He thought of telling Naysmith that Beryl was sitting waiting for him in the Magic Mini, but aborted the idea almost before conception. Either Naysmith wouldn't believe him. Or he would check, and Beryl would be pulled into this mess by his side. Road accident, easy to fake, particularly when the driver had so much alcohol swilling around inside his veins.

The hands were taking, a grip on his head.

He said, "Which one of them goes?"

Lucy had come back into the room and poured herself a whisky. Her expression was still faraway, dreamy. She was probably planning outings and birthday parties and Christmas treats. She was so certain of her future now that she could afford to be patient and wait for the final farewells to be taken upstairs.

Naysmith said, "Don't know. To be honest, it's not a choice I want to make. All the others, there really was no choice. But this ... look, what would you do?"

"Me. I expect I'd ring the Samaritans," said Joe.

"That's why you'd never have made a half-decent PI, Sixsmith," said Naysmith, tightening his grip on Joe's head. His hands felt really strong, which was a comfort. One quick twist and it should be over.

The telephone rang.

"Leave it!" snapped Naysmith.

But it was too late. Lucy had picked it up.

She listened and said, "Someone wanting a taxi."

The hands relaxed, let go of his head.

Naysmith said, "Give it here," and went to the desk.

Joe shouted after him, "Promise me you'll look after my cat."

Naysmith took the phone, said, "p.i.s.s off!" into the mouthpiece and banged it down.

"What did you say about your cat?" he asked.

"Just wanted to be sure someone would take care of it," said Joe.

Touching. Me, I can't stand the brutes," said Naysmith, moving back towards him.

Figures, thought Joe, casting round desperately for something else to keep the guy talking. Nothing came to mind. Fortunately his mind had a mind of its own.

He said, "One more thing, the phone reminded me, there was a message, couple of days back. Sounded like a guy I know. Doug Endor, the sports agent."

"So what about it?" said Naysmith, puzzled.

Joe didn't know what about it. His meandering mind which seemed incapable of fixing on his very real and immediate problems had just casually registered whose voice the call had reminded him of.

He said, "Nothing really. Just like to know, if we've got a moment to spare, what it was he wanted. Sort of last request, like in the movies."

Naysmith shook his head and began to laugh.

"Sixsmith, I'll be almost sorry to lose you. I swear if I was really rich, I'd dress you in motley and keep you around as my clown. But OK, last request. It will only take a minute to tell you and what difference is a minute going to make now?"

As it happened it made a great deal of difference to all kinds of people. Princ.i.p.ally to Joe Sixsmith whom it kept alive.

This was because it gave sixty more seconds to Beryl Boddington who, growing tired of waiting, had strolled up Naysmith's driveway, noted Dorrie McShane standing at an upstairs window with her daughter, wandered along the side of the house, glimpsed Joe through a crack in a curtain sitting in an armchair with his head bleeding, ran across the road to Willie Woodbine's villa, demanded to speak to anyone sober in the house, and while she was waiting picked up the phone, dialled Naysmith's number from the s.e.xwith flier, and asked for a taxi. When she heard Joe's voice in the background asking for someone to take care of his cat, she had rounded on Woodbine with a sobering ferocity and ordered him to accompany her across the road. His wife, Georgina, opposed the move strongly on the grounds that it had taken her best social endeavours over many years to persuade her high-cla.s.s neighbours that they need feel neither ashamed nor afraid of having a flatfoot in their midst. All this good work, she averred, would be destroyed if he marched into someone's house unannounced at dead of night, to invite them to help with his enquiries. "Point taken, Georgie," declared one of the hard-drinking senior officers who were inevitably the princ.i.p.al survivors of the party. "But it is New Year, isn't it?"

Upon which hint they acted; and over the road in Naysmith's study, as the big lawyer finished satisfying Joe's curiosity, and tightened his grip on his head prior to sending him in search of cosmic clues as to what it was all about, the door burst open to admit a gaggle of drunken cops, many of them clutching bottles in one hand and lumps of coal in the other, who cried, "First-foot! Happy New Year to one and all!"

