Murder in the Clouds

One

' A privately-owned American aircraft has crashed into the sea off the coast of California, killing all on board.' Dwindle ignored the news issuing from the radio by his side. He was too busy studying his face in a shaving mirror positioned just four feet above the floor to suit his tiny stature. It seemed to have aged horribly during the night. He remembered dreaming that just as he had been about to embrace Marilyn Monroe, hordes of chanting Lilliputans had dragged him away from her. Irritated by the kind of juvenile dream he thought he had long since outgrown, he decided that he would look younger if he shaved off his moustache. A few scrapes of the razor and he found himself confronting an unfamiliar face.

He was due to go to Woking that morning -- the result of something he had pointed out the previous day to his partner, retired Detective-Inspector Henry Dickens, in their cramped office in Holborn: 'Electronic trails are as easy to follow nowadays as the spoors animals leave in the jungle.'

'What are you getting at, Dwindle?' Dickens replied.

'I bought a second-hand laptop computer in a boot sale at the weekend. The previous owner left some passionate love letters on the hard disk.'

'You should respect other people's privacy..'

'One letter mentions a reward for solving a murder case.'

'Well now -- that's different.'

Dickens levered his large frame from the desk on which he had been sitting and demanded: 'What exactly does it say?

'I can't remember the details. I'll look at it again tonight.'

'Why not now -- we're desperately short of work.'

'Okay. I'll get it. Give me some money for a taxi.'

Dickens unlocked the top drawer in the desk and held out a ten-pound note.

Dwindle snatched it from his grasp and scampered out of the office.

Details of gambling transactions on the computer showed that Adam Firsby, an airline pilot, its previous owner, was in deep financial trouble. A sentence in some correspondence had caught Dwindle's attention: 'Joe Rossano is prepared to fork out a hundred-thousand dollars if I can find out who killed his daughter. But I'm not too keen to get involved.' There was also what appeared to be an unfinished novel on the hard disk.

Dickens was mopping up spilled coffee when Dwindle returned. He complained petulantly: 'I've just ruined my damned crossword.'

'Never mind that. We need to discover as soon as possible whether the reward is still on offer. I suggest we ring up Firsby and offer to format the hard disk in return for telling us what it was all about. He lives near Woking in Surrey.'

Dickens dialled Firsby's number and strode to and fro across the narrow room, hugging the mouthpiece to his face. Finally, putting the phone down, he announced: 'Firsby has gone missing. His wife, Suzanne Firsby, doesn't know where he is.'

'Ring her again and offer to locate him without charging a fee.'

Dickens obeyed and obtained an appointment to interview her the following morning. Putting the telephone down, he asked thoughtfully: 'Why should an airline pilot suddenly disappear?'

Dwindle replied cheerfully: 'It all sounds very intriguing. Since there is an airline pilot involved, I suggest we call this case 'Murder in the Clouds.'

2

D uring the drive to Woking Dickens pointed out that it would be very expensive to pursue a murder investigation as far away as California.'

'Let's see if Mrs Firsby has any information about her husband's whereabouts before we decide. He's the guy we've got to speak to.'

For some reason it flashed though Dwindle's mind at that moment that Firsby's disappearance might have something to do with the air crash announced on the radio. But he dismissed the thought immediately.

Following Dwindle's instructions, Dickens pulled up outside a small detached house, shielded from the road by a row of tall lawsonia, on the outskirts of Woking. He parked the car in the shade of the trees. The two detectives walked along a winding, gravelled drive towards the front-door. It was opened by a tall, auburn-haired woman wearing dark blue trousers and an emerald green shirt. Looking down at Dwindle and then up at Dickens, she said with a faintly amused smile: 'You must be from the D and D agency. Do come in.'

She led them into a small living-room containing several large leafy plants reaching almost to the ceiling. She motioned them to a settee with faded blue and white vertical stripes. Sitting opposite them on an armchair, she said: 'I understand that you have my husband's computer.'

'I bought it in a boot sale,' Dwindle explained.

Mrs Firsby frowned and said: 'He must have been short of money.'

'Was he unemployed?' Dickens enquired.

'No. But he's a compulsive gambler.'

'That must make life very difficult for you.'

'You cannot imagine. He has totally ruined the family.' She gave a deep sigh, looked at her watch and said nervously: 'I can't talk for long. I've had to take time off from work.'

'We're very sorry,' Dickens replied. After a pause, he continued: 'Your husband refers to a man called Rossano in a letter that was left on the computer. Have you heard the name before?'

'No, it must be someone he met on his travels. Adam was employed by InterCon airlines. He failed to turn up for a flight a fortnight ago and hasn't been seen since.'

'Did he go to the airport?'

'He was due to fly to Los Angeles on the eighteenth of June. InterCon rang me up to ask why he hadn't turned up. There has been no word from him since. I have no idea where he is. '

'Was he living here with you at the time?'

'Yes. But we had had a ghastly row the day he left. I contacted a solicitor that afternoon and told him to institute divorce proceedings.'

'Do you have children?'

'Two boys at boarding school. I can't afford to keep them there after this term. Adam hasn't contacted them, either.'

'Is it possible that he has been forced to go into hiding because he owed money?'

'Anything is possible. I haven't the faintest idea what he gets up to. What I do know is that he had become quite impossible to live with.'

'It appears from a letter he left on the computer that this man Rossano offered your husband a substantial sum of money to solve the mystery of his daughter's death. Your husband was in Los Angeles at the time. He seems to have turned down the offer.'

'Why should my husband know anything about it?'

'We don't know. We hope he'll tell us when we find him.'

'Who was the letter addressed to?'

'I would rather not say at the moment. Could you let us have a photograph of your husband?'

Mrs Firsby rummaged in a drawer and took out a photograph of a good-looking, dark-haired man in his early forties wearing a barbour coat and a trilby hat.

She said, as she handed it to Dickens: 'Adam had a big win at the races on the day that photograph was taken. It was probably the worst thing that ever happened to him. He hasn't stopped gambling since.'

She started to cry.

As she searched for a tissue, Dwindle, stood up and said: 'Mrs Firsby: it is possible to give up gambling. You mustn't despair.'

Mrs. Firsby agitatedly dabbed at her face and looking down at him, whispered: 'Thank you. What did you say your name was?'

'George Hamble. My friends call me Dwindle.'

Later, on their way back to the office, Dickens reproached Dwindle, saying: 'You know very well that gamblers can never give up gambling.'

'Haven't you heard of Gamblers Anonymous?'

Dickens ignored his answer and said: 'How on earth are we going to find Firsby? He obviously knows who killed this girl. We also need to find this guy who's offering the reward.'

'If he's a friend of Firsby, the likelihood is that we'll find him at the races, or some other gambling haunt.'

'California is too far away. This whole thing is far too complicated for us to handle.'

'You're forgetting your own saying, Dickens: perseverance pays dividends.'

'Okay. We'll persevere for the rest of today. If nothing promising turns up, I shall go home to Wales. It seems years since I last switched on my model railway.'

3

' Couldn't you be a little more inventive? We always make love in the same position,' Maureen complained to Dwindle that night.

'I thought you liked it that way. I'll surprise you next time.'

Dwindle then mentioned that he and Dickens were planning a trip to go to California, in the hope of solving a murder, adding that they were having difficulty in tracing the owner of the computer.

'Why don't you ask the person who sold it to you? He might be able to help.'

'Not a bad suggestion.'

Minutes later, Dwindle whispered seductively: 'I am now about to demonstrate something new.'

But Maureen was fast asleep.

At nine o'clock the following morning, he telephoned the organiser of the boot sale and asked for the telephone number of the stall-holder.

'Give me your number and I'll get him to ring you.'

Ten minutes later, the stall-holder rang and said excitedly to Dwindle: 'The geyser what owned your laptop computer has committed suicide.'

'Are you sure?'

'It was in the Evening Standard last night. His name was Adam Firsby. His car ran off a cliff in California and ended up in the sea.'

Dwindle, hoping to obtain more information, telephoned the head office of InterCon Airlines in Guildford and was granted an interview with the Personnel Manager.

Oscar Perring, a small, spare balding man with intensely blue eyes, told Dickens and Dwindle that Firsby had been a satisfactory employee. His service had been broken for three years while he worked for a Caribbean airline. They had re-employed him when he returned England. He had never before failed to turn up for his flight. The news of his suicide was shocking.

'Was it known that he gambled heavily?' Dickens enquired.

'What pilots do in their spare time is their own affair.'

'Was he under stress of any kind?'

'Not as far as we knew. He had passed his flying checks and medical examinations. He was perfectly competent to do his job. I can't say anything beyond that.'

'That was a complete waste of time,' Dwindle complained to Dickens on the way home.

'It may seem so. But in this business every detail counts.'

Dwindle said: 'We really don't have any alternative to following up this lead. Our finances are in bad shape.'

'They'll get even worse if we go don't succeed.'

'You lack the spirit of adventure, Dickens.'

Dickens parked the car in their parking space and went off in a huff to dine in a local restaurant.

Dwindle rode the elevator to their cramped office, switched on the office computer and made a series of calls on the Internet. His search revealed that Joe Rossano owned several hotels and casinos in Las Vegas and Atlantic City. He telephoned him and followed this up with a call to the Los Angeles police department

When Dickens returned from lunch, Dwindle announced triumphantly: 'We're in business, Dickens.'

'Really. What's happened?'

'I've made telephone contact with Joe Rossano at his Las Vegas office. It's not as straightforward as we first imagined. It appears that Rossano's daughter was killed in the plane crash that was mentioned recently on the news. The aircraft came down in the sea and hasn't been recovered. A serial killer at large in America claims to have placed a bomb on board. He has phoned the newspapers saying that this was part of his campaign to commit a murder in every state of the USA, using a different method every time. Rossano has told me he's prepared to increase the reward to one hundred-thousand pounds. The LA police are working on the case, in conjunction with the FBI and the National Transportation Safety Board. But it's proving very difficult, because the wreckage of the aircraft is at the bottom of a very deep part of the ocean.'

'So what hope have we got of finding out what happened?'

'Just my natural genius,'

Dickens gestured with his hands and said: 'It will cost us everything we have left in our bank account to go to California.'

'Rossano is looking for a killer. We can make a lot of money if we find him.'

'Give me one good reason to suppose that we can achieve what the Los Angeles police department and the American aviation authorities have failed to do.'

'Firsby turned down the reward. There might be a connection between his suicide and the plane crash. His car was found upside down in shallow water near Big Sur. But they haven't recovered the body. Forensic examination showed that the car was full of exhaust fumes. Incidentally, I asked Rossano if he told the LA police he had offered a reward to Firsby. He said he hadn't. But he's prepared to extend the offer to anybody who can find the murderer. His daughter was an actress. Her stage name was Carol Grace. Perhaps Firsby didn't commit suicide -- perhaps he was murdered by the serial killer. We can't miss this opportunity to earn some really serious money.'

Henry Dickens sat on the worn, leather-topped desk and took out a pipe from his pocket. He had given up smoking but enjoyed sniffing the charred bowl. After a long pause, he said with great deliberation: 'I'm not saying that you don't contribute a great deal to this partnership, Dwindle. But someone has to bring some common sense into the proceedings. When this guy Rossano offered Firsby a large reward for looking into his daughter's death, he must have known he was asking the impossible. How could Firsby have possibly known who placed the bomb on board, unless he was on friendly terms with the serial killer, which doesn't seem at all likely. And why didn't Rossano tell the police that he had offered the reward to Firsby. Have you any idea why he committed suicide?'

'Perhaps he had gambled and couldn't pay off his debts. It's a possibility, of course, that his suicide was faked.'

'How can we find him? America is a vast continent.'

'Dickens, we now have an unrivalled opportunity to earn money that will make up for all the lean times.'

Some new business may come in at any time.'

'Tailing some unfaithful spouse? Investigating credit card fraud? This particular job happens to offer our best chance yet of staying in business. I'm going for lunch now. While I'm away would you please ring up Mrs Firsby and commiserate with her on the death of her husband.'

Noting Dickens's disgruntled expression, Dwindle added: 'And here's a crossword clue to work on while I'm away: "A prickly forest for Marilyn." If you get the answer by the time I get back, I'll let you decide whether to go to California.'

'Hollywood is the answer,' Dickens declared triumphantly when Dwindle returned from a nearby sandwich bar.

'Excellent. So do you want to go for the big money? Or sit on your backside waiting for something to turn up?'

Dickens replied: 'I spoke to Mrs Firsby about her husband's suicide. She very much doubts that he has killed himself. She says gamblers tend on the whole to be optimistic.'

He thought for a while and then said reluctantly: 'Okay. We'll take a chance and see if we can beat the Los Angeles police and the FBI at their own game.'

'That's the spirit, partner,' Dwindle said enthusiastically. 'I'll book the tickets.'

As he made his way to the travel agent, he wondered why Marilyn should have again entered his mind. The answer, he decided, was that one never forgot one's first love whether in real life or on the cinema screen.

4

D ickens was still grumbling about the expense of their journey, as they boarded the aircraft at Heathrow. he kept emphasizing the difficulty in investigating a murder six-thousand miles from their home base. How on earth were they going to find the madman who had placed a bomb on board Rossano's aircraft. As they moved through the narrow aisle of the aircraft Dickens confessed that he had forgotten to switch on the answering machine in the office. Dwindle assured him that he had done so.

When they were seated, Dwindle began to read the novel on Firsby's computer, hoping that it might give some indication of Firsby's state of mind. The story was told in the first person. The opening words began:

The news that a Mercia Airlines airliner has crashed came up on the screen shortly after I switched on the television. It took a while before the true horror of what had happened sank in. I had difficulty in believing it was true, because it seemed to challenge the laws of chance in which, because of my job as an insurance actuary, I am constantly involved,.

I first met Sally on a train from Worthing, where we both lived. We were the sole occupants of the railway carriage. She had a charming face. The sun, shining in through the carriage window had turned her hair into a golden halo. Guessing from her Mercia Airlines hold-all that she was an air stewardess on her way to Gatwick Airport, I opened a conversation by asking if she knew my uncle, the Chief Pilot, Captain Harry Duncan.

She told me she had only flown with him once -- his administrative duties kept him on the ground a great deal. Ironically, in view of what happened, I asked her if she worried about terrorists --- there had been a hi-jack the previous day somewhere in Russia. She confessed that she sometimes worried about how she would cope with an emergency. I shudder now, as I think about her last terrifying moments. But I'm absolutely sure she comforted and reassured her passengers right to the very end.

Sally's mother, who also lives in Worthing, wasn't very pleased when her daughter moved in with me -- I had serious reservations at the time about marriage. But when Sally became pregnant, my doubts were cast aside and we planned an early wedding. Overjoyed by the news, her mother, Mrs Carstairs, insisted on having an engagement party. Sally was scheduled to be back in time for the celebration.

I had just brought home some drinks from an off licence. Sally was to ring me on arrival at Gatwick airport when she returned from her flight, so that I could meet her at Worthing station.

When the announcement was made that an airliner on its way to Dublin from Gatwick had crashed into the Irish Sea, I automatically rejected any idea that she might have been on board. Then, after I had checked on her flight schedule -- Gatwick to Barcelona return followed by a flight to Dublin and back to Gatwick, the grim truth that she was dead finally sank in.

I tried to ring Mercia Airlines but the telephone lines were all engaged. I called Sally's mother. She said in an icily-controlled voice that an official from the airline had just called with the news that her daughter was missing, presumed dead. There were no survivors. An RAF helicopter had searched the area. A fishing trawler had picked up a few pieces of wreckage. Suddenly, Mrs Carstair's self-control deserted her and she became completely incoherent.

I spent the rest of the evening switching at random from one television and radio station to another in search of further news. I watched all the TV news programmes and harboured some crazy idea that my life with Sally had been video-recorded and could be replayed when I chose to do so. I felt terribly guilty for not having married her.

A local radio station reported that the Unyielding Republican Army -- a renegade splinter group of the Provisional IRA -- had claimed responsibility.

My thoughts and emotions immediately focused on the fact that my girl had been callously slaughtered by a group of bandits. I made a solemn pledge to avenge her death and those of the innocent people who had perished with her. The decision gave me some relief from the intense pain I was suffering. Planning to kill her murderers would from now on consume all my waking moments. And if my own life was lost in the process, well and good.

In her will my mother had left me a valuable diamond brooch, expressing the hope that one day it would be passed on to my wife when I married. I had intended to give it to Sally on our wedding day. I decided it would be appropriate to use it for another purpose -- I would sell it and use the money to track down her murderers.

During the days that followed. I studied all the newspapers, recorded some of the news bulletins and made numerous telephone enquiries to Mercia Airlines at Gatwick. My uncle was too busy to talk to me. But the following Sunday I was able to cross-examine him when we attended a service for the victims in a Brighton church.

Harry had informed Sally about the flying tradition that ran in our family. My grandfather, the first James Duncan, flew S.E.5's and Sopwith Camels during the First World War. My father (James the Second) was a bomber pilot during the Second World War. Shortly after my mother was killed in a car crash he married the widow of a Zimbabwean tobacco farmer and went to live out there. I was fourteen at the time at boarding school. It seemed natural for me to plan a career in flying, especially as the two aunts I lived with emphasized the family tradition by calling me James the Third. However, nine years ago, just before my nineteenth birthday, I became diabetic and had to abandon the idea. By that time I had managed to obtain twenty hours on light aircraft. I have always been passionately interested in aviation. Sally, when she learned of my disappointment, said that flying would have been a waste of my mathematical skills.

Harry Duncan is a big man- about my height, six feet two-inches. He frequently complains that modern aircraft cockpits are designed for pygmies. There the resemblance ends -- I am slim, he is heavily built with a thatch of straight grey hair and a bluff, brick-red genial face that hides a shrewd intelligence.

After the service we walked down to a hotel on the sea front for coffee. He asked me anxiously if I thought he had said the right things in his address. As we entered the hotel, he remarked that it was the first time that passengers had been killed in a Mercia Airlines accident.

It was a dull November day. Condensation was forming on the windows, obscuring the view of the English Channel. I ordered coffee.

'Was it definitely a bomb?' I enquired.

'It seems almost certain. Some time ago this extremist splinter group calling itself the Unyielding Republican Army announced that they regarded British aircraft as legitimate targets. The Airport Authorities immediately stepped up security, and so did we, but however careful you are ...' He gestured helplessly with his large hands.

'Can you be sure it wasn't structural failure that caused the accident?'

He looked cross and replied: 'Impossible. The Finch airliner has been in service for fifteen years. Long enough for any design shortcomings of that nature to have been dealt with. We've had no reports of corrosion or cracks. There are four hundred of them flying all over the world and they are constantly tested.' 'Finch' is the popular name of the short-haul SP220 aircraft in which Sally had died.

'One newspaper suggested it might have run into a flock of migratory birds.'

'These damned journalists know nothing of Aviation.'

'Lightning. Could it have been struck by lightning?'

Harry gave me a sceptical glance.

'Aircraft are bonded electrically -- haven't you ever heard of Faraday's cage?'

'Perhaps the bonding was defective.'

'Even if that were the case -- an impossible eventuality -- there was no lightning in the area at the time.' He looked irritable.

'Did the captain declare an emergency?'

'No, it all happened very quickly -- which tends to support the theory that the aircraft suffered a catastrophic explosion. The captain's last message on the Air Traffic Control tape is almost unreadable. It sounds as though he is saying: "Spinning..."'

'What could cause the aircraft to spin?'

'The bomb could have damaged the control surfaces, blown off the tailplane -- who knows.'

He grimaced despairingly.

I sipped my coffee. It tasted bitter. I could visualise the aircraft spinning earthwards. An image of Sally clinging to the back of a seat as she tried to reassure the passengers rushed into my mind. I covered my face with my hands to hide my tears.

When I looked up again, Harry was shaking his head and muttering imprecations against the bombers.

'Can you be sure it was a terrorist attack?' I asked after a short while.

'There are certain facts I can't divulge at the moment. They will come out at the enquiry. I'm terribly sorry, James. Your fiancée was a grand girl -- one of the best. I've written to your father and Bess, telling them what has happened.'

'We were going out to see them at Christmas.'

Harry nodded: 'Yes, Sally told me. You'll get over it, old chap. Just give it time.'

He went on: 'You remember I was thinking of buying a farm in Dorset when I retire. I may have to change my plans - the airline has offered me a position as Operations Manager. Enid thinks I should accept. Farming is not all that easy these days.' He launched into a lament about the mountain of paper work the crash was giving him. A company enquiry into the accident was in progress; later he would be heavily involved in the official Government enquiry.

We discussed a newspaper report that an attempt would be made to salvage the wreck from the sea bed. He refused to be drawn when I tried to question him about how the bomb had been smuggled on board.

However, the following morning I read in one of the tabloids that the police were interested in the whereabouts of two men with Irish accents who had originally booked through from Barcelona to Dublin but had left the aircraft at Gatwick, complaining of diarrhoea. At their request a piece of luggage was left on board to be picked up by the wife of one of them at Dublin airport. It contained a fish caught on holiday that was to be entered into an Exotic Fish competition held annually by their Dublin angling club. The men had said the fish would smell if they took it to the hospital where they were going for urgent medical attention. A member of the traffic staff had uncritically swallowed this fishy story and, breaching company regulations, had allowed the suitcase to continue on to Dublin. The traffic clerk had been suspended from duty, pending an enquiry. The police believed the two men had boarded a train from Gatwick to Victoria station in London.

Once again it had been demonstrated how elaborate security arrangements could be frustrated by the simplest of ruses. It was appalling to think how these fiends in human disguise could sit calmly with their fellow passengers on one leg of the journey, knowing that they had sentenced them all to die on the next. I cursed them roundly and renewed my vow of personal vengeance.

By now they would be safely back in Ireland, out of my reach. I was short of cash through having recently purchased an expensive apartment, but I was quite prepared to sell everything I possessed to achieve my aim. The following morning I asked my boss for a transfer to our branch office in Dublin.

I was on excellent terms with my Noel Jameson, Deputy General Manager of Harbour Life and Pensions, who had recently hinted that I might one day become his successor. A large, warm-hearted man, he has a high reputation in the insurance world and epitomises good sense and sound judgement. When I explained that because of my loss I desperately needed a change of scenery, he promised to give sympathetic consideration to my request. To make it sound more plausible, I told him I had an aunt in Ireland of whom I was very fond. He promised to consult with the General Manager.

The following morning he telephoned with the news that I had been appointed to take over the Dublin branch for one year, adding that because the transfer had been made at my request there would be no relocation allowance. I didn't care. I was now in the vengeance business and no mistake. Nothing else mattered.

As I walked along the Worthing sea front that evening a gale force wind howled angrily, hurling white frothy surf against the pebbles. I asked myself if I was doing the right thing. It seemed to me obvious that if the authorities were unable to protect the public, then it was right and proper for the individual to step in and take whatever measures were necessary. Killing terrorists would discourage others like them from committing further crimes and, at least in the long run, would save the lives of innocent people. I remembered with disgust the absurdly light sentence passed on the drunken driver who had killed my mother.

Sally had died travelling towards the Ireland of the Welcomes. Ireland would be better off without these men. I would make it my purpose in life to banish them from this world, as I had once been told, St Patrick had banished snakes from Ireland.

My fifth floor apartment seemed cold, almost hostile, when I returned. Sally's photograph on the mantelpiece seemed to reproach me for my bitter thoughts.

A crumpled white object under a radiator caught my eye. It was one of Sally's bras left behind when Mrs Carstairs had called to retrieve her daughter's possessions.

I delayed my insulin injection for a while, as I planned the strategy for dealing with the terrorists responsible for blowing up Mercia Airlines Finch- Registration letters Golf Mike.

*

Dwindle commented, after reading the first chapter of Firsby's novel, 'The events described bear a remarkable similarity to what happened to Carol Rossano.'

Dickens nodded. 'Perhaps the manner of Carol Rossano's death gave Firsby the idea for writing his novel.'

'Impossible. There wouldn't have been enough time.'

'I once read that my namesake, Charles Dickens, could turn out ten thousand words a day.'

'Firsby was an airline pilot. He couldn't dash off a novel at such speed.'

'Well, it certainly seems a remarkable coincidence. But I suppose coincidences happen all the time.'

'I should like you to read on from there, in case you come across something that has a bearing on our investigation. Your police training may help you notice details I could easily miss.'

Dwindle made this excuse because he was eager to read the copy of Norman Mailer's biography of Marilyn Monroe he had bought at the airport.

Dickens began scrolling through the computer and soon commented: 'Firsby's letters to his girl friend are much more entertaining than the novel. He says in one of them: "Lead me to eternity through your honeyed thighs, dearest fluffy doll."'

After a moment's thought, he said: 'What about the possibility that the serial killer got the idea for planting a bomb from Firsby's book?'

'Impossible. The novel hasn't been published. Unless you're suggesting that Firsby is the serial killer.

'Okay, Dwindle,' Dickens said reluctantly. 'I'll read it. But reading doesn't solve crimes; it's legwork that does the trick --- legwork and even more legwork.'

'People don't use their legs in Los Angeles,' Dwindle responded with a smile. 'They drive everywhere.'

*

The Boeing landed with a thump at Los Angeles airport. Dickens and Dwindle collected their luggage, passed through Customs and Immigration and made their way to the Budget Rent-a-Car desk. Dwindle asked the girl behind the desk to recommend a hotel near the airport, preferably, he added, one where aircrew stay.

'Will the Rainbow be okay? Quite a few crews stay there.'

As they made their way to the car park, Dickens asked Dwindle: 'Why stay in the same hotel as aircrew?'

'With a bit of luck we may run across someone who knew Firsby.'

Dickens climbed into the driving-seat of the rented car and then changed his wristwatch onto his other arm, to remind him to avoid driving on the wrong side of the road. He drove off and was met with a cacophony of blaring horns and flashing lights as he made the very mistake he had intended to avoid.

'Jet lag effects one's nervous system,' he explained apologetically when they were safely on their way.

'Mine has disintegrated completely,' Dwindle complained, wiping his brow.

An hour later, as he was drifting off to sleep in his hotel bedroom, the telephone rang.

Dickens said when he wearily lifted up the telephone: 'I am going to liaise with the LA Police Department tomorrow. Go and see Joseph Rossano. He has an address here in town but his main businesses are in Las Vegas.'

A recollection came to Dwindle the following morning of how tall his American fellow passengers had seemed. Was it because their grandfathers had dined on bison meat? Perhaps he should go on a similar diet. Then concluding that it probably wouldn't work, he remembered that American cosmetic surgeons could enlarge penises, bosoms and practically everything else. The thought then occurred to him to have his legs lengthened. He decided that it would be less trouble to have the heels of his shoes built up.

He telephoned home and asked his wife Maureen if there was any mail.

'Just a letter from Liz Hurley saying she would like you to become her next lover. . How are you getting on?'

'We have made some useful contacts. This is a weird case. I've just phoned to say I miss you.'

'Miss you too, darling. Don't play around with any of those beautiful Hollywood starlets.'

'Never fear. I love you too much. Goodbye.'

However, the thought of Liz Hurley hugging him to her capacious bosom encouraged him to sing in the shower.

When he was dressed, he telephoned Joe Rossano, President of Californian Landholdings, at the Phoenix Hotel in Las Vegas, and obtained an appointment to see him that afternoon.

5

D etermined to be fit for the adventure ahead of him, Dickens did twenty press-ups and touched his toes an equal number of times before jogging round the room for fifteen minutes. After taking a shower, he pulled in his stomach and studied his image in the mirror. Seeing himself as Philip Marlow, he was sobered by the thought that Raymond Chandler's famous detective had enjoyed all the benefit of being a local resident. Operating in California, a totally unfamiliar environment, was not going to be easy.

After breakfast, he drove to the Police Department headquarters. Putting on a confident air, he approached the reception desk and offered for inspection the warrant card he had used as a Detective Inspector in the Metropolitan Police Force. The patrolman behind the desk examined it doubtfully.

'May I have a word with your chief?' Dickens asked.

'What is the nature of your business?'

Dickens replied solemnly. 'Serial murders in the United States of America.'

The patrolman spoke a few words into a telephone and then invited Dickens to sit on a nearby bench, adding that Captain Rufus Locke would see him in ten minutes.

He sat beside a sallow-faced woman who smelt of liquor, garlic and perspiration. Her long patchwork dress came down to her slender ankles. When a passing policewoman asked her to put out her cigarette, she muttered under her breath as she obeyed: 'Fucking sonovabitch.'

Five minutes later, Dickens climbed a steep flight of stairs, entered the Chief's office and found himself under the hypnotic gaze of a huge, expressionless clean-shaven black man. Sunlight shining through a barred window made Dickens feel uncomfortably warm as he approached him across a long stretch of tiled floor.

Locke stood up, shook hands with him and invited him to sit down.

Dickens said: 'I retired from the Metropolitan Police Force recently. I am now a private investigator enquiring into the deaths of Adam Firsby and Carol Rossano. Her father, Joe Rossano, has offered a reward for a solution to the crime. My partner is seeing Mr Rossano today. I would be extremely grateful if you could fill us in on some of the details. In return for this, if we come across any useful information, we'll pass it straight onto you.'

'Adam Firsby took his own life,' Locke said, with a tired air. 'Rossano's daughter was killed in an air crash currently under investigation by the National Transportation Safety Board. The FBI is keeping a watchful eye on the case.'

'Do you think the deaths are connected?'

'It's possible. But we don't have any theories.'

'Did Firsby leave a suicide note?'

'No. We searched his room and his luggage.'

'Can you be sure it was suicide?'

'We're keeping an open mind about it. Lab tests showed some residual pockets of carbon-monoxide. We also found the hose he had fitted to the muffler, which came off as the car ran down the cliff.'

'Sounds as though he was determined to do a thorough job. In the meantime, the serial killer is giving you plenty of problems.'

'He has claimed so far to have killed forty-four people in forty-four states, using a different method of killing each time. If he's responsible for this latest outrage, it would raise his total to eighty. But we haven't ruled out the possibility that it's a psychopathic hoaxer who's claiming all these deaths. We have tried to trap him by reporting murders that have not taken place. But so far he hasn't fallen for it. Some of the murders he has claimed may well have been accidents, or even death by natural causes. The newspapers have speculated that he will eventually run out of ideas. But there is no limit to the number of different ways in which people can be killed.'

'You have, of course, sought forensic evidence that could eliminate him from any of the murders he has claimed.'

Locke, looking irritated, leaned across his desk.

'We're not dummies, Inspector. If someone falls in front of a subway train, how do you prove it was an accident? If a walker falls to his death while climbing in the Adirondacks in winter, how do you disprove a claim that he was pushed?'

'Are these genuine examples?'

'Yeah. In both cases he claimed them as his work. He says he pushed the woman victim under the train and threw a guy down a rocky gorge in the other case.'

'Any shootings?'

'Two -- one by revolver, one by crossbow.'

'Were the weapons found?'

