"You first, Hawksley. Let's just make sure there are no other little surprises." He ran expert hands over Hal, then did the same with Roz.

"Good." He gestured towards the door.

"Tell your minder to move his chair back to Reception and wait there."

He resumed his seat and waited while Hal relayed the message. After three minutes he used the telephone to establish that Wyatt was out of earshot.

"Now," he said thoughtfully, *there seem to be various courses open to me. One is to take you up on your offer." He picked up a ruler and flexed it between his hands.

"I'm not inclined to do that. You could have put the Poacher on the market at any time in the last six weeks but you didn't, and this sudden urge of yours to sell makes me nervous." He paused for a moment.

"Two, I can leave things to follow their natural course. The law is a joke and a slow joke at that, and there's only a fifty-fifty chance that Peter Crew's manipulations of Robert Martin's estate will surface before you sink." He bent the ruler as far as it would go without breaking, then released it abruptly.

"I'm not inclined to do that either. Fifty-fifty is too close to call." The pale eyes hardened.

"Three, and in many ways this is the most attractive, I can wish an unfortunate accident on the pair of you, thereby killing two birds with one stone." He flicked a glance at Roz.

"Your death, Miss Leigh, would put Olive and this book you're writing, temporarily at least, on a back burner, and yours, Hawksley, would ensure the Poacher coming on the market. A neat solution, don't you think?"

"Very neat," agreed Hal.

"But you're not going to do that either. There's still the child in Australia, after all."

Hayes gave a faint laugh. An echo of his father.

"So what are you going to do?"

"Give you what you came for."

Hal frowned.

"Which is?"

"Proof that you were framed." He pulled open a drawer in his desk and removed a transparent polythene folder. Holding it by its top corners he shook the contents a page of headed notepaper, showing creases where it had once been crumpled on to his desk. The printed address was a house in one of the more expensive parts of Southampton and written across the page in Crew's handwriting were a series of short notes: Re: Poacher Cost s Pre-culture bad meat, rat excrement etc 1,000 Key b/door + guaranteed exit France 1,000 Advance for set-up 5,000 If E H prosecution successful 5,000 Poacher foreclosure 80,000?

SUB-TOTAL 92,000.

Site offer 750,000 Less Poacher 92,000 Less 1 Wenceslas St .60,000 Less Newby's 73,000 TOTAL 525,000.

"It's genuine," said Hayes, seeing Hal's scepticism.

"Crew's home address, Crew's handwriting' he tapped the side of the note with his ruler *and his fingerprints. It's enough to get you off the hook but whether it's enough to convict Crew I don't know. That's your problem, not mine."

"Where did you get it?"

But Hayes merely smiled and shook his head.

"I'm an exsoldier. I like fall-back positions. Let's just say it came into my possession and, realising its importance, I pa.s.sed it on to you.

Hal wondered if Crew knew the sort of man he had hired.

Had this been intended for later blackmail?

"I don't get it," he said frankly.

"Crew is bound to implicate you. So will I. So will Miss Leigh. One way or another you and your brother will get done. Why make it easy for us?"

Hayes didn't answer directly.

"I'm cutting my losses, Hawksley, and giving you your restaurant back.

Be grateful."

"Like h.e.l.l, I'll be grateful," said Hal angrily. His eyes narrowed suspiciously.

"Who's behind this foreclosure racket?

You or Crew?"

"There's no racket. Foreclosures are a fact of life at the moment," said the other.

"Anyone with a little capital can acquire property cheaply. Mr. Crew was part of a small perfectly legal syndicate. Unfortunately, he used money that didn't belong to him."

"So you run the syndicate?"

Hayes didn't answer.

"No racket, my a.r.s.e," said Hal explosively.

"The Poacher was never going to come on the market yet you still bought up the properties on either side."

Hayes flexed the ruler again.

"You'd have sold eventually.

Restaurants are appallingly vulnerable." He gave a slight smile.

"Consider what would have happened if Crew had kept his nerve and sat it out till after your prosecution." His eyes hardened.

