"Anything new?" he asked.

"More than my life's worth to talk about a current case, Joe," said Doberley virtuously.

"OK," said Joe. "How about you check out these names for me? Nothing to do with any of your current cases."

He scribbled some names on the back of an old lunch bill.

"G.o.d, you eat cheap, Joe," said d.i.l.d.o, studying the bill. "I don't."

"Why don't I treat you at the Glit sometime. Best grub in town," lied Joe.

"You wouldn't be trying to bribe me, would you?" said d.i.l.d.o indignantly.

Joe put on his shocked look. Chivers emerged from the loo and bellowed, "Doberley, move your a.s.s! You're as much use as a doctored cat!"

"Six o'clock in the Glit," murmured d.i.l.d.o. "And I'll be hungry!"

"I bet," said Joe, getting into the lift which the impatient nurse had been holding open.

On the third floor, Iris left him in a waiting room. A few moments later the door opened and Beryl Boddington came in, her strong handsome face anxious.

"Joe," she said, 'what's wrong? It isn't Desmond, is it?"

"No," he said. "Nothing's wrong. I just dropped by to say, welcome home."

She went immediately for Option 2, which was both rea.s.suring and somewhat disappointing.

"Bull," she said. "I got more chance of a visit from the Angel Gabriel telling me I'm a pregnant virgin."

Time to come clean.

"There's a patient I want a word with. Iris showed while I was making enquiries and things got sort of confused. But I'm real glad to see you. You look great."

She did too. Joe had no particular fixation on uniform, nor did it occur to him to try to a.n.a.lyse how come a woman so solidly built as Beryl Boddington could hit his hormones more resoundingly than many a more conventional cent refold shape. He just knew she looked great and he really was glad to see her.

It must have showed. It usually did. Beryl grinned broadly and said, "One of these days I'm going to find a way of being really offended by you, Joe. So who's the patient?"

"Lawyer called Naysmith. Came in last night, got attacked at home."

"Wait here. I'll check."

It didn't take long.

"He's on the top floor. Room to himself, and there's a cop sitting outside. No visitors but family and close friends with a chitty. Woman tried to get in earlier, refused to give her name and got bounced. Word is he's a bit concussed still, he got a lot of bruising and cuts about the head, but no real problem. His wife's in there with him now. And she came along with that lawyer friend of yours from Bullpat Square. She's in the waiting room up there."

She spoke a touch coldly of Butcher. OK, her heart was in the right place, but she seemed to encourage Joe to persist in this crazy PI business. Also there was no need for Joe to go on about her as if the sun shone out of her affidavits! His face was lighting up now.

"Butcher? That's right, she said she was a great mate of Mrs. Naysmith's. I'll get up there and have a word with her. No one guarding the visitors' room door is there?"

"No, Joe. You got free access there. Anything else I can help you with?"

"Maybe. What exactly is dyslexia?"

She looked as surprised at hearing the question as he felt at hearing himself ask it.

"Dyslexia? It's a sort of word blindness, you know, finding it difficult to recognize written words. It covers a whole range of things from just confusing some letters that look alike, such as p's and q's, to having huge difficulty in learning how to read and write. Why do you want to know?"

"No idea," he replied honestly. "Just came into my head."

"Plenty of s.p.a.ce," she grinned. "Now get out of here and don't let Sister see you."

She stood aside as he moved towards the door. He paused as he pa.s.sed her.

"It really is good to see you," he said.

"I was only away for a week," she said.

"Yeah, well, it seemed longer."

She regarded him, smiling and shaking her head at the same time.

"How come the old lines sound so new when you say them, Joe?" she said. "And if you're so glad to see me, shouldn't you shake my hand or something?"

Joe might be slow but he could take a hint when it was less than a foot away and smelt delicious.

He drew her towards him and for too short a moment forgot dead lawyers and threatened runners and gas-filled rooms in the warm moist depths of her lips.