'No. We can neither prove nor disprove that it was the serial killer. If it wasn't, for obvious reasons the real killers haven't come forward. There was a six-week pause in the killings -- or supposed killings -- until the death of Rossano's daughter in the plane crash which killed thirty-six people. We knew the state of California was likely to be on his hit list, There were a number of murders during that time. We added a couple of false ones to the list we handed out to the media, hoping he would claim one as his own. But the cunning son-of-a-bitch didn't fall for it. Shortly after Rossano's aircraft crashed, he contacted the Governor in his usual manner, claiming that he had placed a bomb on board. They say a kind of pressure builds up in the minds of serial killers which compels them to keep on killing. This time he has gone over the top. But we can't be absolutely sure that he's responsible.'

Dickens said: 'I suppose your forensic psychologists have drawn up a profile of the killer?'

'Sure. But he has utterly confounded the theory that serial killers tend to stick to the same methods. This guy is something else. He's not doing it for money or sex or vengeance. He's doing it for the publicity and he's sure getting plenty.'

'Where hasn't he committed a murder?'

'Hawaii, Florida, Nevada, Nebraska, Alaska and Washington. The murders have averaged out at one a month. We had three in two weeks- Virginia, Ohio and New Mexico. The longest has been six weeks. We are expecting another one any day.'

'Has he made any demands?'

'No. He simply sends an audio tape to the Governor of the state in which the murder has occurred. It's invariably clear of finger prints and the voice has been synthesized.'

'This suggests a familiarity with computer technology.'

'Everyone is a computer expert these days.'

'How were the normal security regulations breached in the case of Carol Rossano's death?'

'It was Rossano's private aircraft -- security was pretty lax. Rossano should have been on the flight but changed his mind at the last moment. Losing his daughter has made him as mad as hell. Hence the reward. But frankly, I don't give much for your chances of earning it.'

'You mean he won't keep his word.'

'Take it whatever way you like.'

He glanced at his watch and said: 'Inspector Dickens, I'm afraid that is all the time I can give you. Enjoy your time in California.'

Dickens thanked him. They shook hands. Dickens paused at the door and enquired: 'Would it be possible to get hold of a list of all the murders- or supposed murders?'

'Leave details of where you are staying with the police officer at the desk and I'll send you an article that was published in the Los Angeles Times last week.'

'Thank you very much.'

Dickens drove back to the hotel and remembered that he had promised Dwindle that he would continue to read Firsby's novel. He had serious doubts whether it would be of any help in solving the murder case. However, he sat down in an armchair in his bedroom and began to read:

*

Security at Gatwick airport seemed to be exceptionally strict, when I flew to Dublin on the first of January to take up my new appointment. It made me very angry, because I realised that if these precautions had been in force earlier Sally's life might have been spared.

As the aircraft moved backward from its stand, I reviewed the events of the past few weeks. Noel Jameson had expressed the hope that the change of scenery would help me deal with the loss I had suffered. Our Dublin manager, Ray Jackson, had accepted a transfer to Manchester, where he would be taking over from Ian Morrison. I would now be moving into the area of selling pensions schemes to both individuals and companies. Travelling around on business would give me a perfect opportunity to search for the Unyielding Republican Army cell that had bombed the Mercia Airlines Finch airliner.

Of course, I was sensible enough to know how difficult it would be for an individual to succeed where the police and intelligence services of two countries had failed. However, I felt that my bereavement had given me a sharp cutting edge that would slice through all obstacles.

I had made enquiries about the young traffic clerk responsible for leaving the unaccompanied suitcase on board. Jaspar Brown lived in Crawley. I went to see him and barely managed to resist an impulse to throttle the stupid fool when he opened the front door. I introduced myself as a relative of one of the victims. He invited me into the living-room. My antagonism lessened as I saw remorse and misery on his thin, spotty face. He would probably lose his job.

His mother followed us into the room, a cigarette dangling from her mouth. It was diabolical, she said, what was happening to her son, just because he had tried to do someone a simple favour. The airline had warned them against talking to the Press. But if Jaspar lost his job how would they manage? I explained that for personal reasons I wanted to know exactly what had happened and didn't mind paying for information. I asked for a description of the two men.

Jaspar said they appeared to be garrulously drunk, which had lulled his suspicions. He had spent several sessions with the police helping them build up a Photofit picture. The police had given him a few copies, in case they might help jog his memory into yielding other details of their appearance and behaviour. I persuaded him to part with a photo-copy of the picture for a hundred pounds -- his mother tried

hard for two-hundred. Listening to their strident argument about whether they should accept my offer, I realised that my sheltered life had protected me from such crude manifestations of human behaviour. From now on I would have to become as hardened and ruthless.as the people who had killed Sally.

Because I had recently bought a flat and new furniture, my overdraft and credit cards were up to their limits. If it become necessary to steal in order to finance my mission, I was perfectly prepared to do so. Oddly, the thought of stealing seemed more repugnant than the murders I was planning to carry out.

The reverse thrust of the engines sounded in my ears as the aircraft lost speed on the main runway at Dublin airport. The lush green pastures I saw out of the cabin window confirmed that I had arrived in the Emerald Isle. I had a sudden recollection of my mother in a yellow bikini running down to the water's edge during a family holiday in Galway when I was a child. That was twenty-three years ago. I could never have dreamed that I would one day come back to Ireland with a thirst for vengeance.

A bitterly cold wind froze my face and ears as I descended the aircraft steps.

It was dark by the time I boarded the airport bus. A booking had been made for me in the Gresham hotel. I sat for a while in my room studying the Photofit portraits. The taller of the two had a prominent cleft chin and a large adam's apple. Jaspar Brown had told me that he habitually flicked the lock of hair off his forehead with his index finger. The other man had ginger hair, was of stocky build and walked with a rolling gait. Their names on the passenger list -- almost certainly false -- were Rafferty and O'Driscoll. Brown had remembered the exact words the shorter man had uttered as they requested permission to leave the aircraft. 'Can you please help us, mister. We both have a terrible attack of the Spanish shites. Every few minutes we're having to go to the bog. We'll stay overnight and see a doctor. God, it's bloody awful!'

They had asked that the suitcase in the hold should go on to Dublin, saying that it contained a 'rare fish' they had caught. A Mrs O'Driscoll would pick up the suitcase when it arrived at Dublin airport and put it into the refrigerator. 'It'll smell like billyho after a couple of hours, if we take it to the hospital.'

The onward flight to Dublin had been over-booked, there were passengers waiting for seats. Which was why Jaspar Brown had so readily acceded to their request to break their journey.

It was common knowledge that terrorist organizations in Ireland had plenty of funds extorted by blackmail and stolen in bank raids. My plan was to offer to launder their money by channelling it into respectable insurance and pensions schemes. Eventually, I hoped to infiltrate the inner councils of this dangerous splinter group. In this way, I hoped eventually to meet the bombers face to face. It might take years but I was prepared to be patient.

To prove that the men who had left the aircraft at Gatwick were not genuine members of the angling fraternity, I intended to check the membership rolls of angling clubs in Dublin for the names O'Driscoll and Rafferty.

I lay for a while on one of the beds in my room. Sally's familiar perfume seemed to hover about me as I pIeaded with her to give her approval to my actions.

Ray Jackson, the man I was replacing, telephoned and invited me to join him for dinner later that evening.

But first he took me on a brief tour of Dublin. We drove past the stout columns of the Bank of Ireland, the ancient Trinity college buildings and then across O'Connell bridge to the Post Office, where Ireland's fight for independence had begun. Nelson's column - somewhat smaller than the one in London's Trafalgar Square -- had survived the Uprising but during the Fifties the IRA had sent it tumbling down into a neat pile of masonry. 'They're very accomplished with explosives,' Jackson added, admiringly.

His tactless remark infuriated me but I managed to stay silent.

Jackson's favourite restaurant was closed, so we returned to the Gresham hotel for dinner. I didn't much enjoy his company. He recounted tales of his amorous conquests and seemed curious about my posting to Dublin, which I told him I had requested for health reasons.

Jackson, a divorcé, had been living in a rented room in Sandymount. I said I would take it over. He showed me the room and introduced me to Mrs Sullivan, the daughter of the old lady who owned the house. She was pleased to get a new tenant so quickly.

The following morning Jackson introduced me to the staff at the small Harbour Life and Pensions office. He briefed me about prospective customers, showed me the accounts and mailing lists and, in passing, mentioned that financial journalists could often provide useful leads. It occurred to me at that point that the Irish newspapers might have tried to trace the missing "anglers".

At lunch time I walked to the offices of the Irish Times and asked to speak to a journalist who had covered the bombing of the Mercia Airlines aircraft. I was introduced to Sean Brady, a haggard, gray-haired man sitting in front of a computer monitor in a corner of a busy office. I showed him the Photo-fit picture I had obtained and said: 'Mr Brady, the two men who left the aircraft at Gatwick claimed the suitcase they left behind contained a rare fish. I thought it might be sensible to check the membership of Irish angling clubs.'

'Are you from a British newspaper?'

'No.'

'Who are you? And what is your business in Dublin?'

I told him, adding that I hated like hell the bastards who had murdered my fiancée in the crash.

He walked over to a filing cabinet and after returning with a large clip of newspaper cuttings, muttered: 'We checked out every angling club in Ireland and drew a blank.'

He made a photo copy of the Photofit picture on the office machine, just in case it proved to be better defined that the one they already had. Then returning to his desk, he sat down and stared with a bleak expression into his computer monitor.

I asked: 'Have the police checked whether a woman came to Dublin airport to pick up the suitcase?'

Brady looked at me as though I was mad.

'How long have you been in Ireland?'

'Since yesterday.'

'That explains why you haven't seen the newspaper advertisements. We offered ten thousand pounds to anyone who could help us trace the missing men and their wives.'

'Any response?'

He shook his head.

Doesn't that tend to confirm the theory that it was a bomb planted by the URA?'

His expression darkened. He said something and then began to type furiously on his keyboard. It was only after I had left the room on my way out that the words he had said :'My daughter was also killed,' finally registered on my mind. I drew comfort from the coincidence of finding another sufferer, realising that the odds against this happening were not so great in a small country such as Ireland and that this would ease the task of tracking down my enemies. But as I walked to the car hire show rooms, it occurred to me there was a corresponding disadvantage, inasmuch as my enemies could just as easily find me.

I returned to my hotel room and checked through the British newspapers I had brought with me. Among the names on the casualty list was the name of the daughter of the journalist I had been talking to, Ursula Brady.

I folded the newspapers with reverential care and replaced them at the bottom of my suitcase. Even after such a short passage of time, they seemed to be acquiring the mould of history. I regretted that Sally was listed among the dead as 'single' – it seemed to deny my right to mourn her. I hated Time itself for relentlessly distancing me from her with every hour that passed.

On Thursday I drove Jackson to Dublin airport in the Ford car I had hired. It was a bright January morning, the air was sharp and invigorating. Jackson collected his suitcases from the boot, shook my hand through the open window and said heartily: 'Enjoy yourself -- Dublin is a great place. You'll become Irish before you know what's happened to you. Good luck.'

If I left my bones behind in Ireland, would that make me Irish, I wondered idly, as I drove back to the Gresham. The idea did not seem unattractive. But I did not intend to die until after I had successfully completed my mission.

The following morning I moved into my new lodgings.

6

A fter a breakfast of scrambled eggs, toast, coffee and a plate of pancakes soaked in maple syrup, Dwindle took a taxi to the airport and boarded a flight to Las Vegas. A solid wall of heat met him as he left McCarran airport terminal. It was a relief to get into the air-conditioned taxi. Fifteen minutes later he was standing at the reception desk of the Phoenix hotel on Las Vegas Boulevard.

'Do you have an appointment with Mr Rossano?' the girl enquired, leaning over the desk.

Overwhelmed by the fragrant perfume that floated down towards him, Dwindle smiled and said: 'I do.'

'Your name, sir?'

'Hamble. George Hamble.'

She lifted a phone and then instructed a bellhop to take Dwindle to see Mr Rossano.

A group of gamblers in the elevator were discussing their losses, One of whom said wryly: 'This town should be called Lost Wages not Los Vegas.' Overhearing the remark, Dwindle resolved that if he were ever tempted to go into a casino he would limit his losses to a maximum of ten dollars.

The elevator emptied, leaving him alone with the bellhop.

'What's it like being small, mister?' the youngster enquired, when they reached the top floor.

'It has its advantages -- you rarely bump your head.' He added with a smile, as they walked along thick blue carpet: 'You're not so big yourself, buster.'

'I'm still growing,' came the reply.

'The important thing is to grow mentally.'

'Good advice, sir,' said the bellhop. 'Here we are. Mr Rossano's office.'

He rang the door-bell and announced: 'A Mr Hamble to see you, sir. A tall man wearing an immaculate blue mohair suit opened the door.

Rossano was in his late forties, with a mane of glossy black wavy hair, tanned, lean features and a very prominent nose. Dwindle wondered why, like so many of his contemporaries, he had not had it routinely chiselled to movie star proportions.

'Come on in, Rossano said. 'I was expecting somebody bigger,' seeming somehow to imply that he was being short-changed.

'I'm the smallest giant in the world,' Dwindle quipped, as he went through the door.

He noticed several bear skins – the results of Rossano's hunting expeditions – randomly distributed on the vast expanse of fitted cream carpet. The large room was furnished with half a dozen large cream-coloured settees and an equal number of capacious armchairs. A huge television screen hung on one wall. Through the large window he could see the multi-coloured buildings along the Strip. A large canopied bed was visible through an open door.

Joe Rossano touched a button on a coffee table and the curtains closed with a swishing sound.

'Sit down, Would you like a drink?'

Dwindle clambered into one of the armchairs and said: 'Orange juice, please.'

It appeared in an instant, proffered by a young pretty Philippino girl.

Rossano sat opposite Dwindle and said: 'Okay, shoot. Let's have your proposition.'

Dwindle stared into Rossano's hooded, dark eyes and said: 'My partner Dickens and I were sorry to hear about your tragic loss. As I told you on the telephone, we would like to bring the person responsible to justice. My partner is currently exchanging views with the LA Chief of Police. I have come to request written confirmation that you will pay us the reward if we are successful in finding your daughter's murderer. And, of course, we would appreciate any information you might be able to give us.'

'Okay. The reason I agreed to see you is that the police, the FBI and for that matter the National Transport Safety Board seem to be dragging their fucking feet. I need some quick action.'

'Do you believe that it was the work of a serial killer? Or do you think it was a personal attack on you and your family?'

'It was an attempt to kill me that failed.'

'Do you suspect any one?

'There are hundreds of guys out there who want me dead. Business competitors, people who've lost at the tables, people whose credit I have stopped. You name it. But blowing up an aircraft is crazy gangster stuff. I'm going to get whoever did it, if it costs me every cent I've got.'

'You think it was a bomb?'

'What else? The aircraft took off from San Francisco and set course for Guadeloupe -- that's an island off the Mexican coast. Twenty-five minutes later it lost contact with Air Traffic Control. A Coast Guard helicopter found some pieces of wreckage where it came down in the sea. The National Transport Safety Board say they will salvage what's left. But it's in deep water -- the salvage operation could take years.'

'What kind of aircraft was it?' '

A twin-engine turbo-prop called an Aristocrat. I bought it three years ago. They're as safe as houses and both pilots were very experienced.'

'Who else was on board besides your daughter?'

'Thirty-five people -- including two pilots and two stewardesses. They were movie people going on location. My daughter was an actress. A beautiful girl.'

Rossano blew his nose loudly.

Then he stuffed his handkerchief into his trouser pocket and said savagely. 'I'll chew the bastard's balls off, if I ever catch him.' He paused and said: 'I'm sorry. I'm very upset. I loved my daughter. Keep me in touch with any developments. What did you say your name was?'

'George Hamble. My friends call me Dwindle because I once said that I seemed to be dwindling away.'

Rossano chuckled morosely.

'It can't be easy for you Dwindle. Anyway, here's the deal. I'll give you and your partner fifty-thousand pounds if you can identify the person who killed my daughter and produce sufficient evidence to get him charged. I'll pay a further fifty-thousand pounds when his guilt has been established beyond doubt in a Californian court of law. I'll give you one month to find him. I want quick results. Understood?'

'Okay. Would you please get your attorney to confirm that in writing. In the meantime, what do you know about Adam Firsby.'

'He was a British airline pilot, a friend of my daughter. She was crazy about him. He met her while he was playing at one of my casinos.'

'Did he by any chance owe you any money?'

'A nickel or two.'

'Could you be more precise?'

'Ninety-five thousand dollars.'

'Do you think that is why he committed suicide?'

'No reason for him to do so. We go easy on people who cooperate.'

'Meaning?'

Rossano's jet black eyes flickered.

'Meaning that we don't lean on them too heavily if they are willing to pay us on the instalment plan. Naturally, we have to see our way clear to recover the debt.'

'And what about those who don't cooperate?'

'We pursue them through every court in the land, as you would expect.'

'Would you have pursued Firsby through the courts?'

'Not while Carol was alive. He had promised to marry her when he divorced his wife in England. I wasn't going to sue a prospective son-in-law.'

'Did you approve of him?'

'What difference would that have made? When a daughter like mine makes up her mind to marry someone, there's nothing you can do about it. But the answer to your question is that I didn't approve of him. When he came to my house in LA to offer condolences the next time he was on a stopover, he told me he had a pretty good idea who the killer was. But he clammed up when I questioned him about it. So I offered to wipe off his debt if he would name him.'

Dwindle sipped his glass of orange juice thoughtfully and then asked: 'How could Adam Firsby possibly have known who planted a bomb on board your aircraft?'

'I think he just made it up in the hope of wriggling out of paying his debts. He knew he was on the spot. As to the accusation that is frequently made that casino owners drive people to suicide, the Inland Revenue have been responsible for a helluva lot more suicides than we have. Firsby was a bum, anyway. No one will miss him.'

'What do you make of this serial killer who says he's in the business of committing a murder in each of the fifty states of America?'

'A lot of people believe it's a hoax. But it's obvious that someone planted a bomb. Firsby hinted he knew who it was. But gamblers will tell any lies to get out of paying their debts. I don't think he knew. If he did, I was willing to pay him for the information, just as I am willing to pay you.'

Dwindle drank the rest of the orange juice and said: 'I hate to labour the point but exactly how much pressure would Firsby have been under because of his gambling debts?'

'We make it a rule to apply as much pressure as is necessary. This isn't a philanthropic institution.'

'If he had stayed in England, would you still have been able to recover the debt?'

'That's a naive question, Dwindle. Debt is international. My computer in there' -- he nodded towards a door Dwindle hadn't noticed before -- 'can finger anybody on this planet who owes more than a thousand dollars. There are debt collecting agencies who will buy the debt from us. Some of the methods they use make us look like Mother Theresa.'

He gave a cynical laugh.

'Adam Firsby knew this?'

'You bet your sweet life. He had the nerve to telephone me when he heard that Carol was dead and ask if I intended to pursue him for the money he owed. I told him that it was a matter for the Landholdings Corporation of which I happen to be the boss. Two days later, when he came to see me in LA, he hinted that he knew who killed my daughter. I made it clear to him that I knew he was bluffing. Shortly afterwards, his car was found floating upside down in the water. We can't be sure he's dead but if by any chance he isn't, we'll sure as hell find him and screw him for what he owes.'

Dwindle stood up and said: 'You have made things very clear, Mr Rossano. My partner and I will do our best to find the murderer for you.'

'His guilt must be unequivocally proved in a court of law,' Rossano reminded him, sharply.

'Agreed,' Dwindle commented.

Rossano led him out to the corridor.

When he reached the ground floor, Dwindle noticed a line of slot machines in a brightly-lit corridor leading to the casino. He went up to the first one, reached up, inserted a quarter and pulled down the handle. A clatter of coins followed. Dwindle quickly pocketed them and, smiling broadly, went out onto the Strip.

He stood there for a moment, blinking in the bright light then hailed a taxi to take him back to the airport.

7

S o where do we go from here, Dwindle?' Dickens enquired, as they took their evening meal in the hotel restaurant.

'Tomorrow, I suggest we hunt for Firsby's other girlfriend, Eve Linklater. She may have some idea why he committed suicide. Incidentally, have you ever considered what life would be like if women threw themselves at you, as appears to have happened with Firsby?'

'Are you worried about suffering the same fate?' Dickens enquired, with a grin.

'I have never experienced the slightest difficulty in attracting women,' Dwindle replied with dignity. He pulled a face and sipped his wine as though it had a sour taste. After a while, he said: 'It does seem then that Firsby had three women on the go at the same time -- his wife, Carol Rossano and Eve Linklater. Perhaps it all got too much for him.'

'Two can be difficult enough,' Dickens said, solemnly. 'I speak from bitter experience.'

'Have you read his letters to Eve Linklater?'

'I've glanced through them.'

'What about the novel. Have you been reading it?'

Dickens said apologetically: 'I'm still jet lagged to blazes. I'll read some tonight in bed.'

'The love letters may provide some useful clues.'

'Some of them are pretty hot stuff,' Dickens said, with relish.

'We're not interested in their prurient content.'

'It wouldn't be the first time that a surplus of female company has done for a man. The amazing thing is, though, that in spite of his carrying on, he still found time for gambling.'

'He seems to have met Carol Rossano in a casino.'

'None of this helps us find out who bombed Rossano's airplane. We'll try to locate Eve Linklater tomorrow. Her address is on the computer.'

'She's no longer at that address. I telephoned and checked before coming down to dinner. She lived in a theatrical boarding-house and seems to have moved out without leaving a forwarding address.'

'So how are we going to find her?'

'Tomorrow, I suggest we go to her former residence and see if we can pick up any information there.'

*

The paintwork of the two-story building outside which they parked next day was faded and cracked. Dickens commented: 'She must have been dirt poor to have lived here. Now, as Philip Marlow would say: 'I'll go and case the joint.'

He strolled along a concrete path leading to a weathered veranda. A plump young woman with a mass of brown frizzy hair answered the door-bell and said with a strong Spanish accent: 'Dis is a respectable house -- no drugs -- no thievin' -- notin' illegal.'

Realising that he had been mistaken for a plain clothes cop, Dickens smiled and said: 'I'm British, ma'am. I've just come to enquire if Eve Linklater lives here.'

'She don'ta live here no more.'

'May I speak to whoever owns the place?'

'I'll get Mrs Vanderbot.'

A large number of facelifts had somewhat reduced Vivienne Vanderbot's capacity for facial expression. But she managed a lopsided smile for Dickens. She was tiny, her cropped blonde hair forming a platinum helmet on her small skull. There were orange stains on her white satin robe, suggesting a fondness for marmalade.

: 'What can I do for you, mister?'

'I'm Henry Dickens. I was hoping that a Miss Eve Linklater might be able to provide me with some information.'

'Are you the guy who telephoned last night?'

'That was my partner.'

'I told him she left without leaving a forwarding address.'

'Did she have folks somewhere?'

'No. But she was from ... lemme think now. Yeah, New Jersey.'

'Has she gone back home?'

'What's your interest?'

'I'm a detective from England. My partner and I -- he's sitting in the car -- are looking into the death of a British pilot called Adam Firsby. He committed suicide a few weeks ago. She was a friend of his and we would like to question her about him. Any little scraps of information might help us.'

'Would you like to come inside.'

'That's very kind of you'

She looked curiously at the car.

'Your partner's very small -- I'd hate to be that small, if I was a guy. Still Alan Ladd was only a little guy.'

'Dwindle has a large brain -- that's what's important.'

'Is he fond of movies?'

'Sure. He's a sucker for Marilyn Monroe.'

'She was a close friend of mine. Stole all my boy friends.'

Dickens followed her through a narrow entrance hall into an untidy bedroom that smelt of body lotions, musky perfumes and reefers and wriggled his large bulk into an armchair. Mrs Vanderbot sat on the bed and briefly allowed him a vision of a leg of quite remarkable beauty, before covering it with an elaborate sweep of her wrinkled hand.

I am about to be propositioned thought Dickens, wryly.

What did you say your name was?' Mrs Vanderbot enquired.

'Henry Dickens,'

'Call me Vivienne, Henry. Eve left strict instructions not to say anything if anybody came enquiring about her.'

'Vivienne, let's get this straight.. You have something I want. I have something you want. Can we make it a straight commercial transaction.'

I am not a hooker?' Vivienne declared, throwing up her hands in pretended horror. She then laughed heartily at her own performance.

'You are a good-looking lady, that's for sure,' Dickens replied. 'For a hundred dollars would you be prepared to tell me everything you know about the young woman who boarded here?'

He pulled out a hundred-dollar bill.

Vivienne's hand grabbed it with the speed of a deadly snake aiming at its prey. She tucked it inside her robe and said: 'I do love Englishmen even though they're terrible in the sack. Okay. Let's have a drink and we'll talk.'

'Eve was an actress?' Dickens enquired.

Vivienne nodded. 'A lousy one.' Flourishing her hands dramatically, she continued: 'Believe me she's well out of it. An actor's life is the hardest in the world. I should know. I have had great successes in my time. But I retired a coupla years back and bought this place. It brings in a reasonable income. I still get offered movie parts but now I can afford to be choosy.'

'Did Eve get many offers?' Dickens enquired.

'Nah.. It's not easy for a black girl who's not very talented. Anyway, she's the kind who just wants to get married and settle down. Marriage and art don't mix in my book.'

'You believe she gave up and went home?'

'I don't know where she's gone.'

Vivienne went to a dressing table, poured a quantity of tequila into two mugs decorated with red hearts, pulled a pack of Camels out of her pocket, handed Henry one of the mugs and lit a cigarette.

'Did you ever see her with this guy Adam Firsby?' Dickens asked.

He called for her in a cab several times. I only caught a glimpse of him. He seemed quite a charmer -- Richard Geer type. They spoke on the telephone a lot. She must have been very keen on him.'

'Did you know that he committed suicide.'

'Sure, it was in all the newspapers. They didn't find the body so there was some talk about whether he's the serial killer. But he couldn'a been. I don't believe he was even in the States when some of these killings took place.'

'Was Eve Linklater here at the time when his car was found in the water?'

Vivienne Vanderbot clapped her hands over her mouth, in a dramatic gesture.

'Oh, sure. I'll never forget it. I saw her when she opened the newspaper. She shrieked like a wounded animal and then ran up to her room. I heard her sobbing. I knocked on her door, got no answer but went in anyway and found her lying on the bed. Her face was wet with tears. I'm pretty tough -- you have to shove like a Sherman tank to survive in this town. But my heart went out to her. She was a beautiful girl -- the Diana Ross type. Not that she could sing. She couldn't even stay in tune. She was the sorta girl who should have got married and had a bundle of kids. Here in LA she was like a goldfish in a tank of sharks.'

'How did she keep herself?' Dickens asked.

'Slinging hash mainly. She tried bars but she didn't like it because she was always being propositioned. Once when she was really hard up she did a stint in a topless bar in Las Vegas. Some guy touched her up and there was a brawl in which Adam Firsby was involved. That's how he got to know her.'

'Did she get any work at all in the movies or theatre?'

'A coupla small speaking parts in a downtown theatre...I tried to coach her but it was no use. She simply didn't have any talent. Hey, you ain't drinking. Doncha like it?'

'I've been too interested in what you have been saying.'

Dickens felt a fiery burning in his throat as he gulped down the tequila.

'And you've no idea where she went?'

'She just said she was going home. That was a few days after Firsby committed suicide.'

'Her home was in New Jersey -- right?'

'That's what she said. I've seen a lot of girls go back East on the Greyhound bus.. Hey, doncha think you've had your hundred dollar's worth?'

Dickens gave a philosophical shrug.

'I suppose so. May I come back and question you some more some time?'

'It'll cost,' Vivienne said. And added, archly, 'Unless you wanna make it a social visit.'

'I like to get sociable once in a while,' Dickens said, smiling

Vivienne put down her empty glass, escorted him to the front-door and watched until he drove off.

'I think I have made a conquest there,' Dickens said to Dwindle. 'What have you been doing while I was being vamped by Mae West?'

'I've been reading some of the files on Firsby's computer.'

'Have you discovered anything useful?'

'Maybe. But first of all tell me how you got along.'

'I threw away a hundred-dollar bill for practically nothing,' Dickens said sadly and drove off. He continued: 'Eve Linklater was in love with Firsby, that's for sure. She left to go home for New Jersey -- probably by Greyhound Bus -- when she heard he had committed suicide. We'll have to check on all the Linklaters in the New Jersey directory. It's not a common name. So what did you find out from the laptop computer? Anything new?'

'A few items of interest. His gambling wins and losses are recorded on it. He first went to Las Vegas when he was on a long stopover. He won forty-thousand dollars at the Phoenix casino in Rossano's hotel where I went yesterday. That reminds me -- I won seventeen dollars on a one-arm bandit on my way out.'

Dwindle smiled at the recollection and went on: 'It would seem from an E-mail letter he sent to Carol Rossano that soon afterwards he returned to LA from London on a fortnight's private holiday. He probably told his wife that he was on duty. He obviously hoped to make another killing at the tables. It was during that holiday that he met the Linklater girl. But this time, instead of winning, he wound up owing ninety-five thousand bucks.'

'So how did he find time to date both Rossano's daughter and Eve Linklater?'

'If a man can chat on his wife, he can cheat on his mistress as well. It gets to be a habit.'

Dickens's jaw set grimly. he had been reminded of what he sometimes referred to as a 'certain experience in my life.'

He commented, as he stopped at a red light: 'We don't seem to be getting anywhere with this one.'

'I wouldn't say that, 'Dwindle responded cheerfully. 'When we get back to the hotel, we'll make a few phone calls and see if we can locate Eve Linklater's family in New Jersey. It's a Scottish name. There probably aren't too many of them. With a bit of luck we may be able to find her and question her about Firsby.'

'Mrs Vanderbot, the lady I have just interviewed, said there had been some speculation that Firsby was the serial killer. But he was ruled out as a suspect when it became apparent that he was out of the country when some of the murders occurred. This does not necessarily mean that he wasn't involved.'

'I doubt if serial murder would appeal to an airline pilot. It's curious, though, isn't it, that the bombing of an airplane was the basic theme of his novel.'

The lights turned to green. Dickens said as the car moved forward: 'Firsby owed Rossano a lot of money, isn't it just possible that he thought Rossano was on board the aircraft and tried to off-load his debt by killing him?'

'Killing Rossano would not necessarily have relieved him of the debt. Incidentally, we should soon receive the list of serial murders you asked for. We'll study it and see if there is any discernible pattern.'

'Locke says they still can't determine whether or not the whole thing is a gigantic hoax. Whenever and wherever there is a homicide, this guy claims responsibility.'

'Should we contact the FBI?'

'You can be sure that Locke has told them about us. He only saw me out of courtesy because of my former police connections. Anyway, from what I have seen of intelligence agencies they tend to make secrecy and stealth such a priority that they lose sight of their main objective.

'Okay,' Dwindle responded, as Dickens pulled into the hotel car park: 'Let's check to see if the post has arrived.'

*

There were two letters. Rossano's attorney had written: 'Our client has informed us that you represent the D and D Detective Agency registered in the United Kingdom and that you have come to Los Angeles with the intention of trying to find the murderer of Mr Rossano's daughter, Carol Rossano.

The terms of the reward are as follows: Fifty-thousand pounds sterling to be paid when the person responsible for the crime in question has been charged with her murder. A further fifty-thousand pounds to be paid when the suspect has been found guilty and sentenced in a Californian court of law.

