'That what you call the best lay you've ever had, a great help?' said Beryl, pouting.

Pouting lips are made to be kissed and Joe obliged.

'You know what I mean. As for the other, some things go way beyond thanks.'

'Tell me about it,' she said invitingly.

'Oh, I will, I will. But not now.'

He dressed quickly before he could change his mind.

As he left, she called after him, 'Joe, don't know what you're going to do, but it will be the right thing. Be sure you come back and tell me all about that too.'

His heart was singing as he drove away.

Suddenly he had a feeling it was all going to be all right.

A Saving Bell.

Joe's joy slowly evaporated as he drove into Upleck.

It wasn't a bad suburb as suburbs go. The houses were spick and span, the well-tended gardens brandished a rich variety of bold coloured summer flowers at the sun, the streets were relatively litter free, and in daylight at least it looked like a place where a man could go for a stroll and expect to come back with his pocket and his person intact.

But the cord of memory which linked him to Beryl's lovely body stretched more and more tautly till finally it snapped as he turned into Lock-keeper's Lane.

As he approached No 15, he recalled his visit this morning when the silver Audi 8 had pulled out ahead of him and he'd gratefully turned into the vacated s.p.a.ce.

Now most of the parked cars had gone and there was ample room to stop. But he drove on past 15, following the route the Audi must have taken that morning.

Soon the houses had petered out and the road grew narrower as it ran into an area of scrubby countryside. A couple of lane ends made him slow down but they were so overgrown that it was plain no vehicle had forced a way through there recently, and in any case the brambles would have left their mark on the silver paintwork.

Finally the road came to the end promised by the sign two miles back which read No Thoroughfare, but he kept going after the tarmac ended, following a track that at first was broad and not too rough, but gradually became muddy and b.u.mpy as it ran into a copse of sun-stealing alder and willow where eventually further progress was barred by a high rusting metal fence.

This was the area known as Leck's Bottom.

In The Lost Traveller's Guide (the best-selling series devoted to places you were unlikely to visit on purpose) it merited a single paragraph.

Leck's Bottom is a stretch of boggy land covering approximately five hectares and acting as a sink for all the waste moisture of the surrounding area. Its unattractive ambience and noisome effluvia did not, however, daunt the Victorian engineers creating the LutonBedford Ca.n.a.l and for a while this useful waterway ran through the Bottom. Indeed, one of its most important locks was situated here. But such a situation required high maintenance and once the ca.n.a.l had outlived its usefulness the Bottom rapidly reverted to what it had been, or perhaps, because of the unsavoury traces of man's interference, something rather worse. A man would have to be a psychopath or a social historian to want to linger here. Certainly to find an example of the non-picturesque rural ruin more dreary and depressing than the old lock would be difficult, even in central Iraq.

Joe got out of the Morris. It was clear now where the mud on the Audi's tyres and Rowe's shoes had come from. Not even the week-long heatwave had been able to suck all the moisture out of this ground, and though the air was warm it still had a clammy feel that made your skin crawl.

Ahead behind the fence he could see what remained of the lock-keeper's cottage. There was no history of any dreadful event having taken place here, nothing to hang a ghost story on, but Joe recalled that according to Aunt Mirabelle, who had a great store of spine-chilling bedtime tales, some places could be haunted by their futures as well as their pasts. 'Like Mrs Orlando's bungalow in Brook Street. Even when she was cutting me a slice of her cherry cake and chattering away merrily about that doctor brother of hers in Freetown, I could feel she was haunting her own life, and that was five years or more before that psycho on early release broke in and slit her throat with the cake knife.'

On the fence was a sign, Fly Tippers Will Be Prosecuted. The good people of Luton like the good people of most other towns in England cannot see a hollow of any size from a ditch to a canyon without wanting to chuck their unwanted household rubbish into it. Joe sometimes felt that if ever he reached the end of the world and looked over, the first thing he'd see would be an old fridge. A few years ago, tipping at Leck's Bottom had become such a health hazard that the Council had moved in, cleared all the rubbish out and erected the fence and the warning sign. But there is nothing your true-Brit fly-tipper likes more than a challenge, and despite the fact that the Council had its own efficient bulk-waste collection service and easily accessible landfill site, and though the fence was kept in good repair, hardly a week pa.s.sed without some devotee of the sport hacking his way through with a pair of wire cutters, then dragging his defunct TV or washing machine twenty yards or so across rough boggy ground in order to drop it into the old lock basin.

Joe found such a hole now and made his way through it.

As well as being a great dumper, your true-Brit is a great scavenger, which explains the Empire, both what got taken out and what got left behind. Everything removable from the lock machinery had long since vanished, leaving only the huge basin which Nature herself had filled with murky water of a consistency somewhere between gumbo and grits, with none of the nutritional values of either.

