'I met my husband Gerald when he was posted to Nairobi in the fifties. He wasn't like most of them. Most of his troop, they looked down on us and let us know it. The sergeant, he was the worst of the lot. He a'

'Forgive my interrupting,' the chairman said, 'but may we move this forwards? There's another hearing scheduled for this afternoon.'

Peggy's mouth drooped open with outrage or because she'd lost her verbal grasp. 'Can I ask what happened after Mr Nash's death?' the lawyer prompted. 'When you decided to seek residential accommodation, and I appreciate that was years later, did you encounter any problems?'

'Half a dozen of them, and that was just here in Southport. Homes that didn't have a vacancy after all when I turned up.'

'And you feel that was because . . .'

'Have you really got to ask that too? Because of what I am.'

'To put it delicately, an ethnic lady.'

'That's not what I see when I look in the mirror. I just see me.'

Having opened her mouth at the hint of an unwelcome memory, Ellen had to find something to say. 'Everybody's ethnic,' she murmured. 'You shouldn't hijack words.'

'Perhaps some people have more of a reason to care about them,' the lawyer said. 'And how were you made to feel at the Seabreeze Home, Mrs Nash?'

'They treated me like anybody else.'

'Which I take it you're saying was excellently.' When Peggy gave several vigorous nods the lawyer said 'But you'll be aware there have been problems recently with the running of the home.'

'Some of the staff weren't up to standard all the time. The night manager should have kept more of an eye on them. You were right to boot her out,' Peggy told the Cremornes. 'Except the worst of the lot was the one that snitched on her workmates. She only did it so people wouldn't notice how bad she was herself.'

'To be clear, the person you have in mind a'

'She knows who I mean. She's trying to bully me now, looking at me how she does.' Peggy fixed Ellen with a gaze she seemed to think was reciprocal. 'I wouldn't be surprised if she's tried to disguise herself,' she said. 'I don't remember her that size.'

Ellen felt as if her face had swollen up with fever, clamping her lips shut, as the lawyer said 'For the record, you're referring to Miss Lomax.'

Peggy's gaze flickered, only to intensify. 'Is that what she's calling herself?'

'And you believe Mr and Mrs Cremorne had reason to fire her.'

'That's opinion, Mr Bentley,' the chairman said. 'Please concern yourself with evidence.'

'What's the basis of your views, Mrs Nash? What are you saying Miss Lomax did?'

'Stole, for a start. When all the money went from Veronica's purse I saw how guilty that one looked. And one night I saw her with a little whisky bottle when she thought I wasn't looking.'

This was enough to activate Ellen's unwieldy face. 'I found it,' she said. 'I was taking it to the night manager.'

'You'll have your chance, Miss Lomax. Any further observations, Mrs Nash?'

'You've seen how she bullies people. She's doing it now.'

'Please don't feel intimidated. You're among friends.' As Ellen looked away from her, only to wonder why she should have, the lawyer said 'Your witness, Miss Lomax.'

Ellen's lips felt thick and not entirely stable as she said 'First of all, Peggy a'

'I've told you, I'm not speaking to you,' Peggy said and stared at the tribunal.

'Excuse me, but you just did, and I have to point out a'

'She's trying to confuse her,' Virginia Cremorne protested. 'She'll have her not knowing what she's saying.'

Ellen turned her awkward face towards the chairman. 'How am I supposed to question her like this?'

'You should have thought of that before,' Jack Cremorne said. 'If you believed you were in the right you'd have bet some money on a lawyer.'

'This is most irregular,' the chairman said. 'If Miss Lomax poses the questions, Mrs Nash, will you give me your answers?'

'We'll see what she has the cheek to ask.'

'Peggy, you said I was trying to divert attention away from some behaviour of my own. What kind? You surely aren't accusing me of s.e.xual abuse.'

'Mrs Nash, you said a'

'I heard her. Couldn't not. I've never known anyone to drone so much. Used to put me to sleep while I was awake and keep me awake when I was trying to sleep.' Having ventilated this, Peggy said 'There are other kinds of abuse.'

'And which are you saying I was guilty of?'

'Miss Lomax would like to know a'

'I can still hear her. It's like hearing a cow moo.' Peggy rested her gaze on the chairman while she added 'Here's the truth and she won't like it. She made up that tale about Daniel to get him kicked out.'

'Why would she have done that?'

'Because she didn't want him there any more than she wanted me.'

'The previous witness agreed with Miss Lomax's version of events.'

'Are you talking about Muriel Stiles?'

Ellen hoped Peggy's tone had antagonised the chairman more than he made audible. 'That was the lady, yes.'

'She didn't see anything. She only heard Doris making a fuss, and everyone knew poor old Doris dreamed up half of what she said. We'd be sitting in the day room and she'd say the man on television wanted her to get undressed.'

'She could be a little fl.u.s.tered sometimes,' Ellen told the panel, 'but she wasn't that night. I'd remind you that Mr and Mrs Cremorne took the situation seriously enough to send him on his way.'

'Only because she saw her chance and backed Doris up,' Peggy said. 'Maybe she hated him even more than me because she had to work with him.'

'Forgive me, Mrs Nash, but we need to be clear for the record. You mean like you in the sense of . . .'

'Black.' With enough force to capitalise all the letters Peggy repeated 'Black.'

