"Yes, he was."

"And Mrs. Mattison?"

"Everyone," said Naysmith firmly.

Then why'd he ring you?" asked Joe.

The man's eyes rounded in a shock of indignation.

"Perhaps it's hard for someone like yourself to understand," he said, his toothless lisp exaggerated by his effort at control. "But Peter and I had been friends since school, we were like brothers, twins even. If one of us had been in the kind of trouble which could only be solved by big money, the other would have known. It's not a question of either of us being incapable of crime, it's a simple statement of fact.

We would have known. That answer your question?"

"I reckon," said Joe, thinking, Fafner and Fasolt, the twin giants, big, lumbering, simple-hearted souls. Montaigne might be a crook but he had a good nose for character!

The door opened behind him and Lucy Naysmith said, "You all right, dear? Anything you need?"

I'm fine," said Naysmith rather irritably. "And I really don't see why I should have to be treated like a terminal case. I always found when I got injured playing rugger that the longer you lay in your sick bed, the weaker you became."

"Yes, dear, we've all heard about the time you and Peter finished playing a match and you found you'd got three broken ribs and Peter had cracked his femur. Oh s.h.i.t. Sorry, I shouldn't have said ... Mr. Sixsmith, when you're finished, do come down and have a coffee before you go."

The door closed. Signs of strain, thought Sixsmith. That's the trouble with the dead. You keep on forgetting they are, and each remembering is like losing them all over.

He said, "Think that's enough for now, maybe, Mr. Nay-smith. Thanks for seeing me."

"Any time, Mr. Sixsmith. The sooner they nail this b.a.s.t.a.r.d, whoever he is, the better. I hope to be up and about very soon, so perhaps the next time we can meet at the office. The further I can keep Lucy from all this, the better. It's always the ladies who suffer most, isn't it?"

This guy's upper lip is so stiff, it's a wonder Montaigne, or whoever, didn't bust his fist on it, thought Joe as he left the room. He needed a run-off, so making an inspired guess he pushed open the most likely door.

So much for inspiration. Not a bathroom but a nursery, all gleaming bright with cartoon characters on the walls, a cot and a rocking horse.

But Mrs. Naysmith had lost her baby and couldn't have any more, wasn't that what Butcher had said?

So this room, once lovingly prepared for new life, had become a memorial to a life that had never really begun.

"Oh shoot," said Joe guiltily. Closing the door he headed downstairs.

"No, I won't have a coffee," he said to Lucy Naysmith, thinking of his thwarted bladder. "Got to be somewhere."

"I hope that was worthwhile, Mr. Sixsmith," she said. Implied was, bothering an invalid on his bed of pain.

"I think so. And I thought he seemed pretty fit considering."

"Considering he's been murderously a.s.saulted by a man he thought of as a friend?" she replied sharply.

"Yeah, well, the physical damage, I meant really. That'll soon mend."

"You have a medical qualification, do you?"

"No, ma'am. Just some practical experience," said Joe, gingerly touching his st.i.tched-up skull.

For the first time she seemed to notice that he too was damaged.

"You've been in an accident," she said.

"Sort of," he said. "But I was luckier than your husband. At least I didn't lose any teeth."

"Teeth?" she echoed.

"Yeah. You know. His top fronts. That must be really painful."

To his surprise she laughed and said, "Oh no. That hasn't just happened. Another rugby souvenir. He always takes the plate out while he's sleeping. You mean, he's been talking to you without it in. That makes him sound like Violet Elizabeth Bott!"

"Don't know the lady," said Joe. "But I'm glad that's all it was. Look, try not to worry too much, Mrs. Naysmith. I really don't think there's any more danger."

"Really?" she said sceptic ally "Why not?"

"Because your husband was presumably attacked to keep him quiet. Now he's had plenty of chance to speak to the cops, no point any more in trying to shut him up, is there?"

She thought about this, then the nearest he'd yet seen to a smile touched her lips.

"You could be right, Mr. Sixsmith. Thank you. Thank you very much."

He left, feeling pleased with himself for having brought a little cheer into Lucy Naysmith's life. Always good to do good. Even if it took a lie.