Joe stood on the crumbling concrete edge and looked down. The surface was black and gave no reflection. He knew what he was looking for but didn't have much hope of finding it. The Audi had come down here, of that he was almost certain. And when it reached the Hoo car park, nothing remained in its boot. Except a patch of oil, which suggested to Joe that before coming to collect Steve Waring's belongings, Colin Rowe and his companion had already picked up the foldaway scooter.

Something as heavy as that would probably have been sucked into these dismal depths within minutes. But a bin bag with its fairly broad surface area, containing what Joe guessed would be the relatively lightweight contents of Waring's wardrobe and drawers, might stay close to the surface for some time.

He almost didn't spot it because the black plastic so closely matched the colour of the water. But there it was. At least he guessed that there it was. The only way of confirming the contents was to fish it out and there was no way he was going to attempt that. The sides of the basin were vertical and slimy. Man on his own who fell in there might as well sing 'Goodnight Vienna!', exhale his last breath and dive deep to get it over with quickly.

But it wouldn't be much of a problem to return with some kind of grappling iron and haul it out, then take its contents along to Mrs Tremayne and get that formidable lady to confirm they belonged to her errant lodger.

On second thoughts, that might not be so easy without official backing. Mrs Tremayne didn't strike him as a natural-born witness.

In any case, a witness to what? Suppose he even managed to get her to identify Colin Rowe, what did that prove? With King Rat in the background, and that ingenious lawyer, Arthur Surtees at his side, Rowe would probably be able to come up with some tale to explain his behaviour.

Whereas he, Joe Sixsmith, the People's gumshoe, couldn't come up with anything to positively link Waring doing a bunk to the case against Chris Porphyry. Should have spent more time trying to trace Waring, he told himself. Station, airport. But you needed more clout than he had to do that kind of thing properly. Besides, he'd only been on the case since yesterday!

And you spent most of that time reckoning it was going to take a miracle to rescue the YFG! he accused himself.

Well, way things stood, that seemed about right. With the Rules Committee meeting only hours away, things were as bad as they could get.

A noise behind him made him turn, and he saw that yet again he'd been wrong.

Things had just got worse.

Coming through the hole in the wire fence was Stephen Hardman.

'Afternoon, Joe,' said the man. 'All alone? What happened to your pet gorilla?'

'He's around, never you mind,' said Joe. Then he called out, even to his own ears not very convincingly, 'George, my man! You there?'

Hardman laughed.

'Good try. But he's not coming. I followed him down to Sullivan's Gym and saw him start on a training session which looked likely to keep him occupied for a good few hours. Nice mover for a big guy.'

He sounded laid back, but Joe registered that Jura.s.sic had scared him enough to make him want to be sure he was out of the picture before coming after his prey once more.

But how did he know where I'd be? he wondered.

One way to find out.

'How'd you know where I'd be?' he asked.

'Sat at the top of Lock-keeper's Lane till I saw you drive by,' said Hardman.

That signified ... something. Man should be able to work out what if he had time to sit and have a good ponder.

But pondering was for a comfy chair with a pint of Guinness in your hand. Standing here in Leck's Bottom with the lock basin behind you and in front of you a guy who'd tried to pull your goolies off last time you met, pondering anything but how the shoot you were going to get out of here wasn't on the agenda.

Hardman, who'd been slowly approaching, had halted only a few feet away. One leap forward, one hard push, and Joe could feel himself toppling over backwards into the foul depths of the basin.

Except all the guy wants to do is put me on my back for a few days, he reminded himself. Didn't push me over the balcony rail when he had the chance but pulled me back to safety. OK, he did it by grabbing my goolies, but as Aunt Mirabelle always says, it's the thought that counts.

Then he recalled his own subsequent a.n.a.lysis along the lines: PI getting a kicking, no one's fussed; PI's brains splattering over the pavement, even DS Chivers would take notice.

But PI vanishing without a trace ...

He knew from experience that when someone goes missing without any immediate evidence of foul play, it takes the cops forever to take an interest.

But what was there in this affair that would make offing Joseph g.a.y.l.o.r.d Sixsmith Esquire a possible option?

'So what are you doing here, Joe?' the man asked, sounding almost friendly.

How to answer? Lying wasn't his strong suit. He didn't have the O-levels. To sound really convincing he had to tell the truth, which in this case, he concluded hopefully, might just set him free.

'Don't rightly know,' he said. 'Got this idea this is where you and Mr Rowe must have come this morning after you drove off from Mrs Tremayne's.'

'And why should we do that?'

'Thought maybe it was to get rid of Steve Waring's things you'd just picked up.'

'Yeah? And why would we want to pick his things up? And if we did, why would we want to get rid of them?'

What was it with all the questions? wondered Joe. Hardman didn't strike him as the conversational type. Action first, ask questions later, if at all, that was more his line. Which meant maybe the questions were someone else's line.