This agreement will lapse, if no arrest is made, at midnight twenty-eight days from the date of this letter.

'Is that satisfactory?' Dickens enquired when he had read the letter.

'I assumed a calendar month, not a lunar month, ' Dwindle grumbled. 'It's certainly an incentive to get our skates on. Paying the reward in pounds instead of dollars represents a bonus of roughly one third.'

Locke had kept his promise to send a cutting from the Los Angeles Times. The headline said: Serial Killer Must Be Caught. At the end of the article was a bleak catalogue of the methods used in the eighty deaths he had claimed so far. They ranged from a karate blow to the neck in Montana to a stabbing in the New York subway. They included a poisoning, a strangulation (lady's tights), a suffocation (plastic bag), two shootings ( revolver and a crossbow), a bludgeoning, a drowning in a bath, electrocution (deliberately miswired toaster), a case of someone being thrown out of a skyscraper, an explosion on board an aircraft and many others. It made depressing reading.

Dickens running his eyes over the list, commented: 'This guy's in direct competition with Genghis Khan.'

Dwindle replied: 'I can't help thinking that some kind of an unholy alliance must exist between serial murderers and journalists. The newspapers make fortunes out of this sort of mayhem.'

'You can't blame newspapers for telling the truth.'

'I suppose not. But I sometimes worry because our business profits depend on it as well.'

'Stop talking such drivel, Dwindle,' Dickens said scornfully. 'When we put a murderer behind bars, we prevent him repeating his crime. That's the principle I've always worked on. If you tell the media not to mention crime, you'll soon become a laughing stock. And even if they obeyed you, crime would go on exactly the same as before.'

Unable to think of a suitable answer, Dwindle responded mildly: 'Okay. Let's go and find a sandwich bar. I'm starving.'

8

A s they entered the foyer of the hotel, Dickens suffered an attack of severe indigestion. He burped loudly. 'Stupid of you to eat a pile of pastrami sandwiches the size of the Empire State Building,' Dwindle remarked. Dickens grimaced and announced that he was going to bed.

Dwindle went up to his room, switched on the laptop computer and tried to restore some deleted files. Frustrated in his attempt, he then scrolled through Firsby's novel. He was baffled by the strange hieroglyphics that constituted the last chapter. He then scrolled through some other files and came across one dated the sixteenth of June which showed that Firsby had purchased a return fare to Los Angeles from London via British Airways. His personal accounts showed that he had gambled considerable amounts during his holiday in California.

An e-mail letter sent the same day read:

Dear Carol

How I miss you now I'm back in England! That was a great night we had. Hope your dad didn't object to my winning so much.

I had been wanting for some time to fly down to Vegas during my overnight stops. Someone had told me it was possible to catch a flight down there, have a session at the tables and still be back in good time for the return flight. So I decided to have a go. And what a go it turned out to be!

Lady luck was certainly with me. It wasn't just the money -- although forty grand always comes in handy! It was meeting you.

Thanks for persuading me to cash in at exactly the right moment.

And, afterwards, boy, oh boy! -- seeing those dollar bills fluttering over your beautiful body was the experience of a lifetime!

Baby, you are the best lay I have had in years.

I'm coming back for more the day after tomorrow on a private visit. The greenbacks I won smell of your perfume and remind me of you constantly. I intend to spend some of them on a first-class ticket that will reunite us in LA.

Muchos amore

Adam

The affectionate letter to Carol Rossano on the computer lacked the romantic fervour which characterised the letters he later wrote to Eve Linklater. But it seemed to Dwindle improbable that Firsby would have planned to kill a girl who had been such an engaging bed companion and had helped him win at the gambling tables. Human nature, however, being so unpredictable one couldn't be absolutely sure.

As he continued to scroll through the files, Dwindle reflected how difficult it often is to distinguish between truth and fiction. The multiple 'States' killings currently filling the headlines might simply be an invention by the media to increase newspaper circulation and TV ratings. However, since the Los Angeles police department were taking the serial killer's claims seriously, he decided that he and Dickens must do so as well. A major problem in making deductions from the laptop computer was that only Firsby's draft letters and e-mail correspondence with his girlfriends were available. They did not have access to the replies he must have received.

The crash in which Carol Rossano had died took place on the 18th of June. The letter addressed to Eve Linklater in which the mention of a reward was made was dated the 30th of June. Firsby appeared to have been in America during the whole of this period, so it was not impossible for him to have been the bomber. The Governor of California had received the serial killer's audio tape after Firsby's suicide. But this did not in itself eliminate Firsby as a suspect because it may have been posted before he died.

Because of the time limit that Rossano had imposed they had to solve Carol Rossano's murder quickly. Their best hope still lay on the information contained on the hard disk of the laptop computer. Much of it was of a trivial nature -- household accounts, technical matters relating to Firsby's professional life and so on. It would all have to be systematically examined file by file. Dwindle decided that he would leave it to Dickens to trawl through such trivia as laundry lists, letters and gambling records and would share with him the chore of reading through the novel, which ended with its mysterious trail of hieroglyphics.

9

M rs Dickens approached the counter of her local butcher's shop in the Welsh village where she and her husband lived. Ernie Thomas, the proprietor, informed her, as he expertly wrapped up lamb chops Mrs Dickens had ordered over the telephone, that her husband had popped in on his way to solve a murder in Los Angeles and had bought a pound of chitterlings. He added: 'I didn't know he liked chitterlings, Mrs Dickens. Perhaps they're for someone in Los Angeles.'

Why should Henry have taken pigs' intestines all the way to Los Angeles Mrs Dickens asked herself. The mystery was hard to solve as any of her husband's.

A few days later, when Dickens telephoned from his hotel room in California and asked how she was. Mrs Dickens replied: 'I'm fine, Henry. But why did you buy chitterlings on your way to London Airport?'

'How did you know?'

'Ernie Thomas the butcher told me.'

'Did he now.'

'I couldn't help wondering why you bought them.'

'I didn't make a long-distance phone call to discuss chitterlings.'

'So how is your enquiry going, then?'

'We're making some progress.'

They talked about his mother-in-law's varicose veins and went on to discuss the holiday-of-a-lifetime cruise Mrs Dickens intended them to take in the Caribbean after he had successfully concluded his present case. As Dickens was about to ring off, his wife said: 'Henry, I'm still very puzzled about those chitterlings.'

He chuckled to himself as he put the phone down. Then he sat in the armchair and began to mull over the investigation on which he and Dwindle were now engaged.

Firsby might initially have been under the impression that Rossano's death would relieve him of his gambling debts. But having learned that instead of killing Rossano he had killed his daughter, he might have decided to commit suicide by attaching a hose pipe to the exhaust of his car. In his dying moments he must have released the handbrake, allowing the car to roll down the rocky cliff face into the sea. The door swinging open as the car careened down the cliff face had allowed his body to fall out and it had been swept out to sea.

If they could find Eve Linklater and persuade her to talk about Firsby they might be able to check on his movements during the few days prior to his death. It was even possible that she knew the identity of the serial killer.

Trying to ignore his stomach pains, Dickens decided to try to locate Eve Linklater in the state of New Jersey. He was subjected while talking to the telephone operator to a severe attack of flatulence. Eventually he succeeded in tracing seventeen Linklaters, none of whom had any connections with the girl they were seeking.

Soon afterwards, lying on the bed, he experienced a series of gaseous explosions. Eventually he fell asleep and dreamed that he was about to be arrested for unlawfully bringing chitterlings into the United States of America, in contravention of Article One hundred and five of the Import of Pig's Intestines act. While protesting his innocence to the Chief of Police, the chitterlings fell out of his pocket on to the floor. Rufus Locke was in the act of snapping handcuffs on him when he woke with a start, still suffering from severe stomach pains.

He hurried to a local drugstore, bought some anti-indigestion tablets A sympathetic lady assistant handed him a glass of iced water. He swallowed one and by the time he had walked back to the hotel felt considerably better.

He went to Dwindle's room and informed him of his unsuccessful attempt to trace Eve Linklater, adding: 'American food may not agree with me but they make certainly first-class indigestion tablets.'

'Try eating smaller portions next time, Dickens,' Dwindle advised. 'So how shall we set about finding Eve?'

'Mrs Vanderbot said she once worked in a topless bar in Las Vegas. We could do a tour of the bars, in the hope of finding someone who knew her.'

'I am surprised at you, Dickens.'

'Are you trying to suggest -- '

'Perish the thought, Dickens,' Dwindle interrupted him, smiling. Since there are probably hundreds of these places in Las Vegas, I'd better come with you to keep you out of trouble. We'll drive down there tomorrow.'

He added with a serious expression: 'But you must remind yourself on entering these salacious haunts that you are doing so purely in the line of duty.'

Dickens said: 'Okay. In the meantime, if you'll hand me Firsby's little computer, I'll endeavour to read some more files.'

10

I t was odd, Dickens thought, that Firsby, a man who would think nothing of gambling away thousands of dollars, should bother to record copies of his laundry lists on his computer. Perhaps this compulsive urge to keep track of his underwear was due to his busy love life. Switching to Private Correspondence, he found the draft of a letter which Firsby had sent by surface mail to Eve Linklater from San Francisco. The computer file was dated 25th June. Firsby had written:

Eve, my one and only love,

This has been the most amazing week of my life. A girl I knew has died in that tragic air crash. I came here to San Francisco to see if I could find out what happened -- the aircraft took off from here.

I have to say that even that horrible tragedy could not spoil the happiness you have given me. My love for you has lifted me on to a higher – dare I say spiritual -- level than anything I have reached before.

I knew when I first set eyes on you that we had been destined throughout all eternity to meet. It has changed me completely. I want to spend the rest of my life with you.

Adam meets Eve as they were fated to do. Sounds corny, doesn't it. But it has actually happened!

I'm sorry I hit that guy in the bar. But a kind of fury came over me and gave me the strength of ten men. Don't worry about it. I didn't hurt him that bad. He'll think twice about doing the same thing again.

I've led a bit of a roving life but I can honestly say that now I have found the keeper of my heart I'll never let you go.

Everything that ever happened to me was as nothing compared to that extraordinary moment when I first set eyes on you. I knew instantly that this was the beginning of the only complete and fulfilling love I shall ever have, or want to have.

Carol Rossano who died in the crash a few days ago helped me to win some money in her father's casino. We had fun together but that's all there was to it.

I have to be honest because I am so much in love with you. I am married but the marriage has been dead for years and I intend to divorce.

I am longing to see you again. I will be back in LA in a few days time. I have to fly back to London. But I shall be returning as flight crew to LA a couple of days later.

In the meantime, keep yourself solely for your devoted and ever-loving,

Adam (Firsby)

Another letter dated the 26th June engaged Dickens's interest. It was also headed San Francisco:

Dearest Eve

I've just sent you one letter. Now I'll send you another. How I look forward to our little tet-a-tet. We'll buy some land in that place I told you about on the telephone. We'll grow peaches. But you will always be the loveliest peach of all.

It is all so wonderful I have to pinch myself to persuade myself that it is for real.

Your adoring

Adam.

Dickens noted that the word tête was spelt incorrectly. He was truly amazed at Firsby's love-struck behaviour. But it didn't seem so odd when he remembered he had once arrested a staid, respectable accountant who, at the age of fifty-two, confessed that his sole reason for committing a serious fraud was his compulsive desire to provide his mistress with a new car.

The next letter, dated 30th June, was headed Las Vegas. As with the previous one it was impossible to know whether the letter drafted on his word processor had actually been sent.

Dearest Eve

I was heartbroken when I returned to LA and found that you were out of town. Every minute I am away from you seems an eternity.

Having finished my enquiries in Frisco I had to go and see Joe Rossano about a little business matter. The loss of his daughter has hit him hard. He has a son but doesn't see him very often.

I flew back to London, as planned, but by this time couldn't face returning as flight crew, so I came back as a paying passenger. I'm finished with flying.

I'm churned up about what happened to Carol. I'm pretty sure I know who killed her. But I can't say much about it.

There's a lot of speculation in the newspapers about whether or not the serial killer was responsible for the air crash. Joe Rossano is prepared to fork out a hundred-thousand dollars if I can finger the person who killed his daughter. But there are wheels within wheels and I'm not keen to get involved.

On to more pleasant things.. I glow with happiness whenever I think of you. The few hours we spent together were the happiest of my life. After we had made love I felt as though my body and mind had been tuned to concert pitch by a Master Musician.

You have led me to eternity through your honeyed thighs, dearest fluffy doll.

Love and a thousand kisses

Adam

It seemed likely that by the time Firsby flew back from his holiday in LA, his confused emotional state had rendered him incapable of undertaking his flying duty. He returned to LA as a passenger, in order to be with his beloved Eve. He had probably sold the computer in order to pay for the airline ticket.

Dickens left the romantic correspondence with some relief and began reading more of Firsby's novel.

*

I found discussing insurance problems with clients a refreshing change from working in statistics. Our administrative secretary, Mrs Fetherstone, was a bespectacled slender lady of fifty with an engaging sense of humour belied by her po-faced expression. Bernard Gallagher, our salesman, had an impressive talent for making friends and drumming up new business. My expertise quickly made itself felt and I began to handle problems that formerly had been referred to Head Office.

The room I had taken over from Jackson was at the top of a large three-storeyed brick Edwardian semi in Sandymount. It had its own shower and toilet and a small kitchen tucked away behind a curtained alcove.

The house was owned by an old lady, Mrs Dwyer. Her late husband, a brewery worker, had bought it with the proceeds of a win in the Hospital Sweepstake. She was very old, with sparse iron-gray hair drawn into a bun and faded watery eyes in which recognition waxed and waned. She shared the house with her daughter and grandaughter. Mrs Sullivan was a sometime actress. Mr Sullivan was living somewhere in California with another woman and a tribe of children. They hadn't divorced. Mrs Sullivan took comfort from the fact that her daughter was his only legitimate offspring. Yvonne was bright, thoroughly spoiled and, it became clear, depressingly ignorant of the rudiments of mathematics through incompetent teaching at her expensive convent school. Mrs Sullivan wore long gaudy, theatrical frocks with lots of gold bangles and smoked a good deal.

A stroke of good fortune enabled me to get hold of a gun. I was enjoying the Ireland/Wales rugby match at Lansdowne Road with Bernard Gallagher -- the first game I had attended for some years -- when I heard a Welsh supporter question the referee's decision. A small dark-haired man standing near us then exchanged some banter with Bernard about the interruption. When the match was over, he asked us if we were going for a jar. I joined them in celebrating the Irish victory with an experimental glass of Guinness. The little man, Ivan Black, was a Dubliner by birth. He had once owned three jewellery shops in Belfast but had recently moved back to Dublin and now had one small shop just off Henry Street.

'Was it that rough up there?' Bernard enquired.

'It was. During the bad times I used to sleep with a gun under my pillow.'

At that moment, I remembered the piece of jewellery my mother had left me, and asked him if he would give me a valuation.

'Bring it into my shop any time.'

When I arrived back at my lodgings, Mrs Sullivan, wearing a saffron head-scarf, invited me into the living-room. She introduced me to a friend, Aidan Kelly, a dapper little man with a mottled complexion and an impressive mane of blue-gray hair. He held an enormous tumbler of Irish whiskey in his hand. I declined his offer of 'a drop of the hard stuff' and requested some orange juice.

The living-room seemed to have an excess of mahogany and rosewood furniture, the reason for which soon became clear. The elderly Mrs Dwyer, enclosed in the depths of an equally elderly armchair, eyed me grimly as she knitted furiously. Yvonne, her granddaughter, flashed a nervous smile in my direction from a drop-leaf bureau at which she was working.

'Excuse the state of my room, Mr Duncan, Mrs Sullivan apologised archly. 'I buy and sell antiques, but I hate parting with my best pieces. It's a cross which all genuine antique dealers have to bear. The truly amazing thing is that I have made more money out of what started as a hobby than I ever made out of a very successful stage career.'

'You obviously have an eye for beauty,' I answered, glancing around.

'I try to maintain my cultural interests. Aidan, by the way, is a dramatic critic.'

'Don't be misleading the young man. It's just the odd assignment. I have a job in the Department that pays all the bills,' Aidan protested in a booming resonant voice. 'And how are ye enjoying your stay in Ireland?'

'Very much.'

'The blowing asunder of the British plane was a terrible deed.'

'Appalling!' Mrs. Sullivan agreed, shaking her saffron head.

'The only time they would have a right to shoot down an airplane would be if they were carrying soldiers,' Kelly added with a judicious air.

Yvonne gave me a conspiratorial smile.

'What would you advise if the crew were civilians, Uncle Aidan?'

Kelly's face went a shade more puce. I had the impression of a long-standing feud between the two. He gulped down his drink and squeezing past some high-backed chairs, poured himself out another generous measure from a decanter on the sideboard. Then clawing tenderly at Yvonne's auburn hair, he said: 'Young lady, how many times have I said that I don't condone the taking of Irish lives.'

'Lives are lives, Uncle Aidan, no matter what.'

The old lady stopped knitting and complained querulously that she had not had her tea.

I took the opportunity to slip out and go up to my room.

I was engrossed in some figures, when there was a knock on the door. I switched off my computer, guessing that for the second time that week it would be Yvonne requesting help with her homework. She entered flourishing an exercise book, with an air of granting me a huge favour. She had changed out of her shapeless plum-coloured uniform and was wearing jeans and a white tee-shirt.

'What is it this time?' I enquired in mock-weary tones.

'Binomial theorem,' she sang cheerfully, marching up to the small table on which my laptop was resting.

On Sunday morning I donned a track suit, drove to Dun Laoghaire and jogged up and down the jetty. I had decided to keep fit for the day when I saw action against my enemies. The water in the harbour reflected a pallid blue sky; the waves flung themselves like playful puppies against the granite walls of the harbour. Soon I was sweating healthily - the air was unnaturally mild for the time of the year, blowing smoothly in from the south Atlantic. When I had run approximately three miles, I drove home and fried a steak and tomatoes under the grill. While it was cooking I took a shower and injected myself.

After lunch I sat in a fireside chair studying my photograph of Sally. I was aware all the time that she would have vehemently opposed my mission. She was a good-natured girl who always followed the advice of her generous heart. I recalled that on one occasion when we had been brazenly cheated she had resolutely refused to allow me to challenge the stallholder who had sold us defective goods, saying that the guilty expression on his face told her that he needed the money. She would have found my present attitude incomprehensible.

Remembering how much she had meant to me reinforced my determination to punish her killers.

I tried to put myself in the place of the men who had carried the bomb in their luggage. Flights do not invariably operate to schedule, so a timing device on its own might have threatened their own safety. On other occasions when aircraft have been bombed the terrorists have smuggled the bomb on board without getting on the flight themselves. In this case they had travelled on one leg of the journey, so they must have found some way of preventing the bomb going off while they were still on board. I was unable to work out their method of ensuring that this did not happen.

The thought drifted into my mind that if, as it is sometimes fancifully supposed, an infinite number of monkeys typed on an infinite number of keyboards, eventually by sheer chance they would turn out the works of Shakespeare. By the same token, it was encouraging to suppose that if I could keep going for long enough the same laws of chance would apply to me and I must eventually meet up again with Sally. Soothed by this vaguely pleasant notion, I drifted off to sleep and she appeared in my dreams, her breasts covered with mathematical symbols.

Next morning a letter arrived at the office from my boss, Noel Jameson, wishing me good luck in Ireland. He expressed the hope that the new job would ease the pain I had been suffering and at the same time broaden my experience. The General Manager had not been too keen on the staff reshuffle, but he had persuaded him that it was in everyone's long-term interests. It was typical of Jameson to go to such lengths to help a subordinate. One of these days I hoped to show my gratitude.

The weather turned cold suddenly. Mrs Fetherstone came into the office, and shaking some melting snow off her umbrella, informed me that St Patrick had tried to banish both snow and snakes from Ireland. He had got rid of the snakes but only half succeeded with the snow.

I went into my own office and worked out an itinerary for Bernard Gallagher -- I had informed him that I would be handling all the business in the North.

At lunch-time I called at Ivan Black's shop. He emerged from a small cubby hole at the back of the shop and I laid the diamond brooch on a glass counter full of watches. The expression on his face told me that it was quite valuable.

As he inspected it through his eye-glass, I said: 'It's nearly a hundred years old. Italian.'

Still peering through the eye-glass, he enquired: 'How did you get hold of it?'

'It was left to me. It belonged to my great-grandmother.'

'It's an exquisite piece. But they used to cut the diamonds very inefficiently. I suppose it's worth about five-thousand pounds. It might fetch more at auction.'

'Thanks. Then you'll give me a valuation certificate. I hope to sell it privately.'

He returned to his little office and as his hand rummaged through some papers, I caught a glimpse of gray metal and remembered that he had boasted of having a gun.

As he handed me the valuation, I said: 'How about a straight swap.'

'What are you talking about?'

'I'll exchange my brooch for the gun you were telling us about.'

'And what would you be wanting with a gun?'

'I go up to the Six Counties on business occasionally. I'd feel safer if I had one.'

'You'll end up behind bars.'

He returned the brooch to me.

I enquired: 'Any charge?'

He shook his head and then said: 'If you're thinking of selling your brooch any time I'd make you a decent offer for it.'

Slipping it into my pocket, I said: 'The only deal is if you'll exchange it for your gun.'

'I don't deal in guns,' he said curtly. 'Incidentally, I have a licence for my little toy.'

I shrugged and said: 'Thanks for the valuation. Perhaps we'll have a drink together some time.'

'I'll see you at Lansdown Road when the French rugby team come over.'

I didn't have to wait that long. An hour later he rang my office and asked me to meet him in a pub at Ballsbridge at eight o'clock that evening.

He seemed eager to pour out his life story. He had left Dublin after marrying a Belfast girl, had gone to that city to work for his father-in-law and later inherited the business. A series of calamities had befallen him in recent years because of his three daughters mixing in what he called undesirable circles. He had sold up in order to start afresh in Dublin. But business wasn't very good at the moment. The offer I had made him was very tempting in the circumstances. We arranged to meet in the same pub the following evening to complete the deal.

11

S tock up with plenty of water, if you're going to drive to Vegas,' the girl at reception advised. 'It's a long drive and you could get very thirsty, especially if you break down.'

Dickens took her advice, purchased a huge plastic container from a local hardware store and filled it with water. He also bought a pack of beer from a liquor store. They set off early in the morning to avoid the hottest part of the day. Driving through the desert they found the dry air and the monotonous yellow and brown scenery oppressive..

Dickens declared, when they had covered roughly half the journey, 'If we don't succeed in getting any clues in Las Vegas, I think we should give up.'

Dwindle didn't answer immediately. He was trying hard to imagine why a middle-aged airline pilot like Firsby should fall for a penniless, uneducated girl, totally lacking in talent or money. This and his supposed suicide seemed totally out of character. But then life was full of such contradictions.

He looked at the hazy brown mountains that beckoned beyond the expanse of yellow and dun sands and said: 'Finding Eve Linklater may be our best hope but she's not our only one. We may yet run into crew members from InterCon. There must be other people as well in Las Vegas who knew him.. People don't gamble in isolation. If there are winners, there have to be losers.'

'What we need to know is whether he put the bomb on board Rossano's Aristocrat aircraft. And if not, who did.'

'I don't believe he was the bomber. He wouldn't have hinted to Rossano that he knew who was responsible, if he had planted the bomb himself.'

As Dwindle handed him a can of beer, Dickens said: 'He had a powerful motive to kill Rossano, if he thought he was putting the bite on him for the money he owed.'

'We have been through all that. By the way, I'm very sorry for Mrs Firsby.'

'She's well shot of him. The man was an unmitigated scoundrel,' Dickens declared, taking a long, satisfying swig of ice-cold beer.

Dwindle switched on the car radio. A newscaster announced: 'It has been confirmed that this latest death, which occurred in a park in Seattle, Washington, was the work of the States killer. The Governor received the customary notification in the form of an audio tape. The attack appears to have been as random and motiveless, and as vicious and cruel, as the other States murders. The victim, a man of twenty, was strangled with his own kite string.'

An interview with a representative of the kite manufacturer followed: 'It was one of our Space Rangers -- the top of the range -- capable of carrying a large load and of reaching a considerable height in suitable wind conditions. The string was made of high grade hemp and, as with any other strong twine, could be used to strangle someone. It is appalling that this happened. Our kites are intended to give innocent pleasure...'

Dwindle switched off.

Dickens remarked: 'That leaves only five states more. He must already be in the Guinness Book of Records.'

Dwindle responded: 'He's certainly a versatile fellow, switching so easily from shooting to bombing to strangling and knifing. Hey, wait a minute...he has already committed a strangling. He claims to use a different method each time.'

'Perhaps he's running out of ideas. Anyway, our concern is to find out who murdered Carol Rossano.'

After a long pause, Dwindle asked: 'How are you getting on with Firsby's novel?'

'The hero lost his fiancée when the URA bombed an aircraft. He has now transferred to Dublin, where he is bent on seeking out the villains.'

'Do you get the impression that the book's author was capable of blowing up an aircraft?'

'Writers are not necessarily like the characters in their books. I knew a romantic lady novelist once. She was anything but romantic. Quite the reverse, in fact.'

Dickens gave a deep sigh.

Dwindle remained silent, fearful in case Dickens started reminiscing about his one-time affair.

Dickens went on: 'Firsby comes across, if anything, as rather naive. He asks you to believe that a young respectable actuary would go on the war path seeking revenge because his girl friend was killed.'

'Isn't that exactly what Rossano is doing.'

'He has just agreed to pay a reward because he's not satisfied with the job the police are doing.'

'Doesn't the naivete of Firsby's story suggest that he is not the mad bomber. Sex and gambling were his specialities. He wouldn't have had time, anyway, for the kind of meticulous planning involved in building and planting a bomb on board an aircraft.'

Dickens said, musingly: 'It's very easy to be led astray by the love of a women ...'

At that moment, a flurry of sand obscured the windscreen of the car. Dickens slowed down to walking pace until he had used a combination of washer and windscreen wipers. When he could see the way ahead, he accelerated, clicked in cruise control, and said: 'Mrs Vanderbot mentioned this fight in Las Vegas. It might help to give us a lead on Eve Linklater's whereabouts. There are some other matters I should like to question her about. I have this problem that she seems very keen to get me into the sack.'

'You should be more than happy to sacrifice yourself for the sake of the old firm,' Dwindle declared, with a grin.

'You wouldn't encourage me to be unfaithful to my wife, would you, Dwindle?'

'You have just suggested a moral question, which I shall have to think about carefully. If it was possible for me to save the world from destruction by committing one single act of infidelity, should I become an adulterer? As to whether allowing yourself to be seduced by Mrs Vanderbot would be justified by these special circumstances, I leave to your finely-tuned conscience, Dickens.'

'My father, a Yorkshireman and a lay preacher, once told me: '"Ends can never justify t' means. And if you ever forget that I'll beat the hell out of your end."'

Dwindle pulled the laptop computer out of its case and said: 'It might save time later on if I read aloud another chapter of Firsby's novel. It occurred to me that the lettering in the last chapter consisting of flowers and plants may have something to do with Firsby's reference to the Garden of Eden in his letters to Eve. In case there are other clues buried in his story, I'll carry on ...

Dickens would have preferred to listen to the radio, but before he could switch it on Dwindle began to read:

*

Snow was falling heavily and settling on the ground when I drove home from the office the following evening. Soon after I arrived, Yvonne came up to my room clad in her plum-coloured school uniform.

She cried exultantly: 'Look, James. I've got an 'A' for my homework.'

'Congratulations.'

'May I stay for a bit?,' she enquired. Her challenging toss of the head dared me to refuse.

'All right,' I grumbled. 'But you'll have to watch as I cook my meal. I'm going out soon.'

'In this horrible snow?'

'I have an appointment.'

She mashed the potatoes for me, placed them in a saucepan on the cooker and while walking round the room, noticed the brooch lying on my dressing-table.

'Isn't it beautiful.'

'It belonged to my great-grandmother.'

'Have you got it insured?'

'I'm selling it -- it's no use to me.'

'You'll be sorry. Mummy says diamonds never lose their value.'

'She's probably right.'

Yvonne sat in the fireside chair while I ate my meal. Embarrassed by her unswerving gaze. I enquired: 'Do you usually come up and watch the lions feeding?'

'No, I used to stay away from the tenant who was here before Mr Jackson. He used to pinch my bottom.'

I raised my eyebrows and continued eating.

'I suppose you think I'm too young for that sort of thing. He was about seventy. He used to say age had its privileges.'

'Is that why he left?'

'No, I didn't tell anyone. Uncle Aidan would have flipped his lid. He went back to Ennis. I think he had a wife there and ten children plus lots of grandchildren. How many children do you intend to have when you get married?'

'I don't intend to marry.'

'Of course you will. You're very nice looking.'

'I was engaged once but she was killed.'

'Is that her on the mantelpiece?'

'Yes.'

'She was SO beautiful.'

Yvonne gave a great sigh, shaking her auburn hair sadly. Then abruptly, almost commandingly, she declared: 'But you'll get over her and find someone else.'

I shook my head.

'Don't look so sad...Was she killed in the air crash?'

'How the hell did you know?' I asked, roughly.

She looked frightened.

'I don't know. I suppose because she's wearing an air hostess's uniform and because the crash is on everyone's mind still.'

She stood up and said: 'Gee, I'm sorry. I really am sorry.' Tears were starting in her eyes. 'I think I'd better go now.'

'If you like. But don't worry about it.'

She paused, with half of her plum-coloured person visible round the door.' Can I come back for some more tuition some time?'

'Any time,' I said wearily.

The Fourways Inn was almost empty when I arrived. I ordered a tonic water and stood surveying the empty green benches. The snow was keeping all but the most hardened drinkers away. I reflected on how quickly Yvonne had guessed the manner of Sally's death.

Ivan Black appeared at the front-door of the pub. He wore a dark suit, his shoulders seemed to sag with care. Following him was a larger stocky man with a ruddy complexion and small, good-natured eyes. He wore a suit of light blue material -- there was a great deal of it covering his muscular frame. Black walked up to me and with an apologetic air, said: 'This is Detective-Inspector Cahill.'

I gave him a cursory nod.

Ignoring my unfriendly air, the inspector went up to the bar, flourished a ten pound note and half-turning round, said: 'Well, lads, what are we drinking?'

I whispered angrily to Black: 'What the hell is all this about?'

He held up his hand placatingly. 'Keep your cool, Jim. What I'm doing is for your own good.'

'The deal's off,' I said and made to go.

I was detained by a large red hand resting like a ton-weight on my shoulder.

Cahill said: 'Don't be taking on, Mr Duncan. You haven't broken any law as far as I'm aware. Not yet, anyway, Just stay until we have a little chat.'

I sat on a bar stool and alternated my gaze between the craggy face of the policeman and the worried face of the little jeweller.

'Now how about that drink,' Cahill said persuasively.

I muttered: 'A half of Guinness.'

'That's more like it. A glass of stout and two large Powers,' he called to the barmen. When the drinks arrived, he led us over to an alcove. I followed his massive frame and sat with Ivan, facing him.

'First of all,' Cahill addressed me cheerfully, 'you should be thanking Mr Black here for saving you from committing a felony.'

I nodded impassively, sipping my Guinness.

