"So why was she worried when Potter could just have gone out the back way which, if his car wasn't parked out front, seems the most likely explanation?"

"She had a feeling something was wrong," said Chivers.

"Sort of feminine intuition?" offered Joe.

"No. Sort of feeling anyone might get when an aggressive little black man bursts in, rushes upstairs, starts throwing furniture about, and storms out shouting stuff about killing people," said Chivers.

"Yeah, well, we've been through all that, Sarge," said Joe. "So what's she do now?"

"She goes upstairs, goes into Potter's room, and finds him lying by his desk, dead as a doornail."

"And how'd he die?"

"Neck broken. No sign of a struggle. One quick professional twist. That's what really got you off the hook, Sixsmith."

"Why so?"

"Because I got my Black Belt boy to check with Mr. Take-ushi who told him, wrapped up in Oriental politeness, of course, that after six lessons you still couldn't punch your way out of a paper bag, let alone inflict damage on a fully grown man with all his limbs and senses about him. So now, sod off, Sixsmith, and let me get on with some real detection!"

Four.

Joe woke up next morning knowing exactly who had killed Peter Potter.

Or at least having a vague idea who might possibly, all else being equal, have had something to do with his death.

It was hard experience had taught Joe to approach his certainties with this degree of caution. He'd seen so much solid ground dissolve beneath his feet he could have freelanced as an oil drill. But as he worked his way through the Full British Breakfast, which was his patriotic way of starting each new day, he could detect no flaws in his logic.

He went through it again.

He had left Potter alive and well though in a lousy temper.

Twenty minutes later he was dead, his neck broken by someone who knew how to do that sort of thing.

The only other person definitely in the building was Sandra lies, who had claimed to be expert in the neck-breaking arts and had given Joe himself a fair example of her skills.

She had found herself with a great opportunity of offing Potter with a short-odds prime suspect all laid on. Or maybe she had killed the guy on the spur of the moment and got the idea of fingering the pathetic little black man later. Didn't matter. Nor did motive. They were business colleagues which, like marriage, is notoriously a relationship in which incentives to murder are offered daily.

So why look further?

The only trouble was, if he could think of it, almost certainly Chivers had thought of it too.

He rang the station to check.

Chivers wasn't in yet, he'd had a late night, yawned D C Dylan Doberley unsympathetically.

"So how's it going, d.i.l.d.o?" asked Joe. Doberley was a friend, or at least a fellow member of the Boyling Corner Choir where he atoned for being a materialistic, lecherous, C of E dropout by possessing a natural ba.s.so prof undo "Slowly," said Doberley. "Word is, there's a thaw in the Cairngorms, the DCI's wife is more irritating than his flu, and the Super's holiday firm's gone bust, so poor old Chivers's dreams of glory are fading pretty d.a.m.n fast."

"Nothing then? No arrests, no suspects?" enquired Joe.

"Only you. I'd go into hiding, he's getting really desperate."

"Thanks, d.i.l.d.o. I may do that. See you at choir practice."

Joe put the phone down and said, "You hear that, Whitey? Time running out for poor old Chivers, but I don't see why I shouldn't grab a slice of that glory."

Whitey, who had grabbed a slice of fried bread, chewed sneeringly.

"Just you wait and see," said Joe.

Wait and see what? was the question which the cat or any sentient being might legitimately have asked, but Joe was able to postpone essaying an answer by his awareness that while glory might exalt the ego, it took paying customers to feed the flesh. Miss Jones was probably a wind-up, but he couldn't afford to neglect the chance she was for real.

He arrived in Robespierre Place at eight forty-five, parked the Magic Mini round the corner, and walked back to Peck House with Whitey slouching at his heels, disconsolate to discover they weren't about to launch another a.s.sault on Mirabelle's prize turkey.

Peck House, named for Alderman Peck who had conducted himself as chairman of the council's planning committee and as chief shareholder in the firm which got the contract to develop this and many other sites with an aplomb which didn't desert him during his later appearances in the dock, was a nineteen sixties that-was-the-future-that-was building, only saved from the high-rise demolition boom of the eighties by the fact that the Alderman's luck ran out shortly after the third floor. Hastily capped and redirected from residential to office use on the grounds that, while in five years it probably wouldn't be fit for even the most desperate of council tenants the kind of businesses driven to seek a base in Robespierre Place couldn't afford to be so finicky it loured disdainfully at the stolid Victorian terrace opposite like a misunderstood romantic hero.

