"Because you can get odds on anything out there. Sometimes folk come to Storey's wanting to bet on something Stan can't see his way to making a book on. So he'll get odds from Singapore, give himself a margin, accept the bet and lay it off East."

"Nice one, Stan," said Joe. "Where's this money coming from, Eddie?"

"UK, mostly," said the boy.

"But none of it through Storey's?" said Joe.

"What are you saying?" demanded Mrs. Oto.

"I'm just saying you'd have noticed if there'd been a lot of betting against your daughter through the place you work at," said Joe placatingly.

"Yes, I'd have noticed and I'd have been asking, what the h.e.l.l's going on? Which is what I'm asking now, Mr. Sixsmith."

Suddenly he could see her quite easily in a betting shop, able to deal with and subdue any bad loser looking for someone to blame.

He glanced at Eddie, giving his mother the option of getting him out of the room, also giving himself a bit more time.

Mrs. Oto said, "Eddie, I suggest you go upstairs and spring clean that machine of yours. However you got this stuff, it wasn't legal. You may be smarter than me with computers, but you I can read like a book. When I come up there after I'm finished with Mr. Sixsmith, I'm going to ask you if there's anything else illegal you're hooked up to. And if you say no and I don't believe you, I'm going to take a hammer to that machine of yours, you hear me?"

"Yes, Ma," said Eddie.

Looking about five years younger than when he'd come in, the boy left.

"Right, Mr. Sixsmith, you got a professional a.s.sociation?"

"Yes, ma'am." Like Eddie, he felt himself getting younger by the minute.

"What'll they do to you if they hear you're in trouble for getting a minor to perform illegal acts?"

She made it sound unspeakable but Joe knew better than to protest.

"They'll expel me," he said.

"So, you want to stay in work, you'd better start talking," she said.

There were times when he'd had Sergeant Chivers's mad eyes glaring into his from six inches and still been able to burble about client confidentiality. But not now.

By the time he'd finished, she was back to the old Mrs. Oto, serene and polite.

"So how's your investigation proceeding, Mr. Sixsmith?" she asked. "Any suspects?"

Was this the time to tell her he thought her other daughter might be in the frame? Maybe not.

He said, "I gotta suspect everyone till I learn different, Mrs. Oto. Like the guys who come into Storey's, I study the form then I make my choice."

"That's a bad example, Mr. Sixsmith. Most of those guys are dedicated losers. Is that how you see yourself? A loser?"

He met her steady gaze steadily.

"No. I'm more like the guy who's doing this fix on Zak. I don't like putting my money on anything but a certainty."

She nodded.

"Fair enough. OK, ask your questions."

"Questions?"

"You didn't leave your coat here just so's you could come back and sample my tea, which you've let go cold anyway."

In a world full of people smarter than I am, how come I chose this job? Joe asked himself, not for the first time.

Because, he answered himself as always, it's being just smart enough to put smarter folk to work that makes millionaires.

He said, "So who do you think could be behind all this, Mrs. Oto?"

Instead of making a crack about doing his work for him she considered the question seriously.

"Someone with a load of money," she said. These are big sums being laid."

"Yeah, but they're just blips on a computer screen, right? It's not like anyone had to go to a counter with a sackful of bank notes."

"You ever tried opening an account with Stan?" she said, looking him up and down. "No offence, Mr. Sixsmith, but I doubt you'd get more than a fifty limit. Sure, they're just blips on a screen, but there's got to be a lot of other blips on another screen saying you're good for the money before anyone's going to take any notice."

"OK," he said. "Don't bookies get worried if a lot of money starts chasing an outsider? Is there enough here to start alarm bells ringing out East?"

"They'd be jangling like Christmas at Stan's," she said. "But things are different out there. They a.s.sume any result can be and probably has been fixed, so it's almost built into the odds. Over here, if we get suspicious, usually we blow the whistle. Over there, they may just start looking for ways of covering their backs."

It was funny. You see a person nicely dressed in a nice house in a nice area, even when you know it hasn't always been like this for them, it's hard not to think this protected life was what they were born to. But not so many years ago, the Otos had been living on Hermsp.r.o.ng. Joe knew what that was like because it was still like it graffiti on the walls, c.r.a.p in the lifts, lights all busted so even the police didn't care to be there less than mob-handed after dark, plus a hardcore of red, white and blue racists calling themselves the True Brits dedicated to making life unbearable for anybody whose face didn't fit their perverted view of things.

So why feel surprise that Mrs. Oto who worked at Stan Storey's knew a thing or two? Come to think of it, moving into Grandison was probably no bean feast. They might not ride motorbikes and wear Union Jack T-shirts round here, but there were still plenty of good solid citizens ready to spray graffiti on people's minds.