'You know that it is illegal to possess a firearm without a licence.'

'I had intended to apply for one.'

'And what makes you think we would have given it to you?'

I shrugged.

'We wouldn't have, that's for sure.' He beamed at me. 'But now we know the full circumstances, you can apply for a licence and go about your business without breaking the law.'

'Thanks,' I replied and for a full minute studied a moon-like crater in the white froth of my glass of stout.

'If you're still about to buy Mr Black's gun, you'll apply for a licence?'

'Will I get one?'

'That all depends, Mr Duncan.' He rubbed the tip of his tilted nose; it looked as though it had once been in collision with a lorry.

'What on?'

'One word: cooperation.'

'You want me to cooperate with the Irish police.'

'That's right. We know you lost someone dear to you in the air crash and we're sorry for your troubles. But there are enough people in this country settling private scores and every one killed is another's loss. How and ever, we might consider giving you a gun licence if you promise to use it only for your own protection.'

'Why should you think otherwise?'

'Because others have tried that game in the past and most have ended up lying in a ditch with a bullet in their head.'

'I am over here because my employers posted me here to do a job.'

'Of course!' He gulped down his whiskey and after refusing Black's offer to replenish his glass, said to me: 'I'd be obliged if you would come and see us at Store Street police station tomorrow. There's someone there anxious to see you.'

He gave an indulgent smile, raised his large bulk from the bench and strolled out through the door.

'You're a rotten sod!' I blazed at Black.

He looked baffled and miserable.

'Jim, try to understand my point of view. I've just done you a good turn. I've kept you within the law.'

'Balls! You've betrayed a confidence.'

'There's absolutely no harm done. He's said you can have a gun for self-protection and now we're free to go ahead with our little deal.'

Still angry, I said: 'No, forget it,' and made to go.'

'Hey, wait a minute. Have another jar first and let's talk this thing through.'

In his haste to persuade me to stay he gulped his whiskey and ended up with a coughing fit.

Finding this amusing, I sat down opposite him and enquired: 'What makes you think I wanted the gun for anything other than my own protection?'

'You were too eager to part with your family heirloom. Incidentally, I've decided that if you're prepared go ahead with the deal, I'll have it auctioned at Christies or Sothebys and I'll split with you anything it makes over three-thousand.'

I fingered the brooch in my pocket. It seemed to speak of dark vendettas in the past.

'What made your policeman friend think I was over here looking for vengeance?'

'How should I know. Perhaps you were too eager to obtain a deadly weapon.'

'But how did he know I'd lost someone in the air crash?'

He gestured helplessly.

'It's a small world.'

'It was a breach of faith on your part telling him about our deal.'

He regarded me reproachfully. His face looked as though it had been smooth-rubbed by an avalanche of catastrophes.

'Look, Jim, I've known Eamon Cahill for years -- he used to come into my father's shop here in Dublin when I was a lad. He helped me through his contacts with the police in Belfast when I was having trouble up there. It would have been foolish of me to part with the gun without asking his advice. I might have gone to jail myself. When I telephoned him, he asked who you were and said he'd like to meet you for a little chat.'

'That damned journalist!' I exclaimed and went on to tell Ivan Black about the enquiry I had made at the Irish Times.

Ivan looked at me pityingly.

'Don't you realise what a traumatic effect that airplane crash has had on the whole community. Naturally, he would have told the Guardai if a newly-arrived Englishman had come in and made that sort of enquiry. There's hardly a soul in Dublin who wouldn't give a month's wages if the giving of it would result in bringing the bombers to justice. The whole country is in mourning.'

I had blundered badly. I obviously lacked the shrewdness and guile needed for my self-appointed mission. I promised myself I would do better in future.

The pub was filling up. We drank quantities of tomato juice, while Ivan Black lectured me on the complexities of Irish politics. But nothing he said persuaded me that there could be any justification for the act of air piracy that had killed Sally.

'Are you trying to say that the terrorists are just misguided?'

'I've met enough of their sympathisers to know that many of them genuinely believe they are at war.'

'They're nothing but murderous animals,' I said contemptuously.

'Well, the group who carried out the bombing of the Mercia Airline certainly are. It has concentrated people's minds wonderfully. Perhaps that's why Eamon Cahill is recommending you be allowed to keep the gun.'

'He thinks I might get the bastards?'

Ivan smiled ruefully.

You might as well face up to the truth. He thinks they'll find you first and wants to give you at least something of a chance.'

'Perhaps he wants to use me as live bait.'

'Could be. You haven't exactly been the soul of discretion so far.' He sipped his tomato juice and said reflectively: 'Instead of acting the idiot, why don't you be sensible and go back to England.'

'Because I've sworn to get the bastards and make this world a cleaner and safer place to live in.'

I went to the bar and ordered a Guinness for myself - I was getting rather fond of the stuff -- and a tomato juice for Ivan Black. When I returned with the drinks, I said to Ivan: 'You obviously have contacts up in the North. Can you help me start my search?'

He looked alarmed.

'God, man, you'll never track down the bombers in a month of Sundays. They're always changing addresses and slipping across the Border and in and out of the country. If the police can't find them, why should you think you'll be able to?'

'I'll get the bastards,' I said venomously, 'because they killed the only person in the world I ever loved.'

More customers were entering the pub, their shoulders flecked with melting snow.

Ivan said: 'Come on. You have the brooch?'

I nodded.

He opened up his shop and exchanged the brooch for a .22 revolver and twenty cartridges. He asked me if I had ever used a gun before and when I said no, advised me to get some shooting practice at a gun club.

I heard him say, as he was resetting the burglar alarms: 'I bet the people who make these damned thing get burgled just like the rest of us.'

He shook my hand and wished me luck.

I went back to my room to plan my first visit to the North of Ireland.

*

The skyline of Las Vegas was coming into view against a background of brilliant blue sky. When Dwindle had finished reading, he reached over to the back seat, opened another can of Black Label, tipped it up and drank thirstily until it was empty. Then he said: 'I've just had a thought. 'I have tended to deny that Firsby is the States killer, partly on the grounds of temperament and partly because of his supposed suicide. I may have to revise my opinion in the light of this latest killing. The word "kite" was old-fashioned slang for an aircraft. Perhaps he was making a sly allusion to the aircraft that was bombed. Eve's landlady said that he was out of the United States when some of the murders were committed. But if he is the serial killer, he may have entered the USA under another name, using a different passport.'

Dickens said with some satisfaction; 'I'm glad you are coming round to my point of view. As I often say, motive is everything. And he had the strongest of motives for trying to get rid of Rossano.'

'Yes but what about all the other killings.'

'Perhaps there are several serial killers.'

Dwindle replied cheerfully. 'An interesting theory. This could turn out to be one of your best cases when you sit down to write your memoirs.'

Dickens nodded and replied: 'Yes, I have some pretty good recollections of my experiences with the Met. Some of them you wouldn't believe.'

Shortly afterwards, they passed a sign which said: Las Vegas, State of Nevada.

12

Dickens drew up outside a three-storey building situated between a liquor store and a gas station. A faded sign outside said: Golden Bar Motel. A battered Chevrolet with four flat tires stood in the forecourt by the side of a large dusty cactus.

'This look pretty crummy,' Dwindle remarked.

'It's is just the kind of district we are looking for.'

Dickens entered the motel and spoke briefly to a man at the reception desk whose eyes were glued to a television screen, where a violent round of women's mud wrestling was taking place.

Having booked two rooms Dickens returned to the car and said: 'Okay, Dwindle. This will do nicely. The desk clerk says there are several lap dancing bars nearby..'

'I thought we were looking for topless bars?'

'Don't be so literal-minded, for God's sake.'

Dwindle said as he tugged at the handle of his suitcase, 'You seem well informed about these places.'

With a contemptuous glance, Dickens said: 'When I was a policeman, I used to regularly check out the joints in Soho which had a reputation for robbing punters of their hard-earned dough.'

Before Dickens could enquire whether a policeman had the right to opt out from this onerous duty, Dickens had begun to march briskly towards the motel entrance. But by the time he arrived at the desk, Dickens had obtained the keys to their rooms.

As Dwindle strolled along a gloomy corridor, a large, portly man wearing a white Panama hat emerged from one of the bedrooms and looking down at him said: 'Jesus! it's like a fucking furnace in there. Is the air-conditioning working in your room?'

'I don't know. I'm about to find out.'

The last time I came to Vegas I got mugged at the tables. I intend to win it all back this time -- and some.'

'I wish you luck,' Dwindle said. Trying to continue walking, he found further progress blocked by the man's huge paunch.

The owner gazed down at him and announced in a booming voice. 'Clarence J Heyst Junior from Ohio. I sell ladies' bras.'

'With all these topless bars hereabouts, I don't suppose you sell many.'

'Now that's where you're wrong,' Clarence J Heyst bellowed joyfully. 'The girls who work in topless bars really appreciate a fancy bra. And I'm the one to supply them. I do great business here.' He added: ' What I don't know about the female torso isn't worth knowing -- and I don't mean that in any lascivious sense. I suppose you're here to play the tables.'

Dwindle nodded.

'May Lady Luck be with you,' Heyst said, piously.

Both men moved first to the right and then to the left. Dwindle finally ducked under the bra salesman's arm, went to his room and noted with displeasure that it lacked air-conditioning.

As he was placing his shirts and underwear in a pine chest-of-drawers, Clarence J Heyst appeared at the door, wiping his forehead with a red bandana.

'Sorry to interrupt you. Just called to enquire if your air-conditioning is working.'

'No,' Dwindle answered.

'Just as I thought. See you around.'

The fat man departed.

As Dwindle went upstairs to discuss their plan of action with Dickens, he became aware that Clarence J Heyst was following him.

Dickens occupied a room overlooking the gas station. He had already unpacked the laptop computer, which lay on a small table. Heyst appeared at the door and enquired whether Dickens's room was air-conditioned. When he said that it was, Heyst boomed: 'Hell, mine ain't. I am going downstairs to kick the desk clerk's ass.'

He disappeared down the corridor.

Dwindle wondered whether he should also complain. But remembering his tendency to compensate for his small size by being over-assertive decided to leave matters as they were. Seeing the computer, he asked Dickens: 'Are you going to read some more files?'

'Not just now. I suggest that we try straight away to find where Eve Linklater worked.'

Smiling broadly, he switched on the computer and said: 'By the way, have you read this one?'

Dear Eve,

I keep having visions of your beautiful walnut-coloured hair. It sways around just like it has a life of its own.

I just had to write to you, to let you know that I am missing you like hell.

I am getting on with the job in hand, but it's taking longer than I thought. Hope you don't mind. There is a kiss for you on every letter on the keyboard of this computer and several thousands more besides.

You remind me of Nell Gwyn, a girl who once sold oranges in the streets of London and was loved by a King of England. You make me feel like a king.

Do you remember that hundred-dollar gambling chip? When you pretended to slip it into your bra, it made me giddy with desire. You lifted it out, I put in on the table on number seventeen (the date of your birth) and that's when our lucky streak started. It will never stop while I am with you.

Your loving

Adam

'Makes you sick, doesn't it,' Dickens said, as he replaced the computer on the table. 'I trust you would never write such a mawkish missive, Dwindle.'

'Only to my wife,' Dwindle responded. 'Come on. Let's get on with the job.'

Five minutes later they were sitting in the Raunchy Ranch Bar, having been attracted by a glittering neon-sign depicting a naked girl wearing a cowboy hat. As they waited to be served Dwindle told Dickens about his encounter at the hotel with the bra salesman.

A waitress wearing black briefs and a Stetson hat approached their table, her large expanse of bosom tastefully veiled by a diaphanous material spotted with tiny golden bobbles. She smiled at Dwindle, bent down over him and whispered seductively: 'Would you like one of our Specials?'

Dwindle tried to look away from her cleavage, lost the battle and enquired: 'What does your Special consist of?'

Dickens intervened authoritatively and said: 'Just a couple of beers, miss. It's too early in the day for a Special.'

The girl flounced back to the bar to get their order.

Dickens explained that Specials were a deadly concoction that cost the earth and made you feel so thirsty that you felt compelled to order more.

Some Western and Country music was playing. A shirtless girl wearing jeans was sitting in a wooden cage playing a guitar and singing a sentimental song. Her skinny breasts swayed as she tirelessly moved with the music.

Dickens strolled over to the bar and spoke to the barman. When he returned, he said briskly to Dwindle: 'Drink your beer when it comes, it's time to move on. The barman says nobody by the name of Eve Linklater has ever worked here.'

The plump girl came with two glasses of foaming beer on a tray. Dickens winked at Dwindle and said: 'Her twin cups runneth over.' Laughing uproariously, he lifted his glass from the tray and drank deeply.

For the next few hours they roamed the streets of Las Vegas checking out a variety of bars displaying unclothed human bodies in a variety of sizes and poses, which Dwindle shrewdly pointed out could be admired at no cost at all on the beaches of Italy and Spain. By the time they had arrived at the eleventh bar, they were both pleasantly drunk.

Standing outside a facade, painted to resemble the Arc de Triomph, Dickens asked Dwindle if he had enough.

'A fully clothed girl would act as a powerful aphrodisiac, Dickens. By the way, Clarence J Heyst, who is a bra salesman, says the girls who work in these places are his best customers. Let's go in.'

They staggered through the door into a room resembling a French café. The waitresses wore pinafores but little else. Dickens brusquely turned down an offer of 'Specials'. As they waited for two beers, he heard a voice speculating about which American state the serial killer would choose to strike in next. Shortly afterwards, he heard the same voice discussing a bar room brawl. He turned round and saw a young man wearing a short-sleeved, striped shirt with a fluorescent pink bow talking to his girl friend.

Dickens leaned towards them and said: 'I hope you don't mind but did I hear you say there was a fight in this place?'

'Sure, what's it to you, buddy?' the young man replied, coolly.

'We are trying to trace someone,' Dickens said. 'She worked here and we're reliably informed that she was sexually harassed. Some guy intervened and a fight broke out -- is that right?'

'Yeah, someone tried to force the girl onto his lap as she walked past. Then this tall guy got up and bopped him one. It was all over in a couple of minutes. They overturned some tables and some glasses got broken. The bouncers turned both of them out. The one who had tried to defend the girl talked his way back in later on. His face wasn't a very pretty sight.'

'That's very helpful. Was she a black girl?'

'Yeah. A real beauty.'

He glanced at his girlfriend, and she nodded confirmation.'

Dickens thanked them, whispered something to Dwindle and went off in search of the manageress. He came back a few minutes later and said, grim-faced to Dwindle: 'Okay. Time to go. Mission complete.'

. On the way back to the hotel in a cab, Dickens sitting bolt-upright and looking rigidly ahead, said to Dwindle: 'We are plumb out of luck. The manageress confirmed that the girl was Eve Linklater. She was paid off the day following the fight because she had disobeyed house rules and hadn't covered up as she walked back to the dressing room. The manageress said she wasn't much of a dancer, anyway. The guy who rescued her didn't leave his name, but we can safely assume it was Firsby. So we're back again to square one.'

Dwindle nodded. The news had sobered him. He said thoughtfully: 'It's beginning to look as though we need a specialist search agency.'

'That will cost a bomb.'

'It will be worth it. When we find her we can quiz her about the Rossano murder. Perhaps Firsby had some idea who the perpetrator was. Although we still can't rule out the possibility that he planted the bomb himself.'

Dickens cleared his throat. He was feeling hot and thirsty, in spite of the beer he had consumed. He said: 'I'll question Vivienne Vanderbot again tomorrow when we get back to LA. I had the feeling all the time that she was holding back.'

Dwindle was brushing his teeth in his hot sultry room, when Dickens called in again, looking perplexed. He said: 'Our computer has gone.'

'Are you sure?'

'I left in on the table when we went out and it's no longer there.'

Dwindle wiped toothpaste from his mouth and said: 'Some petty thief must have taken it. You realise that this is an utter disaster. We have lost all the information essential to our search.'

Dickens sat on the bed, looking glum. After a while, he said: 'We can remember most of what's important. I don't suppose the rest of Firsby's novel is of any significance. Reading it was a complete waste of time.'

Dwindle shook his head, angrily.

'Every scrap of information on that computer is of value. That is what brought us here in the first place. This wrecks the whole expedition. We had better tell the reception clerk what's happened. He'll report the theft to the police.'

'I'll do it on the way back to my room.'

Dwindle collapsed into a chair, devastated by the news.

A few minutes later Dickens returned, with a sheepish smile on his face.

He said: 'It's okay. It was there after all.'

Dwindle hissed at him: 'Don't be daft man. It was either missing, or it wasn't.'

'It was missing. I swear it. Someone must have taken it and then put it back.'

Dwindle said after a pause: 'You realise that someone may have stolen all the information on the computer.'

'How can that be?' Dickens demanded, mystified.

'Oh God, Dickens. Why don't you take the trouble to learn some rudimentary facts about computers. Heyst could have syphoned all the information from our computer into his own in a matter of minutes.'

'So why would he do that?'

'He probably works for the FBI. They know what we are here for. We haven't exactly kept it a secret.'

Dickens went to reception and returned with the news that the bra salesman had checked out.

'What do we do now?' he asked Dwindle.

'Nothing has changed, except that now it is a race between us and the FBI -- or whoever took the computer -- to see who can crack the case first.'

Dickens nodded, grimly.

'See you in the morning,' he said to Dwindle and returned to his room.

Dwindle couldn't sleep that night. The air in the room was stifling and he was deeply disturbed by the knowledge that any advantage they had gained over the official investigators had now been lost. He kept seeing in his mind's eye a reconstruction of the incident in the Arc de Triomph bar where Firsby had saved Eve from being harassed and wished his own physical dimensions would have enabled him to play such an heroic role. His thoughts then reverted to the bra salesman and he experienced a deep sense of humiliation at having been so easily outwitted.

Eventually, deciding that activity was the best cure for insomnia, he dressed, went out into the night and walked towards the casinos on the Strip. The skyscraper hotels emblazoned with coloured neon lights were dwarfed by the brightly-lit, eleven-hundred feet high Stratosphere building, the uppermost point of which seemed to mingle with the stars.

13

L ater than they had intended, Dickens and Dwindle set out the following morning to return to Los Angeles The sun, a white hot orb, reflected off the desert sands and seared Dwindle's eyes. He put on his sun glasses and lay back on the car seat. In spite of his suspicions that the computer had been milked of its contents, he was astonishingly cheerful. And for good reason. Arriving at the Strip in the small hours, he had wandered into a hotel and inserted a coin into a slot machine, which noisily disgorged its contents. Deciding that he might as well gamble with his unexpected winnings, he ventured further into the casino, purchased some gambling chips and placed half his winnings on the number seventeen in a roulette game -- the number that Firsby had mentioned in a letter to his girl friend. From then on he had a quite extraordinary run of luck. At four in the morning, remembering how rapidly Adam Firsby's luck had deserted him, he prudently cashed in his chips.

He decided to keep quiet about his good fortune.

Dickens's voice intruded on his pleasant recollections. He said: 'It really upsets me when I think of that fat guy stealing all that private information out of the computer. I just don't like the idea of FBI agents sniggering at Firsby's love letters.'

'You scorned them yourself, Dickens.'

'Oh, sure. But -- ' he looked across at Dwindle -- 'the ones he wrote to Eve sounded very sincere. He seems to have experienced what is sometimes referred to as... Koop de something.'

'Coup de foudre,'

'It reminded me of...'

Dwindle shut his eyes, worried in case Dickens was about to bore him with more reminiscences about his one-time romance with a lady novelist. He was relieved when Dickens stopped in mid-sentence and said reflectively: 'Of course, I don't suppose Firsby's love affair with Eve Linklater would have lasted any longer than the others. It was probably just as well for the girl that he committed suicide.'

'We had better not jump to conclusions.'

Dwindle glanced around the inhospitable expanse of sandy desert. The glare of the hot sun had now given him a headache. Remembering with regret that they had neglected to buy a pack of beer for the return journey, he poured lukewarm water from the container into a paper cup.

After a while, he said: 'I've a shrewd suspicion that our run in with Clarence Heyst won't be the last. There may be other private agencies interested in the reward. The FBI is almost certainly involved. I don't suppose, on any case, they like foreigners muscling in on their territory. It was only the courtesy owed to you as a former member of the Metropolitan police that has enabled us to continue our investigation thus far. We are not licensed to operate in the USA.'

'We haven't broken any law,' Dickens replied. 'We have just been rubbernecking like any other tourists.' He went on: 'But you're right -- the FBI won't be very pleased if we find the serial killer and sell our story for millions of bucks.'

He looked at Dwindle, seeking approval for this attractive idea, which had only just occurred to him.

Dwindle shook his head.

'Let's limit our ambitions to collecting the reward.'

'Okay. But we don't seem to be making much headway.' He added: 'Some water, please Dwindle.'

After drinking half the remaining contents of the container, Dickens fanned his face furiously with his hand and complained: 'This damned heat is making me sleepy. Can you do something to keep me awake?'

'I'll read another extract from Firsby's novel.' Dwindle replied and took the computer out of his case..

Dickens groaned and said: 'Okay. If you think it's necessary.'

The formalities at the guarda station were brief. After handing me my firearms certificate, the sergeant asked me to accompany him along a corridor to a small office. Here, he introduced me to Kevin, a man in plain clothes with a fresh complexion, a clipped moustache and a military bearing.

He said: 'Mr Duncan I understand you represent a British insurance company.'

'That is correct.'

Freezing me with his cold blue eyes, he said: 'We don't normally allow visitors from abroad to carry guns, but we have decided to make an exception in your case.'

'Why?'

'We know you've suffered a hard knock and would like to get your hands on those responsible. However, if you continue to act indiscreetly you are liable to be killed before you are very much older. So we're letting you keep your gun, but on the understanding that it is for self-protection only. If you try and take the law into your own hands you will suffer the full penalty of the law.'

'Why haven't you tracked down the bombers?'

Kevin stroked his moustache agitatedly.

'We and our colleagues up in the North have done our best. But there's been not a hint or a murmur so far. They may have gone to ground somewhere on the Continent. But they'll be back -- their skilled bombing specialists are usually brought home after a lapse of time.'

'I intend to travel around the Six Counties for a while on business.'

'Okay. If you run into any trouble up there, here's a number you can ring for assistance.' He showed me a card and asked me to memorise the telephone number.

He added briskly: 'Mr Duncan, my best advice to you is to return to England and let your righteous indignation cool off. But if you insist on ignoring our advice and in the course of your travels you hear anything suspicious, call in the Guardai and let us do the job we are equipped and trained to perform.'

'Thanks you. What is your surname, in case I want to speak to you again?'

'Just ask for Kevin.'

He shook me by the hand and ushered me out of the police station by a side door.

It was a mild blustery day- the snow had vanished, except for a few piles of brown slush here and there. Ireland's soft climate seemed to be trying to take the sharp edges off my grief. But remembering that Sally had been carrying my unborn child caused my desire for revenge to burn with even greater intensity.

Ivan Black's words came back to me as I drove back to the office. He had said something about burglar alarm manufacturers being burgled themselves. Burglar alarms, of course, contain various kinds of electronic timing devices. Was he hinting that this was a source of the timing mechanisms used by the bombers?

Arriving at the office, I gave Mrs Fetherstone instructions to make a series of appointments in the Six Counties with manufacturers of security systems. She wrote to several firms, enclosing our glossy brochures. A few days later, I had received invitations to call on four such manufacturers two in Belfast and two in Londonderry.

'Mr Duncan, here in Ireland it is called Derry.'

'Mea culpa, Mrs Fetherstone,'

Driving through Drogheda, I recalled reading that Cromwell's massacre still had the power to inflame the hearts of extremists like those who had brought down Sally's airplane. I told myself if they could not forget in three hundred years, why should I relent after a mere three months?

The bare trees flanking the roadside on this wet January morning looked sad and lifeless. The windscreen wipers thwacked rhythmically. The thought came into my mind that they must eventually wear out just as one's heart must eventually stop from old age. Sally's heart had stopped long before its natural time. She had been cruelly deprived of fifty years of actuarial life expectation. But during her short life time she had shone like a shooting star, enriching my life and the lives of everyone around her.

The mortality tables which I use for estimating premiums hardly touch on the impenetrable mystery of Time. Measurements by clocks and calendars have very little to do with the perception of time's passing, which can have enormous variations. A year can sometimes appear to go in a flash; a second can seem like an eternity. Which for some reason reminded me that Mrs Sullivan's daughter, who was only sixteen, seemed astonishingly mature for her age.

The sun glistened momentarily, trying to break through gray clouds, as I approached Dundalk. I imagined Sally up there in the sky, her limbs made iridescent by the pale sunbeams. From her remote plane of existence she seemed to be asking me to give up my planned mission. It was an idea I quickly repudiated. Instead, I began thinking about my revolver. I enjoyed owning it. Small and neat, it had the balanced feeling of good engineering. I derived great enjoyment in imagining how I would use it when the time came.

At the border post, I restrained myself with some difficulty from glancing up at the corner of the roof-lining of the car where it was hidden. If it were discovered my gun licence would keep me in the clear. But I had no wish to draw unnecessary attention to myself. The bored Customs official cursorily glanced through my overnight suitcase. However, just as I was about to drive on a British Army corporal, almost invisible against a hedge in his camouflaged battledress, appeared and requested me to open the bonnet and boot lids. After examining them carefully, he waved me on.

I found the traffic system in Belfast frustrating. Eventually, though, I managed to park the car and booked in at my hotel. During lunch I entered into a conversation with a young bearded BBC reporter, Barry Payne, who introduced his own idiosyncratic solution to the problem of Northern Ireland. He said since most democracies managed to survive alternating periods of rule by parties of different political complexion, why not have alternate government by Protestants and Catholics, the length of each term of rule being proportional to the numbers of Catholic and Protestant voters.

I objected: 'You'll have a problem, because you'd be offering a direct incentive for each faction to increase their birth rate.'

He responded. 'In that case they'll be too busy making love to fight each other.' On learning that he was researching a programme about Republican clubs, I asked if I could come along on one of his visits and he agreed to let me accompany him.

I failed to persuade the two burglar alarm manufacturers I called on that afternoon to change their existing pensions arrangements. When I asked if it was possible for the electronic components they use to get into the wrong hands I was told that timing devices and actuators were on sale everywhere. It was obvious that this was a dead line of enquiry. I must start again on another tack. Getting into a Republican club and making contacts seemed a step forward, although I realised that, as an Englishman, my plan to pose as a nationalist sympathiser could easily misfire. We entered a former supermarket that had been converted into a meeting hall and drinking club. The bar at one end was well stocked. A young man wearing a red bomber jacket was furiously working a games machine. Three men and a girl who had agreed to be interviewed by Barry Payne were sitting up at the bar. The girl left her stool and came forward to greet Payne. She enquired: 'Who's your friend?'

She was the lead singer of a group who had been hired to play that evening. The other members of the trio consisted of a happy giant wearing tent-like blue jeans and a youth with a mild dreamy face and a mop of golden hair. A tall, older man with shrewd, watchful eyes was their agent.

'Our friend, Jimmy Duncan, is from Dublin. He's in insurance.'

She gave me an appraising glance and introduced me to her colleagues.

The room began to fill up. Chairs were set up in lines across the hall. The group sang ballads, old and new, and some rousing Republican songs. The bar reopened. There was none of the fiery talk I had half expected. Barry's attempts to draw people out on the subject of sectarian violence were unsuccessful.

Afterwards, on the way back to the hotel, when I asked Barry what, if anything, he had learned that would advance his research, he answered cryptically that silence was just as significant as talk.

I felt depressed about my prospects in my hotel bedroom that night. How could I possibly hope to succeed where highly professional police forces had failed?

I ran a bath and while I was soaking in the hot water speculated on the extent to which the security forces in both the North and the Republic had penetrated the terrorist organizations. The answer must be not very much if they were still unable to identify the authors of a crime that had shocked and scandalised the whole country.

Suddenly I heard the strident ringing of a fire alarm. I dressed hurriedly and left the building with everyone else. The bomb warning proved to be a hoax. Half an hour later we returned to our rooms.

My trip up North was completely unsuccessful. I didn't appear to be much good in my new role. But I cheered up when I remembered the comforting cllche beloved of salesmen, 'You win some, you lose some.'

That evening, when I returned to my lodging house, Mrs Sullivan invited me into the sitting room. Mrs Dwyer was knitting contentedly, wedged in between a marble-topped credenza and two corner cupboards I had not seen before.

'My mother is quite deaf- she won't hear what I am saying. First of all, thank you for helping Yvonne with her homework.'

'It's nothing, 'I said absently, still brooding on my failure to achieve anything that would help in my hunt for the bombers.

'You realise that Yvonne is at a very impressionable age.'

'That's the best time to absorb mathematics. Yvonne has a very good mind.'

'I mean impressionable in an emotional sense, Mr Duncan,' Mrs Sullivan said reproachfully.

'What has that to do with me?'

'Haven't you noticed that she has a crush on you?'

'Don't be absurd.'

'Mr Duncan, it cannot possibly have escaped your attention that she uses every possible excuse to come into your room. In the circumstances, I think it would be best for all concerned if you would find alternative accommodation. I'm not suggesting for a moment that anything improper has occurred, but few men can resist temptation. Therefore I must request that you find a room elsewhere.'

Mrs Dwyer appeared to be looking daggers at me over her knitting.

'Mrs Sullivan, I assure you that I look on Yvonne as a child -- a young sister. I had no idea...'

Mrs. Sullivan silenced me, holding up her forefinger to her mouth.

'Don't upset yourself. You have been a great help with her schoolwork, but it's better to be safe than sorry. She has a very impetuous nature like her father. I shall give you back your deposit. Perhaps you will be good enough to move out at the end of this week.'

'As you wish, Mrs Sullivan.'

I felt suddenly sad. I had found Yvonne's youthful enthusiasm stimulating and enjoyed her excitement when she suddenly grasped a new mathematical concept.

'And, Mr Duncan... not a word to Yvonne about this conversation, if you don't mind. It might upset her.'

'Of course. I understand.'

I tramped up the stairs to my room.

The idea that I had somehow found favour in the eyes of a schoolgirl seemed ludicrous, although I must admit, not entirely unpleasant. This was a setback -- even though a minor one. It would not be easy to find similar accommodation. Renting a self-contained apartment would place a strain on my limited financial resources. I decided to fly home and set about selling or renting my apartment in Worthing.

I tried again that night to solve the problem of how the terrorist group had managed to trigger the bomb on the aircraft without danger to themselves.

I brooded for a while, pretending to play Russian roulette with my revolver from which I first prudently removed all the bullets. Obviously, the perpetrators of the bombing could not have relied entirely on a timing switch, because the flight might be delayed, or diverted. My little revolver had a safety catch. What kind of a device could they have employed to inhibit the triggering of the bomb while they were on board? Trying to recreate the tension in the minds of the two Irishmen travelling with their deadly luggage in the cargo hold by holding the muzzle of the gun to my forehead, I asked what method they could have used to explode the bomb. The likeliest device would be an air pressure switch. These had been used by terrorists before on several occasions. As soon as the air pressure in the unpressurized hold of the aircraft reduced to a predetermined level, the switch sent an electrical impulse to the detonator, setting off an explosion. In this case the terrorists would have needed to ensure that it didn't explode during the first leg of their journey. How would they prevent this happening until until the aircraft had climbed for a second time to its cruising altitude? The answer was by using a sequential relay that would make the firing mechanism inoperative until the aircraft had taken off for the second time.