To which Joe replied, from the top of his head and the bottom of his heart, "And a Happy New Year to all of you also!"

Twenty-Seven.

The eastern sky was growing pale and Joe Sixsmith had long been sober by the time he got to bed.

Making things clear to the police had never been one of his natural talents, and when the police in question were drunk as skunks, it seemed as if it might be quite impossible.

Naysmith was charming, urbane, a touch surprised, a mite indignant, and admitting nothing. Joe's bleeding head and fishing-line bonds he put down to his wife who, he explained to Woodbine, had been in an excitable if not to say unstable condition ever since the arrival of Dorrie McShane and the child. These two were found, locked in the nursery, a necessary precaution, Naysmith claimed, until he had calmed his wife down.

Joe kept on repeating over and over, "He was there at Poll-Pott's pretending to be Potter," but no one seemed very inclined to take in this piece of clinching evidence. Indeed, at one stage it seemed possible (though Woodbine later claimed he was hallucinating) that he would be locked up and Naysmith would go over the road to join the party. Then Lucy saw Dorrie and Feelie leaving the house.

Her explosion of fury, grief, despair, shocked everyone sober. Finally she flung herself at her husband's feet, clasped her arms round his legs and pleaded, "You promised, you promised, you promised "Sorry about this," said Naysmith to the silent onlookers. "As you can see, she needs help. Come on, old girl. Pull yourself together. How about a nice cup of tea?"

Which was his fatal mistake. He should have chosen his words for his wife, not for his audience.

Lucy went very still, then slowly pushed herself upright and said in a level controlled voice, "You b.a.s.t.a.r.d. It's all been one of your little juggling acts, hasn't it? He likes to juggle women, money, murder because it confirms how much cleverer he is than the rest of us. I knew, I knew, really I always knew, but I let myself be fooled because I wanted so very, very much to have For a moment it looked as if she would break down again, then she regained control and said, "So which of you gentlemen do I make my statement to?"

The police might have hung on to Joe even longer if Beryl hadn't insisted that he needed medical treatment and driven him away.

He got the treatment, not at the hospital but from the Magic Mini's medical kit in the car park of the Kimberley Hotel.

"Bet we look like a kinky courting couple," said Joe.

"Bang on the head doesn't improve your jokes," said Beryl. "That'll have to do. Now tell me what the h.e.l.l we're doing here?"

"Someone I need to see," said Joe. "Call it first-footing."

It took a deal of hammering to bring Abe Schoenfeld to the door of his room. He didn't look pleased to see Joe, but it was Mary Oto who appeared behind him who really verbalized their displeasure.

Joe hadn't been brought up to indulge in slanging matches with women, especially not mother-naked women, so he stood there silent, waiting for the storm to rage itself out. But Beryl had no such inhibitions.

"Listen, sister," she said. "Why don't you b.u.t.ton your lip and cover your b.u.t.t? My man's vegetarian and can't stand the sight of raw meat before breakfast."

Joe registered my man and quite liked it. Mary stopped in mid word. Guessing this pause might be only temporary, Joe quickly got in, "I don't work for Endor. I do work for Zak. All I want is for her to win and be happy. If that's what you want too, we ought to talk."

Abe looked at him for a long moment then said, "OK. You got five minutes. Come in and talk."

It took longer than five minutes and long before he finished, Mary Oto had put on a robe and taken off her expression of implacable distrust.

At the centre of Joe's discourse was what Felix Naysmith had told him about Doug Endor.

"Remarkable chap," he'd said with apparently genuine admiration. "Next to no education, yet he can run rings round most people. You haven't been tangling with him, I hope, Mr. Sixsmith. I imagine he could walk rings round you."

"He recommended me for a job," said Joe defensively.

"Really? Then I imagine it was a job he didn't want done," laughed Naysmith.

You reckon? thought Joe. Well, I got this close to you, didn't I?

Which, when he came to examine it, was little consolation.

Keep him talking, he heard Endo Venera urge. Good advice. And besides, he was getting very bad feelings about Mr. Douglas Endor, that cheery c.o.c.kney vulture.