Its frowning exterior was reflected on the face of a man lurking in the doorway, though any claims he had to be romantic were well hidden. About five and a half feet tall, and almost as much across the shoulders, he might have got close to six feet if G.o.d had given him the usual proportion of neck. Perhaps the material saved here had gone into the formation of his ears which were large, pasty-grey, and wrinkled, reminding Joe of something he'd seen in a packet down the Chinese supermarket.

He was wearing a tracksuit and trainers. Perhaps, thought Joe, who always tried to look on the bright side, he was a British heavyweight out on a training run who'd stopped for a rest and a smoke.

Why was the bright side always fantasy?

The man was blocking his path. Purposefully.

"Sixsmith?" he growled or rather shrilled, in a surprisingly high voice which was nonetheless menacing.

That's right," said Joe. "It's not Miss Jones, is it?"

To his surprise, instead of breaking him in two, the man said, "Just Jones. Inside."

Taking this as instruction rather than a.n.a.lysis, Joe pushed open the door and stepped in. He glanced round to see if the man was following but he remained on the step glaring down at Whitey who returned the glare with interest.

"It's OK," said Joe. "He's with me."

Despite a slight weakness round the knees, he ignored the lift and headed for the stairs. Whitey never used the lift on the grounds that his life was far too valuable to entrust to a piece of machinery installed by Alderman Peck. Joe, no great lover of exercise, usually thought it a risk worth taking, but the fear of being followed into that rickety tin box by that slab of flesh and bone on the doorstep sent him heading for the stairway.

But his fears were groundless. The street door closed and the man remained outside.

His relief only lasted to the final half landing. Whitey as usual had nimbled ahead of him, but as Joe turned the final bend he saw the cat had halted in his I'm-going-to-get-me-a-wildebeest crouch.

Oh shoot, thought Joe. There's someone else up here.

He thought of a discreet retreat, but memory of what stood on his doorstep plus shame that he should be revealed as scareder than a cat combined to move him onward and upward. But pride did not inhibit him from calling, "h.e.l.lo. Someone up there?"

"Mr. Sixsmith? Is that you?"

The voice was if anything pitched lower than the neck less monster's, but undeniably and very pleasingly female. A figure advanced from the shadows of the landing.

"Miss Jones?" said Joe.

"Sort of," said the woman.

She too was wearing a baggy tracksuit, but with the hood up. Now with a little shake of the head she tossed it back to reveal a face he just had time to start to recognize before Whitey made his move. From a standing start he got up to maximum knots in a couple of strides, then leapt up at the woman's long throat.

"Whitey!" yelled Joe in alarm.

But it was too late. The cat hit the woman in the chest, caught his claws in the tracksuit top, relaxed into her cradling arms and lay there, looking up, four paws in the air, purring like a chocolate-box kitten.

It was quite revolting, like Boris Karloff playing Little Lord Fauntleroy.

"Now aren't you a beauty then?" she said, nuzzling her nose against his head.

And Joe said, "He thinks so. And aren't you Zak Oto, the runner?"

That's right," she said. "Are you coming up or do you interview all your clients on the stairs?"

In the office, seated on the chair which didn't fall to pieces if you leaned back too hard, Zak Oto said, "Sorry about the Miss Jones thing on the answer phone but I couldn't be certain who'd hear the message. Thing is, Mr. Sixsmith, I'm being threatened and I need someone to take care of it."

She flashed him the multi-megawatt smile which made her as big a hit on billboards and screen as her legs did on the track. She was already the Bloo-Joo girl and word had it that Nymphette were after her to front up their new range of popular sports clothing. Even dressed in a baggy tracksuit she looked a million dollars, which was probably a lot less than she was going to be worth.

Joe was making a production number of looking round his office.

"Something up, Mr. Sixsmith?" she asked.

"Just checking there's no one here but me and my cat. Which of us did you see for the job, Miss Oto?"

She gave him the smile again, perfect white teeth gleaming in a face so black she made Joe feel like a crypto Caucasian.

"Hey, you do jokes too like a real PI."

"I am a real PI," said Joe. "What I'm not is a minder. I'm ten pounds over my recommended weight which I can't punch anyway, and though I'm growing through my hair, I'm short for my size. You'd be better off with Whitey here. Compared with me he's a fighting machine."

The fighting machine snuggled up against the athlete's bosom and purred complacently. Joe didn't blame him. In the same position he guessed he'd be feeling pretty complacent too.

She said, "Perhaps if you just listen to me a moment, Mr. Sixsmith?"