The next morning I asked Mrs Fetherstone to enquire if air pressure switches were manufactured in Ireland. She ascertained that a specialist firm produced them at a factory located near Shannon airport. I requested her to include Mr Schmerke, the Dutch managing director, on my list of appointments.

I sat for a while in my office full of resentment at the implications behind Mrs Sullivan's request for me to move out. Then a telephone call came in from someone called 'Kevin.' It took me a moment or two to recall the special branch man at Store street police station.

'Mr Duncan, have you decided to return to England?'

'I'm flying back on Saturday.'

'That is very sensible of you. I have reason to believe that your life is in danger.'

'Really. What's happened?'

'We have certain intelligence which tells us that a murder squad is after you. We may not be able to pick them up in time.'

'I'm only going to England for the weekend.'

'That's a pity. In the circumstances I would advise that you stay in England and ask your company to send out a replacement.'

'Can't you arrange protection for me?'

A cynical chuckle came over the wires.

'We're stretched to the limit all ready. Just a few words of advice. Vary your routine and avoid being out alone in the street, especially at night. Inspect your car before driving it -- look underneath and check your bonnet and boot. Undoubtedly, the best thing, though, would be for you to leave the country.'

'I'll do everything you suggest, Kevin -- except the last.'

'Very well, Mr. Duncan. You have been warned. If you see or hear anything suspicious, leave a message for me at Store Street.'

So far from feeling frightened, I experienced something like a sense of exultation. If Special Branch had got wind that my life was in danger, it could only mean that the terrorists regarded me as a serious threat. A high compliment, indeed. But how had they got to know my intentions so quickly? Surely not from my enquiries at the Irish Times. It was really immaterial how they had found out. In the meantime, it would obviously be prudent to leave Dublin for a few days. Fortunately, I had a business trip lined up in the West of Ireland. I would fly to Gatwick from Shannon in order to complete my business in Worthing. When I returned to Dublin I would be moving to a new address. In the meantime I would observe all the precautions that Kevin had suggested.

*

'How's that, Dickens,' Dwindle said, putting down the computer. 'Have you had enough?'

'For the time being, yes. It does seem from the novel that Firsby had a fair knowledge of how to set about bombing aircraft.'

'That's like accusing Bram Stoker of being a vampire.'

'Okay. Well, what's your conclusion?'

'I haven't any yet.'

'And yet you insist that I read the novel all the way through.'

'This little computer is what led us to this case. It may yet yield a clue as to who killed Carol Rossano.'

'So what's our next step when we get back to LA?'

'Perhaps you'll have another go at Eve Linklater's landlady. Remember Nelson's inspiring message: "England this day expects every man to do his duty."'

Dickens grimaced doubtfully. When they arrived back at the hotel, Dwindle reminded him to telephone Vivienne Vanderbot. She invited him to come the following morning. They went to their respective rooms.

Dwindle was grinning happily later on when he met Dickens in the foyer. He pointed to a group of departing uniformed aircrew getting into some taxis and said: 'That was an InterCon crew. I had a word with the captain about Firsby.'

'What did he say?'

'He says he was a swashbuckling Lothario but an excellent pilot. He lost seniority through leaving the company and going off to fly in the Caribbean. Captain Brown had flown with him recently from London to Los Angeles and suspected that he had spent part of the stopover in Las Vegas. He was one of those rare people who can manage with a minimum of sleep. I asked him if it was generally known that he was a reckless gambler. He replied that life for Firsby, except when he was flying,was just one long gamble. But the fact remained that he was a first-class pilot.'

Dickens said with an ironic smile: 'Sounds just like the sort of man you would like to be.'

Dwindle ignored him and replied soberly: 'I did learn one other thing which may be significant.'

'What's that?'

'Firsby was convinced the company was looking for an opportunity to get rid of him.'

'He was paranoid?'

'Possibly. But he may have had good reason to be worried. Let's go in for dinner.'

14

D windle spent some time in his hotel bedroom browsing at random through Firsby's computer files while Dickens was visiting Eve Linklater's former landlady. After a while, Dwindle yawned and put the computer down. He planned later in the day to bank the proceeds from his nocturnal gambling adventure. He hoped his good luck at the tables would not be counter-balanced by bad luck in their investigation. Meantime, certain vague ideas were coming together in his mind which he hoped might help him solve the mystery of Carol Rossano's death.

Firsby's novel, which he had just been reading, suggested a childish romanticism in Firsby entirely at odds with the picture of a hard-bitten, middle-aged gambler he had previously formed. Which did not necessarily prove that he was incapable of murder. Firsby could still have hatched a plan to kill Rossano which misfired and killed his daughter instead. The parallel between the accident in which Carol Rossano had died and the one in Firsby's novel was very close. But that might be pure coincidence.

Dwindle still felt that he might yet come across something in the story that would help them solve the case.

He had dreamed again the previous night of Marilyn Monroe. She had been performing a reverse striptease in a bar in Las Vegas with extraordinary style and wit, putting on more and more clothes instead of taking them off. The dream, he told himself, had no significance, since in any one night she probably entered the dreams of millions of other men of his generation.

He telephoned Maureen at their home in London.

'How are you, darling girl?' he asked

'Okay. Have you been behaving yourself?.'

'No, I was in some topless bars. All in the line of duty. Any post?'

'Just bills. I hope your investigation is successful. Mrs Dickens rang me from Wales. She wanted to know if I knew whether chitterlings were involved in this case.'

'Chitterlings? What are they?'

'Pigs' intestines.'

'I haven't the faintest idea what she's talking about.'

'I don't suppose it's important.'

Afterwards, Dwindle put the telephone down, wondering why Maureen had introduced such a bizarre subject into the conversation.

15

D ickens wondered, as he drove towards her guest house, why Vivienne Vanderbot had fed him false information about Eve Linklater. It might part of some cunning plan; on the other hand she might simply be someone incapable of telling the truth. He had met a few people like that during his career as a policeman.

He stopped outside the weather-beaten, clapboard boarding house, switched on the tape-recorder in his jacket pocket, ran up the three wooden steps and rang the bell. Vivienne Vanderbot appeared, wearing a black negligee that emphasized the pallor of her face. A cloud of musky perfume surrounded her as he followed her through the hall into the bedroom.

He announced: 'We had a busy couple of days in Vegas. We managed to find the bar where Eve worked and got to hear all about the fight in which Firsby was involved.'

'You don't say. But why go to all this trouble. I doubt if Eve will be able to tell you much about Adam Firsby.'

'You said she was extremely distressed when she heard that he had committed suicide.

Vivienne sat on the bed and indicated a wobbly cane chair. Dickens lowered himself into it gently.

'He was just a shit-bag philanderer. Not the kind who would tell her about himself.'

'You said she cried.'

'Oh sure. I think she had a crush on him. But she couldn'a been really serious. He was far too old for her -- nearer my age than hers.'

Amused at Vivienne's attempt to disguise her real age, Dickens commented: 'He sent her some very ardent love letters.'

'How come you know that?'

'We have our sources of information.'

'Love letters don't count for much. It's money up front that counts.'

'I get your point. As a matter of fact, I'm prepared to pay for any useful information you give us, but no phoney stuff like saying she lived in New Jersey.'

Vivienne's negligee slipped off one shoulder. She complained: 'This was supposed to be a social visit, remember. Anyway, what makes you think I know more than I've already told you.'

'You didn't tell us much, Vivienne.'

'I gave you quite a bit of information.'

Standing up, Dickens said decisively: 'You're a time-waster. I think I'd better be off.'

Vivienne pushed him firmly back into the chair and wriggling herself onto his lap, crooned seductively: 'C'mon, Henry. Let's have a little fun.'

'First tell me all about the Linklater girl.' 'Can't it wait?'

She gently stroked his tie.

'Has someone been here asking you to clam up?'

'Don't be silly.' The top half of her negligee fell away from Vivienne's shoulders, revealing a bosom truly remarkable for her age.

Dickens lifted the negligee back over her shoulders and deposited her back onto the bed,

'You are a very lovely woman,' he said with a regretful air. 'But it just wouldn't be right for us to start anything.'

'Why not, my darling?' She added half-mockingly: 'You know I'm on fire for you.'

'I happen to be married to a very jealous woman.'

'She's a long way away, Henry. She'd never find out.'

'You're wrong. She finds out everything.'

'How?'

'She does it through the medium of one, Ernie Thomas.'

Vivienne's eyes rounded in surprise. 'You don't believe in that psychic stuff, do you?'

'As it happens I do -- just a little. But in this case Ernie Thomas has reliable contacts in the KGB, MI5 and Mossad. Every time I step out of line, he uses his intelligence network to find out exactly what I've been up to and then informs my wife. Here's an example: Travelling back to my home in Wales from London by train one weekend, I happened to be reading a book by a lady novelist friend of mine. Someone told Ernie. A few days later, when my wife came into his shop, Ernie said to her: 'Your husband has been reading novels written by a lady novelist who researches all her sex scenes herself. As a result I got into serious trouble. You can see what I'm up against. Still, I'm shortly about get my revenge.'

'How?'

'I bought some chitterlings -- pigs' intestines -- from Ernie before catching the flight to LA, knowing full well that he would tell my wife. She's gagging to know why I bought them. I shall take great pleasure in keeping both her and Ernie in the dark about my reason for buying them.'

'Why did you buy them?'

'No reason at all I threw them out of the train on my way to London Airport.'

Vivienne saw the joke and laughed. Then standing precariously on the bed, she bunched her negligee around the top of her thighs and said proudly: 'I bet you've never seen legs like that before?'

'I can say truthfully they're magnificent.'

'I had 'em insured for a lotta money once. Dr Wellkum says he could never improve on them. Legs are kinder than boobs -- they'll still be beautiful when I'm an old lady.'

'Who's Dr Wellkum?'

'He's my cosmetic surgeon....I hate him. C'mun, let's have a little drink.'

Vivienne stepped down from the bed, tottered over to a dressing-table and poured out two large vodkas. She added a splash of lime juice to the one she handed to Dickens and commented sadly: 'You must have noticed that my face is lopsided.'

He said gallantly: 'The rest of you is in such cracking order that you'd hardly notice.'

Vivienne gulped her drink and poured herself out another one. Then she turned to face Dickens and said with venom: 'I'll never forgive what the bastard did to me. But before I tell you, lemme say I don't mind you refusing to give me a tumble. It's a well known fact that you English are all under-sexed. I have had my fill of men -- Humphrey Bogart, Clarke Gable, Alan Ladd, Donald Duck...'

'Donald Duck?'

'The guy who did the voice-over -- I can't remember his name.'

'So why do you hate Dr Wellkum?'.

In a stricken voice, Vivienne said: 'He was halfway through my last face lift and when his secretary told him I had exceeded my credit card limit, he refused to do the other half unless until I paid him cash.'

She gave a tragic sigh and poured herself out another large vodka.

Dickens commented. 'He can't be a very nice man, Vivienne. But it's time I went. Thanks for the drink.'

As he turned towards the door, he noticed a large red brassiere hanging over a bed post with the initial V on each cup. Something clicked in his mind.

'Nice bra,' he said nonchalantly. 'Where did you buy it?'

'Why do you wanna know?'

'I happened to bump into a bra salesman in Las Vegas last night by the name of Clarence J Heyst. Did he by any chance sell it to you?''

What if he did?'

'Did he quiz you about Adam and Eve.'

Vivienne looked taken aback.

'What's it to you?'

'It's important that you tell me the truth about him. My partner and I think he may be an FBI agent working on the same case. '

'He did ask me some questions as a matter of fact.

He says he pays a lotta money for information. It's a lovely bra, isn't it.''

'How much did he offer you?'

'Just what I need to pay Dr Wellkum to carry out the other half of my facelift.'

'Supposing I said I would match his offer.'

Vivienne gave a brilliant smile and said: 'You gotta deal.'

She shook his hand warmly.

But when she told him the amount, Dickens replied: 'Vivienne, that's a helluva lot of money. I need to consult my partner. If he agrees I'll be round with the cash this afternoon.'

'What if the bra salesman comes round first?'

'Tell him you can't see him because you have a headache.'

'I never refuse hard cash.'

'My cash will be even harder. But I don't have that kind of money on me at the moment.'

'I really didn't want to ask you for money, Henry, Vivienne said plaintively. 'I'd have told you everything for nothing if you had treated me nicely.'

'Honey, sure as hell Ernie Thomas's spies would find me out. But I shall always remember that beautiful body of yours.'

'Dr Wellkum calls himself a body sculptor,' Vivienne said with a sudden burst of enthusiasm. 'Didn't he do a great job on my boobs. Take another look.'

'Not now,' Dickens said, hastily.

Dickens told Dwindle with pride, on arrival back at the hotel, how he had managed to fend off Vivienne Vanderbot's advances and had discovered that the bra salesman had also tried to prise information from her. He added eagerly: 'But she is prepared to tell me all she knows about Firsby and Eve Linklater for a fee.'

He then played the tape-recording of his interview.

Dwindle listened carefully. He was very amused, until it came to the part where Vivienne related how Dr Wellkum had given her half a facelift. He was so incensed at Dr Welkum's heartless greed that he refused to laugh when Dickens quipped that half a face was better than none.

When his indignation had cooled off, Dickens told him the enormous amount of Vivienne was demanding. Dwindle said that he had won some money in the casino and was in a position to pay for the information. 'But,' he asked: 'how can we be sure she's telling the truth?'

'Come along and judge for yourself. I suggest we pay her separately for each useful item of information. Between us we should be able to detect when she's lying.'

They drove to Vivienne Vanderbot's guest house after lunch. The Mexican girl with the tousled brown hair announced at the front-door that Mrs Vanderbot was having a nap. But a sleepy voice from within called: 'Show the gentlemen in.'

Vivienne rose from her crumpled bed, still wearing the black negligee.She commented on seeing Dwindle: 'Being so tiny must be a great disadvantage for a gumshoe.'

Dwindle gave her a twinkling smile: 'On the contrary, occasionally I dress up as a child and no one even notices me. Incidentally, my partner hasn't stopped raving about that beautiful figure of yours.'

'You have brought along a real gentleman, Henry,' Vivienne said, with an appreciative smile. 'Did you bring the money?'

Dwindle replied sternly: 'We are not going to part with it too easily. First of all, tell us all about the man who gave you a brassiere?'

'Like I told your partner, this man came here asking for information about Eve. I told him you'd been here before and kept stalling him. He then gave me a bra and said he would come back later. He telephoned after you had gone this morning and said he couldn't come this afternoon. He's in danger from the serial killer. He said he'd like to share information with you but is afraid to see you openly. He said he'd leave a message in the wax effigy of Marilyn Monroe they use for advertising in Steermans -- that's the fashion store in Wiltshire Boulevard.'

Dwindle looked across at Dickens, who shrugged and said: 'How can you trust a man who sells brassieres for a living?'

'We'll discuss that aspect of it later,' Dwindle said. 'In the meantime, Vivienne, for a hundred dollars where was Eve Linklater was born.'

'In Detroit.'

'For fifty dollars what did her father do for a living?'

'It's worth more than that.'

'Okay ...a hundred dollars.'

'He was a preacher. But he moved out into the country and became a fruit farmer.'

'Whereabouts?'

'That's worth two-hundred dollars.'

'Okay.'

'In the state of Michigan. But now he has retired to Florida.'

For an hour or more Dickens and Dwindle bargained tenaciously for every scrap of information that Vivienne Vanderbot could give them concerning Eve Linklater and Adam Firsby. She constantly emphasized that she believed Adam and Eve were hopelessly in love.

At the end of the session, Vivienne Vanderbot had sufficient money for the other half of her face lift. Dickens and Dwindle meanwhile had succeeded in building up a picture of Eve as a hard-working, conscientious girl, a typical product of Middle America, who had got out of her depth in Los Angeles. She had been, until then, a regular church-goer and cheer leader for her high-school football team. When her performance in the local dramatic society had been favourably reviewed, she had decided to try Hollywood. Her mother had died soon afterwards. Her father had sold his farm and moved to Florida. There was a brother in Ontario, another in New York and a sister in Boston.

The picture of Firsby that emerged was more complex. One piece of information stuck in Dwindle's mind, however. Vivienne Vanderbot said that on two occasions when he called at the house he had brought baskets of fruit, unlike other suitors who brought flowers.

They left Vivienne Vanderbot standing on the doorstep, smiling, clutching a bundle of dollar bills in various large denominations.

16

S o where do we go from here?' Dickens asked, as Dwindle climbed into the passenger seat.

'Straight to Steermans in Wiltshire Boulevard, I guess. We had better pick up the message and see what the opposition has to say.'

'Who do you think Heyst is working for?'

'It could be the FBI. It could be anybody.'

'If it helped us solve the case, do you think it might be worthwhile offering to share the reward with him?'

'Let's organise a meeting and see what he has to say.'

Dwindle stared bemusedly at the line of traffic moving ahead on the highway. The LA smog -- his wife had warned him about it before he left London -- was making his eyes water. He felt vaguely uneasy about the strange method the rival organization had used to make contact and was almost of a mind to ignore Vivienne Vanderbot's instruction. But he put aside his doubts when he realised that he would shortly be encountering a wax effigy of Marilyn Monroe.

He said after a while: 'It's fairly obvious that Heyst spirited away our computer for a while in Las Vegas. But why all this excessive secrecy?

'I would say,' Dickens said sagely, exploring his chin with his hand, 'it's because he does not want other agencies to know he is in contact with us.'

He looked into the rear mirror, checked they were not being tailed and said reflectively: 'Yeah, that's probably it.'

'But why should they be interested in a couple of foreign detectives?'

'They obviously think we're ahead of the game. Presumably that's why they extracted all that information from our computer.'

But,' Dwindle said, experiencing a further doubt, 'I thought that making secret drops of the type Vivienne is suggesting went out with the end of the Cold War.'

'Don't you believe it, old son. Intelligence services still use the same old tricks. And they're still as active as ever building up their personal empires.' Dickens shot him a knowing glance. 'Then all I can say is intelligence services are not very intelligent.'

'How right you are! But the world still has to put up with their whims and foibles.'

'Vivienne said Heyst thinks he is being stalked by the serial killer. That's a bit far-fetched, isn't it?'

'Who knows -- the Mafia may be involved. Anyway, if it's a bum steer, we'll find out soon enough.'

Dwindle was puzzling over the question of why Firsby had given Eve Linklater fruit, when he was flung violently forward -- Dickens had just stamped on the brakes to avoid a collision. The near miss broke his chain of thought.

*

Steermans on Wiltshire Boulevard was a fashion store that had recently prospered through a series of highly-publicised promotions based on former celebrities. The Marilyn Reborn exhibition on the second floor featured numerous posters of the famous beauty. Copies of her sweaters and skirts were selling in huge quantities to girls young enough to have been her granddaughters. A similar exhibition featuring Elvis Presley the previous month had been a huge success.

As Dickens stepped off the elevator on the second floor, he noticed a blown-up version of a famous photograph of the movie star -- she was smiling mischievously as the wind lifted her skirt, exposing her incomparable legs. Further on they came across the wax effigy of Marilyn Monroe. She was standing on a raised pedestal, gazing wistfully ahead, as shoppers swirled about her, paying a tribute to her talent and beauty by buying vast quantities of clothes similar to those she had once worn. The items of clothing had been very subtly altered to reflect the narrower shape of modern young women.

Dwindle gazed up at the movie idol of his youth in rapt adoration. He wondered for a moment whether he should buy a Monroe sweater for Maureen. Reflecting on previous fiascos, he decided that buying clothes for his wife would be too much of a gamble.

As they moved nearer, Dickens muttered: 'I could almost swear I saw Heyst just now hiding behind a pillar.'

'Your imagination, old chap. He could couldn't hide behind a double-decker bus.'

'You realise,' Dwindle suddenly said anxiously, 'that Vivienne Vanderbot may already have sold the information she gave us to Heyst.'

Dickens replied. 'Perhaps. But apparently he still wants to do a deal with us.'

Arriving at the statue. Dwindle gazed up at Marilyn, enchanted by her pink complexion, pouting ruby lips and platinum blonde wig. He had once refused to go on an expedition with the Scouts because it would have meant missing one of her movies. He couldn't remember which one it was. But he suddenly remembered one of her love scenes and experienced a sharp pang of regret as he recalled her untimely death.

He mounted the foot-high plinth on which the model was standing. This brought him almost to the level of Dickens's shoulder.

'Whereabouts should I look?' he whispered to Dickens.

'Try her bra. Nobody's watching.'

On a sudden impulse, thinking of buying something for his wife, Dickens moved away.

Dwindle reached up and cautiously felt inside the wax model's cleavage. There was a piercing scream and next moment all activity on the second floor of Steerman's store ceased.

*

Hussey Bruenstein, a would-be actress who could neither act, sing nor dance, looked very much like Marilyn Monroe and was outstandingly good at standing motionless. She had turned this unusual talent to good account by taking part in a series of promotions.

With his feet scarcely touching the ground, Dwindle was bundled outside to a police car, taken to a police station and charged with indecent assault. Dickens, after inspecting the object of clothing which had caught his eye, turned round just in time to the struggling figure of his partner being carried away. By the time he arrived at the police station it was too late to halt committal procedures.

'But it was a perfectly natural mistake,' Dickens protested to the officer in charge. 'He thought she was a wax model.'

'Does he normally go around feeling the tits of wax models?' the policeman enquired, raising bushy white eyebrows.

Dickens answered: 'No.' But even as he spoke, he realised that if he told the policemen his partner was searching for a secret message inside the famous bosom, it might make matters worse.

He tried another tack, leaned over the desk and explained in his most persuasive voice: 'That little guy you have in there suffers from a Monroe fetish. He is absolutely normal in every other respect. But whenever he sees a souvenir of Marilyn Monroe feels compelled to touch it. He went to a shrink once. But the psychiatrist said that he suffered from the same complaint. This is the first time it has got him into trouble.'

'Izzat so? Well, in the state of California it is a felony to make lewd advances to a wax model. If he's convicted of indecently assaulting a live female he'll go down for ten years. If he's convicted of obscenely and lasciviously inciting public disorder by groping a wax model in public, he'll go down for one-hundred and twenty months. You can take your choice.'

'Can I apply for bail?'

'I doubt it'll be granted today.'

'I need a lawyer.'

'That guy over there will help you get one.'

An hour later, Dickens and Dwindle and attorney, Helga Borgenborg, were huddled in Dwindle's cell discussing his predicament. Helga was an attractive young women with long straight blond hair. It was her first case. She tried to cover up her inexperience by exaggerating the seriousness of Dwindle's offence. He was convinced that he would spend the rest of his life in prison.

'Can you explain why you put your hand on this young woman's breast?' she asked Dwindle.

'My partner has just told you. We are here on a mission to solve a murder case. Someone -- we think he is member of a rival organization -- informed us that he would leave a message on a wax image in Steerman's store. I had no idea ...'

'It is going to be extremely difficult to persuade a jury that two intelligent, sensible Englishmen accustomed to dealing with ruthless, cunning criminals could possibly have been taken in by such an unlikely ruse.'

Dickens said heavily: 'But it is the solemn truth, Miss Borgenborg.' He found her powerful perfume distracting, but he went on: 'You must remember we are operating on unfamiliar territory. We don't understand the relationships between government agencies and detective agencies over here. We certainly had no idea that one of them would play a dirty trick on us.'

Helga went to the cell door for the fifth time before returning to the two men -- explaining that she suffered from claustrophobia.

'So do I,' Dwindle exclaimed indignantly, as she came towards him. Are you sure you have done everything possible to get bail?'

'Sexual assault is considered a very serious offence in the state of California, Mr Dwindle.'

'My name is George Hamble. Dwindle is just a nickname. I know that it is a serious offence. But surely a jury will understand that nobody my size can afford to go around harassing women. One retributive swipe would knock me clean out. In fact, Hussey did hit me. The girl has a right hook worthy of Mike Tyson.'

He touched his bruised chin.

'I will remember to put that argument in your defence plea,' Helga Borgengorg said and conscientiously wrote it down in her notebook.

'Look at it another way,' Dwindle continued, his face taut with anxiety, 'supposing that I were to masquerade as a wax model and a female private eye pulled my trousers down. Do you suppose she would be prosecuted for indecent assault? Of course not. Her explanation would be accepted unquestioningly...'

'I do not propose to introduce the subject of sexual inequality into your defence, Mr ...'

'Hamble,' Dwindle reminded her.

'I propose to do the very best I can for you, Mr Hamble. But I repeat you are accused of a very serious offence.'

'Can I counter-sue for a bruised chin?'

'You could bring a case in a civil court but I doubt if it would be successful. However, we can discuss that particular point on another occasion. In the meantime, I shall be having further discussions on the question of bail with the state attorney.'

Dickens intervened: 'Miss Borgenborg, do try and get him out of here as soon as possible. We are engaged on an important investigation that could benefit everyone in the USA.' He added in a whisper: 'We are on the trail of the States serial killer.'

Helga seemed unimpressed. She merely nodded and went again to the cell door. This time the policeman who stood outside unlocked the door so that she could leave.

Dickens said to Dwindle: 'As Oliver Hardy used to say: "This is a pretty mess you've got yourself in"'

'For God's sake, Dickens, don't make a joke of it. In my wildest dreams I never imagined that I would be sent to prison for touching Marilyn Monroe's breasts.'

Dickens replied with a serious expression: 'You're quite right, Dwindle. But it does show that we are up against a ruthless enemy completely lacking in morals or principles.'

' Dickens, cut out the rhetoric. For God's sake get me out of here. If necessary, you can pay the lady to drop the charges against me.'

'That could be very expensive.'

'Damn the expense. We're losing valuable time I won a little money while I was in Las Vegas. Just see what you can do.'

Dickens nodded.

'Is there anything else before I go?'

'Yes, ask the policeman in charge if I can have Firsby's laptop computer. I'll read a few more chapters from his novel.'

When Dickens had gone, Dwindle sat down on the bed in his cell, sighed deeply over his unexpected predicament and then began to read.

*

As I drove across Ireland towards the town of Ballydragun, I regretted the abrupt manner in which I had taken leave of Yvonne. I detested and despised Mrs Sullivan for harbouring unjust suspicions about my relationship with her daughter. Even so, the advice I had received from the Guardai gave me little choice but to leave my lodgings. Yvonne had called in an anguished tone from an upstairs window as I lugged my heavy suitcase down the front steps and into my car: 'Why are you leaving us, Jim?'

'Urgent business,' I called back.

'Where are you going?'

I was too engrossed in inspecting the underside of my car to answer her.

I was now paying an exorbitant rent for a one-bedroom flat in Pembroke Road. Sean Brady, the Irish Times journalist I had spoken to when I had first arrived in Dublin, told me when I telephoned that he had, in fact, informed the Guardai about my visit to the Irish Times. He said apologetically that it was clear that I was in need of advice and that if I did not want my name to appear in the obituary column of his newspaper, I should give up any idea of taking the law into my own hands

. I did not intend to take that advice.

It was dark and the road ahead dipped and wandered in the headlights, revealing tracts of rutted turf on either side. I was fully prepared to find my latest theory regarding the use of barometric switches was incorrect. Konig Engineering, the firm I was on my way to visit, was the only manufacturer of these switches in Ireland. But, of course I realised that the terrorists might have purchased their switches abroad. However, I had to follow every possible lead and felt confident that sheer persistence would, in the end, enable me to find the criminals responsible for Sally's death.

It was, in a way gratifying to learn that my enemies were aware of my presence in Ireland. I felt sure the laws of chance would eventually grant me the opportunity to meet them face to face. I had recently heard that in the bad old days of The Hunger a desperate Irish carter would appeal to his starving nag to continue, with the promise: 'Live horse and you'll get grass.' It encouraged me in the belief that my hunger to kill the men who had murdered Sally would eventually be satisfied.

In the meantime, I was still doubtful whether the terrorists had learned of my purpose in coming to Dublin. I suspected that Special Branch had invented the story in order to persuade me to go home.

I booked in at Horgan's hotel at nine o'clock, injected myself and went down to dinner. The dimly-lit dining-room was empty. I sat down at a table. Soon, a cheerful girl with a mop of unruly black hair appeared from the kitchen and took my order. Recognizing my accent, she confided to me that she had spent three years in England.

'Why did you come back?'

'I wanted to settle down, Nowadays a girl has to sow her wild oats like the fellers.'

'Did you sow any?'

'That would be telling now, wouldn't it,' she answered coquettishly.

Placing a glass of tomato juice in front of me, she commented: 'Wasn't it a dreadful outrage.'

'The airliner bombing?'

'Oh, t'was dreadful. I knew a family from Limerick who were all kill't on the plane. And you know they would think nothing if twice as many had been kill't.'

'They?' I enquired, challengingly.

'The Unyielding Republican Army,' She spelled out the words, reddening slightly and flicking imaginary crumbs off the table.

'You think they were responsible?'

'Of course. They don't give a jot for anyone or anything. T'is only to be top dog they care anything about. And you even see young sprigs around here who pretend to be members and they would run a mile if they so much as saw a gun.'

'I thought they operated mainly up in the North and along the Border.'

She wriggled and pulled at her tawdry black dress.

'They're like weeds -- they come up everywhere.'

'Don't the police pick them up?'

'When they can. But they slip in and out like thieves in the night.'

I said with a smile: 'I think you're having me on.'

She looked flustered but was unwilling to lose face by retracting her statement.

'No, t'is true. They're even down here. My boy friend has seen some of them in Hannigan's pub not two miles away.'

'How did he know they were members of the URA?'

'Sure and didn't he hear a woman saying that Hannigan would like to turn them out, but doesn't dare, in case they burned down the place.'

'It was probably just pub talk.'

'I wouldn't know. I'll get your dinner, sir.'

She swayed back into the kitchen. She had been trying to impress me. But it was possible that her story, even if embroidered, might possess a grain of truth. As I tentatively explored with my fork a massive pie crust enclosing succulent steak and kidney, I decided that I could not afford to ignore any lead that came my way. It was too late to investigate the pub in question, but I made up my mind to look in there sometime.

Before going to bed, I went out in the darkness to my parked car and recovered my revolver from its hiding place.

*

Hans Schmerke was as well-guarded as royalty. The windows of his office were heavily barred, the door from the outer office was armour-plated and, as I waited, I was aware that I was being scrutinised by a CCT camera. I handed my card to his secretary and heard a thickly-accented voice call on the inter-com: 'Okay, let him in, Helen.'

I was greeted by a small podgy Dutchman in his shirt-sleeves. There was a small monitor hanging just above his desk from which he could observe the outer office. The top drawer of his desk was open. I caught a glimpse of a gun. The security precautions seemed out of place here in the peaceful countryside.

I was gratified to find that my sales talk made a favourable impression. After I had promised to send him a quotation, he showed me over the factory, which produced an interesting variety of barometric switches. The windows in the factory I noticed were not barred.

'Were you ever burgled?' I asked him suddenly.