No prizes for guessing whose.

And if King Rat was asking the questions, Joe had an uneasy feeling that his future wellbeing might depend on the kind of answers he gave.

He couldn't think of a lie better than the truth, so he stuck with it.

He said, 'I reckoned, maybe you paid him off or frightened him off and you didn't want anything left lying around to make people start asking, where's he gone then? So you paid him up to date at Mrs Tremayne's and put his gear in a bag and came down here to dump it.'

It was funny. It was the truth he was speaking, but somehow hearing himself say it out loud made him see how feeble it was.

Other possibilities began to swirl around in his mind. Like, what if Waring was a loose end they'd thought they'd got tied up till he'd come b.u.mbling along? And when it looked like he was taking an interest, they wouldn't know it was only because he couldn't see anything else to take an interest in. No, they'd think he must have a reason, and suddenly they started thinking maybe they'd better tie up their loose end a bit tighter.

He quickly put the lid on such speculations.

Keep it simple, Joe, he urged himself. Play it dumb. You're a poor, over-stretched PI who don't know shoot! Which was the truth of it because you couldn't call some foolish idea slowly rolling over in the murky basin of his subconscious knowing.

But those cold eyes, focused unblinkingly on his face, felt as if they had the power to penetrate beyond the bewildered openness of his expression into those dark depths he was trying to ignore.

The wise words of his guru, Endo Venera, came into his mind.

You find yourself on the wrong end of a gun, you gotta put yourself one step ahead of the guy holding it, which means seeing where he is going and letting him think he's one step ahead of you.

No gun here, but there might as well be one. Best he could hope if Hardman tried to push him over the edge was to delay matters by grabbing hold of the guy so that if he went, they both went. But he didn't doubt that Hardman had a dozen easy moves to dislodge an overweight under-fit middling-aged PI.

But playing it dumb didn't mean you had to come on like the village idiot. If, as he thought, he was in the situation because King Rat thought he was smart, then he had to act smart, but not so smart as they were!

He said, 'Hey, I was wondering, this guy in Spain I was meant to be watching, he wouldn't be Waring using another name, would he? All fits: get him out of the country, then get me out there to watch him. Kind of neat trick I can see Mr King pulling.'

Hardman stared for a moment then laughed.

'Joe, it's true what they say about you. You're a lot smarter than you look.'

Was this mockery because he'd been fooled? Or was it a genuine compliment, meaning Good try, but now I'm going to kill you?

A few more seconds should tell.

Then a phone rang. Not the Hallelujah chorus but the theme from Star Wars, for G.o.d's sake!

Hardman took out a phone, glanced at the display then said, 'Yeah?'

He listened, looked at Joe, said, 'Yeah, that's right.'

He listened again for some time, then said a third and final, 'Yeah, I think so.'

A final period of listening, and he said, 'OK. Will do,' and switched off.

'Joe,' he said. 'Nice talking to you. That was Mr King. Needs me elsewhere so I've got to love you and leave you, Joe. Listen, I wanted to say, sorry about that business in your flat earlier. Mr King was p.i.s.sed at you letting him down about the Spanish job, so he asked me to go round and make it clear, and I got a bit carried away. But he's over it now. He says if I see you to tell you, no hard feelings. But he'd like his stuff back, you know, the tickets and the euros. You got them with you?'

'In the car,' said Joe.

'I'll pick them up now then.'

Together they walked back towards the fence. With every step Joe took away from the lock basin, Leck's Bottom a.s.sumed a different aspect and began to feel like a very good place to be alive in.

When they reached the Morris, Joe dug out the green file and handed it over.

'Thanks,' said Hardman. 'One thing more, Joe. Don't know what it means myself, but Mr King says he'd heard on the grapevine that some little job you were doing out at the Royal Hoo Golf Club was going to turn out OK for your client. So all's well that ends well. Mr King says he's really impressed by what he's heard about the way you handled things there, and he looks forward to employing your services again some time in the future. Could mean you're a made man if Mr King puts the word around, capisce?'

Capisce? and Star Wars as his ring tone? This guy was a joke, thought Joe. But he decided to laugh later.

'Tell him I'm truly grateful,' said Joe. 'Truly, truly.'

He didn't have to try and fake it. His grat.i.tude was real. But it was limited to that phone call which had taken the decision away from Hardman.

Who clearly took it as going a lot further.

'Glad to have you on board again, Joe,' he said. 'Live well.'

He walked away towards his own car, a Mazda RX-8, bright red naturally, parked twenty yards further back.

Now would have been a good time to ponder. Better still would have been to ponder in the company of Butcher, and of Beryl, and even of Merv, and see how much their disparate views overlapped with his own a.s.sessment of what all this meant.