"Forget it, Joe. None of my business. I'm just checking on your state of health."

"Fine, fine," he a.s.sured. "I mean, as well as can be expected. Bit of pain. Any chance of you coming round to check me out... ?"

He essayed a persuasive little groan, but all he got in reply was a rich bubbly chuckle.

"Good try, Joe, but no way. I'm at the hospital. Some of us have got real jobs to go to."

"Sure. Look, maybe I should drop by to have my st.i.tches looked at.."

"Your st.i.tches will be fine, Joe."

"Maybe. But I never got to see that lawyer guy yesterday "Mr. Naysmith? Sorry again, Joe. I peeped up there to see if the fuzz were still in attendance I heard you didn't get in yesterday but the bird has flown. Seems he discharged himself not long after you'd been here. If there's a connection I could get you a job. Our manager just loves a quick turnover of beds. Word is she used to run the old Hothouse on Bacon Street."

"Wouldn't know such places," said Joe. Tonight then, you fancy the Hoolie down the Glit?"

She said, "You're asking me to celebrate New Year in the unhealthiest atmosphere since the Black Hole of Calcutta with a guy who's likely to be so beaten up he can't move, if he manages to get there at all, which on recent performances seems unlikely?"

"I think you've just about got it summed up," he said.

"OK," she said. "What time will you pick me up?"

"Eight," he said. "No, better make that nine. To be on the safe side."

"Joe," she said. "Sometimes I wonder which side you're really on, but one thing's for sure. It ain't the safe! "Bye!"

He rolled out of bed and headed for the shower. Under a scalding spray the shoulder reluctantly agreed to resume a limited service. Two aspirin and the Full British Breakfast brought the head back to almost normal use, but normal wasn't enough to help him decide which way to go next. With Zak's race now only twenty-four hours away, that was clearly the number one priority. If, as seemed likely, the effort to kill or at least put him out of commission were connected with this case, then he must be doing something right. But all he had were a few theories and a confusion of evidence implicating apparently everybody! Time to start stirring the pond a little more energetically perhaps. Certainly time to have a serious talk with Abe Schoenfeld and Mary Oto.

Whitey, who was finishing off his plateful of the Full British, coughed. Probably a bit of fried bread got stuck but it sounded like a haven't-you-forgotten-something? kind of cough.

Joe gave it full memory focus for a minute then said, "Oh shoot. Pollinger's office manager, what's her name? Mrs.

Mattison. Going to be at Oldmaid Row this morning."

The cat washed his whiskers, looking insufferably smug.

"You want to watch it," said Joe. "No one loves a smarta.s.s. So let's go!"

Fifteen minutes later he was standing on the doorstep of the Oldmaid Row chambers.

The woman who answered his ring was on the tasty side of dumpy with a round rosy face, intelligent grey eyes and a nice smile which replaced her initial suspicious glare once he'd announced who he was.

"Come in," she said. "Mr. Pollinger said you would be calling."

He crossed the threshold where Sandra lies had pinned him down and followed her to the stairs.

"Mr. Pollinger here himself?" he asked.

"Not yet," she said. "Though he promised he would be."

Her tone was briskly neutral but Joe's antennae caught a something.

He said, "Must've got held up. Sure he wouldn't have wanted you to be here by yourself after what happened."

She shot him a glance over her shoulder as if to check his motives, saw nothing but real sympathy and smiled again.

"Mr. Pollinger is often too busy to be considerate," she said. "But thanks for the thought. You look as if you've been in the wars, Mr. Sixsmith. Car accident, was it?"

"No, just a bit of bother in the line of business. You worked here long, Miss ... Mrs.... sorry, never know what to call ladies these days. Even get into trouble for calling them ladies sometimes!"

"I have no objection to lady," she said firmly. "And Mrs. Mattison will do. I've worked for the firm for nineteen years now. Started as a typist."

"And now you're in charge," said Joe admiringly.

"I'd hardly say that."

They had ascended to the first floor. Joe glanced up the stairs, recalling the only other time he'd been here. As he came down the stairs, was Peter Potter already being killed?

If he hadn't arrived when he did, would Potter perhaps still be alive?

"Mr. Sixsmith, you coming in?"

He realized he was rubbernecking up the stairs like a ghoulish tourist.

"Sorry," he said, following her into an office where a welcoming smell of coffee came from a percolator bubbling in the corner. "Just that I was here the night it happened, you knew that?"

"Yes, I read about it," she said. "Milk and sugar?"

"Black, three spoons," he said. "So are you one of them legal secretaries, or what, Mrs. Mattison?"

"Or what," she said. They're called legal executives nowadays. And they have their own inst.i.tute and examinations. I just make sure everything in these chambers runs right, Mr. Sixsmith. I don't concern myself with things I'm not qualified to deal with."

Touch of acid there?

Joe said, "Mrs. Naysmith, she was one of these legal things, wasn't she? Was that in this office?"

"Oh yes, that was how Lucy and Felix met Mr. Naysmith, I mean." Brightly neutral now.

"But she didn't stay on after they got together?"

"Not when it reached the point of marriage," she said, making point of marriage sound as unlikely as Joe being raised to the peerage. She went on, "Mr. Pollinger didn't think it ... appropriate. He likes a well-defined chain of command and having a partner married to a member of staff who would be working for other partners blurred matters."

"This cause any resentment from the happy pair?" asked Joe.

"Certainly not. The wedding was a real office occasion. We were all there ..."

Her eyes filled for a moment. Joe recalled the photograph. He thought he could picture Mrs. Mattison in the group. And she was obviously thinking of the two who were now missing ... wasn't she?