Whoever it was, Montaigne or anybody else, who'd tried to silence Naysmith, he'd done it after the guy had talked to the police, so whatever reason he'd got could still be valid.

Also, until Naysmith got his memory back fully, switching it off forever could seem very attractive.

"Sandy," he said to the young cop in the car, 'if Sergeant Chivers checks you out, he's going to want to know how often you took a look round the back of the house too."

"Yeah, yeah," said the Scot with an attempt at a teach-your-grandmother inflection.

But as Joe drove away he was pleased to see in his mirror the young man climbing out of his car and heading up the drive.

Twenty-Three.

The year seemed eager to antic.i.p.ate its own end. The sky was so overcast that early afternoon was already shading to dusk and a sharp bl.u.s.tery wind whipped leaves and crisp packets around Joe's ankles as he walked across Bessey Park.

The only other occupants seemed to be a man with a dog and a pair of youngsters in the bandstand, their hands deep into each other's clothing. Who needs central heating? thought Joe.

He'd made up his mind that Molly and Feelie had had more sense than he had when he saw them by the pond. The little girl looked impervious to weather as she scattered crumbs on the bank, then retreated shrieking as the hungry ducks advanced to peck them up. Her grandmother sat hunched on a bench, gloved, scar fed booted and hatted, and still looking cold.

"Joe, there you are, I'm sorry you've been dragged out on such a day, and all for nothing."

"No sign of her then?" said Joe.

"No. She may be mad but she's not stupid," laughed Molly. "Probably sitting at home with a cup of cocoa and a good book, which is where you and me ought to be. Come on, darling, or you'll catch your death and then what'll your mammie do to me?"

The child left her ducks with great reluctance and only after a promise of ice cream.

"Ice cream!" said Molly. "Oh what it is to be young."

As they walked out of the park, they talked of many things. She was an easy woman to chat with and Joe felt attracted to her on many levels, from basic l.u.s.t up. Not that he was going to do anything about it. While not yet sure if his relationship with Beryl Boddington had pa.s.sed the fidelity marker, he had no doubt about his relationship with Merv Golightly. In any case, even if the code of the Sixsmiths had permitted him to try and cut a friend out, Molly spoke of Merv with such obvious affection it didn't look a possible strategy.

"Will you come on up and have a cup of tea, Joe?" she asked when they reached the door of her flat.

"Don't think I've got the time," said Joe with genuine regret.

She opened the door and the little girl rushed in and started gathering up some advertising leaflets which had been pushed through the letter box.

"That's right, darling, see if there's any coupons. By the way, Joe, those leaflets Merv got Dorrie to run off, they doing you any good?"

For a second Joe imagined a s.e.xual innuendo, then he remembered that Merv had been adamant that he didn't want Molly to know about the s.e.xwith c.o.c.k-up.

"Early days," he said, recovering. But the second had been significant.

"Something wrong with them, Joe?" she said suspiciously. "Come on, I'm a country girl, I can smell bulls.h.i.t two fields away."

"Well, not really, just a bit of bother with the spelling," he said.

"You mean Dorrie? You mean Merv didn't double check? I told him to make sure she'd got it absolutely clear in her mind! It's not her fault but she sometimes gets things jumbled, especially names. What did she put?"

Joe told her. She kept her face sympathetic long enough to check that he wasn't particularly put out, then she burst out laughing.

"Joe s.e.xwith! Mebbe you should have let it run, Joe, see what it brought you in! I'm sorry, but it is funny. But it's also a nuisance. I'll be talking to that Merv, never you fear! Some favour."

"Well, it didn't do him much good either," said Joe defensively.

"No? How was that?"

Oh shoot, thought Joe. Me and my big mouth.

But now he had to tell her about the telephone number.

She seemed to think it was poetic justice and Joe tried to extend the light-hearted moment by adding, "Yeah, and the really funny thing was, the number that did get printed turned out to be the ex-directory number of a lawyer who's probably going to be getting calls asking for a taxi for evermore!"

He saw at once he'd hit stoney ground.

"A lawyer?" said Molly, all smiles fled. "You sure of that, Joe? How do you know that?"