He said, "You ever have any trouble round here, Mrs. Oto?"

"Trouble?"

"You know. Resentment that you're here and Zak's doing so well."

"Oh, that kind of trouble. Nothing we haven't been able to handle. Why?"

"Just thinking that maybe as well as the money thing, somebody could have something personal against Zak."

"And want to humiliate her by making her lose in front of her home crowd? Now that's a bit fanciful, wouldn't you say? I mean, I brought my kids up to know that in this life, n.o.body wins all the time. So long as you're doing your best, that's all that matters. Who cares about a bit of embarra.s.sment?"

"Yes, but she wouldn't be doing her best, would she?" said Joe.

"She'd be doing her best for her family, and you can't do better than that," said Mrs. Oto fiercely.

"No," said Joe thoughtfully. "Don't suppose you can. I'll be on my way now, Mrs. Oto."

"Don't you want to know what I'm going to do now I know what's going on?" she asked.

"Sure I'd like to know," said Joe. "But first, I doubt if you'll know till you've talked to your husband and to Zak. And second, no way you're going to tell me unless you want to. So why waste my breath asking? I'm just the hired help."

She laughed and said, "Maybe Zak didn't choose so badly after all, Mr. Sixsmith. Don't forget your coat now."

Back in the Magic Mini, Joe sat for a while looking out at the house. He glimpsed Eddie's face momentarily at an upstairs window. No need for the boy to come bursting into the kitchen like that. He must have known his mother would ask questions about the print-out. Also that when she looked at it, she'd know what it was about. So he'd done it deliberately. Why? Because he wanted her to find out what was going on without doing any direct sneaking? Or maybe he wanted to find out more for himself, so he set up a situation where his mother would get it out of Joe while he listened at the door? Could he be that devious? Why not? The thought processes of the young made politicians look straightforward!

And as for Mrs. Oto ... "That woman's seriously worried, Whitey," said Joe.

You were looking after my daughter, I'd be seriously worried, yawned the cat.

"Yeah, yeah," said Joe.

He drove slowly away along the quiet suburban street. No getting away from it, this was peaceful living. And they wanted to keep it that way. He'd spotted a couple of Neighbourhood Watch signs. Ten to one somebody had already clocked him and was ringing in about the suspicious-looking lowlife cruising the area in his way-out car. He must have taken a wrong turn because instead of the main road back into the town centre, he found himself on the rural edge of Grandison where the developers were still biting into the green belt, though from the look of it they'd bitten off more than they could chew. Here was a sign advertising yet another small exclusive executive estate. Only the small exclusive executives must be getting thin on the ground as half the houses were unfinished with precious little activity around them to indicate the builders were in any hurry to complete the job. Their design was very like that of the Oto house, and when Joe spotted a Sales Office sign, he pulled over.

A middle-aged man with pouchy cheeks and a drooping moustache sat behind a desk reading a tabloid. His gaze registered Joe and rated him as unlikely to be doing more than enquiring where he should make a builder's delivery. But with times in the trade so hard, he couldn't afford to take chances, so he dropped the paper, switched on the smile and said heartily, "Good morning, sir. Can I help you?"

"Hope so," said Joe. Thinking of moving so thought maybe I'd pick up some literature, check out a few prices."

"Well, you're in luck there, sir. We happen to be offering special deals on the few remaining properties, just for a limited period, you understand. Substantial cuts, five thousand off the four-bed Montrose, three and a half off the three-bed Elgin. Plus a very advantageous mortgage arrangement with the Luton and Biggleswade, subject to status, of course."

Things that bad, are they?" said Joe sympathetically. "Nice-looking houses too. They remind me of the one a friend of mine bought a few years back. Sycamore Lane."

"Sycamore Lane? Yes, they were ours. Back in eighty-seven to eight-eight. Those were the days, people buying them as fast as we could build them."

His eyes were moist with nostalgia.

"Well, Henry Oto was well satisfied," said Joe.

"Mr. Oto? Your friend's Mr. Oto? It was me who sold him the place. Didn't know then of course I was dealing with a celebrity family. That girl of his is a real credit to the town, ain't she?"

"She certainly is," said Joe. "But I expect prices have shot up since then, eh?"

"Now that's where you're wrong, Mr. er ... ?"

"Chivers," said Joe.

"Mr. Chivers. The bottom fell out of the market not long after we sold Sycamore Lane. Prices took a tumble. Well, we're well over that now, of course. Everything's on the up and up now with recent developments. Another boom on the way by the look of things, so now's your time to buy. But the thing is because we had those few bad years, and because we've got this special offer on, in fact you'd be paying very little different from what your friend Mr. Oto paid all those years ago. Here's a price list. I'll just get the key to the show house and give you the conducted tour."

