under the Trans-Am's front seat.

The car was sounding ropey. It needed another tune, oil change, and maybe a new exhaust. Probably it also needed ; a complete rest. We'd pushed it hard, and it had served us, well, but we needed it healthy for a while longer.

We'd overestimated the weight of traffic and were early atSJ the restaurant, so we parked the car and walked back down to the lake. Bel pulled off her cowboy boots to walk barefoot on the gra.s.s. She looked okay, not tired or stressed out. She was keen for something to happen, for some showdown to arrive, but she managed not to look too impatient.

By the time we got back to the restaurant she declared herself ready for a drink. There was still no sign of Clancy, but a table had been reserved in the name of West, so we took it. It was laid out for three diners. The waiter asked if we wanted a margarita while we waited. Bel nodded that we did.

'Large or small?'

'Large,' she stated, before ploughing through the menu.

'What's the difference between all these things?' she asked me. 'Tacos, burritos, fajitas, tortillas ... ?'

'Ask the waiter.'

But instead she took her very large margarita from him and ran her finger around the rim.

'It's salt,' I said.

'I knew that.' Having wiped a portion of the rim clean, she sipped, considered, then took another sip.

There was a man at the front of the restaurant. He'd been 288.

studying the takeaway menu when we'd come in, and he was still studying it. I got up from the table and walked over to him.