"OK," said Joe. "Long as you understand, you may be tipped for a world record next season, but if some guy came after us both with a meat cleaver and bad att.i.tude, you'd be looking at my heels."

Now she laughed out loud. It was a real pleasure making her laugh. It came out dark and creamy like draught Guinness and set up a turbulence beneath the tracksuit upon which Whitey bobbed with undisguised sensuality.

"Must try that some day," she said. "But seriously, Mr.

Sixsmith, I'm not here looking for a minder. I've got all the minder I need. You probably saw him downstairs."

"No neck and ears like Chinese mushrooms?"

"That's him. He really is called Jones. Starbright Jones."

"Starbright? You're joking?"

"You think that's funny, you'd better keep it to yourself," she said. "He's Welsh and doesn't care to be laughed at."

"Sorry," said Joe, who knew all about racial sensibilities. "So if you've got Mr. Jones, what are you doing here?"

"Trying to tell you what I'm doing here," she said with an irritation which didn't make her any the less attractive. "Starbright's fine for fighting off trouble if and when it happens. What I really want is someone who'll take care of the ifs and the whens. Someone who'll stop it happening."

She paused. Joe nodded encouragingly though he didn't much care if she went on talking or not. Miss Poetry in Motion the papers called her, but even in repose a man could spend his time less poetically than just staring at her. From her earliest appearances on the track she'd been the pride of Luton, a pride not din ted when last autumn, after equalling the British 800 metres record, instead of starting an art foundation course at South Beds Inst.i.tute, she had accepted a sports scholarship in the Fine Arts Faculty of Vane University, Virginia. Word from over the water was that her American coach wanted her to move up to the mile and 1500 metres, and was forecasting she would be rewriting the record books in the next couple of seasons. Locals would have the chance to make their own a.s.sessment on New Year's Day at the grand opening of the new Luton Pleasure Dome. With its art gallery, theatre, olympic-size swimming pool, go-kart track, climbing wall, cinema, skating rink and sports hall, the Plezz, as it was known, had carved a huge chunk out of both the green belt and the council's budget. But with the town's own golden girl not only performing the official opening, but also running in an invitation 1000 metres on the indoor track it would take a very bold environmental or economic protester to attempt disruption.

Joe realized the girl hadn't just paused, she was waiting for him to ask an intelligent PI-type question.

He said, "Miss Oto ..."

"Call me Zak," she said. "And I'll call you Joe. OK?"

Zak. Funny name, but he didn't need to ask where it came from. The papers had told him her real name was Joan, but when she started running almost as soon as she started walking, her athletics-mad father had started referring to her proudly as 'my Zatopek' which her childish tongue had rendered as Zak.

"OK. Zak, this being threatened you mentioned, is this just a general feeling you have or something specific?"

She said. "You worried I may just be another neurotic woman, Joe?"

"Just encouraging you to tell me what you're doing here, Zak," he said.

"I'm trying. OK, you know I'm running at the Plezz New Year's Day?"

"Does Rudolf know it's Christmas?" said Joe.

She didn't smile but went on, "Boxing Day, I got a call. It was sort of a husky voice, maybe a woman trying to sound like a man, or could've been a man trying to sound like a woman "What did it say?" urged Joe.

"It said, wasn't Christmas a wonderful time with everyone trying to help everybody else out, and this was why she was ringing let's call it her, OK? because some friends of hers wanted to do me a great big favour, and they'd expect nothing in return except a very little favour from me. Well, by now I was beginning to think I'd got myself a weirdo. They come crawling out once your name gets in the papers, you know."

"So why'd you keep on talking?" asked Joe.

"I got curious, I guess. Besides she didn't sound threatening. Just the opposite, nice and concerned. She said she'd heard about the Nymphette deal you know about that?"

"I saw something in the papers," said Joe. "Tell me."

"It's just something my agent's setting up. Nymphette do perfume and cosmetics, but now they're branching out into a range of casual and sportswear and they want me to be front girl for them. Wear the scent and model the clothes."

"I look forward to the commercial," said Joe gallantly. "So what did your caller have to say about this?"

"Just that she hoped nothing would happen to stop me clinching the deal. Like I say, she sounded really nice. Even when she told me the little favour her friends wanted, it came over so reasonable sounding, I had to ask her to say it twice."

"So what was it?" asked Joe.

"She said her friends would be very grateful if I didn't win the race on New Year's Day."

"Shoot," said Joe. "Some little favour! So what was the big favour she was going to do in return?"

"She said that her friends would let me have the rest of my career and my family the rest of their lives," said Zak Oto.