Ellen had to draw a breath as shaky as her mouth to catch her voice. 'That really isn't true.'

'Is she trying to paint me as white as she wants you to think she is?'

'I'm saying I've never said or done anything against her, and this is the first time she's ever said I have.'

'Too frightened to while you were at the Seabreeze,' Virginia Cremorne muttered.

'The light went off in my room one night,' Peggy said, 'and that one told everyone she wouldn't be able to see me in the dark.'

Ellen managed to produce a parched laugh. 'That wasn't how it happened, Peggy. If you remember, I was changing the bulb because n.o.body else could be bothered, and I simply said I couldn't see you in your chair because you were so far from the door.'

'Were there witnesses?' the chairman said to one or both of them.

'They're some of the ones she got fired.'

'Is this doc.u.mented, Mr Bentley?' When the lawyer admitted the opposite the chairman said 'Please continue, Miss Lomax.'

'Is there anything else you want to say about me, Peggy?'

'I don't want anything to do with that one at all,' Peggy told everyone apart from Ellen.

'Have you even got a problem with my name?'

Peggy clutched at the wheels of her chair. 'Can I go now?'

All at once Ellen was sure it was crucial to ask 'Seriously, aren't you able to say it?'

'Why should I?' Peggy appealed to the chairman.

'I think perhaps you should just for the record.'

'It's Lomax.'

'That's what you've heard people calling me today. What did they call me at the Seabreeze? You must remember, surely. Like the gentleman told you, it's for the record.'

'Little Miss Innocence. Little Miss Better Than Everyone Else.' To the Cremornes Peggy said 'Do you know what Doris used to call her? Little Saint Whosit. I wouldn't call her little anything.'

Ellen had to shrug the insult off to reach the point. 'Saint what, Peggy? What's my name?'

'That's all Doris said,' Peggy informed the panel. 'I told you she didn't know what was going on or who anyone was half the time.'

'I hope that's enough,' Jack Cremorne said. 'Aren't you ever going to stop bullying our residents, Ellen?'

'And don't anybody run away with the idea I didn't know her name,' Peggy said, 'except I used to call her Lemon and she never knew.'

'Are there any other matters you would like to raise, Miss Lomax?'

'I think I'm finished.'

She was almost certain that the chairman gave her a sympathetic look. 'Thank you, Mrs Nash,' he said. 'We appreciate the effort you've made to speak to us.'

'It's a pity more didn't. Jack and Virginia have enough problems without this.'

The Cremornes seemed less than wholly grateful for her parting comment. They watched the nurse wheel her out and the tribunal murmuring to one another. Ellen tried not to appear too hopeful or the reverse while she gazed out of a high window at a treetop entwined with powerless coloured light bulbs. Eventually Jack Cremorne said 'Any idea how long you're likely to be? Our parking's nearly up.'

Ellen was sure this provoked the chairman to say 'I'm afraid we'll have to defer judgment until it can be put in writing.'

'It isn't only us that wants to hear,' Virginia Cremorne objected. 'You can see Miss Lomax is anxious.'

'I think you'd best be seeing to your car,' the lawyer murmured.

He conducted them out and held the door open for Ellen. Peggy had been wheeled away, but Muriel was keeping her vigil beneath the photograph of quieter times. As the Cremornes marched off with their lawyer, Ellen said 'We have to wait.'

The words made her feel clumsy before Muriel whispered to the nurse 'What have we got to wait for?'

'Sorry, Muriel. I meant me.'

Muriel's whisper was even more piercing. 'Why have we got to wait for her?'

'You haven't. I'm the one who has to wait. Not here, for them to make their minds up. They haven't time today. There are other people they have to see.'

Ellen might have expected those to have arrived, but perhaps they were watching along the corridor. 'I'll tell you the decision when I know,' she said.

She felt weighed down by her ma.s.s of words and Muriel's vague patience and the tardiness of the tribunal. 'I'll keep in touch,' she said and turned away, to find that they and the nurse were alone in the corridor.

The impression of a watcher was no more than a lingering smudge on her consciousness. She hurried to the end of the corridor, but the wide stone stairs to the ground floor were deserted too. She was taking the first step down when she faltered with a hand on the chill banister. Muriel's whisper was loud enough to be heard in the committee room. 'Who was the fat girl? Did she think she knew us?'

THREE.

'Hate the t.i.tle.'

Charlotte thought she heard or otherwise sensed the faintest rumble of a train worming underneath the bas.e.m.e.nt office. She looked up from the printout of Take Care to find Glen Boyd leaning over the part.i.tion around her desk. His high straight black eyebrows gave him a routinely eager expression confirmed by his bright-blue eyes, and in general his lean face seemed pared down to essentials: broad blunt nose, wide lips slightly parted for the next remark, round prominent chin sporting today's crop of stubble. Three furrows were sketched on his forehead, underlining how his short bristling hair had started an early retreat. Perhaps that came with the senior editorship of Cougar Books, Charlotte reflected as she said 'You do or I should?'

'How about both?'

'Too English, do you think?'

'Hey, I've nothing against the English,' Glen said while his accent grew more nasally Maine. 'I wouldn't be here if I had.'

'So what is it about it you don't like?'

'Sounds like a caution manual. Caution doesn't sell our kind of books.'