LITMIR.BIZ

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course, sir.’

      ‘Let me have the details,’

      ‘Just faxing them, sir.’

      The sight of Tiddles’s well-licked food bowl made Coffin feel hungry himself, so he put together some coffee and a sandwich, not a neat one, which began to fall apart. He stopped in the window of his sitting-room to take a hasty bite.

      By this time, the faxed pages were arriving, slipping out of the machine and neatly disposing of themselves. Along with them came information about several committee meetings tomorrow, a multiple accident on the motorway (not in his area, but a number of people had been killed and that was bad), and a survey, with graphs, of the fire risks in all the police stations in Thameswater. None of which statistics he wanted at this moment. A fax about a suspected child murderer who was believed to have moved into the district was different. He paused to read:

       William Arthur Duerden, believed moved into this area. Suspected of several child murders (details attached) but no proof. He goes under several aliase. (names attached). Born 1945. Five feet four, brown hair, blue eyes, no distinguishing marks. May alter appearance with wig and contact lenses.

      All this paper just waiting there to spring out at him.

      He picked out what he needed to read. That was the trouble with machines, the desire to take over was built into them. They always wanted to do too much. Otherwise they broke down and were called failures, and scrapped. Naturally no machine wanted that to happen, it was better to overdo it.

      Whoever had kidnapped, murdered or mislaid thirteen people had overdone it. Thirteen was too many.

      The missing coach belonged to Trembles Tours Ltd, a licensed operator having two coaches. The drivers were the twin brothers, John and Alfred Tremble, who owned the firm. The brothers always set out their route and approximate timetable and informed the traffic police. They had never been in any trouble and had no record.

      Now one of the brothers, together with his coach and all his passengers, had disappeared.

      ‘Damn.’ His quiet night had gone. Crime in his bailiwick was like the rain over England: if there was one dry day, then it levelled up the next day with a steady downpour. The average was always the same in both cases: high.

      He drank his coffee and went back to studying his lines. No doubt Maugham would send him to sleep. There was a kind of deadness behind its smart dialogue and dated good sense. He wondered if Stella and the ladies of the Reading Club had been wise to choose it? But they were supposed to know their audience and tickets were selling. He had a suspicion it had been chosen because a prominent member of the group had red hair … like Lady Kitty.

      Over one of Lady Kitty’s speeches, he nodded off to sleep, but one last thought rolled across his mind.

      So I was right, there is trouble, trouble in triplicate, but not Nell Casey’s trouble, not the trouble I smelt, that’s still on the way. This is extra trouble.

      But trouble was what he lived by and it paid his wages.

      Nell Casey had taken her son home, first borrowing a pint of milk from Stella Pinero.

      ‘I’d forgotten what London was like for shopping,’ she apologized. ‘Shops all closing at six o’clock sharp.’

      ‘Not quite that bad any longer, not round here, anyway. Mr Khan down the road by the Spinnergate Tube stays open till midnight, and Max’s Deli about the same.’

      ‘Not all night, though.’

      ‘Not all night.’ Stella handed over the pint of milk. She hardly drank milk herself, but the dog loved it and in spite of what her neighbour John Coffin believed, the cat Tiddles spent a lot of time eating and drinking in Stella’s establishment. The dog, of course, was a privileged animal, having once saved Stella’s life. Or from a fate worse than death. The story as Stella recounted it never lost drama in the telling. Still, it had been a bad enough episode in truth.

      ‘I’ll pay you …’

      ‘Don’t bother, love.’ Stella repressed a yawn, and pressed Nell’s hand gently. ‘Off you go, I’m dropping where I stand, even if that kid’s wide awake.’

      A pair of bright bird-sharp eyes met hers as he leaned over his mother’s shoulder.

      ‘What was the matter with him, by the way?’

      ‘His dog. Seems to have got lost.’

      ‘Bonzo,’ said the child lovingly.

      ‘You brought a dog from the States? Did you smuggle it in?’

      ‘It’s not a real dog, a toy dog, stuffed.’

      ‘Bonzo, Bonzo.’ Now it was beginning to be a shout. Very soon there would be tears.

      ‘He doesn’t look tired at all,’ said Stella. ‘I admire stamina in a man. You’ll have to put him on the stage, Nell.’

      ‘Heaven forbid, I’m going to make him a stockbroker who’ll earn lots of money.’

      ‘Isn’t he a bit heavy for you to carry?’ If he is Gus’s son, Stella speculated, then he would be. That man has heavy bones. Any one who had been on a stage with him knows that. It shakes.

      ‘Yes,’ said Nell shortly. ‘Come on, Tommy, shut up and find your feet. You can walk.’ She stood him on the ground. ‘We’re still on New York time, you see,’ she said turning back to Stella. ‘That five hours doesn’t seem so late to us.’

      ‘You wait till morning.’

      Nell and Tom walked slowly, hand in hand, round the corner to The Albion. It was March but not cold and there was a moon. If they made a strange couple, mother and small son walking through the empty streets, Nell was not aware of it.

      Presently she looked up at the church tower where, high up, a light still shone. A figure could be seen in profile.

      ‘Look, a man eating,’ said Tom.

      ‘Yes, a man, still up. Just like us. I don’t suppose he’s eating.’

      ‘Eating,’ said Tom firmly. He was a child of one idea at a time.

      In the flat, Nell said to her French au pair: ‘I think he’s hungry. Give him something to eat.’ She handed over the milk. ‘How did he manage to lose the dog?’ Considering that Bonzo had come with them on all her tours, surviving overnight stays in motels, plane trips across the American continent as well as two flights across the Atlantic, it was strange he should go missing now.

      ‘Tom says that after the journey Bonzo needs to go into the garden,’ said Sylvie simply. ‘So I put him in the garden.’

      One of the things that Nell Casey liked about the girl was that she took Tom seriously. She took the boy seriously herself, but she could see that a slavish adherence to Tom’s dictates could have its drawbacks. She sighed. ‘You’ve looked all over the garden?’

      There was a communal garden for The Albion, nicely laid out but not large.

      ‘Everywhere in the garden,’ said Sylvie firmly. ‘And Tom helped. Bonzo is not there.’

      Tom, busy drinking a mug of milk, a feat which demanded all his attention, did not set up a wail for Bonzo, but his eyes staring at them over the mug were unrelenting. Bonzo or else, they said.

      Nell knew what that meant: a child who would stay awake, who would not cry but would keep up a constant low keening sound, more painful to listen to than deep sobs.

      It’s all an act, she said to herself. He’s a performer, can’t blame him for that, but I don’t feel strong enough for one of his performances tonight. Seeing Gus again had shaken her more than she wanted to admit. She didn’t want to give Tom a smart slap, not what a good mother did, but it had worked on occasion.

      She struck a bargain. ‘Let Sylvie put you to bed and I will go down and look in the garden

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