"I rang the number," said Joe. "By coincidence it was a guy I happened to know. Or know about, anyway."

No reason to go into the complicated and messy details. But Molly wasn't satisfied.

"What's his name?" she demanded.

"Look," he said. "Don't think I can tell you that. Not without knowing why you're so interested."

"His first name is all I need," she insisted. "That can't harm anything, can it?"

Joe couldn't see how it could, so he said, "It's Felix," and even before her gaze moved from him to the little girl playing on the hall floor, he had made the connection. Feelie, short for Felicia. Naysmith, the legal Lothario; Mrs. Mattison's reaction when he'd asked if she remembered Dorrie McShane from Freeman's; the irritated message on Naysmith's answer machine Your stationery order is ready for collection in a week when Freeman's was closed down for the holiday. That was what had been niggling at the back of his mind when he met the McShanes in Daph's Diner. Funny how inside a head which couldn't by any stretch be called big, the distance from the back of his mind to the front could sometimes be a trans-Siberian trek!

Inside the flat a phone rang.

Molly said, "Excuse me. Keep an eye on Feelie, would you?"

He squatted on the floor and took the leaflets the little girl handed him.

Felicia. Named by Dorrie after her lover. Who next time he got someone pregnant had married her. That must've been a slap in the face.

Up till then, Dorrie had probably convinced herself she was a modern liberated woman, able to take care of her own kid, though seeing no reason why her lover shouldn't shoulder his share of responsibility by paying for a nice flat and using his influence at Freeman's to get her a promotion. She might even have got her head round things if Naysmith had been married when first they met. But for him to get married after the event... The guy must have done some real sweet talking to keep her quiet. But left alone at Christmas, thinking of him and his wife, that had been too much, provoking the irritated message with its implied threat. See me, or else.

And the telephone number ... genuine error because Merv's happened to be close to Naysmith's? Or spotting the closeness, had she deliberately put Naysmith's as a small act of revenge for real and imagined slights?

None of his business either way. Keep out of domestics, unless very well paid.

Molly was talking in the background. She sounded agitated. The phone went down and she came back into the hallway.

That was Dorrie," she said. "Telling me not to worry, she might be a bit late to collect little Feelie."

"Yeah, well, youngsters But her face told him this was more than just the usual lack of consideration.

"She's down at the nick, Joe," she burst out. "She was picked up trespa.s.sing in someone's garden, I can guess who's. Joe, why the h.e.l.l should they be hanging on to her just for trespa.s.sing? I think there's more to this than she's saying."

Oh shoot, thought Joe, remembering his wise advice to the lad Sandy to patrol round the back of Naysmith's house. Why didn't he keep his big mouth shut? On second thoughts, it was probably better this way. If she'd made it to the house, who knows what would have happened. Lucy Naysmith might have brained her!

Wise thing now was to play dumb, make sympathetic noises, walk away from it, none of his business, keep out of domestics.

Molly McShane wasn't even asking for help. But her warm confident face was suddenly careworn with uncertainty.

He said, "No, it's OK. She's just walked into something that doesn't have anything to do with her, but the police will be hoping to squeeze something out of it."

He gave a brief expurgated outline and Molly said, "Oh Jeez. That's my Dorrie, if there's a complication she'll get tangled in it. I'd better get on down there."

"Bad move," said Joe. "Especially with the little girl. All they'll do is start questioning you and get the Social in to take care of Feelie. No, Dorrie needs a lawyer."

"You're joking! That's how all her trouble started in the first place!"

This time we'll try a woman," said Joe.

He was lucky. Butcher had decided to close at midday because it was New Year's Eve, which meant that she was just about finished halfway through the afternoon. Her first response was No wayl but when she heard the details she said, "Oh h.e.l.l. Poor Lucy. OK, I'll come."

He met her outside the police station to fill her in on detail he hadn't wanted to bring up in front of Molly.

She said, The b.a.s.t.a.r.d. I always knew he thought with his d.i.c.k but I let Lucy persuade me he was beginning to give his brain a chance."

This did happen before he got involved with Lucy," Joe pointed out. "And at least he didn't walk away from the girl when she had his kid."