"Yes. Don't deny it. I spotted you."

"Not completely useless then," said the Welshman half to himself. "All right, I admit it. Wanted to find out what you're up to, didn't I?"

"But you know what I'm up to. I'm working for Zak."

"No. I know I'm working for Zak, I don't know who you might be working for."

"But you were there when she came round to see me," protested Joe.

"Sure I was, but what I don't know is who recommended you. I mean, she didn't just pick you out of a hat, did she? Maybe someone planted you."

Joe digested this, then said, "OK. By the same token, she didn't pick you out of a hat either. In fact, you were definitely picked by somebody else. Doug Endor, wasn't it?"

Jones eyed him coldly and said, "Doesn't matter who picked me. Zak's my bod."

"Your what?"

"Bod. Body. The one I look after. That's what I get paid for. While she's in this country I'll earn my wages. And no one's paying me anything more to do anything else. Can you say that, Sixsmith?"

If you mean, is anyone but Zak paying me, the answer's no. And if you mean am I doing anything in regard to Zak other than what Zak is paying me to do, the answer's still no. And if anything that's happened in this crazy tailing operation you've set up suggests different, that's because your mind's crooked, not because I am."

It was a spirited response coming from an overweight unathletic invalid to a professional bouncer built like a concrete pill-box, but it provoked nothing more violent than a snapped bourbon cream.

"So we're both honest men," said Starbright with a faint air of surprise.

"I haven't been to jail," retorted Joe.

"I didn't go for dishonesty," said Starbright.

"Just poor judgement," said Joe, trying for a sneer.

"No. Judgement was perfect. Like you said before, the guy got exactly what I intended to give him, which was what he deserved."

"Meaning?"

"He was drunk. He started a fight. I threw him out. He got abusive. I told him to go home. He told me he was going to get a few of his mates and come back and sort me out."

"So you got your retaliation in first?"

"No. Sticks and stones, water off a duck's back. I watched him stagger to his car. Souped-up sports job. p.i.s.sed and p.i.s.sed off, he was going to kill somebody. I thought of ringing the pigs, but by the time they got their act together, there could be blood on the highway. So I followed him out, suggested he shouldn't be driving."

"Which he didn't like?" said Joe, interested now.

"You could say that. Told me to p.i.s.s off. So I took his key off him and bent it in half. Then I set off back to the club. Only he came after me, jumped on my back, tried to strangle me. And all the time he was shouting that he wanted to get into his car, I had no right to stop him getting into his car. He could have been right. So I put him in it."

Through the sun roof. Which wasn't open."

"It was a canvas top with a plastic panel. Good fart would have blown it out," said Starbright. "But it turned out his daddy was a lawyer. Hate b.l.o.o.d.y lawyers. Should shoot two or three every week to encourage the others."

"There's a guy loose who would agree with you," said Joe. "OK, so you were a victim of a miscarriage of justice ..."

"Didn't say that," said Starbright. "I was in the right till I dumped him through his car roof. Then I was in the wrong. Not six months in the wrong though. Fifty-quid fine and bound over in the wrong. But the magistrate was probably in the same lodge as the lawyer. Hate b.l.o.o.d.y masons. Should shoot'

"Yeah, yeah," said Joe.

He was finding it hard to adjust to the shift of Starbright Jones from Personal Enemy Number One to ... what? Ally? He couldn't really believe that. But then his life was fuller than Paul of Tarsus's of instances of having to swing through one hundred and eighty degrees of belief.

He said, "Do you always take this much interest in your clients?"

"What the h.e.l.l does that mean?" said Starbright, suddenly very aggressive.

"Hey, cool it. All I mean is, you're being paid to keep Zak free of ha.s.sle from press, photographers, or any nut that might come along, right? Nothing in a minder's job description which says he's expected to check out everyone who comes in contact with her. That's detective work."

"Too clever for me, you mean? I got seven "O' levels. How many you got?"

"Makes no difference if you got a degree from Oxford University. All I know is, if a carpet fitter starts painting the ceiling, I get to wondering why. Must've been something which made you think Zak needed protecting from more than just the tabloid boys."

Starbright sipped his tea, his small sharp eyes studying Joe over the rim. It occurred to Joe that he was probably having the same difficulty shifting his old viewpoint.

He made a decision and said, "Zak's been told she's got to lose the race at the Plezz or else nasty things are going to happen to her family. She doesn't want to go to the cops cos she's worried it might turn out someone in the family is implicated. So she's asked me to sniff around, see if I can come up with anything before Monday."

Starbright nodded. Thought it might be something like that."

"Yeah? Well, anyone ever asks you, say you worked it out yourself. This is client-confidential info. I could get shot for telling you."

"So why are you telling me?"

"Because I've only got till the day after tomorrow to come up with a result. Any help anyone can give me, I'm in the market for."

Starbright nodded again, this time as if he too had made a decision.

"It's that sister of hers," he said. "I've seen her watching Zak training. She looks ... hungry."

"Hungry?"

"That's right. Like a half-starved kid watching a banquet through a window and knowing it can't have any."

The Welshman was getting poetic, but not precise.

"And that's it?" said Joe. "Nothing more?"

"Of course there's more," snarled Starbright. "She's not in it alone. Down the Plezz, day before yesterday, Zak had gone to have a shower after training. I saw Mary go into the gents' locker room, looking like she didn't want to be seen. I went to the door and listened. I heard her saying stuff like, "It's all fixed, no problem, you'd have been proud of me, I'm playing it really cool." And a man's voice saying, "That's great, let's go for it," something like that, it was all pretty faint."

"Is that all you heard? Nothing more?" persisted Joe.

"No. Then I heard ..."

