"Hi, Eddie, this is Joe," said Zak.

The boy didn't look round but ran his fingers over the keyboard. The screen blanked then filled with the word h.e.l.lO!

That's the most you'll get," said Zak, pulling Joe away. "Unless he decides you're electronically interesting. He hardly acknowledged me when I got back, then Christmas morning among my prezzies I found a print-out with details of my last drug test plus those of every other top-flight woman I was likely to come up against."

"Is that useful?" said Joe.

"No, but it's amazing," said Zak.

As they came down the stairs, Joe heard a man's voice saying, "So what's he doing in my bedroom?"

Zak ran lightly into the lounge and said, "Hi, Dad. My fault. I was showing Joe the house and we were just admiring the view."

"Of the houses opposite, you mean? Strange tastes you've got, girl."

Henry Oto was a tall athletically built man with a square determined face. Zak had got his height and her mother's looks. Her sister had got her mother's size and her father's looks. You never know how the genes are going to come at you, thought Joe.

He knew from the papers that Oto was a senior prison officer at the Stocks, Luton's main jail. Remember, no escape jokes.

He said, "Hi, Mr. Oto. I'm helping Zak out, fetching and carrying, you know."

Oto said, "Fetching and carrying what?"

Joe shrugged and looked to Zak for help. Clearly her father lacked her mother's courteous acceptance of the vagaries of her daughter's new lifestyle. That's what came of a.s.sociating with criminals.

Zak said, "You don't want your finely tuned daughter straining her back picking up her holdall, do you?"

Oto said, "Can't see how you're going to break records if you can't carry your own gear." But he was smiling fondly as he said it and Joe guessed that Zak had always been able to twine him round her little finger.

To Joe he said, "Haven't I seen you before, Mr. er ... ?"

"Sixsmith," mumbled Joe. "But just call me Joe, Mr. Oto."

Joe had always tried to keep his face out of the papers, even on those few occasions when they wanted to put it in. Not much use in being a PI if everyone seeing you said, "Hey, ain't you that PI?" But a photo had appeared recently in connection with one of his cases and presumably Oto took a special interest in anything to do with his prospective customers.

Mrs. Oto said, "I'd better go and see to our meal. Mr. Sixsmith, if you'd like to stay ... ?"

"No, thank you kindly," said Joe. It was doubtless a token offer but the woman didn't make it sound token. He gave her a big smile then turned to Zak and said, That everything for now?"

That's right. I'll see you out."

She followed him into the hallway. Starbright was standing there. No one else in the house seemed to pay him the slightest attention so Joe didn't either.

"Has that been any help?" said Zak.

"I'm working on it," said Joe.

The front door burst open and Mary came in. She didn't speak but gave Joe a look of fury and ran up the stairs. There was no trace of a limp.

Zak said, "So what now?"

"Don't know," said Joe. "All I can do is keep prodding. You want me to go with it?"

Keep it simple, keep it honest. It wasn't so much a strategy as an inevitability.

She said, "Of course I do. You can contact me here or down the Plezz."

Starbright said, "You in for the night, Miss Oto?"

"Yes, I think so."

"You change your mind, you've got the number."

The two men went out through the door which Mary hadn't bothered to close.

"Give you a lift?" said Joe.

"Once a day's enough. Anyway, I've got my own wheels, boyo. And they'll get me where I want a sight quicker than yours."

Joe thought this remark was merely auto-macho till he saw the Magic Mini. It was almost completely boxed in by Mary's Metro and Oto's Cavalier.

"Oh shoot," he said. He turned back to the house to get one of them to move but a noise made him look round.

Starbright had stooped in front of the Metro and was lifting its front wheels off the ground. He took two paces backwards and set the car down.

"Get yourself out of that now, can you?" he said.

"Yeah, sure. Thanks a lot."

"Can't have you hanging around, can we? Places to go, people to report to. Old friends to see."

How did he manage to make everything he said sound like a threat or an accusation? wondered Joe as he watched the Welshman roll away like a boulder down a hillside.