"Anyway," resumed the woman, "Lucy wanted to have a family. They started very quickly ... but it all went wrong "Yes, I know," said Joe. "I was talking to her yesterday at the hospital."

"You saw Felix, did you?" she said eagerly. "I wanted to go, but was told no visitors."

The woman who'd tried to get in and made the fuss?

"No. He was sleeping. So I just talked to Lucy. He discharged himself, so I presume he's home."

Joe sipped his coffee. It was very tasty. He hadn't expected anything else.

He said, "Were all the partners working here when you came?"

She laughed out loud and said, "You did say you were a detective, Mr. Sixsmith? Mr. Pollinger aside, the average age of our partners is ... was early thirties. I'm thirty-five. I was sixteen when I came here. Lawyers start work a little later."

"Sorry, wasn't thinking. So who was the last to arrive?"

That would be Victor, Mr. Montaigne."

"He hasn't been in touch yet, has he?" said Joe. "I know the police were keen to let him know what's been going on."

"Not so far as I know. But it doesn't surprise me. The other partners made a point of leaving a contact number whenever they went away. He made a point of not leaving one. He said he didn't want his holidays spoilt by some idiot client making a fuss about nothing."

She clearly didn't approve. Joe said, "Yeah, puts a lot of responsibility on the others when one opts out."

"Precisely. A team needs internal loyalty. I mean, it doesn't matter what the members say about each other so long as they're loyal. But without that "Bit mouthy, was he?" said Joe. "I know the type. Little cracks, nothing to take offence at, but very irritating."

He wasn't being clever, he really did know plenty of folk like that, but if his sincerity made her talk ... "You're so right. He had these nicknames for us all, German, from some opera. You know, the kind of thing a lot of people pretend to like because it's fashionable. I prefer a good musical myself, but Sandra once explained it all to me. He said the one thing that held us all together was gold, meaning money, I suppose. Mr. Pollinger was Wotan, the King of the G.o.ds.."

"Wagner," said Joe. "The Ring."

Rev. Pot was an enthusiast and on one of the choir's annual outings, he'd organized a trip to London to see Das Rheingold. Aunt Mirabelle had walked out after Act One, denouncing it as pagan nonsense. But Joe had quite enjoyed it. He hadn't seen any of the other operas in the cycle, but he'd borrowed the Rev."s discs partly because he liked a lot of the singing, but mainly because he couldn't bear not knowing how it all turned out.

That's right," said Mrs. Mattison. "He called Mr. Naysmith and Mr. Potter Fas and Faf, after two giants. They'd played rugby together, you know, and were still very athletic and interested in sport. And the girls who worked in the office he called Rhinemaidens. And me he called Briinnhilde, because I was in charge."

"And what about Ms lies?"

"Freia, because he said she was determined to stay young forever. Sandra didn't seem to mind."

"And the others? Did they mind?"

"Apparently not," she admitted. "Perhaps I was the only one who really minded, but it wasn't for myself. I could see it was disruptive. But the others just pretended they thought it was rather clever."

Joe noted pretended again. Like a lot of people with strong opinions, Mrs. Mattison couldn't really believe any sensible person could disagree with her without some hidden agenda.

"Did Mr. Montaigne have a part for himself?" he asked, trying to recall the legend.

"Sandra sometimes called him Logic, I think it was."

Of course. Loge, the crafty G.o.d, the wheeler-dealer.

"But why are you asking me all this, Mr. Sixsmith?" she said, looking at him shrewdly.

He said, "No harm in asking a good-looking woman about her work, is there?"

"Oh, I see. What they call chatting up, is it?" she asked, laughing.

Joe was professionally pleased though personally unflattered by her amus.e.m.e.nt. One thing for him to say, "No harm," another for her to show she thought him harmless.

He said, "Mr. Pollinger's taking his time."

She said, "He could have come in the back way and gone straight up to his office, I suppose."

Joe said, "He asked you to come in special because of what's happened?"

"Well, it does mean there's a lot to do," she said vaguely. "But I would probably have come in today anyway, just to make sure everything was ready for the New Year. Dates changed, machines serviced, stationery stocks high, that sort of thing. In the run-up to Christmas it's easy to let things slip."

"Don't believe it," said Joe smiling. "Not you. You in charge of stationery, you say? That would be Freeman's?"

"Yes. How do you know that?"

Joe wasn't sure how he knew.

He said, "Girl I know works there. Or rather, daughter of a friend. Doreen McShane. You ever come across her?"

Though that wasn't how he knew. He'd hardly exchanged more than two words with the girl, all of them unfriendly.

Mrs. Mattison wasn't looking all that friendly either.

"Flighty-looking young woman with a lot of make-up?" she said shortly. "Yes, I remember her. She used to come with deliveries. Haven't seen her for a while."

"I think she works in the office now," said Joe.

"You surprise me. My impression was she could hardly spell her own name."

An understandable if uncharitable impression, thought Joe, seeing s.e.xwith in his mind's eye.

"She's dyslexic, I think," he said.

Mrs. Mattison looked embarra.s.sed.

"I didn't realize. It's a shame." Then with a resumption of her previous disapproval, "I hope they don't let her near our letterheads. We're going to need a completely new one, of course, now that ... well, we will. Which reminds me, I must ring them tomorrow to cancel our ongoing order or else we'll end up with a stack of unusable sheets."

She made a note on a pad. Joe said, "Tomorrow?"

"No of course, it's Bank Holiday, isn't it? The day after."

"They won't be working today then?"

"No. Like us and most people nowadays, their break stretches from Christmas Eve to January the second."

"But..." said Joe.