"You act for him then, do you?" he enquired. "He didn't sound like he thought you were doing such a hot job."

"Alas, even I cannot always mend what someone else has broken," said Naysmith. "In his early days he employed some East End shyster who was probably OK for small-time fiddles. I glanced at the contract he drew up between Bloo-Joo and this girl athlete, Oto. It creaked and groaned, but it did permit Endor to cream off an extra two or three per cent on top of his agreed commission without too much chance of detection. But Endor is bright enough to know that he needs a really expert hand to work on this new contract he's negotiating now the girl's. .h.i.tting the big time, so naturally he came to me."

"That would be the Nymphette deal?"

"You know about it?" said Naysmith, surprised. "Then even you will have worked out it's going to be worth really big money and our friend, Endor, wanted to be sure he could plunge his hands in deep and still be able to face it out if anyone started asking questions."

"How does that work?" said Joe.

Despite his own desperate situation, he was genuinely interested and perhaps it was this plus Naysmith's delight in his own cleverness which made Naysmith carry on.

"What you have to understand is that all that Nymphette are concerned about is those parts of the contract which tie the girl up to do exactly what they require of her. They know exactly how much they're paying, of course, but the way that money is distributed is none of their concern."

"Even if they suspect her agent's a crook?" said Joe indignantly.

"Please, Mr. Sixsmith. He is her agent. They have already paid him a large sweetener in the form of a retainer in return for his guarantee that she will sign up with them."

"And here's me thinking putting in new gaskets was dirty work," said Joe. "What did you have to do to earn your money, Mr. Naysmith?"

"Me. Oh nothing really. Just design a whole chicane of riders and subclauses, addenda and annexes, which would make it virtually impossible for any two experts to agree just how much money there should be in any given place at any given time. Really fine legal work. I'm sorry I shan't get the chance to complete it."

"You mean you're doing a runner after all?" said Joe with sudden hope.

"Don't be silly," he said, touching Joe's head almost affectionately. "I shall be around, but I doubt if Mr. Endor will, at least as far as completing the Nymphette deal is concerned. When the girl signed up with him she was not so naive as to agree to anything more than a three-year contract, renewable only by mutual agreement. Of course if I'd had the writing of it, it would still have taken her ten years and the House of Lords to get herself free. But his shyster did it. Too late he asked me to look at it. Just before Christmas I sent him my reply, saying if she wanted out, there was no way to stop her and his best hope was to make sure the girl loved him so much, she stayed. From the tone of his message, I get the impression the girl has got wind of what an irredeemable crook he is and unless he can bind her in legally, which he can't, she'll be off, and the only thing he'll be getting from Nymphette is a solicitor's letter asking for the sweetener back."

"Oh shoot," said Joe. "What a mess!"

"What a kind-hearted man you must be," said Naysmith curiously. To be so concerned about such an unworthy fellow when your own situation is so parlous."

"It's not Endor I'm concerned about," said Joe.

"Anyone," said Naysmith. "I almost feel a sense of moral pride at being the one to put you out of your altruistic misery."

"At which point," said Joe, looking towards Beryl with heartfelt grat.i.tude, 'the cavalry arrived."

But the two lovers weren't very interested in his marvelous escape.

"Will Naysmith testify to this?" asked Mary eagerly.

"Doubt if he'll be able to spare the time," said Joe. "But who needs his testimony? I'll tell Zak."

Beryl regarded him with fond pride. Here was a guy so honest he couldn't grasp that other people might not accept what he told them as gospel. And he was right! What got him out of much of the c.r.a.p he kept falling into with the police and others wasn't hard evidence, good alibis, or smart lawyers, it was that light of honesty which burnt in him, steady as the flame in a storm lamp. She'd shifted her judgement of the lovers, especially Mary, into neutral till she saw where Joe's exchange with them was taking him. Now she watched for their reaction, poised for either reverse or forward.