As he got into the car he glanced up at the house. Mary Oto was watching him out of an upstairs window.

He waved.

She didn't wave back.

Eight.

"Right, Sixsmith, just give me it straight," said Butcher.

Joe gave it straight. She listened intently, not interrupting. When the mood was on her she made a great listener.

Joe was very fond of Butcher, but there was nothing s.e.xy in it. Not that she wasn't attractive in a cropped-hair-no-make-up kind of way, and she had the great advantage of being shorter than he was. But she didn't press his b.u.t.ton. Maybe it was the cheroots that did it. Keeping company with someone who put out more smoke than Mount Etna wasn't his idea of a turn-on. But he admired her superior intelligence, delighted in her capacity to make him feel witty, valued her judgement, and was deeply moved by the way she cared for her clients.

She'd mock him mercilessly if he even hinted it, but when push came to shove, he'd go to the wall for Butcher.

She said, "Joe, you must be a great pain in the a.r.s.e to the police and I must say I've got some sympathy with them."

Joe said, "Hang about. I didn't do these killings."

"No, you just keep finding the bodies."

"Anyway, why so het up, Butcher? Or do you reckon someone's taken Mr. Shakespeare's advice and you could be next?"

He pointed at the notice on her wall.

She said, "Sixsmith, I knew these people."

"Sorry," he said. "But I didn't get the impression you were very close to Potter, and Sandra lies didn't come across as a big buddy either."

"What do you mean? She mentioned me?"

"No, but when I said you'd sent me, she sort of looked like I must be damaged goods."

For a second he thought Butcher was going to speak ill of the dead but she reduced it to, "Yes, Sandra was a great advocate of market forces. You're quite right, of course. We weren't great buddies, any of us. But like I told you, me and Pete had once been pretty close, and I couldn't get him out of my mind last night. Then when I came back and heard about Sandra For a second she looked like a forlorn fifteen-year-old, then she must have caught an expression of sympathy on Joe's face because she puffed out a great veil of smoke and said, "Also, one person I'm very fond of is Lucy, Felix Nay-smith's wife, and it does seem to me that if someone's declared open season on the firm, then Felix could be in danger too. So I rang the cops to make sure they'd worked it out too."

"And had they?"

"In a manner of speaking. That idiot Chivers is still holding the fort "I thought Willie Woodbine's holiday company had gone bust and he was on his way back?"

That's right," said Butcher, a smile lightening her sombre expression. "But it seems there's some problem about airport fees and the plane's having difficulty getting off the ground. Anyway, when I managed to get hold of Chivers he got very shirty and told me that it was all in hand. Mr. Naysmith had been fully informed."

She did a good imitation of the sergeant being pompous, making Joe smile.

"So he set your mind at rest?" he said.

"Like a line of c.o.ke," she said. "I thought I'd ring their cottage up on the Wolds. Couldn't find the number and as they're ex-directory I had a h.e.l.l of a job getting it out of the exchange'

"How'd you manage that?" interrupted Joe, following Endo Venera's advice never to miss a chance of acquiring specialist knowledge.

"The usual way. Lies, bribes and blackmail," said Butcher cagily.

"Just the kind of thing the Law Society expects from its members," said Joe. "How come you're getting up such a head of steam over this guy?"

"Not the guy. I don't even like Felix all that much. But Lucy's different, and she's had a lot of trouble ... her nerves were sort of shot a little way back, and I was concerned how she'd react to the news that some old friends and colleagues had been murdered."

"Colleagues? She a lawyer too?"

"No, but she was a legal secretary at Poll-Pott till she got married. Anyway, I finally got through to her. It was quite incredible, I'm thinking about putting in an official complaint about that moron Chivers. They'd gone out for a meal about an hour after Felix had spoken to Peter on the phone, the call you overheard. Got back in about eleven. Chivers had clearly given up trying to reach Felix by then and he probably forgot all about him this morning with the excitement of finding you yet again hanging around a body. So Felix turned up at Oldmaid Row at noon for the meeting he'd arranged with Peter and walked straight into the middle of things. Can you imagine it? They were close friends from way back at university, him and Peter. Drinking buddies, played in the second row together, that sort of thing."