"Consider what would have happened if my brother had told me about the approach Crew made to him. You and I would never have had this conversation for the simple reason that you would not have known who to have it with."

The flesh crept on Hal's neck.

"The hygiene scam was going to happen anyway?"

The ruler, bent beyond endurance, snapped abruptly. Hayes smiled.

"Restaurants are appallingly vulnerable," he said again.

"I repeat. Be grateful. If you are, the Poacher will flourish."

"Which is another way of saying we must keep our mouths shut about your involvement."

"Of course." He looked almost surprised, as if the question went without asking.

"Because next time, the fire won't be confined to a chip pan, and you' his pale eyes rested on Roz - *and your lady friend won't be so lucky.

My brother's pride was hurt. He's itching to have another go at the pair of you." He pointed to the piece of notepaper.

"You can do what you like with Crew. I don't admire men without principle. He's a lawyer.

He had a duty to a dead man's estate and he abused it."

Hal, rather shaken, picked up the page by its corner and tucked it into Roz's handbag.

"You're no better, Hayes. You abused Crew's confidence when you told your father about Amber's child. But for that we'd never have put Crew in the frame." He waited while Roz stood up and walked to the door.

"And I'll make d.a.m.n sure he knows that when the police arrest him."

Hayes was amused.

"Crew won't talk."

"What's to stop him?"

He drew the broken ruler across his throat.

"The same thing that will stop you, Hawksley. Fear." The pale eyes raked Roz from head to toe.

"But in Crew's case, it's his grandchildren he loves."

Geon followed them out on to the pavement.

"OK," he ordered, *give. What the h.e.l.l's going on here?"

Hal looked at Roz's pale face.

"We need a drink."

"Oh, no, you don't," said Geon aggressively.

"I've paid my dues, Hal, now you pay yours."

Hal gripped him fiercely above the elbow, digging his fingers into the soft flesh.

"Keep your voice down, you cretin," he muttered.

"There's a man in there who would take out your liver, eat it in front of you, and then start on your kidneys. And he'd smile while he was doing it. Where's the nearest pub?"

Not until they were settled in a tight corner of the saloon, with empty tables all around them, was Hal prepared to speak.

He delivered the story in clipped, staccato sentences, emphasising Crew's role but referring to the intruders at the Poacher only as hired thugs. He finished by removing the note from Roz's handbag and laying it carefully on the table between them.

"I want this b.a.s.t.a.r.d screwed, Geon. Don't even think about letting him worm his way out of it."

Wyatt was sceptical.

"It's not much, is it?"

"It'll do."

Wyatt slipped the page into his notebook and tucked it into his jacket pocket.

"So where does STC Security fit in?"

"It doesn't. Hayes got hold of that note for me. That's the extent of his firm's involvement."

"Ten minutes ago he was going to eat my liver."

"I was thirsty."

Wyatt shrugged.

"You're giving me precious little to work with. I can't even guarantee you'll win the Environmental Health prosecution. Crew's bound to deny having anything to do with it."

There was a silence.

"He's right," said Roz abruptly, removing a packet of Tampax from her bag.

Hal grasped the hand holding the box and pressed it firmly to the table.

"No, Roz," he said softly.

"Believe it or not, I care more about you than I do about the Poacher or about abstract justice."

She nodded.

"I know, Hawksley," Her eyes smiled into his.

"The trouble is, I care about you, too. Which means we're in a bit of a fix. You want to save me and I want to save the Poacher, and the two would seem to be mutually exclusive."

She started to ease her hands from under his.

"So one of us must win this argument, and it's going to be me because this has nothing to do with abstract justice and everything to do with my peace of mind. I shall feel much happier with Stewart Hayes behind bars." She shook her head as his hands moved to smother hers again.

"I won't be responsible for you losing your restaurant, Hal. You've gone through h.e.l.l for it, and you can't give it up now."

But Hal was no Rupert to be browbeaten or cajoled into doing what Roz wanted.