They exchanged glances, then Abe nodded and Mary said, "I think that should do the trick OK. But just give it her plain. I've tried coming at it sideways, which turned out to be a mistake."

"Don't know any other way but plain," said Joe. "What exactly is it you've been trying to tell her anyway?"

That Endor's ripping her off and she ought to dump the b.a.s.t.a.r.d first chance she gets!" declared Mary.

Her story. She and Abe had fallen for each other almost the first time they met and it was from Abe she discovered that Endor had asked for and got a substantial sweetener for advising Zak to accept the Vane University offer. This had prompted her to start looking more closely at the financial detail of the agent's relationship with Zak.

"He plays things like this pretty close to his chest, but I had a secret weapon. Our Eddie. He accessed Endor's private accounts and the Bloo-Joo account and I got a lot of pointers to what was going on, but nothing so definite I could show it to the law. Or even to Zak. Trouble is she's a really loyal person. I know that better than most. That was the mistake I made. "Stead of talking to her straight, I started trying to persuade her in simple commercial terms she'd be better off with someone else. At least two of the top sports agencies in the world are keen to sign her up, and with them the sky's the limit. But all that that did was push Zak's loyalty b.u.t.ton. Endor had taken her on when she was n.o.body and it would be a p.i.s.sy thing to do to drop him soon as she started making it big. As for me, I was being disloyal too, ratting on the guy who was paying my wages. More I argued, more I must've sounded like sourpuss Mary, the lousy loser."

Joe thought he could see how this might happen. Zak was no dumbhead, she knew what a deal of resentment must be swilling around inside her sister, which was why she had this deep down fear she might be mixed up in the betting scam. So anything Mary said about Endor would be looked at sideways and backwards. But now Mary claimed that she'd finally got copies of papers in Endor's private files which proved beyond doubt that the agent was on the fiddle.

That's what you were celebrating when I listened in on you in the locker room?" grinned Joe, and had the satisfaction of seeing Mary blush. "OK," he went on. "One thing's clear, Endor knows you're on to him else he wouldn't be getting so het up that Naysmith couldn't find a way round Zak's get-out option. Wouldn't have mattered too much if he could have got the Nymphette deal through before they split. I'd guess that an agent still keeps collecting for the old deals he set up even after he's been fired. But someone else will get the benefit of all his wheeling and dealing there and that must really have hurt. That's what probably pushed him into this gambling fix. Zak might be waving him goodbye, but at least he'd make a killing by getting her to throw the race, plus the satisfaction of seeing her humiliated before her home crowd."

They considered this a.n.a.lysis for a moment.

Mary said, "I guess I wasn't as fairy-footed as I thought, tiptoeing around his records."

"Don't blame yourself. He's really sharp," said Joe.

Like Naysmith, he thought. Both top guns in their villainies. Both guys with the kind of brains which worked out how to land soft even as they were falling off a skysc.r.a.per. And Joe Sixsmith nailed them both!

With a little help from his friends, he added modestly.

"So what do we do now?" said Abe. "We'd decided we didn't want to lay this stuff on Zak before the race. Now it makes even more sense to wait. Ironic if explaining why it's OK to win should upset her so much she loses."

This was more or less what Endor had said, recalled Joe. Sharp cookie.

"Could she lose?" he asked.

"This is no knock-over," said Abe. "She's up against some top names who wouldn't be unhappy at knocking the home favourite off her perch. She'll need to be close to her best."

"OK," said Joe. "I'll talk to her. Tell her it's all sorted, no problem, all details later."

And I'll make sure she understands none of her family are involved, except on her side, he added to himself.

"And Endor?" said Mary. I'll talk to him, shall I? My pleasure."

"No," said Joe. "I'll do that too. Better not to let it look personal, OK?"

Mary looked ready to give him a row but when Abe said, "He's right, lover," she caved in. Oh, the power of true love, thought Joe.

That just about wraps it up," he said. "Now we'd better all head for bed else none of us is going to be around to see Zak run!"

At the door, Mary came up to him and said, "All that c.r.a.p I spewed out earlier, I'm sorry, OK?" And kissed him.