'Not yet, thank God. But some years ago my predecessor here was kidnapped and held for ransom. I am considered by my superiors in Holland to be valuable merchandise and they spare no expense to protect me.'

'The reason I asked was because I have a theory that one of your products was used by the terrorists when they blew up the Mercia Airlines Finch.'

I explained my reasoning.

He stood still and rubbed his chin reflectively. 'That is possible, yes, But the terrorists would not need to break into this factory to obtain barometric switches. We export to many countries where they could buy them. They could even easily steal from a consignment in transit at Shannon airport.'

Back in his office, while we were drinking coffee he explained that the elaborate security precautions had been demanded by the insurance company who covered him against kidnapping.

'Do they require you to carry a gun also?'

He laughed. 'And not only in my desk.' He pulled up his trouser legs and showed me a small pistol strapped to his ankle. I'm so used to it being there, I feel undressed without it. The other night my wife complained there was something icy in the bed. It was my pistol -- I had forgotten to take it off!'

I called on three more prospective clients and then drove to Shannon airport. How easy would it be, I asked the cargo manager, to steal some pressure switches from a consignment? He insisted that pilfering was rare but it was obvious that what Hans Schmerke had said was true.

Driving back to the hotel in heavy rain, I recalled Ray Jackson saying to me once that Ireland's capacity for absorbing foreigners was equal to its capacity to absorb rain.. The hedgerows seemed preserved in transparent wet jelly. A damp mist arose from turbid puddles and the soaked trees and occasional cottages seemed distorted viewed through the rain on my windscreen. The sense of drenched timelessness was shattered by the roar of a Boeing 747 passing overhead.

When I got back to Worthing, I would have to give a full account to Noel Jameson of the progress I was making in my new role. I felt I had an obligation to call on Mrs Carstairs. Harry Duncan would probably be too busy to see me. I wondered if Jaspar Brown had been fired.

Approaching Ballydragun, now drenched in continuous, heavy rain, I stopped by the post office and enquired the whereabouts of Hannigan's pub. A wrinkled postmistress peered over her steel-rimmed spectacles and gave me directions. I drove on and soon came across a hotel called: The Dragon.

Two miles further on, I turned right and came across a dozen or so almost derelict cottages. Beyond them was a faded-cream pebble-dashed building with a sagging roof and a faded sign which read: Hannigan's Ale House. As I approached I saw a lonely bedraggled cockerel standing forlornly in the cobbled yard. It flew up and perched on top of a dark green Volkswagon. Separated from the pub by a low stone wall at the far end of the yard was a hen house with a corrugated roof from which I assumed the lone cockerel had escaped.

I entered the pub. A red-faced portly man was standing behind the bar. Two young boys were playing darts. The publican ordered them to leave as I entered.

'Good evening, sir. T'is a soft day.'

'It certainly is. I'll have a bottle of stout, please.'

He took down from the shelf a bottle of Murphy's stout. Observing my doubtful expression, he said: 'I can see you wanted Guinness.'

'I haven't come across that one before -- but I'll give it a try.'

My ignorance of Murphy's stout was observed with in incredulity by the two boys hovering outside the door that led to the living quarters,

'Away with you, boys,' the man said, 'and off to bed.'

After banishing them with a wave of a massive forearm, he poured the stout into my glass with loving care.

'Now, sir, see if you like it. A lot of people prefer it to the other.'

I sipped it cautiously. 'It's very good.' I pronounced.

'Brewed in Cork. You won't find a better stout.'

As I drank, the publican, diligently polishing a pint glass, commented: 'T'is a miserable day to be out selling.'

I leaned comfortably against the bar.

'You're pretty good at guessing people's occupations.'

'It's too early for tourists so you must be in the selling line.'

'I could be buying,' I answered, puckishly

'What could you buy around here.'

'This pub, perhaps.'

He gave a reluctant smile.

'You wouldn't be wanting to buy this class of a pub.'

'Nothing wrong with it. You sell a first-class stout.'

'Will you be having the other half?'

'No thanks. Next week when I'm passing through again.'

A gnarled, bent old man entered the pub, leaning heavily on his stick. I bade the publican a cheerful good evening and walked out into the steadily-falling rain. I had established some kind of identity in the pub. If it was a haunt of the URA -- which I doubted -- I would try to glean a little more information on my next visit.

On my way to Shannon airport I stopped at the Dragon hotel. A grotesque eight-feet high green plaster dragon stood by the reception desk. I booked a room for the following Monday. Warned by my experience in Dublin, I booked under a false name.

Continuing my journey to the airport, I wondered if I would ever find Sally's killers. The public outcry against the bombing had been enormous. The little waitress's eagerness to condemn the URA was a sign of how much sympathy they had forfeited in the Republic. I had initially made some crass errors but I was learning all the time -- picking up the necessary arts of lying and dissembling that would eventually lead to that defining moment in my life when I would confront the men who had murdered my fiancée.

I made myself known to the captain of the Mercia Airlines Finch, when I came across him in the airport coffee bar. I mentioned my family connection and he invited me to visit the flight-deck during the flight to Gatwick.

It was my first time in an aircraft cockpit at night. A baffling array of dials and switches glowed eerily in the dim light. The two pilots seemed contented and relaxed in their little office above a mass of billowing cloud that had a mauve tinge. A plump yellow moon bobbed and wobbled through one of the side windows, making me feel giddy. I asked how they navigated. Captain Johnson explained how the flight instruments enabled them to make sense out of a dark, featureless environment.

Returning to the brightly-lit cabin, I fancied that one of the hostesses bore a faint resemblance to Sally. I asked her for a glass of lager and was disappointed, when she answered. Her voice sounded shrill and grating -- nothing like Sally's. And then, suddenly remembering that I had already drunk my allowed quota of alcohol for the day, I cancelled my order.

At Gatwick airport I caught a train to Worthing and walked from the station to my apartment. Among the correspondence was a picture postcard addressed to Sally from Brazil which had gone astray in the post. I tore it up angrily.

There was nothing to eat.

I lay under damp sheets and shivered.

The following morning, I telephoned Mrs Carstairs and requested permission to store some of my personal possessions in her garage. After I had brought them round in a hired car, Mrs Carstairs made tea, humming an old tune as she bustled around her bright little kitchen. She was obviously happy to have company.

'What's that tune?' I asked her,.

'That Old Black Magic. I always used to like it. The old tunes are the best.' I noticed she had stopped dyeing her hair - the faded gold was now heavily streaked with gray. She told me she had taken up spiritualism.

We all have to chose our own way for working through sorrow. I had chosen my method -- she hers. I pretended to share her belief in an afterlife. She assured me that she was frequently in contact with her daughter and added: 'She tells me that she is better off where she is -- she doesn't have to worry any longer about emergencies happening in the air.'

Her remark depressed me even further -- Sally would never have made such a comment.

I said: 'It must be a comfort for you to believe you're in touch with her.'

She replied enthusiastically: 'I don't just believe. I see her as clearly as I'm seeing you. Occasionally, she speaks of you. She says you mustn't harbour ill-feeling against those responsible for her death.'

'That's too much to expect. I'm not a saint.'

'I'm well aware of that,' Mrs Carstairs replied, with heavy irony. 'But you were nearly married to my daughter.' She paused, sniffed and began searching in her handbag for a handkerchief. When she had finished wiping her eyes, she said: 'You're not to bear any malice.'

I said coldly: 'If ever I come across the men responsible for Sally's death, I shall shoot them.'

'You're so unlike my daughter. She never hated anybody.'

I stood up and said: 'Time to go, Mrs Carstairs. I have to pay a call on my boss.'

She kissed me on the cheek and said: 'Don't forget to come and see me next time you're in Worthing.'

I realised how lonely she was. I returned the kiss, having detected in her the faintest echo of the qualities that had made me love Sally.

As I walked down the winding, crazy-paving path away from her bungalow, she called out: 'I'll tell Sally to look after you.'

Her voice died in the wind. Her endearing foolishness produced in me a feeling of intense frustration. Why had it happened? Why did God – if there were such a being – feel the need to test my character? Didn't he have anything better to do? For a moment I even questioned why I needed revenge.

I drove past a modest building of yellow brick -- Mrs Carstairs's Spiritualist Church -- and the wry thought entered my mind: Would I still have to inject myself on the Other Side?

I continued towards Noel Jameson's house at High Salvington. He lived in a splendid Tudor-style mansion standing on two acres of gentle chalk slopes at the foot of the Sussex Downs. He did his best to cheer me up by assuring me that it would not be long before promotion came my way. He questioned me closely about the latest political developments in Ireland, where he still had family connections.

Later, as I handed over the keys of my apartment to an estate agent, I realised that I had been reluctant to sell because of my desire to hang on to the past. That was half the reason I wanted to hunt down Sally's killers. The other half was sheer anger at the atrocity that had been committed.

17

L ying on his back in his prison cell, Dwindle could see a rapidly fading blue sky through the single barred window set high up on the wall. The air was hot and humid but he had no complaints about his treatment. He had been given a reasonably filling meal of hamburger and chips, followed by chocolate mousse. Two winos in an adjoining cell had engaged in a ferociously noisy argument but they had now both gone to sleep. He was grateful to have a cell to himself, recognising that he had been given this privilege in order to save him from being the butt of other prisoners. It was one of the very rare occasions when being small had conferred an advantage. He hoped Dickens had remembered to telephone the local British consul.

Although embarrassed at having fallen into a trap, clearly set up by a rival organization, he was grateful for the opportunity to think quietly and deeply about their investigation. The fact that the opposition were prepared to go to such extreme lengths must be a sign that they considered the D and D agency were ahead of them in the quest for the reward. The assumption that Adam Firsby had committed suicide was beginning to look increasingly doubtful. Suicide somehow did not fit in with the picture of a man who had recently found the love of his life.

The biggest mystery of all was why Firsby had not taken the obvious precaution of cleaning the hard disk on his computer before selling it. A bungled suicide attempt, it has often been said, is a cry for help. Perhaps his failure to erase intimate details of his personal life also came into this category. There was surely significance in the fact that Firsby had written about an aviation tragedy that closely corresponded to the one in which Carol Rossano had died. And he had used the expression "wheels within wheels" in one of his letters.

Dwindle was having increased doubts about whether the attack on Rossano's private aircraft should be linked to all the other murders that had occurred across the USA. Making bombs not only required considerable technical expertise but was also an inherently hazardous business, the bomber being as likely to be blown up as his intended victims.

As for their suspicions that the FBI had played a dirty trick on them, this was plainly a possibility. The Fed would obviously have been called in to investigate such a serious matter as linked murders occurring right across America. It was rumoured they had been called in when Marilyn Monroe had died. With a wry smile Dwindle wondered whether using her look-alike as bait on this occasion might have appealed to their sense of humour.

Suddenly Dwindle felt panic-stricken. Here he was, a former philosophy tutor, just under four-feet tall, in a prison cell, accused of indecently assaulting a young woman. What if his wife heard about it. Why hadn't Dickens searched the effigy for the message instead of asking him to do it. Dwindle imagined him saying: 'Oops! Sorry, ma'am. Stop screaming. I have connections in the movie industry and am doing this simply to help advance your career.' If he had had the wit to say that he might have escaped with his honour and reputation intact

It was his size that was at the root of all his misfortunes Dwindle told himself, in a fit of self pity. But on further reflection he came to the sensible conclusion that it would have made no real difference if Dickens had been the one who tried to retrieve the message. The security men were obviously lying in wait. He and Dickens had made a disastrous mistake. But then who doesn't make mistakes? Hadn't that great president of the United States of America, Franklin D Roosevelt, allowed himself to be deceived by the Japanese at Pearl Harbour. And having lost a battle, had he not gone on to win the war?

Something reminded Dwindle of an idea which had been on the threshold of his mind when the near collision occurred on the way to Wiltshire Boulevard. Vivienne Vanderbot had declared that Adam Firsby had wooed Eve Linklater with baskets of fruit. .

Unable to guess what significance this had, Dwindle decided to pass the time by reading yet another chapter of Firsby's novel.

*

During the flight back to back to Shannon I experienced visions of the scene in Sally's stricken plane as smoke filled the cabin and panic gripped the doomed passengers. Trying to divert my mind from this fearsome picture, I put myself in the place of the bombers. Surely they could see that indiscriminate slaughter was inconsistent with their stated aims of uniting Ireland. Why, then, did they continue to kill and maim people? Their chief weakness seemed to be a total incapacity to imagine other people's suffering. Perhaps they believed some kind of magic existed which would restore the people they had killed to life. Terrorism in the pursuit of political objective was very much akin to rape in the pursuit of love.

But I was in no position to moralise. In my private quest for vengeance I was operating at a similar level of baseness. Killing Sally's murderers would add to the lengthening chain of violence. However, minutes later, when I recalled that they had killing my unborn child, my explosive hatred returned. I had suffered an injury I could never forgive.

So absorbed was I in my self-questioning that I bit my right thumb. A blood-red pearl appeared. An appropriate reminder of the unrelenting blood feud on which I was engaged.

Worried that I had not as yet managed to practise firing my gun. I decided to get some shooting practice during my journeys around Ireland.

The rumbling of the wheels on the runway told me that we had landed at Shannon airport.

I collected my car and drove to Ballydragun. At the reception desk the green plaster dragon seemed to be smiling at me maliciously. I endured an awkward moment, when I found myself unable to remember the name under which I had registered. After an embarrassing pause it came back to me and I wrote down Noel Jameson on the registration card.

It was too late to go to Hannigan's Ale House

I stood for a while in my bedroom taking pot shots with my revolver at my own reflection.

Using a pair of sock suspenders I had purchased, I strapped the gun firmly against my calf. I slept with it in place that night, during which I experienced a nightmare in which I fired my gun at men who were pursuing me but it kept jamming. The following day, after making a number of business calls, I arrived back at the Dragon hotel with a feeling that fate was on my side. After an excellent meal, I set out to walk to Hannigan's pub.

It was very mild. Stars shone through a thin veil of alto-stratus. A slight mist had formed by the time I reached the country road on the other side of town. I was conscious of the gun lying snugly against my leg. The mist thickened and the pub suddenly loomed out of the darkness, its lights shining from the windows onto a cobbled yard. I entered and found myself in a crowded smoke-filled atmosphere buzzing with conversation. I threaded my way past ruddy-faced men drinking pints of porter and felt a blast of hot air from a smouldering turf fire. The acrid fumes mingled with the sweet scent of cigarette smoke.

At the bar the publican gave me a genial smile and said: 'I see that you're back for the other half, then.'

'That Murphy's stout is very good stuff.'

'It takes the weariness out of life.'

He filled two glasses of orange juice for the two men standing beside me and then poured out my half-pint with meticulous care. I found a vacant seat at a scrubbed wooden table, relishing the quaint turn of phrase the publican had used.

As I sat down, it suddenly struck me as odd that two men should be drinking orange juice in this hard-drinking region. I studied them as they stood at the bar. They both smoked incessantly. I remembered reading somewhere that the URA had a code of discipline which banned drinking when on duty. They had learned the lesson the hard way when some drunks had blown themselves to pieces. I dismissed my suspicions as the product of an over-active imagination.

Shortly afterwards, when I returned to the bar for a packet of potato crisps, I heard the taller of the men saying: 'Tim's late in. I think it's time to push off. We've had a hard day.'

The publican answered: 'I'll tell him you were here. T'is not likely he'll come now. You'll be in tomorrow?'

'We will that, Barney. Goodnight'

I purchased the crisps and returned to my seat.

I had almost persuaded myself that the two men resembled Jaspar Brown's Photofit picture but promptly dismissed the notion. I finished my glass of stout and left the pub, which was now much less crowded. Crossing the cobbled yard, I noticed someone emerging from what I had mistakenly thought was a chicken coop.

I had walked about two hundred yards back towards Ballydragun, when on an impulse I turned, went back and examined the shed. On the side away from the pub was a small window. Looking inside, I could dimly make out a bench, a cabinet, some chairs and a cylinder of domestic gas. It looked like a tool shed. Some men were leaving the pub, so I hid until they had they had driven away and then walked briskly back to the Dragon hotel

The following morning, I telephoned Mrs Fetherstone and dictated follow-up letters to the local firms who had displayed interest in our pensions packages. She informed me that word had just come through that I was required urgently at Head Office in Worthing. Jameson had been called at short notice to replace a delegate at a conference in Toronto. Morrison, meanwhile, had run into some problems in his work and needed urgent assistance. I drove to the airport and flew to Gatwick.

Again, I exploited my family connection and asked to see the cockpit. The captain granted my request. We were flying at twenty-one thousand feet above a dazzling layer of white cloud. A shadow of the aircraft ringed with opalescence was travelling with us on the cloud tops. Suddenly, a macabre fancy took hold of me and I said aloud: 'It could almost be the shade of Golf-Mike.'

The two pilots looked at each other.

I said: 'Someday someone will get the bastards who did it.'

The co-pilot looked up from his clip-board and muttered: 'I sincerely hope so.'

The opalescent shadow continued to dance beneath us on the fluffy cloud tops. The great bowl of azure sky above shimmered with radiance. Mrs Carstairs's devout belief in spiritualism did not seem quite so far-fetched and absurd up here as it did on the ground. Perhaps Sally was accompanying me on this journey in a timeless world.

Meanwhile, the two pilots were treating this glorious scene as a prosaic backdrop to their humdrum daily task. They discussed some minor technical problem. Before I left the flightdeck I asked if they knew what had happened to Jaspar Brown. The captain told me he had been dismissed.

As I turned to go I saw the opalescent shadow of our airplane spiral towards a canyon and into nothingness.

*

I soon discovered the manner in which Ian Morrison had misused the software programme. By five o'clock I was ready to catch the train back to Gatwick.

On my way to the railway station I stopped at the estate agents who were handling the sale of my flat. They had not found a purchaser but a client was prepared to pay a substantial rent. I told them I would consider the offer and let them know. They passed onto me some correspondence which had arrived at the flat. I stuffed it into my briefcase and ran to catch my train to Gatwick.

I opened the letters on the flight back. One of them was from Yvonne Sullivan.

Dear Jim,

Why did you go away without saying goodbye. I really enjoyed mathematics with you. So much clearer than at school.

I know you have suffered from the loss of your fiancée in that awful air crash. She was lovely. But I want to help you get over it.

A very nice lady at your Dublin office gave me your address in England. I felt I had to write to you.

Please ring when you get back from your business trip.

I miss you.

Yvonne.

P.S. Y + J= Heaven

Y - J= Zero

I smiled at her naivete. All the same, it was flattering to be the object of a schoolgirl crush. As for her mother's suspicions, there are I told myself, always nasty-minded people ready to question the most innocent of relationships.

At half-past nine I was back in my hotel room. A mixture of curiosity and desire for a half-pint of Murphy's stout drove me towards Hannigan's again. I was about to leave my room, when some instinct told me to leave my wallet behind.

As I set out for the pub, I recalled one occasion when Yvonne had impulsively squeezed herself onto my lap. She seemed to act with the innocent motion of a young animal seeking warmth. I had acted perfectly properly -- lifting her off my lap and telling her to behave herself. Then remembering the sudden and unexpected awakening of feeling, I had experienced, I decided that perhaps it was just as well that I had found new lodgings.

Now it seemed I was being led astray by the silly maunderings of another young girl -- the waitress at Horgan's -- whose hints of suspicious goings-on in Hannigan's pub were probably the product of an undisciplined imagination..

The light from the pub beckoned me into the warm interior. But I stood for a minute or so uncertainly in the parking lot, my hands thrust deeply in my raincoat pockets. Remembering the waitress's allegations, I decided on impulse to investigate the hut again. I walked past a parked Ford Escort and an elderly Mercedes. Through the side window of the pub I caught a glimpse of drinkers warming themselves by the fire. The barman was wiping the bar counter.

I walked round the low stone wall and approached the shed. Its timber walls gave off a faint smell of creosote. A patch of dull light reflected on the ground from the small window into which I had peered the previous night. A faint buzz of conversation came from inside. Nervously, I moved forward a few yards and hid behind the heavily lichened trunk of a large oak tree.

It was bitterly cold. I was tempted to return to the pub for a heart-warming glass of stout. But having opted for the role of private detective I told myself I must be prepared to put up with a little discomfort. Patience and perseverance were the hallmarks of successful crime detection -- so at least, I had read.

I passed the time trying to compose a suitable reply to Yvonne's letter. I must explain that I was far too old for her and it would be quite inappropriate to encourage her youthful and tender emotions. I would not even deign to mention the silly mathematical equation she had invented.

I was about to give up my vigil when I heard a car engine start. Lights came on in the domestic quarters at the rear of the pub. Shortly afterwards three men come out of the shed. One of them held an Alsatian dog by a metal chain. The lamp inside the shed went out. I retired prudently behind the tree trunk, which seemed to have shrunk in size. A fourth man came out and called: 'Hey Mike, do you have the padlock?'

'I have that.'

There was the sound of a key being inserted.

A voice said: 'We'll have time for three hours shut-eye before we set off.'

The Alsatian began barking furiously. I pressed myself against the tree and remained perfectly still.

A voice said: 'Let him go, Fergal.'

'He'll wake the bloody neighbourhood.'

'Let him go!'

A moment later an enraged animal appeared round the tree and leaped at my throat. I tried desperately to defend myself, thrusting my arm into his jaws, crying: 'For Christ's sake! What's going on here!'

One of the men hauled off the dog with agonizing slowness. I inspected my torn raincoat and shouted angrily: 'That's a bloody dangerous brute you have there.'

A tall man said silkily: 'What the hell were you doing behind the tree?'

'Having a pee.'

'What's the matter with the one in the pub?'

'I wasn't in the pub. It closed just as I came along.'

'Weren't you in the pub last night?'

'That's right.'

'Hannigan said you were a salesman.'

'What difference does that make?'

'I think we'll have a little chat. Come inside our little office.'

Two men wearing leather jackets frog-marched me into the shed and forced me to sit on one of the folding canvas garden chairs. The man called Fergal relit a calor-gas lamp and turned up the brightness: it illuminated the same round snub-nosed face that had stared at me from Brown's Photofit picture. He was wearing a soiled denim jacket embroidered with thin red thread and heavily-stained jeans. The lamp standing on a refrigerator -- I had mistaken it for a cabinet -- also illuminated a large gas cylinder. Standing by it was a tall man wearing a heavily creased brown suit and a red spotted tie. I judged him to be about my own age and noticed his cleft chin and prominent adam's apple. When he brushed at a lank lock of hair on his forehead I felt sure that I had found the bombers.

There was the sound of footsteps. Fergal said: 'Captain's barking has disturbed Barney. Will you go and settle his mind, Mike?'

The tall man hissed menacingly at me: 'One word and you're dead.'

He went outside and spoke to someone. I thought I heard him say: 'We'll take him away.'

I realised then that my chances of survival were slim. I guessed that the refrigerator was used for storing explosives. After a few minutes Mike returned to the shed. He screwed a silencer onto a gun that made the revolver I had bought seem like a child's toy. Pointing it between my eyes, he barked: 'What's your name?'

I replied unhesitatingly: 'Noel Jameson.'

'Search him,' he said sharply.

'I'm a British subject,' I protested.

'Stand up you bastard.'

I obeyed. The two leather-jacketed men went through my pockets. They found some coins, a comb, a nail-file, a ballpoint pen and Yvonne's letter.

'If your name is Noel, why does she call you Jim?'

'Short for James-son,' I lied.

'Okay, Noel-Jim, or whatever you call yourself...'

Holding the gun with both hands still pointing it at my forehead, and staring at me down the long barrel, he demanded: 'What were you doing behind that tree.'

'I've told you- I was having a leak.'

'What are you doing in Ireland?'

'I'm an insurance salesman, staying at the Dragon hotel. What the hell is this all about?'

'You'll find out soon enough.'

He smiled, stepped back a couple of feet and rammed the gun into his side jacket pocket, leaving the silencer protruding. Fergal stood by the door, holding the dog on a taut lead. The two men relaxed their grip on my shoulders, as Mike approached me, smiling. Then his fist flew at me with devastating force. Blood spurted from my crushed nose onto my shirt and tie.

'Now, you bastard,' he said fiercely, 'what's your name, rank and number.'

I shook my head, scattering blood onto the shoe of the man on my right. I replied thickly: 'I've told you - I'm in insurance. I specialise in pensions schemes. You can check with my customers if you like. I'll give you their names.'

I thought of the miniature gun strapped to my calf. Any hope of retrieving it seemed remote.

'Okay. We'll check in the morning -- if you're still alive. Here -- wipe yourself.'

He handed me a white handkerchief, with which I dabbed ineffectually at my still bleeding nose.

'Why are you behaving like this?' I pleaded.

Mike, who appeared to be the leader, looked temporarily nonplussed. One of the leather-jacketed men whispered: 'We don't want to get Barney in the shit.'

Fergal gave me a shrewd glance and said: 'Personally, I don't believe the sod. We'll let Captain tear him asunder.' Hearing his name, the Alsatian growled softly.

'That dog certainly deserves a good meal,' Mike said, thoughtfully.

He studied me for a minute or so and then barked: 'Where's your wallet?'

'In my hotel bedroom.'

'Why d'yer leave it there?'

'As a precaution against being mugged. Take me back to the hotel and I'll show it to you.'

'Stop treating me like an eejit, you impudent bastard...Supposing you had wanted to buy a jar?'

'I have enough small change for that.'

'You're a bloody liar. You came here to spy on us on behalf of the British army.'

'I honestly don't know what you're getting at. I have never been in the British or any other army. But I'm willing to do a deal with you. If you allow me to return to my hotel, I won't tell the guardai that you have viciously assaulted me and detained me against my will.'

'No deals, you bastard. You're going to end up in a body bag.'

His hand flipped out again savagely, his knuckles grazing my cheekbone.

I heard someone say: 'This is going to be a long job.'

'Right, Brendan. We'll get no sleep tonight, that's for sure. And nor will he.'

Mike gazed at me unblinkingly. 'We'll take him where we can do a thorough job on him. It's going to take him a long time to die,' he added with relish.

I stared back at him, defiantly, trying to disguise my fear. I had stupidly thrown away the only chance I was ever likely to have of killing Sally's murderers. Feeling certain that they would soon discover the weapon strapped to my leg, I shouted for help. A vicious blow from the but of Mike's gun caught the side of my temple; a second knocked me unconscious.

*

Pain like the continuous buzzing of a chain-saw was coursing through my head when I recovered consciousness. I was in a dark, confined space that had a faint smell of petrol. The rumble of wheels told me that I was in the boot of a car. My hands were lashed tightly to the spare wheel. I felt horribly weak and muzzy. I hadn't injected myself that evening. Knowing that I would soon die didn't seem of all that much consequence. Suddenly, the realisation that my gun was still strapped against my calf revived hope.

Soon, the rumbling increased as the car ran onto rough ground. The engine was switched off and a few moments later I felt a chill wind on my neck. The boot had been opened. Someone untied the rope binding my hands to the spare wheel. I caught a pungent smell of horse manure as I was hoisted out of the boot and placed on my feet. My hands were forced behind me and someone bound my wrists again. Mike appeared from the front of the car.

'How is he?' he enquired, laconically.

'Ready to meet his Maker,' Fergal declared and sent me sprawling with a kick into the interior of a horse stall. As I fell I heard a horse whinnying. They had brought me to some stables. Horses. it seemed, would be the only witnesses to my interrogation.

18

D windle paid Hussey Bruenstein a handsome sum out of his own pocket to persuade her to withdraw the charge. He also settled Helga Borgenborg's legal fee. As they walked out of the police precinct, Dickens enquired if it would be allowed as a legitimate business expense. Dwindle replied cheerfully: 'I won't bother, since the experience means that I can now boast of having had a brief affair with Marilyn Monroe.'

'It wasn't your fault, Dwindle. We both fell into the trap.'

'Do you think you might have talked your way out it, if you had been the one who put her hand in her bra?'

'I doubt it. Dickens added with a self-deprecating cough, 'Mind you, I do have a way with the ladies. I had a hard job fighting off off Vivienne Vanderbot.'

'Why did you bother?' Dwindle enquired, impishly.

'The poor old girl's quite off her rocker., that's one reason.' Dickens then added with a pensive air: 'Anyway, I have learned my lesson from the last time I went astray.' He went on to explain gleefully to Dwindle how he had got his revenge on Ernie, the village gossip.

Dwindle said: 'My time in the police cell has given me an opportunity to reflect on this whole business. Let's go inside that restaurant and discuss our next move.'

Dwindle ordered a small portion of pastrami sandwiches. Ignoring Dickens's vociferous protest at what he considered to be an arbitrary and unfair imposition of food rationing, he went on: 'The FBI may have set us up but I still believe we have a chance of finding Adam and Eve before they do.'

Dickens muttered: 'I think we should cut our losses and go home.'

'Nonsense. When the enemy resorts to that kind of dirty tricks campaign, it's a sure sign of weakness. We're still in with a chance. But we'll need to keep on our toes. '

'Have you any theory about the wherabouts of Adam and Eve?'

'No, but I'm beginning to believe that Firsby is not the out-and-out villain he has been painted.'

'Dwindle, if there was one thing I cannot tolerate it's people who apologise for wrong-doers. Firsby is a reckless gambler who has deserted his wife and family. He probably faked his suicide, which is itself a criminal offence.'

When the sandwiches arrived with two mugs of coffee, Dwindle said patiently: 'I am not trying to defend his actions -- I am looking into his motives. I believe he is in hiding because he knows a great deal more about the death of Carol Rossano than is good for him. It may have something to do with drugs, prostitution, money-laundering -- who knows. He may have had a motive -- perhaps an unconscious one -- in leaving that information on the computer. If we continue patiently to follow the clues he has left, we shall eventually track him down. He will then tell us who killed Carol Rossano and we shall be able to claim the reward.'

Dickens felt in his pocket for his pipe. Then remembering that he had left it in the hotel, he said despairingly: 'Okay. Okay. Great theory. But how are we going to catch the bugger?'

'By a slow process of patient detective work.'

'What have we got to go on?'

'According to Mrs Vanderbot, Adam and Eve are deeply in love. So let's speculate on where they might have decided to go.'

'Florida, perhaps, where her father is?'

'She wouldn't want her preacher dad to know she's shacking up with a married man.'

'She has brothers in New York and Ontario and a sister in Boston.'

Firsby might hve decided to leave the USA Apart from other considerations, he has broken the law by pretending to commit suicide. He might have crossed into Canada. Perhaps they are both sheltering with Eve's brother in Ontario.'

'It's hardly worth our while going up there on spec.'

'Perhaps Eve's brother is a fruit farmer like her father.'

'What does that have to do with it?'

'Firsby always sent her fruit.'

'So she happens to like fruit. What's the connection?'

'His name is Adam. Hers is Eve. It seems that he keeps reminding her in a playful sort of way of the apple in the Garden of Eden.'

Dickens scowled.

'You'll have to do better than that if we are ever going to find them, Dwindle.'

'Okay, see if you can do any better.'

Dwindle then went to the pay phone and made a call to the Ontario Fruit Farmers' Association to enquire whether there was someone called Linklater among their members. Having drawn a blank, he returned to the table and commented: 'Canada's a big place. They may still be up there somewhere.'

'How about searching the Ontario directory for Linklaters.'