She pushed him away saying, "OK, so you missed me, I believe you. But we'll have to continue this out of working hours, Joe. If continuing it's what you had in mind?"

"Oh yes. Please."

"Then drop by sometime. I'll be at home tonight if that suits. Don't be late or you'll miss Desmond, and you know how he really likes to have you visit."

Always the little sting in the tail, he thought as he climbed the stairs to the next floor. A lot of marriages might be made in Mirabelle's apartment, but Beryl had made it clear from the start she didn't dance to anyone's tune but her own.

In other words, if we get something going, it'll be down to us, not to the Luton Matchmaker. And by us, I mean you, me and Des.

O K by me, thought Joe as he ran lightly up the stairs, his muscles energized by the electricity of that kiss.

"Oh G.o.d," said Butcher, looking up from an ancient copy of Reader's Digest. "I thought at least I'd be safe from you here. Or are you just moonlighting as a porter?"

"Came to visit Mr. Naysmith," said Joe. "Heard you were here so thought I'd say hi."

"Hi," said Butcher. "Joe, I thought we agreed, there's nothing but ha.s.sle in this business for you, so you were going to stay clear."

That was till I got hired," said Joe smugly.

"Hired? So that's why you're really here. Visiting your client in the psycho wing!"

Joe said, "Ha ha. My client, Mr. Pollinger, is very well, thank you."

"Darby Pollinger's hired you to look into who's killing his partners?" said Butcher on a rising note of incredulity that might have offended a less modest man.

"That's the strength of it."

"He just rang you and said he wanted to hire you? Joe, it's a joke, one of your d.i.c.khead chums at the Glit winding you up."

"No, he didn't ring," said Joe. "We b.u.mped into each other at Penthouse, and I've got cash money to prove it."

"At Penthouse? What was he doing at Penthouse?"

"I tell you what he was doing there," said Joe, suddenly remembering he had a grievance against Butcher. "He was visiting one of his firm's clients, a little fact you forgot to mention when you sent me on that wild-goose chase to consult with Potter. What kind of advice did you think I was going to get when it was one of their own biggest clients I wanted to mess with?"

"Is that right? Joe, I'm sorry, I really didn't know. And I don't think I mentioned the name of the firm when I rang Peter "I mentioned it soon as I saw him," said Joe. "And he didn't say, Sorry man, I can't help you, I've got a conflict of interest here. No, all he did It occurred to Joe for the second time that it was a bit naff getting het up about the professional standards of a dead man, who'd also once been a good mate of Butcher's.

"Sorry," he said.

"What for?"

"You know, day mortuary, that stuff."

"De mortui, nisi bonum, you mean? Frankly, I don't think Pete Potter would give a d.a.m.n. But I'm surprised that, soon as you mentioned Penthouse, he didn't say enough, no more, this thing may not be."

"Well, I suppose he had a lot on his mind," said Joe generously.

"Like being just about to get murdered?" said Butcher.

"Like being in the middle of finding out someone had been ripping off the client accounts," said Joe.

"So that's what this is all about?" said Butcher, smiling. Thanks, Joe."

"Shoot! I never said that. Butcher, you tricked me into saying that!"

"Saying what you never said?" she laughed. "Joe, you're too complex for me. But don't worry yourself too much about client confidentiality. From what I've picked up from Lucy Naysmith, I'd pretty well worked it out for myself."

"Why? What's she say?"

"Come on, Joe. I'm not about to act as your snout, particularly not where my friends are concerned."

"Must be a good friend to get you here reading about your wonderful glands while there's people getting downtrodden out there."

"Yes, well ... Joe, what precisely are you getting at?"

"Nothing. Just find it odd that you went on so much about me keeping my nose out and now here I find yours buried deep."

"I see. So what's your conclusion, Sherlock?"

Joe took a deep breath and said, "Well, maybe you're more involved here than I thought. You said you and Potter had once been ... close."