Starbright hesitated. His face changed colour slightly and for a second Joe thought he must have got a bourbon stuck in his throat.

Then the incredible thought occurred to him that this slab of Cambrian rock was actually blushing! It was like dawn on a slag heap.

"Yes?" he prompted.

"Noises like they were ... doing it ... you know "Humping, you mean?"

"Yes. That. In the gents' changing room!"

It was clearly the location as well as the activity which offended him. Joe could guess why. He'd spent most of his schooldays bunking off from games, not because he didn't like sport (he had a season ticket for Luton Town and he'd been the craftiest leg spinner the Robco Engineering works cricket team had ever seen), but because the macho atmosphere of the locker room provided both opportunity and encouragement for the likes of Hooter to pursue their s.a.d.i.s.tic pleasures. It was a place to boast about s.e.xual exploits in, but a real live woman would be as out of place there as Ian Paisley at High Ma.s.s.

"So who was the guy?" demanded Joe. "Hardiman or Endor?"

"Neither," said Starbright. "It was that American. Schoen-feld. Zak's coach."

"Abe Schoenfeld?" said Joe incredulously. "But that's ... I mean, Mary doesn't ... didn't know him."

"She knows him now," said Starbright. "But you're right, she's still going around acting like she's only just met him and doesn't much like him either."

"So you thought, there's something going on here, and when Zak called me in, you got to wondering if I was part of the problem rather than the solution? So who else have you got in the frame, Starbright?"

"Don't know. Wouldn't surprise me if they were all in it," said the Welshman darkly.

"You mean, like a conspiracy? To do what?"

"To rip Zak off, I'd've thought that was obvious!"

"Yes, but they're not ripping her off, are they? I mean, they, whoever they are, aren't after Zak's money direct, they just want to use her to make a bunch of cash for themselves."

"Same thing," said Starbright obstinately.

But it wasn't, thought Joe. Zak was already a big earner, was going to be even bigger. Anyone who got themselves an inside track on her appearance and promotions money would be able to fill their boots. Whereas the betting coup was a one-off.

This needed the application of a seriously incisive detective mind backed up by all the powers of modern technology.

But failing that, it was left firmly in the lap of a small, balding, overweight PI with a st.i.tched-up head and a shoulder which felt like he'd be bowling underarm all next season.

Starbright said, "I gotta go. You take care of yourself."

"Couple of aspirin and a can of Guinness will put me right," said Joe, touching his st.i.tched-up wound with modest bravery.

"Don't mean that scratch," said Starbright with the scorn of one to whom a.s.sault with anything less than an Exocet was probably like being bitten by midges. "I mean, lock your door and don't open it till you know for sure who's outside. Remember what I said, that guy was trying to kill you."

It occurred to Joe that though he'd heard the full range of vigilante descriptions, he hadn't heard the Welshman's.

"You got closest," he said. "What did he look like?"

Starbright screwed up his eyes in the effort of memory.

After a full minute he said, "Beefy sort of guy. Face wrapped up. Had a hat on."

"Beefy? Like what? Schwarzenegger?"

"No. More like that geezer at the Plezz. Hardiman. Well built."

"Hooter? Do you mean there was something positive? Or just general build?"

The long, thinking pause again.

"No. Could've been any of that lot down there. Endor. Or Schoenfeld. Or Hardiman."

"But what makes you think it was something to do with the Plezz?" demanded Joe anxiously.

"Don't think that," said Starbright. "Lots of reasons why you might p.i.s.s somebody enough to give you a kicking, but an offing is usually down to someone wanting to get rich or to stay safe. You don't look to me like the type who could know enough to put somebody away for a long time without telling the fuzz. So most likely it's down to money. Which is what this business with Zak is probably all about. So, watch your back. Some nasty people out there."

Joe mulled this over as he walked Starbright to the lift. He was still not sure about the minder. OK, Zak was his bod, he was contracted to protect her from physical ha.s.sle. But his involvement seemed to go a lot deeper than that.

He said, "One thing more, when you were banged up, you ever hear any whisper among the cons about Officer Oto, you know, liking a drink, that sort of thing?"

"Zak's dad? On the fiddle? And mixed up with this? What kind of mind have you got, Sixsmith? That's really disgusting! You upset Zak with any of that kind of c.r.a.p and I'll pull your tongue out!"

The Welshman was regarding Joe with such menace, he took a step back.

"Sorry. Of course I won't say anything. But I've got to check out all the angles, OK? For her sake. You must see that."

"Yeah, OK. But you tread gently or I'll tread on you."

The lift door closed and Joe returned to his flat, his head swimming with the mixed pain of retreating anaesthetic and advancing speculation. The Welshman's reaction to his question about Henry Oto meant little. He'd only been inside a few months, and it had been a long time after the period when the Otos had needed some real money to move out of Hermsp.r.o.ng and into Grandison. Once take a bribe and things might stay quiet for years, but, ninety per cent of cases, sure as eggs it would come back to haunt you.

But the fierceness of the minder's reaction to the thought that Joe might upset Zak with such ideas about her dad did suggest an answer to the problem of his apparent deep involvement.

"Know what I think, Whitey?" said Joe to the cat, who'd finished the pork pie and was waiting for afters. "I do believe that Starbright Jones is in love!"

Nineteen.

And now the Old Year opened its bleary weary eyes for the very last time.

Joe knew how it felt.

It was the phone that had woken him and when he reached out for it, his head and shoulder drowned its clamour with their own discords of pain.

"Shoot!" said Joe.

The pain settled to a steady continuo. The phone was still ringing.

He picked it up.

"Morning, Joe. You all right?"

"Morning, Beryl. Hey, I'm really sorry about last night. And about asking Starbright to see me into the flat. Thing is, I really need to'