Dwindle succeeded eventually in locating Eve Linklater's brother Anthony in Toronto, who worked as a car mechanic. He had no idea where his sister was and asked Dwindle to contact him when he found her.'

Dickens's mouth turned down on hearing the news. He said: 'Maybe we should dip into the computer again and see if we have missed some obvious clues.'

Dwindle replied: 'Yes, I believe there may be some. But first let's review Firsby's aims. For reasons which we presently do not understand, he claims to be able to identify the murderer of Carol Rossano. He refers enigmatically to "wheels within wheels. He's very obviously deeply in love with Eve Linklater, whose first name so poetically matches his own. He may have pretended to commit suicide in order to make a fresh start in life with his new girl friend. The theory that he is the serial killer has almost certainly been weakened by this latest killing with a kite string in Seattle. What we do know is that there is a high degree of certainty that he is in hiding with Eve Linklater. Let's think of all the places that might appeal to both of them. He knew the Caribbean pretty well, having worked there.'

'I would dearly love to comb all those tropical islands,' Dickens said, wistfully. 'But he is more likely to be Europe or Australia or Asia. The Caribbean is too close to the USA.'

'Good point. Dickens. We may assume that wherever they have gone they would both have to find work of some kind. He couldn't apply for a flying licence in another country, because that would blow his cover. He would have to try something else. How about fruit farming?'

'You have an obsession with fruit, haven't you, Dwindle.'

'Eve's father was a fruit grower. We all crave the familiar. It's all we have to work on for the time being,'

At that moment. two large men with sagging, dark jowls entered the restaurant and sat at an adjoining table.

His voice dropping to a whisper, Dwindle said: 'I think the heavy mob may be after us. That episode with Marilyn Monroe may just be the start of our troubles.'

Dickens glanced at them, said contemptuously: 'I can handle them.'

'Not if they are carrying firearms, Dickens. Don't even try. He puckered up his brow for a few moments and then said in a low voice: 'You know, Dickens, sometimes the negatives are more important than the positives.'

'I don't get it, Dwindle.'

'I am suggesting that deleted files may be more important than the ones he left on the computer. I tried to recover some but I wasn't successful. An expert might be able to recover the ones I was unable to restore.'

'But if Firsby had an unconscious wish to be caught, as you suggest, why would he bother to delete files?'

'It's normal practice to delete superfluous files. I think we should have a shot at it.'

'Where will we find such an expert?'

'In Yellow Pages.'

The owner of the restaurant looked up the address for them. They paid the bill and left, with Dwindle carrying the computer in a carrier bag. They had just reached their car, when Dickens heard a voice behind him saying: 'Reach for it, Buddy.'

He swung round and found himself facing two young men wearing baggy satin shorts and tee-shirts, their faces hidden behind grotesque Mickey Mouse masks. One of them was armed with a gun.

Dickens said calmly: 'Okay, you guys -- you can have all my money and my watch if you let this little fella go. Otherwise, you'll have to shoot me.'

'It's a deal,' came the muffled reply. The gunman then turned on Dwindle and said: 'Vamoose, you little motherfucker.'

As Dwindle ran off, Dickens handed over his wallet and watch to the gunman.

The gunman then barked: 'Okay, lie on the sidewalk.'

Dickens obeyed. They kicked him viciously and then ran across the busy road, to the accompaniment of blaring horns and flashing lights.

Dickens picked himself off the pavement, dusted himself down and was relieved to see Dwindle emerge from behind a trash-bin about a hundred yards away.

Dwindle scampered towards Dickens and enquired anxiously: 'Are you all right?'

'I'm okay. They gave me a good kicking but missed my balls.'

'Boy, oh boy,' Dwindle said, admiringly: 'If it wasn't for your quick thinking, they would have had the computer. That was the best deal you ever made.'

'That's what police training does for you,' Dickens replied modestly. 'I suggest we go to see this computer expert before we get into any more trouble.'

Dwindle commented sagely: 'And while we are about it, we'll get him to make a copy of everything on the hard disk.'

Dickens once again deferred to Dwindle's superior knowledge of information technology.

19

D ickens zapped through a succession of TV channels in his hotel bedroom and, finally thwarted in his attempts to find the latest cricket scores, lay down on the bed. He was very worried about the expenses he and Dwindle had incurred. He could manage on his police pension if they were forced to close down the detective agency. But it would be hard on Dwindle, whose small size made it difficult for him to find employment. Even so, he felt that Dwindle bore most of the blame for their misfortunes by insisting on tackling an investigation clearly beyond their capacity.

He went to across to Dwindle's room and found him sitting on the edge of his bed, looking despondently down at his toes.

Dickens said softly: 'Dwindle, I'm sure you have come to the same conclusion as I have -- that it's time to throw in the towel.'

Dwindle toyed with the tasselled end of the bedspread, and said dejectedly: 'I guess so.'

'I'll ring up the airport and book seats for London tomorrow. We'll collect the computer from the engineer on the way to the airport.'

Dwindle nodded assent, continuing to look downcast.

Dickens said cheerfully: 'Don't worry too much. Every one comes a cropper occasionally. We've had some good successes in the past.'

Dwindle gave a deep sigh.

'What's the matter?'

'I can't believe that I actually did it,' Dwindle blurted out.

'Did what?'

'Touched up that girl. I must have been mad.'

'What on earth are you talking about?'

Dwindle's body began to shake uncontrollably.

'For God's sake, Dwindle! Take a hold of yourself.'

Tears poured down Dwindle's face.

Alarmed, Dickens said: 'Do you want me to call a doctor?'

Dwindle cried out hoarsely: 'I've heard mad people perform lewd actions, without even realising it when suffering from senile dementia.. I deserve to be permanently shut away from decent human society.'

He broke down and wept uncontrollably.

Dickens said sternly: 'Pull yourself together, man. We both thought that girl was a wax model.'

'I must have been crazy. I am crazy. '

'That's enough, Dwindle. It was I who told you to look for the message inside her bra, for God's sake. Incidentally, we narrowly escaped being shot dead this afternoon. So be thankful and pull yourself together.'

Dwindle gave a sharp intake of breath as he tried to absorb Dickens's message. His agonised expression prompted Dickens to hurry down to the foyer, in order to ask the desk clerk to call a doctor.

The desk clerk produced a list from a drawer , laid it out in front of him and enquired: 'What exactly is the problem?'

'My little friend has gone completely off his rocker.'

'We have a vet who specialises in treating highly-strung animals.'

'I need a doctor not a vet.'

'I thought you were referring to your dog when you referred to your little friend. He added brightly. 'I have three myself.'

Dickens exploded: 'I don't give damn about your wretched dogs. I need a doctor for a human being.'

'Okay. No need to get excited. May I ask your friend's symptoms?

'He is deeply depressed.'

'. What kind of psychiatrist would you like -- we have Freudian, Adlerian, Jungian, behaviourist, neuro-psychiatrist? They're all very expensive. May I see your credit card?'

'It's up in my room. For God's sake, just call a doctor.'

The desk clerk then whispered confidentially: 'Why don't you try Jack Daniels?'

'Is he a Freudian or a Jungian?'

'Jack Daniels is a whiskey. It works very well, even on dogs.'

'How many more times do I have to tell you that my little friend is a human being. Okay, let's have it.'

Dickens handed over some money. The desk-clerk reached under the counter and handed him a bottle of whiskey.

Under its benign influence Dwindle gradually recovered his composure. He confided to Dickens that he had had an exceptionally puritanical upbringing, which was why the incident with Hussey Bruenstein had upset him so much. After several glasses, he even began to see the funny side of his experience.

Dickens convinced by now that the Murder in the Clouds case would remain for ever unsolved, telephoned the airport and booked their passage home to England. But before settling down for the night, he conscientiously read another chapter of the novel.

*

I sprawled uncomfortably on the straw-covered floor. My captors stared down at me with baleful expressions. One of them said loudly: 'Let's shoot the bastard.' Mike Anderson barked an order and I was dragged into a small, dimly-lit room adjoining the stables.

I was forced to sit on one of two rough wooden benches standing on either side of a stained Formica-topped table. My head ached abominably.

Mike sat on the opposite bench. He said cheerfully: 'It's going to be a long job, Fergal. Let's have some tea.'

'It would save a lot of trouble if we put a bullet in his brain.'

Fergal walked over to a shelf by a cracked porcelain sink on which stood some mugs, an electric kettle and an ancient pewter teapot. He plugged the kettle into a socket.

Staring into the gray, deepset eyes of the man opposite, I was now convinced that I had caught up with one of Jaspar Brown's "anglers." I regretted having left my wallet in my hotel bedroom. The contents would have revealed my real name. I could have confessed my true reasons for coming to Ireland and at least they would not have suspected me of being a British Army officer. However, it looked as though they were going to shoot me anyway.

Brushing back his overhanging lock of hair, Mike suddenly exclaimed: 'Feckit, I've left me briefcase at Hannigan's.

Fergal paused in the act of pouring powdered milk into some mugs and replied: 'Tim'll find it when he takes the dog back. If not, we'll go and get it later.'

Mike did not appear to hear. He was scowling at me as though I was some loathsome insect. 'Now, scumbag,' he muttered, let's have your name and number.'

'I've told you I'm not in the British army.'

'So you're a self-confessed civilian spy. Spies have no protection under the Geneva Convention. Legally, we can just take you out and shoot you.'

'You'll be sorry afterwards when you learn that all I've been doing is fixing up your people with decent pensions schemes.'

'Oh, I don't doubt you have a cover occupation. But now tell me this, Noel-Jim, why did you leave Dublin so hurriedly, without saying goodbye to your girlfriend?'

'She's not my girlfriend.'

'She says she misses you.'

'She's just a schoolgirl who was in my lodgings. I left because my landlady thought there was something going on between us, which wasn't true.'

'You left her without letting her know where you were because you had been given orders to come and spy on us.'

'Rubbish!'

Mike screwed up his face quizzically and said: 'Give him a farewell cup of tea, Fergal.'

'Why waste tea on a long streak of a British army officer,' Fergal grumbled. He then tried clumsily to direct hot tea into my mouth. I spluttered and complained, hoping it would persuade them to remove the bonds from my wrists, Fergal, however, persevered without success, until finally, irritated beyond measure, he poured the rest of the burning liquid over my head.

'Get out, all of you,' Mike barked abruptly.

'Where'll we go?' Fergal demanded querulously

'You can sit in the car. I'll call you when it's time to blind him or castrate him. Or both.'

The three men retired from the room. I heard one of them saying something about the Maze prison.

I sat upright on the hard bench. My interrogator drew a packet of Sweet Afton cigarettes from his jacket pocket, lit up thoughtfully and then came round to my side of the table. I flinched from an expected blow. But instead of attacking me, he mopped my face solicitously, using the handkerchief he had used before, which was copiously stained with my blood.

'I muttered: 'Thanks',

'Would you like a smoke?'

'I don't use them.'

'Abstemious bugger, aren't you. You didn't drink much in the pub the other night.'

'Nor did you,' I answered.

'If you're not a drinking man, what were you doing in a slop shop like Hangman's?'

'I like an occasional glass of stout.'

'You could have got a drink in the Dragon.'

'I just felt like a walk.'

'Two nights in a row?'

'Why not?'

'You came into Hannigan's s because someone told you it was used by members of the URA.'

'I was there because I happen to like Murphy's stout.'

'Balls. Why were you spying on us from behind that tree?'

'I said patiently: 'Look, I've told you -- I'm not familiar with closing times in Ireland. The pub closed just as I arrived, so I went for a pee behind that damned tree.'

Mike returned to the other side of the table, sprawled on the bench and blew a leisurely smoke ring. After studying me for a while, he said: 'It's regrettable, but we're goin' to have to execute you at daybreak for spying on the Unyielding Republican Army with the object of passing on intelligence concerning our activities to the enemy.'

'That's a load of cod's wallop and you know it. I'm a qualified actuary employed by Harbour Life and Pensions. Ring up Mrs Fetherstone, our secretary, and she will confirm it.'

He blew another smoke ring with irritating slowness.

'You'd better get used to the idea that soon you'll be a dead man. But it will save you a lot of suffering if you give me the name of the organization you work for, the address of their headquarters in Ireland and the names of your superiors.'

'I've told you I work for an insurance company.'

'The last spy we executed worked for a dress manufacturer.'

'The fact is you're paranoid because of your own guilty feelings.'

He rose to his feet suddenly and brandished his lighted cigarette under my nose.

'Don't play games with me you lousy Brit. You're goin' to die- but if you don't talk you'll die a horrible lingering death. You'll pray to die. There won't be a part of you that doesn't want to die.'

His eyes flared with luminous yellow flecks. I felt a sudden pain as the burning cigarette made contact with my nostrils. He sat down again, puffed greedily at the cigarette, then ground it under his heel on the stone floor.

'That hurt,' I complained.

He laughed mirthlessly

'We haven't even started on you yet.'

'Don't you have any standards of decency?'

'You're one to talk,' he pronounced bitterly. 'You're a member of an occupying army that has oppressed and exploited the Irish for nearly a thousand years.'

'I'm not a member of any army.'

'You're British and you were eavesdropping. That is sufficient reason for us to kill you.'

A heavy silence fell for a minute or two. I shuffled my behind on the hard bench and fingered the rents in the sleeves of my raincoat.

I complained: 'Your bloody dog has ruined my raincoat.'

'You won't need a raincoat where you're goin'.'

'Do you want it on your conscience that you murdered an innocent man?'

'Killing a British spy isn't murder. It's simple justice.'

'I happened to be born British in the same way as you happened to have been born Irish. Where you're born is just a matter of luck.'

'In Britain you even interfere with the right of people to be born.'

'What the hell are you talking about?'

'I'm talking about your feckin' abortion laws.'

His words filled me with ungovernable rage.

'You've no bloody right to criticise abortion laws. You killed my unborn child.'

He enquired with a look of immense cunning: 'Oh, and how are we supposed to have done that?'

I exclaimed: 'Because you're the sodding swine who planted the bomb on Golf-Mike. I don't give a damn if you kill me. I've been waiting to meet you so that I can curse you and your descendants to all eternity.'

He stood up and slapped me. It didn't hurt much. He sat down again and eyed me with heavy reproach.

'We never accepted the blame for that one.'

'The URA claimed responsibility.'

'There's always some daft bugger who rings up, regardless.'

'You were one of the bombers who left the plane at Gatwick.'

'I've never bombed an aircraft in my life. Honest to God.'

'If it wasn't you, it was someone else in your vile organization.'

'I told ya we didn't blow up that plane.'

'Then it must have been another group with the same aim as yours.'

'I can't speak for them.'

'You don't speak for anybody. But you set the pattern they follow.'

He laughed sourly, stood up again and punched my face until tears mingled with the blood streaming from my nose.

'Listen, friend,' he declaimed throatily. 'Don't lecture me on morality. The British have been teaching us lessons in cruelty for years. An international court reprimanded you for ill-treating prisoners. You're nothin' but scum, the lotta you.'

He marched out of the room. I heard a bolt slide on the other side.

I tried half-heartedly to persuade myself that he no longer believed I was a spy. I stood up, then feeling my knees give way, sat down again. I glanced round the room, looking for an object with which to cut my bonds. Through a fog I saw a kitchen knife on the shelf by the porcelain sink. But my head began to spin, my strength ebbed away and I slumped forward, resting my head on the table.

A resounding slap across the face wakened me. All four members of the unit were now in the room. Mike sat facing me. The others stood, grim-faced behind him, their arms folded across their chests. He cleared his throat and announced solemnly:

'By virtue of the power vested in me by the Council of The Unyielding Republican Army, I Lieutenant Michael Anderson, having listened to all the evidence, do sentence you, Noel Jameson, to die by pistol shot at dawn for the crime of spying on a unit of the aforesaid army, with the intention of providing information to the enemy. Is there anything you wish to say before sentence is carried out?'

I am ashamed to say that instead of mocking their absurd claim of legality, I threw myself on their mercy by telling them the true story of why I had come to Ireland. I ended up saying: 'All I wanted was to get my hands on the sods who killed my fiancée and my unborn child. If you had nothing to do with it, then for God's sake let me get on with the job of tracking down those responsible.'

Michael Anderson replied sharply: 'Don't think that will save your miserable skin.'

'All right -- you can kill me if you like. I could offer you definite proof that I have never had anything to do with the British armed forces. If you do kill me, all you'll succeed in doing is to arouse the disgust and contempt of your fellow Irishmen. But after what I've been through I don't care very much.'

Mike's expression of baleful scepticism didn't change. He demonstrated his disbelief by slamming his gun into my face. In trying to avoid the blow, I fell backwards onto the stone floor. I heard someone whispering as I lay there. Then I was helped back onto the bench. Three men left the room. I sat alone, facing my chief tormentor.

He studied his watch.

'You've not long to go, Noel-Jimmy.'

I muttered: 'You'll go soon enough yourself.'

'So you're getting brave in your last coupla hours. Don't think we've finished with you. You'll squeal like a stuck pig when we electrocute your balls.'

'What's the point if you're going to kill me?'

'If you want a decent, clean death just tell us who sent you here.'

'Nobody sent me here except Harbour Life. I've told you the whole truth. Why won't you believe me?'

'Since you're going to die you might just as well confess.'

'Before God I've nothing to confess that I haven't already told you.'

'You believe in God?'

'Yes, do you?'

He stared at me, stonily.

I said: 'Just as it is impossible to prove God's existence, so it is impossible for me to prove to you that I'm not a spy. But it's still the truth.'

He gave an amused snigger.

'You're a clever bugger. But it won't help you.'

He walked over to the electrical kettle, took off the plug and began stripping the insulation from the leads, using the kitchen knife.

Holding it up for inspection, he announced: 'Your willy's goin' to smoke and sizzle until we get the truth outa you.'

'You'll go to hell if you use that thing on me.'

'Fuckpig!' he retorted vehemently. I thought for a moment I had found a weak point in his armoury.

'If you give me the name of your unit and its commander and where it's located, I'll not burn your balls off.'

He pointed the naked wires at me threateningly

'How many times must I tell you that I have not served, and never could have served, in the British army.'

He grimaced, replaced the kettle on the shelf and said: 'Okay, my friend. We'll save that as a last resort -- but don't think I'm not prepared to use it. In the meantime I've got another kind of medicine for you.'

He strode out of the room.

The single light bulb above me which had seemed one moment as large as the sun the next moment became the size of a golden pea. I entered a dream-like state, floating dreamily like an untethered astronaut into outer space.

I woke again, suddenly conscious of the smell of horse manure as a canvas sack was lowered over my face. Anderson was exclaiming with obviously simulated rage: 'Now you bastard, you asked for shit and shit is what you'll get. Say your prayers, because two of my men are digging your grave.'

As the sack descended, darkness and the powerful smell of dung became my only contact with the real world.

At first I felt glad to be shut off from the baleful faces of my captors. I was in world of my own. There was no way to convince these men that I wasn't a British army spy. I was in a trap of my own making. I thought of giving them Kevin's telephone number, but realised it could only make matters worse. The URA was as much at war with the Irish government as the British. From outside I could hear a rhythmic scraping and the regular thud of falling earth as they dug my grave.

Panic suddenly took hold of me. I tried to shout but my voice was muffled by the heavy sacking. I was suffocating in my own breath. Trying desperately to free my hands, I lost my balance and crashed heavily onto the stone floor. For a few seconds I thrashed helplessly around in the foetid darkness. Soon, my breathing became convulsive. Choking in my own saliva, I lost consciousness.

A heavy jolt signalled my return to a waking state and the knowledge that I was still alive. It was dark, but mercifully I could breathe and move my head around in cold air. I was in the boot of a fast-moving car. It took a little longer to realise that my hands were free. Perhaps because I had been so heavily unconscious they had neglected to lash me to the spare wheel. I bent my legs up to my chest and managed to get hold of the revolver strapped to my calf. I aimed it at the front of the car but realising that if I killed the driver I would be trapped in the ensuing crash, I refrained from pulling the trigger.

I lay on my back in a position to fire as soon as the boot was opened. Shivering violently with fear and cold, I tried to think of other things. The gentle expression on Mrs Carstair's face when we had been discussing spiritualism came clearly into my mind. Soon, I would find out whether there was anything in her simple, unquestioning belief in an afterlife.

I tried for a while to escape into a world of abstract notions. In my desperation to hang on to life, I decided that the supposed group of monkeys typing for all eternity must eventually type out the vital formula that signified immortality for all of us poor vulnerable human beings...

Try as I might I couldn't escape from the horror of my impending death. In my fevered imagination I could already feel the heavy calibre bullets crashing into my helpless, quivering body.

The car ran slowly over a cobblestone surface and came to a halt. The engine was switched off. I heard a voice saying: 'Are you going to give it to the poor bastard, Mike?' It seemed that the self-styled Lieutenant Michael Anderson had been appointed my executioner.

I heard the key in the boot lock. An indistinct rectangle of light above me grew larger and a cold breeze refreshed my face. I raised my head over the sill. In a gray, unearthly light I saw Anderson freeing the padlock on the door of Hannigan's shed. I aimed and fired. A sheet of yellow flame shot up towards the pale clouds; the shed disintegrated into a pattern of leaping wooden fragments illuminated from within by an intense red light. Mike's fist hit me in the eye for the last time and I lost consciousness.

*

When I awoke, I was lying on a bed with a white counterpane, my left hand was attached to a transparent drip-tube. Out of my one eye I could see a man of military bearing sitting by my bed. He had a clipped moustache, wore a tweed jacket and an anxious expression. The room was bare and aseptically clean. A severe-looking nurse in a white uniform entered the room, took my pulse and popped a thermometer into my mouth.

She said to Kevin: 'You have exactly five minutes with this young man and then out you go.'

'He can't talk with that in his mouth,' Kevin grumbled.

'He will in just a moment when I take it out. Now remember he has been in shock. T'will take him several days to recover, so don't be upsetting him.'

A long silence followed, during which I could hear only the sound of my own breathing. The nurse removed the thermometer from my mouth, examined it and gave a final warning to Kevin: 'Treat him gently now.'

I watched her retreating form and then turning my head towards Kevin, enquired: 'Where am I?'

'You're in a private nursing home just outside Limerick. When you're fit to travel I strongly recommend you go back to England.'

'Why?'

'If you insist on staying in Ireland they'll find you, that's for sure.'

'Who's they?'

For the moment I had no recollection of my interrogation by the URA.

'God almighty, you've been creating unholy mayhem. You're lucky you're in one piece. Don't you know what you did?'

He began counting: 'One: you blew up the better part of Hangman's pub in Ballydragun. Two: you caused the death of two Irish citizens. Three' -- he allowed himself a glimmer of a smile- 'you broke up an illegal paramilitary unit based in that town.'

I asked him to hand me a mirror on the bedside table. Lifting a pad of cotton wool, I could see that my left eye was swollen and surrounded by an area of livid purple. Otherwise, I appeared to be intact. I handed back the mirror.

Kevin said: 'I'm here to get a statement from you. There's a bunch of newsmen outside, but I've told them you're too ill to be interviewed.'

'Can I ring my office - they'll be wondering what happened to me.'

'When I've finished asking questions. How did you happen to be in the open boot of a car belonging to a banned organization?'

I told him. But he rapidly corrected me when I declared with a note of pride that I had shot the man who was about to execute me.'

'No, you missed.'

'If you say so. But I have a confused recollection of being hit by his fist.'

'His fist, if that's what it was that hit you, was no longer attached to him. He was torn asunder by Semtex explosives stored inside the shed. It blew him apart and severely injured another man who has since died. The other two you mentioned have disappeared.'

'Why had they taken me back to Hannigan's pub? Anderson had already sentenced me to death.'

'Because he changed his mind. The other man told us before he died of his wounds that he had intended to revive you with some barley sugar. When you passed out, apparently they found an inscription on your metal watchstrap indicating that you are diabetic. Anderson also happened to be diabetic. He had left his briefcase containing some barley sugar in the shed at Hannigan's and decided to go back there and give you some to bring you round.'

I gave a deep groan.

Kevin said gruffly: 'Perhaps they would have shot you anyway after they'd revived you.'

I wasn't convinced.

He continued: 'Anyway, be thankful. They certainly would have killed you but for the coincidence that Anderson suffered from the same condition.'

I remembered that I owed my life to Sally. It was she who had sensibly insisted on having my watchstrap inscribed.

He continued to ply me with questions, until the nurse returned. I was relieved to see him go. The skin on my hand where the drip entered was beginning to ache. And I wanted to sleep away the depressing realization that I was a murderer.

20

M ost of the passengers were asleep in the darkened cabin of the Airbus in which Dickens and Dwindle were returning to England. Dwindle still clung to the faint hope that something would enable them to earn the reward. The computer engineer had managed to restore some files on the computer but, disappointingly, most of them related to Firsby's gambling activities. The engineer had been as baffled as Dickens and Dwindle by the hieroglyphics which constituted the last chapter of Firsby's novel.

Dwindle dozed off into a fitful sleep with the computer balanced on his lap. When he woke up after an hour or so, he whispered to Dickens: 'I have an idea that Firsby and his girl friend may have gone to ground in Perpignan in the South of France near the Spanish border. He refers to a casino at Canet-en-Roussillon to which is fairly close to Perpignan. He is obviously familiar with the region.'

'He mentions other places besides Perpignan.'

'Yes but Perpignan happens to be a fruit-growing region of France.'

Dickens laughed.

'You're still on about fruit, Dwindle.'

'Of course. It's obvious that Adam and Eve became utterly enchanted by the happy matching of their names -- hence the references to the Garden of Eden. Firsby even managed to turn the last chapter in his novel into a display of leaves and garden flowers. The Rossillon region would perfectly fulfil their requirements for a rustic paradise.'

'As a rational human being, Dwindle, would you care to explain what has prompted such a zany departure from logic? There are dozens of other suitable places for a fruit farm.'

'Perpignan strikes a chord..'

'In other words, you're guessing wildly'

'Not wildly. I have an underlying rationale.'

Dickens said sarcastically: 'Okay, Firsby is in Perpignan because it resembles the Garden of Eden. Dwindle. You are testing my patience to the limit. The case is closed -- terminated -- finito as far as I am concerned.'

'I believe that Firsby deliberately dropped hints, because he wants someone to find him.'

'How can you believe that when he is running away from the Mafia, the FBI and God knows who else?'

'The novel has a hidden message. I'm sure of it.'

'So what else points to Perpignan?'

'In one of his letters to Eve he says: 'I am going to take you to a Garden of Eden where we can be happy for ever.' In another he says: 'My darling Eve, my peach, my plum, the apple of my eye. There is also another striking coincidence -- but it might have been deliberate -- I am referring to this letter -- '

Dwindle hurriedly scrolled through the computer. 'Here it is -- he writes: "How I look forward to our little tet-a-tet. We'll bathe in the river and grow peaches. But you will be the loveliest peach of all. I keep having to pinch myself to persuade myself that I have met you." Did you notice the way he spells tête-à-tête -- he has left the letter 'e' off the end.'

'His French is not very good.'

'The river Tet runs through Perpignan.'

'Sheer coincidence,' Dickens said, with an elaborate yawn.

Dwindle fingered his upper lip, where he had formerly worn a moustache, and said with a patient air: 'Okay. Here's something else. Do you remember this childish conundrum: "Adam and Eve and Pinchme went down to the river to bathe. Adam and Eve were drowned, who do you think was saved?" Whoever answers: "Pinchme" gets pinched for his pains.'

'I fail to see the relevance.'

'Surely as an ex-policeman you can interpret the command, "Pinch me". It means, does it not, arrest me, take me to jail.'

'You're letting your imagination run away with you.'

Dickens put on an expression of weary disgust. Dwindle said quietly: 'Okay, I admit it is a little far-fetched. But I can suggest yet another reason why he may have chosen the Rossillon region of France.'

'Go on.'

'The restored files on the computer show that on one occasion he won a substantial amount of money in a casino down there.'

'You're clutching at straws, Dwindle. If you think I'm going to go waste more time and money chasing Firsby you're mistaken.'

'I am prepared to pay all expenses.'

'How can you afford that?'

'I told you I won some money in Las Vegas.'

'You didn't say how much.'

'I have enough left to take us to the South of France.'

'Nothing can possibly justify embarking on such a wild goose chase. It's an absurd proposition.'

'It's ridiculous to give up now just because we have encountered some minor difficulties.'

'You call being mugged and getting thrown into jail minor difficulties!'

'Leaving that aside, the reasons I have given for guessing they're in France may seem feeble. But all the time I have the feeling that Firsby is a man hugging some dark secret to himself. I once pointed out that just as animals leave tell-tale signs in the jungle; we human beings leave behind an electronic trail that also contains evidence of our subconscious workings. It is highly significant, in my view, that Firsby failed to wipe out the whole of his novel when he sold the computer. The reason why part of it is in code will become clear in due course.'

Dickens said grumpily. 'I'm going to catch some shut-eye.'

Dwindle increased the intensity of the backlight in the computer and began to read:

*

I telephoned Noel Jameson from the nursing home and gave him an account of what had happened. He ordered me to return to England as soon as possible, reminding me that I was in disgrace. I had not only put at risk the Company's investment in Ireland but I had failed to report Ian Morrison's gross error. Much later, I learned that he had pleaded my case to the General Manager and saved me from being sacked.

Two detectives accompanied me to Shannon airport. One of them, handed me a copy of the Irish Times, which contained a graphic account of how an unnamed British insurance salesman had foiled a kidnap attempt. The article said there was a strong suspicion that the paramilitary unit concerned had been involved in the placing of a bomb aboard the Mercia Airlines Finch. I wondered if the article had been written by Sean Brady.

Reunited once more with the suitcase I had left in the Dragon hotel, I was accompanied on board the aircraft by the two detectives. They remained with me until the aircraft doors closed. I felt cold and miserable. Although I had scored a famous victory over my enemies, something told me that I had not heard the last of the affair. I also had a nagging sense of guilt that would not go away.

I consoled myself by recalling the previous day's events in the nursing home. Kevin and a police artist had been trying to obtain from me my impressions of the two men who had escaped. The matron came in and enquired in a tone of strong moral disapproval if I had been living with a young lady by the name of Yvonne Sullivan. My lame attempt to correct this misleading impression caused the two police officers considerable merriment. When they had finished questioning me, Yvonne was allowed in.

She advanced to the chair on which I was sitting, kissed me warmly on the lips and handed me a large box of diabetic chocolates. Then she sat in the chair Kevin had just vacated, smiling at her own effrontery.

I muttered: 'That's very generous of you, Yvonne. But how the hell did you know I was here?'

'Mrs Fetherstone told me when I went round to your office to get your new address. I think you've been incredibly brave.'

'Stupid is the more appropriate word. But why did you come all this way?'

She leaned forward and whispered: 'You jolly well know why -- I'm crazy about you.'

Enormously embarrassed, I unwrapped the box and offered her a chocolate.

'How did you get down here from Dublin?'

'By train. Uncle Aidan gave me the fare.'

'That was decent of him.'

'Not really. I blackmailed him.'

'How were you able to do that?'

'Never mind. Are you feeling better? Your face looks very bruised and puffy. When are you coming back to Dublin?'

'I'm not.'

'So where are you going?'

'Back to Worthing.'