"Close sounds like it's in inverted commas, Joe. Better spell it out."

"Well, you know, cherry-picking close "You mean like, he was my first lover when we were students together?"

Her mouth trembled and for a second he thought he'd hit the mark. Then she began to shake with laughter.

"Oh Joe," she gurgled, "I thought I made it clear way back that I'd support you as a PI just so long as you promised never to engage your powers of ratiocination! I'm very sorry Pete got killed, but I'm not carrying some adolescent torch for him, believe me!"

"Yeah. OK. Sorry," said Joe. To tell the truth he was rather relieved to be wrong. To see Butcher romantically distressed would have been like seeing light through a pint of Guinness.

"But you do have a point," she went on, recovering her seriousness. "Not many people whose hands I'd hold on a hospital visit when I've got work to do. But Lucy's special. She hates hospitals in general, this one in particular. She was in the maternity ward here a while back, had a h.e.l.l of a time, lost the baby, can't have any more. It takes a real effort of will for her to drive past the place, let alone step inside. So when she asked, I couldn't say no. But also I do admit I've got a professional interest. If some nut's going around offing lawyers, I'd like to be sure I wasn't on his list."

Joe recognized the attempt to depreciate her unselfish kindness but was happy to go along with it.

"Looks like you're pretty safe if you don't belong to Pollinger's firm," he said.

"It's a consolation," she said. "Also it narrows the suspect field considerably."

"Only if it's got something to do with this client-account thing," said Joe. "No guarantee of that."

"Now you would say that, wouldn't you?" she said maliciously. "Because that would mean the most likely candidates must be the remaining two partners, one of whom is skiing in the Alps, while the other is your client. Hiring someone to investigate his own crime is just the kind of sharp move I'd expect Darby Pollinger to make. I hope you got all your money up front Joe. You prove Darby did it, I don't expect he's going to be keen on paying your bills from Luton Jail."

The fact that she grinned as she said it didn't make it an any less uncomfortable proposition. Joe had already got there himself and had been wondering how he could ask his own employer if he actually had an alibi for the two murders and the attack on Naysmith. The other thing to discover was whether the police had yet made contact with Victor Montaigne.

He said, "When we were looking at that photo of the partners, you said that Montaigne was known as Blackbeard the Pirate. Is that just because of the way he looks?"

Butcher didn't answer because she was looking over his shoulder at the door which had opened silently. Joe turned to find himself facing a tall slender woman. Her pale drawn face, lack of make-up and short brown hair which looked like it had been cut with a meat-axe couldn't hide the fact that she was very beautiful. Indeed, if anything, these apparent drawbacks actually emphasized her beauty, like a movie star still managing to be box-office radiant despite being beaten, bashed and buffeted by everything six exciting reels could throw at her. Perhaps this was what made her look faintly familiar, thought Joe, who dearly loved a good exciting thriller with a happy ending.

She said, "Who the h.e.l.l are you? One of those c.r.a.p merchants from the press?"

Butcher said quickly, "Lucy, this is Joe Sixsmith, the investigator."

"Oh. The one who was on the phone when Felix got attacked?" Her tone became marginally less aggressive. "I gather you went rushing round to try and help. Thanks for that. Sorry about the c.o.c.k-up. It was just hearing you asking questions about Victor ... why are you asking questions, by the way?"

She was regarding him suspiciously once more. This was not a lady to mess with, thought Joe. Being a mate of Butcher's should have forewarned him of that.

He said, "Mr. Pollinger has retained me to look into the case, Mrs. Naysmith."

Honesty was usually the best policy, particularly as anything else required careful thought.

"Which case is that?"

"Well, the case of Mr. Potter's and Ms Iles's murders and the attack on your husband."

That sounds like three cases to me, unless you know different."

She was right, of course. While for them not to be connected seemed to require too long a stretch of coincidence, he of all people should know just how elastic coincidence could be.

Butcher said, "How's Felix, Lucy?"