"No time today," said Joe quickly. "I'll just take the literature and call back when I've had a chance to study it." He grabbed a handful of brochures at random and headed out. He didn't look back. Life was full enough of disappointment without feeling guilty about other people's.

As he drove away, his abacus mind worked out figures. When they moved Zak would have been coming up to secondary-school age but Mary would already have pa.s.sed it. Which meant she must have started at Hermsp.r.o.ng Comp. which its critics described as Alcatraz with permanent home leave.

Maybe it wasn't favouritism, maybe it had taken them that extra couple of years to sc.r.a.pe together the deposit on the new house, but would Mary have seen it any other way than Alcatraz was OK for her, but something had to be done to keep her precious sister out of its clutches?

He glanced again at the prices as he drove and whistled. If the salesman was right and these bore any resemblance to the late eighties prices, even with Mrs. Oto full time at Storey's, they must really have struggled.

But who ever knows anything about other folk's economy? he asked himself reproachfully. Just because a guy who works in a prison and a woman who works in a bookies get their hands on enough cash to put down on a posh house, you don't have to start thinking nasty thoughts.

You don't? came a telepathic echo from the pa.s.senger seat. In that case maybe you'd better get yourself another job!

Sixteen.

Luton Royal Infirmary is, according to The Lost Traveller's Guide, a jewel in the National Health Service's crown.

The Victorian chutzpah in selecting the design which made it look most like a royal palace has got to be envied by our own cautious age, and if the long corridors, high-vaulted chambers, and sweeping staircases pose certain problems of speed, heating, and access, these are obstacles not insuperable to the will to heal, the vocation to serve. That the Lost Traveller in Luton is statistically more likely to find him or herself in need of hospital treatment than the Lost Traveller in, say, Littlehampton is undeniable. But once admitted to this n.o.ble edifice, the invalid can relax in the certainty of receiving here a quality of care which in other parts of the country not even private health insurance can buy."

Visitors outside visiting hours, however, were not so sure of such a gentle reception.

If Joe had known which ward Felix Naysmith was in, he would have attempted to bypa.s.s the Enquiries desk. But ignorance plus the suspicious gaze of a mountainous security man drove him to the counter where the receptionist looked carved from the same granite. Joe had hoped for someone he knew, but this was a stranger, and she didn't look programmed to dish out gratuitous information to casual enquirers, let alone admit them to the wards.

Without looking up from the ledger she was filling in, she said, "Yes?"

Joe made a resolve to practise this way of saying "Yes' in front of the bathroom mirror. It contained a greater negative force than his own most vehement "No way!" thrice repeated.

"Joe!" said a voice behind him. "How're you doing? You come to see Beryl?"

He turned to see Iris Tyler, a staff nurse he'd got to know through Beryl Boddington.

"Well, no ..." he began to say as his wireless-set circuits worked out that Beryl must be back on duty, which he ought to have remembered because Mirabelle had mentioned at least twice daily the train she was likely to be arriving on the previous evening with the sure addition that it was always so nice to be met at the station by someone with a car. Joe had refused to take the hint publicly, but mentally he had pencilled in the engagement, only to have it completely erased by the events of last night.

'... which is to say, yes, at least, I mean I thought I might catch her on her break, have a quick word, say hi, welcome home ..."

To his finely tuned ear it came out as unconvincing as a druggie's promises, but he'd forgotten that ninety per cent of Luton womanhood were plugged in to Aunt Mirabelle's personal Internet.

"Can't wait, huh?" said Iris, smiling on him fondly.

She murmured a few explanatory words to Granite-Face on the desk, whose features instantly dissolved into that knowing complicitous smile which, as sure as a masonic handshake, showed she was a paid-up member of the Mirabelle Tendency too.

Iris hurried him towards a lift with Joe still uncertain just how grateful he ought to be to G.o.d for offering him this cover story. Two possibilities lay ahead. Either Beryl would believe him when he said he couldn't wait to see her, which was another large step on the way to admitting they were an item. Or she wouldn't, in which case he had a lot of explaining to do.

Then the lift opened and he knew exactly how grateful he was.

Standing there were D S Chivers and D C d.i.l.d.o Doberley.

"What the h.e.l.l are you doing here, Sixsmith?" bellowed the sergeant.

"Just visiting," stuttered Joe.

"Visiting who?" demanded Chivers.

Joe said, "A friend," which might hardly have satisfied the sergeant if Iris hadn't intervened.

"Mr. Sixsmith is here to see Nurse Boddington," she said wrathfully. "And I would ask you to moderate both your voice and your language. This is after all a hospital."

Chivers looked ready to kill her but she stared him down and he growled, "I need a pee, or is that too strong for you, Nurse?" and marched off towards the gents.

Joe said, "Give us a minute," and took d.i.l.d.o aside.