"Violinists?" suggested Joe.

"Rugger!" snapped Butcher. This isn't funny, Sixsmith. It really shook Felix up. And when they told him about Sandra too ... well, he rang Lucy back at the cottage in a h.e.l.l of a state. The one good thing is that being cast in the role of comforter means Lucy's taking it all pretty well. It often works like that."

"Like when you get drunk with a mate," said Joe. Then seeing that the a.n.a.logy was not impressing Butcher, he hastily added, "She heading back home to hold his hand, then?"

"No. Felix has got the car, remember? He's going to head back up to Lincolnshire when the police have finished with him. It's just a couple of hours."

"And is he getting any protection?"

"Allegedly, though what that means coming from a turnip-head like Chivers, G.o.d knows. Still, he should be well out of the way back up there in the cottage. And even if he calls in at home, they've got a house almost directly opposite Willie Woodbine's on Beacon Heights, so they've probably got a whole task force permanently on duty there. Anyway, we might be overreacting. Two episodes don't make a serial."

They do till someone writes The End in big letters," retorted Joe.

"Cheer me up," said Butcher. "But it's still hard to believe."

That anyone could go gunning for a firm of lawyers? Why not? Spend your life messing with criminals, you're bound to make some enemies."

They didn't do that stuff," said Butcher. They're high-profile commercial, big corporate accounts mainly, not the kind of groups who work out their grudges physically."

"Anyone can get physical if you hit them in the pocket," said Joe. "It's called market forces. It would be interesting to check out who they've been giving b.u.m advice to."

"Yes, it would," said Butcher sternly. "And it's an interest you'd do well to leave entirely to the police. Especially when no one's paying you to poke around. Sixsmith, what the h.e.l.l is that?"

Joe had pulled his handkerchief out of his pocket. With it came a photograph which fluttered on to the desk, facing Butcher. He turned it round and examined it. Sandra lies, Peter Potter and their three other partners stared back at him.

"Oh shoot," he said. "I must have stuck it in my pocket when I was round at Ms Iles's place."

"You mean you stole it from the scene of a murder?"

"No, it was an accident," he answered indignantly. "I suppose I'd better give it back."

She shook her head, closed her eyes and said, "I shall deny ever having said this, but no, in the circ.u.mstances I'd just stick it on the fire. The less explaining you have to do the better."

"Fair enough," said Joe. "Matter of interest, I know Potter and lies, but not the others. Who's the nice old gent with the white hair?"

"You get one out of three," said Butcher. "That's Darby Pollinger and he's neither nice nor gentle. He's the senior partner and he eats widows and orphans for breakfast."

"And the guy with the whiskers?"

"Victor Montaigne. Half French and wholly freebooter. Known in the business as Blackbeard the Pirate."

Subtle these lawyers, thought Joe. Which left the blond Aryan as Naysmith, the living half of the second-row partnership. He stuck the photo back in his pocket.

That's it then, I hope," said Butcher. "Some of us have work to do."

"All of us. Thanks, Butcher."

"For nothing, unless you've stolen something," she said. "Get out of here."

Joe had been tempted to tell her about Zak, but that was paid work and also he felt he'd already slipped over the bounds of client confidentiality in his conversation with Hardiman. In any case, Butcher probably wouldn't be all that sympathetic. Watching people running, jumping and throwing things she rated a waste of time only slightly less culpable than watching people kick b.a.l.l.s. As for the Plezz, her indignation became almost a medical condition when she started on about the waste of public money and the incentive to local-authority corruption involved in the project.

Merv was the man to turn to if you wanted the sporting inside track. He loved games of all kinds, and worshipped the ground Zak Oto ran on.

Seeing Merv gave him an excuse to go to the Glit. Whitey indicated he had no objection, which was not surprising. Here he was a star.