I assured her that she was too young to fall in love, that she would in due course find someone worthy of her love when she matured into a young woman, that I was very grateful and would always treasure the memory of her kindness.

In return, she assured me breezily that she would travel to England to see me when she had completed her final term at school. I replied that she had arrived at a critical time in her young life and should concentrate on a career. I wasn't too worried about her threat to visit me, confident that in six months time I would be forgotten. Now that I was safely on a plane bound for Gatwick, I still felt vaguely dissatisfied. In spite of having survived an encounter with a terrorist organization, a suspicion still lurked in my mind that I had killed the wrong men. The statement in the newspaper was no doubt intended to reassure a public deeply disquieted by the bombing. I was less sure now that the two men who had died in the explosion resembled the Photofit picture. Anderson had strongly denied having anything to do with the attack. I now harboured serious misgivings about my supposedly successful revenge mission. Of one thing I was certain: I would never undertake another. That, however, would not deter me from continuing to try and bring to justice whoever was responsible for Sally's death.

We had climbed through cloud. Sunshine poured in through the cabin windows and made the fine hairs on the backs of my hands visible. When the aircraft changed course and the light changed, they seemed to vanish. Here one minute gone the next. My belief that the URA had been responsible for the air crash was in an equal state of flux. It now seemed obvious to me that the bomb theory had been conjured into existence by the sheer weight of belief that that only a bomb could cause such a technologically-advanced modern airliner as the Finch to fall out of the sky. I now began to suspect there might be another cause. Perhaps structural failure, or a sudden decompression. However, since the wreckage lay deep in the Irish Sea, it seemed unlikely that the truth would ever be known.

I asked a stewardess to request permission to pay a visit the flightdeck, again exploiting my relationship with Captain Harry Duncan. A few minutes later, I was escorted forward. The view from up front was stunningly beautiful. We were flying just above a gently undulating cloudscape of intensely white cloud; the azure sky shimmered with blueness as in a Van Gogh painting. The captain a fair-haired man in his late forties with a craggy profile welcomed me to the cockpit.

After exchanging a few pleasantries, I asked him whether he thought the crashed Finch might have suffered a catastrophic structural failure.

He said it was most unlikely. Modern aircraft, he explained, are continually monitored for tell-tale cracks which would give advance warning of any structural weakness.

'What do you think happened to Golf-Mike?' I asked.

He mumbled something to the co-pilot and then said that most pilots accepted the bomb theory.'

'You said most pilots. What about the others?'

'There are several theories but none of them quite fit the facts.'

'Could it have been pilot error?' I enquired, innocently.

He looked rather cross and said tartly: 'I must ask you to leave now. We shall be very busy for the remainder of the flight.'

I returned to my seat in the cabin.

At least I had wrung an admission from him that not every pilot subscribed to the bomb theory. I toyed with the theory that the pilots of Golf-Mike might have been incapacitated by a deadly poison but abandoned it when I remembered reading that regulations required the crew to eat different meals. The theory was inadmissible, anyway, because even in those dire circumstances they would have had time to make a distress call.

It dawned on me during the rail journey from Gatwick to Worthing that in seeking vengeance for what had happened I had brought about my own well-deserved punishment. As well as incurring the displeasure of my superiors -- and almost certainly forfeiting promotion -- I had succeeded in making myself homeless. It was going to be very difficult to gather up the threads of my life.

I journeyed around Worthing in a taxi and eventually concluded a deal with the manageress of a small hotel just off the sea front. Then I went round to Mrs Carstairs to collect my hi-fi and some other personal belongings.

The warmth of her welcome embarrassed me. To please her, I asked about her seances. She said she had made contact on a number of occasions with her daughter. Sally had told her that I would soon tire of Ireland and return home.

'Now isn't that amazing!' I remarked.

*

I settled down in my old job. Changes had occurred. Extra demands were being made on my department. Ian Morrison kept his job, so for the foreseeable future I would have an ambitious and eager young understudy waiting eagerly to profit from any other mistakes I might make. I had difficulty in controlling my annoyance when I learned that, because of a shortage of space, he would share my office. Another sign of being out of favour.

Some two months later I was summoned to Jameson's office. After discussing a new insurance policy we were issuing, he asked how I was settling down. I told him that I had lost any hankering I might once have had for gunfights. He smiled and said that in his younger days he might have acted in a similar fashion. As I was about to leave, he handed me a new book which contained some interesting and innovative insights into the gilt-edge market. I knew I was well on the way towards being rehabilitated.

Inevitably, word got around the company of my encounter with the URA and I thought I detected a note of envy in the tones of those who joshed me about it. I was becoming accustomed to my new routine but still felt frustrated at not knowing the true cause of Sally's death.

*

A letter arrived from Ivan Black containing a welcome surprise. My late mother's brooch had fetched a good price at the auction and he enclosed a cheque for five-thousand pounds, in accordance with the promise he had made. He had learned about my brush with the URA from his friend Eamon Cahill and congratulated me on my lucky escape. He reminded me how fortunate it was that I had both a gun and a gun licence.

I was becoming increasingly absorbed in my work. The memory of my ordeal was beginning to fade. The Finch crash in which my fiancée had died had passed into Aviation history. Ivan Black's letter was an uncomfortable reminder that I had killed a man who had intended to save my life.

But I was getting back on an even keel. My chief complaint concerned the monotonous diet at the hotel where I was staying. The other guests were elderly, intolerant of noise and I had to use earphones whenever I wanted to listen to music.

I joined a film society in Brighton. When the weather improved I joined a golf club and took some lessons.

Although I found her preoccupation with spiritualism irksome, I visited Mrs Carstairs occasionally. On one occasion I conceded the possibility that during rare moments of intense emotion one might make fleeting contact with a loved one. The result of my incautious admission was quite startling. Mrs Carstairs leapt out of her chair, knocking over a tea cup and hugged me gratefully. There is nothing more likely to endear you to people, I decided on my back to my hotel, than pandering to their weaknesses.

It dawned on me, as a white seagull screeched piercingly overhead, that I had made this concession to Mrs Carstairs because I was feeling guilty. Guilty because Sally no longer monopolised my waking thoughts. Guilty because Mrs Carstairs's love for her daughter was proving stronger than my own.

Ian Morrison asked me one day when we were having lunch in a local pub about my encounter with the Republican group. I ignored his question and instead dilated earnestly on the relative merits of Guinness and Murphy's stout. A pained look appeared on his face. as he realised I was not going to satisfy his curiosity. I regretted my rudeness afterwards. It wasn't his fault that we had to share an office.

Earlier that day I noticed a small paragraph in the Financial Times referring to the crash of a Finch airliner in the South of France. Its significance did not register until a more comprehensive report appeared later that day in another newspaper.

The airliner, which belonged to a Danish charter company, had crashed near the town of Perpignan, killing seventy-three people. The flight had originated in Copenhagen, made a stop in Lyon had been en route to Majorca. Radar had plotted the aircraft while it flew an irregular pattern. There were no survivors. I read it out to Morrison and asked him if he could see any resemblance to the crash in which Sally had died. He replied sarcastically: 'Yeah, they both killed a lot of people.'

I telephoned Harry Duncan at Mercia Airlines Headquarters in Gatwick. But he was in London. I made another call to his home that evening and informed him that I thought I detected certain common features in both crashes. The excitement must have showed through in my voice. He listened patiently for a few minutes and then declared firmly that my analysis was very superficial. He and other members of his staff had discussed this latest accident and were quite satisfied that there was no connection.

A week later the official findings of the Civil Aviation Authority accident investigators on the Finch accident in which Sally had died appeared. The final sentence read: 'It is the conclusion of the investigators that, in the absence of evidence which might have been supplied by the missing flight recorder, the strongest hypothesis must be that the aircraft was the subject of a bombing attack by person or persons unknown.'

I called that evening at my uncle's half-timbered cottage in Partridge Green. He was dead-heading some flowers in his front garden. As I slammed the car door behind me he asked if I had heard from my father recently. Ignoring his question, I launched into a fierce denunciation of the official findings. He replied mildly: 'Jim, isn't this a surprising reaction from someone who is supposed to have killed two of the bombers responsible for the crash of our Finch?'

'I regret now having jumped to conclusions,' I answered lamely.

'Oh, come off it, Jim!'

With the tolerant air of someone dealing with a deranged lunatic, he took my arm and led me into the cottage.

Harry's promotion had mellowed him. He had put on weight and assumed an expression of genial patriarchal wisdom. I was determined not to be over-awed by his superior technical knowledge. We sat in his shaded study and sampled a dry sherry he had recently imported. He smiled complacently when I praised it. Looking around at the souvenirs of his global journeyings, I envied him his career in Aviation.

'How is Enid?' I enquired, referring to his second wife.

'She's fine- she's at a WVS meeting. She'll be back soon. Perhaps you'll stay for dinner.'

'Thanks. I'd love to.'

I drank the sherry slowly -- I had already had a glass of Guinness with my lunch.

'Now, Jim, what's this all about? Aircraft accident inspectors are not idiots, you know.'

'I'm convinced that it wasn't a bomb.'

'Why?'

'Call it an insurance man's instinct.'

Harry gave a sceptical grunt.

'You're contesting the views of highly-trained investigators with a life-time of experience behind them. They've studied evidence from pilots, engineers, air traffic controllers, meteorologists and, incidentally, from traffic officials who have succeeded in working out exactly how the bomb was planted. How can you possibly challenge their conclusions?'

'The men I ran into at Ballydragun denied all knowledge of their involvement. I now feel sure the two men who left the aircraft at Gatwick had nothing to do with the accident.'

'Why haven't they come forward, then?'

'There could be any number of reasons.'

I refused another glass of sherry. Harry poured himself out a generous measure and said: 'It was damned plucky of you to have a go at the terrorists. Just the sort of thing your grandfather would have done.'

I shrugged.

He went on: 'I think you killed the right men. Isn't it natural that they would lie in their teeth?'

'I was completely at their mercy. Why should they have bothered?'

'I don't suppose they were very proud of themselves.'

'And what about this latest accident to a Finch?'

'We'll get all the facts, eventually.'

'Aren't you worried that a third aircraft will fall out of the sky?'

'Why should I be worried on that count?'

'Because both accidents have certain features in common.'

He asked condescendingly: 'Would you like to tell me what they are?'

'For starters neither crew put out a distress call.'

He smiled tolerantly.

'That, my dear fellow, is not at all surprising. Both pilots may have been killed instantly by the explosion.'

'That wasn't the case at Perpignan. The newspapers report that the aircraft circled for half-an-hour before hitting the ground. What does that suggest to you?'

The corners of his mouth turned down pensively.

'It suggests communications failure. But in that case the captain should have continued towards his flight-planned destination and landed. Air Traffic would have kept open his landing slot.'

'Then why did he circle?'

'He might have been under orders from a hijacker...'

At that moment, Enid came in and enquired if I had enjoyed my stay in Zimbabwe. Her hearing had deteriorated recently, as a result of which she had misunderstood when my uncle had told her that I was in Ireland. He hastily clarified the situation. We sat down to dinner. Harry seemed relieved that the conversation had shifted away from the air crash. We talked about my father and step-mother. Harry and Enid planned to visit them soon. Afterwards, I drove back to Worthing.

It was a warm spring evening. The air had a champagne quality and the whole of nature seemed intoxicated by the approach of summer. I drove with the car windows open, dwelling on what appeared to me to be inconsistencies in the official findings. More than ever now I wished I had heeded Mrs. Carstairs's warning about the folly of seeking vengeance. Anderson's denial of involvement with the crash seemed to have a greater ring of truth than the conclusions of the accident investigators. Perhaps everyone's eagerness to embrace the bomb theory might be due to a desire to preserve at all costs the unblemished reputation of the Finch. Everyone, including my uncle, had defended its design and structural integrity with fanatical zeal.

I toyed with the idea of going down to Perpignan to the scene of the latest accident but then dismissed the idea out of hand.

Recently, to counter the boredom that had afflicted me since my return to England, I had installed the Internet on my personal computer. I used a line from the hotel telephone switchboard at night and paid a little extra rent for the privilege, When I got home I browsed through the London Times website, using the key word "Finch." To my intense surprise I discovered that the Finch accident in which Sally had died was not the first Mercia Airlines had suffered. Two months before, a Finch had crashed, killing two trainee cadet pilots and an instructor. The accident had occurred approximately twenty-five minutes after take-off. Because there were no passengers on board and it coincided with some important political events, it had been given very little coverage in the newspapers. Harry Duncan had not mentioned it to me during our various conversations.

It was two o'clock in the morning. Nevertheless, I rang him up and asked him why it had not been mentioned during the enquiry into the more recent Finch crash.

After cursing me for waking him, he calmed down, said it was irrelevant and explained patiently that teaching pupil pilots to fly an unfamiliar aircraft with advanced flying characteristics carried dangers that I could not possibly understand. He laughed when I reminded him that I had flown twenty hours and said I should remember the old saying: a little knowledge was a dangerous thing. I had dismissed the idea of going to Perpignan. The official investigators would scorn my amateurish enquiries. I would be regarded as one of those ghoulish characters drawn irresistibly towards the scene of accidents. There was an additional problem: my knowledge of French was very limited.

But now, in spite of Harry's refusal to admit that there was any common factor in the two Finch crashes Mercia Airlines had experienced, I became utterly convinced that the conclusion of the official investigation was erroneous. Blaming it on terrorists was a convenient way of leaving intact the reputation of the designers and the operators of the Finch airliner.

Thanks to my irresponsible actions in Ireland, I had received a personal denial that the terrorist group was responsible for the accident. Unfortunately, my rashness now made me look completely unbalanced. Even so, I told myself, even unbalanced people can be right sometimes.

The Perpignan accident had happened too late to be taken into account by the enquiry into the first Finch crash. At work I complained about this to everyone in the building who would listen. Soon afterwards Noel Jameson summoned me to his office. He did not invite me to sit down. After staring fixedly at a map of Cork on the opposite wall for a minute or two, he said: 'I thought you had got all this nonsense about the air crash out of your system.'

'I have a theory ...'

'Every one in the Company is acquainted with your theory. Your colleagues say you're suffering from monomania.'

I admitted awkwardly: 'I suppose I'm a little hung-up about it.'

He said, carefully, measuring his words: 'You know that Hamilton wanted to sack you after that scrape you got into in Ireland.' Hamilton was our general manager. 'I only just managed to save your job by pleading that you were deranged by the loss of your fiancée.'

'I'm very grateful to you, sir.'

'Are you due any leave?'

'Yes.'

'Well, take some now. Play some golf. Get this business of air crashes out of your mind. It's unhealthy.'

'Very well, sir. I'll try. And thanks for your advice.'

I took a week off and played some golf. One day against all the odds I achieved a 'birdie'. I told myself that if a beginner like me could achieve such a fluke, it might even prove possible for me to beat the aviation accident investigators at their own game. So much for my promise to get air crashes out of my mind!

I drove home and entering the foyer of the hotel, saw an attractive auburn-haired girl standing with a rucksack by her side at the reception desk. I stared for a moment and then in bemused fashion, I blurted out: 'Yvonne! You've come a very long way for a math lesson!'

She flung her arms around me, exclaiming: 'Jim, darling, you're looking great.'

Turning to the manageress, she said breathlessly: 'It's all right, then, for me to go up to his room and freshen up?'

Mrs Bannister gave her smiling assent. Yvonne picked up her rucksack and raced up the stairs. I followed her with my heavy bag of clubs. Halfway up the stairs, I looked round, caught the eye of the manageress and gave her a helpless shrug.

Yvonne tested the bed by bouncing on it enthusiastically, then lying with her hands behind her head, declared wearily: 'It's been sheer hell -- I've been up all night on the boat and the train. Not a wink of sleep...I'm never going to leave you again.'

Ignoring this statement, I stood with my back to the door gazing down at her. She had matured in the few months since I had last seen her. Her slightly freckled face now had the sensitive lines of a beautiful young woman. Her breasts strained aggressively against her tee-shirt. When she extended her arms invitingly, I shook my head, suddenly remembering Sally.

'Does your mother know you're here?' I asked.

Rolling onto her side, she replied dreamily: 'Aren't you glad I came?'

'You haven't answered my question.'

'I came with three friends -- they're staying in Brighton and tomorrow they're catching the Newhaven ferry to Dieppe. They're going to hitchhike through France to Spain.'

'You're going with them, I presume.'

'No, I'm staying here with you. I've given them postcards to send to my mother, to make it look as though I'm still with them.'

'What do you propose to do here?' I enquired.

'It's all right, darling,' she replied soothingly. Mrs Bannister is getting me a job as a chambermaid in another hotel.. I told her we're lovers. Practically engaged. Come and kiss me.'

' Yvonne, this really won't do. I'm going to pack you off with your friends on the boat to France.'

'Stop being so stuffy, Jimmy.'

She yawned delicately. A moment later she was fast asleep.

I tiptoed out of the room and made my way down to the residents' lounge. Some elderly guests were playing bridge. I bought the local newspaper and asked myself how I was going to deal with this delinquent child. I had done nothing to encourage her beyond answering politely and briefly the half a dozen or so letters she had sent me. I could visualise all manner of embarrassing consequences. of her brazen claim to be my lover. I had to persuade her to rejoin her friends.

At half-past six Yvonne was still sleeping peacefully. As I gave myself my injection, I remembered that she had spent several months with a French family and spoke French fluently.

When she woke up I took her out to a restaurant. The idea of having company driving down to Perpignan was appealing. But there was an obvious snag. I did not intend to fall in love again. Yvonne, was far too young for me.

During the meal. Yvonne told me that Aidan Kelly was an alcoholic, emotionally dependent on Mrs Sullivan, who managed to restrain his drinking habits. His behaviour was erratic and he had made unwelcome passes at Yvonne. The private maths lessons I had been giving her made him insanely jealous. It was he who had planted suspicions in Mrs Sullivan's mind regarding my relationship with her.

'It's easy to see how alcoholics wreck other people's lives,' I commented. 'Tell me how did you persuade him to give you the fare to Limerick?'

'You don't need to know what happened.'

'Come on. Tell me.'

She had the grace to blush.

'He let his hands stray and I threatened to tell my mother.'

I shook my head in amazement. Difficult to believe that this young girl sitting demurely wearing a green mini-dress was the gauche young schoolgirl to whom I had tried to teach mathematics in Dublin. Blackmailing her mother's lover seemed a monstrous thing to do.

Reading my thoughts, she said: 'I had to do it, Jimmy -- it was the only way I could get to see you.'

'It sounds pretty ruthless to me.'

'Women in love are always ruthless.'

I shook my head, disapprovingly.

'I'm seventeen now.'

'Quite the grown-up little lady,' I said sarcastically, thinking of the inconvenience Aidan's cunning ruse had caused me in Dublin.

She fingered the neckline of her dress and said challengingly: 'Do you realise that my mother had already acted in a play on Broadway when she was my age.'

'Really?'

'So it's about time you stopped treating me like a child.'

'I'm old enough to be your father.'

'You would have had to be disgustingly precocious.'

'It isn't just a question of years.'

The main course arrived and gave me an opportunity to collect my thoughts. As Yvonne attacked her filet mignon with enormous gusto, I confided to her: 'I'm thinking of driving down to the South of France -- Perpignan isn't too far from where your friends are going. You could catch up with them. Would you like to come with me?'

'That would be super!'

She beamed at me, her fork suspended in mid air.

I went on hurriedly: 'I want to attend the local enquiry into an air accident. It may throw some light on the crash in which my fiancée died.'

'Oh.'

A shadow passed over her face.

'Have some more wine.'

I refilled her glass.

I continued: 'I'm not yet over Sally's death. It will be a long time before I'm capable of falling in love again.'

Yvonne took a sip of wine and continued eating, her appetite apparently unimpaired. After a while, she said: 'I understand how you feel, Jimmy, darling.' And added mischievously: 'But you don't have to be in love to get into the sack with someone.'

I hurriedly gulped some wine and said: 'Look, Yvonne, let's be clear about this. If we travel together, it will be as brother and sister. Strictly Platonic. Okay?'

'Can't we have just a little incest?' she enquired, tilting her head, mischievously.

'You are disgusting,' I said.

'Oh, Jimmy, you're so funny. I've absolutely no idea of sleeping with you. Unless ...'

'Unless what?'

'Unless you wooed me with irresistible passion. And that doesn't appear to be your style exactly, does it?'

'No,' I replied, awkwardly.

'Then why do you want me to go with you?'

'Firstly, because I enjoy your company. Secondly, because you speak French, which I don't.'

The conversation tailed off. She became withdrawn. I was concerned lest she changed her mind. However, while we were drinking coffee, she suddenly enquired: 'What good do you think it will do?'

'I hope to question the accident investigators who will have gathered there. I know now that Sally wasn't killed by a bomb. But nobody -- not even my uncle who is Operations Manager of Mercia Airlines -- will believe me. I hope to establish a link between the two crashes and another one which I heard about recently.'

'But Jimmy, darling, you're an insurance person, not an aviator.'

'My father and my grandfather were pilots -- it runs in the family. If I hadn't been diabetic I would have taken up flying as a career. My work as an actuary has given me a feeling for what lies behind statistics. I have this incredibly strong hunch -- that is what is driving me on....' I added. 'Perhaps also it has something to do with the fact that I killed two men who I'm sure now had nothing to do with Sally's death.'

'Jimmy, darling, you don't need to feel guilty about killing men who would have gone on to commit more murders.'

'Stop calling me darling,' I said irritably.

'But there's something else driving you on, isn't there.'

She was right, of course. The fact that Sally had been carrying my child when she died kept intensifying my desire to know exactly what had happened. But I certainly wasn't going to admit it to this callow teenager.

'Come on,' I said gruffly. Let's go. Mrs Bannister has a room for you in staff quarters and she said you can stay until we set off on Monday.'

She clung to my arm on our way back to the hotel. Trying to suppress her mirth, she said as we approached the hotel: 'I've explained exactly to Mrs Bannister what our true relationship is.'

'What did you say?'

'I said we're partners. That we lived together in Dublin.'

'You love to shock people, don't you.'

'You, especially, Jimmy.'

21

F eeling tired, Dwindle put the computer back in his hand-luggage, inclined his seat and tried to sleep. A powerful smell of baby powder wafting towards him from the seat in front reminded him of Maureen's so far unrealised wish to have a child. He was further discomfited by her remark that he lacked inventiveness in love-making. No doubt the two lovers Adam Firsby and Eve Linklater, having exhausted all the positions of the Kama Sutra, had by now added a few of their own as well.

His mind turned again to his theory that they were farming in the South of France. He recognised the weakness in his hypothesis. Taking all things into account, including his panic-stricken reaction to the statue of Marilyn Monroe coming to life, it was not surprising that Dickens was considering closing down the detective agency.

For many years he had led a quiet life, marking philosophy and English papers in a distant learning school in Holborn. When it closed down, he had jumped at the chance to start the detective agency with former Inspector Henry Dickens. He thoroughly enjoyed the work. Life, he had enthusiastically described to Maureen, was a jungle teeming with crooks and villains and unexpected happenings He could never have imagined it would be as exciting as this while sitting at his office desk. The agency, although so far not a great financial success, had more than paid him back in terms of work satisfaction.

This particular case had given him an insight into the fascination of gambling and had allowed him to win a substantial amount of money. Not that he would venture into a casino again. Why Firsby, who had been doing what most people would consider an interesting job, should have felt such a compulsion to gamble was a complete mystery.

At that moment Dickens woke up and announced that he had been dreaming about his arch enemy, Ernie Thomas. That malicious gossip, he declared, could do more harm in the civilized world than the whole of the El Quaeda network.'

'You should remind him of the old maxim: Speak No Evil.'

'Ernie would slice up the Three Wise Monkeys and sell them in his butcher's shop.'

Dwindle showed him a copy of the Los Angeles Times he had been given when they boarded the aircraft. The police had identified the man who had been strangled with his own kite string as an habitué of bondage parlours. A verdict by the coroner of Death by Misadventure called into question the theory that he was a victim of the 'States Serial Killer.'

Dickens growled: So where does it leave us?'

'It tends to undermine the bomb theory. Incidentally, the fictional aircraft -- the Finch in Firsby's novel -- and the Aristocrat in which Carol Rossano was killed both happen to be turbo-prop short-haul aircraft. That may well be significant.'

'If we find Firsby we can put the squeeze on him for every bit of information he possesses by threatening to reveal his whereabouts. But I don't think we shall ever find him now.'

'I still believe the likeliest place is the South of France.'

'You'll have to produce more convincing evidence than you have so far.'

Dwindle nodded acknowledgment.

Just before he fell asleep a smile appeared on his face, as he decided on measures that would prove that he was an imaginative as well as a caring lover.

*

While Dickens was waiting for their luggage by the carousel, Dwindle went to a telephone booth and rang Mrs Firsby.

'Mrs Firsby, my partner and I are just back from California. We have been checking up on your husband's movements before the car he hired in Los Angeles was found in the water. It appears unlikely that he committed suicide. We think he has probably left the USA. But we have very little idea where he is. I'm sorry we can't be more helpful.'

'I know he is alive.'

'How can you be sure?'

'I received some money from him the other day to pay the boys' school fees.'

'Did he give any clues as to his whereabouts?'

'The cheque was from a Swiss bank.'

'In what currency?'

'French francs. The letter had been posted in Bordeaux.'

'Thank you very much, Mrs Firsby. I'm glad he's facing up to his responsibilities. We'll let you know as soon as we obtain any more information.'

Dwindle scurried excitedly across to Dickens, who was just lifting their cases from the carousel.

'We're in luck, Dickens. Mrs Firsby has had a letter from Bordeaux, which is not a million miles from Perpignan. We know he won some money down there at one time. Gamblers like to return to the scene of their former success, believing that they will repeat it. Not that I ever intend to go back to Las Vegas.'

'How much did you win, Dwindle?'

'That's my own business.'

Dickens then picked up his car from the long-term car park and drove to his home in Wales.

Dwindle returned by taxi to his home in Crouch End, London.

22

' What's that strange smell?' Dickens enquired, when he arrived home.

His wife, Ingrid, led him into the garden, saying: 'I decided to treat you to a special lunch when you got home. How did your investigation go?'

'Hopeless. The guy we're after is a regular Scarlet Pimpernel. I could do with a nice cup of coffee.'

Dickens surveyed the rolling green hills around him with satisfaction and wondered why he had bothered to try to solve a murder in California, six-thousand miles away, when he could have remained amid this glorious scenery, playing golf and running his model railway. Mrs Dickens placed cups of coffee on the white ironwork table, and sitting down beside him and said: 'So are you going to give up on this case?'

'It looks very much like it. This man Firsby has the information we need. But while we were going West to find him, Dwindle thinks he might have been travelling East. Unless Dwindle comes up with some brilliant new idea, I think we'll have to call it off.'

'Will you give up the agency altogether?

'It all depends...'

Even as he spoke, Dickens knew that while a peaceful retirement had its charms, there was nothing quite like solving mysteries, even when they failed to bear fruit. The word reminded him of Dwindle's theory that Firsby and his lover were in some fruit growing paradise.

'Why are you smiling?' Ingrid enquired.

I was just thinking of one of Dwindle's madcap notions.'

'You often say he comes up with some good ideas.'

'And some dreadful ones as well. That reminds me -- I must look up something in the encyclopaedia.'

'Your coffee is getting cold,' Mrs Dickens reminded him, when he returned from the sitting-room.

'Perpignan is in a fruit-growing region,' her husband muttered thoughtfully, picking up his cup of coffee.

Ingrid made no comment.

Jet lag caused him to fall asleep. He was still asleep when Ingrid touched his shoulder and said: 'Wake up, Henry. I've cooked you something special.'

Mrs Dickens had laid her finest damask cloth on the dining room table and put out the best cutlery for his return home. White napkins embroidered with the words: HIS and HERS had been laid beside each place setting. In the centre of the table was a delicate arrangement of flowers she had picked from her exquisitely-cultivated garden.

'Sit down, dear,' Mrs Dickens commanded her husband.

He obeyed and said with an expectant smile: 'It sounds like something good this time.'

Ingrid placed a tureen on the table containing an unfamiliar substance, accompanied by black vegetables.

'What is it?' he enquired, suspiciously.

'Baked chitterlings, my dear. I realised you must like them when Ernie Thomas told me you had bought some before you set off for California.'

Dickens heart sank.

He forced himself to say: 'Oh, very nice', and then, pointing to the vegetables, enquired: 'What are those?'

'Truffles, my dear -- black ones the finest you can get. They come from Perigeux in France. Terribly expensive. But I thought you deserved something nice after your travels.'

'We think the man we're after may be somewhere in that region,' he said in a low tone. 'What exactly are truffles? We've never had them before.'

'They're a kind of mushroom. They're found under oak trees or beech trees. They use pigs with sensitive noses to find them. Pigs appreciate truffles even more than we do.'

'It doesn't seem right to ask a pig to find the garnishings for his own baking.'

'I don't see why not. The pig doesn't know it's going to end up on a plate. Anyway, it couldn't have been this particular pig that found the truffles. This is a Welsh pig.'

'So is Ernie Thomas,' Dickens mumbled under his breath.

'What did you say?'

'Nothing. I was just thinking.'

'Thinking what?

Dickens gave her a radiant smile.

'I was thinking that a good way to persuade someone to come out of hiding is to tempt him with a nice smell. I'm afraid I'll have to skip the meal, dear. Aircraft catering always gives me terrible indigestion. I'm going to give Dwindle a bell.'

23

D windle arrived at his apartment weighed down with flowers, chocolates, CD's and videos. Multi-media love-making, he had decided, was the obvious answer to Maureen's demand for something different. His wife, a schoolteacher, was still at work. He inserted video-tapes into the TV in the bedroom and then distributed flowers and chocolates in various strategic places.

The phone rang. It was Dickens with a suggestion for the next step in their investigation, to which he gave his instant approval.

Dwindle then took a shower and changed into a handsome red-and-gold trimmed dressing-gown he had bought in LA.

He was reading another chapter in Firsby's novel when Maureen came home.

She remarked: 'You look like an Egyptian pasha,' when he rushed to the front-door to greet her.

'A most passionate pasha!'

He kissed her and presented her with a diamond butterfly brooch he had bought in LA and a transparent negligee. She gazed at the latter doubtfully and remarked: 'I can't open the door to the milkman wearing that.'

'He'll give you free milk, if you do.'

She glanced at the profuse display of red roses and carnations and thanked him for his gifts.

He said excitedly: 'There are more in the bedroom.'

'I'll have a cup of tea first.'

He made tea and after describing their experiences in California mentioned Henry Dickens's encounter with Mrs Vanderbot followed by his own experience of being put in prison.

'That was certainly an unusual adventure! Not many men get to be accused of sexually assaulting a wax model!'

'We think we were set up by the FBI.'

'Perhaps Mrs Vanderbot was getting back at you because Henry had rejected her.

Dwindle said ruefully, after a prolonged pause: 'I think you may be right. But it makes little difference. I'm convinced that Adam Firsby and his girl friend are in France somewhere Now let me show you the little entertainment I have organised.'

He led Maureen into the bedroom, where a large box of her favourite Belgian chocolates lay on the pillow. Dwindle snapped the remote control and the video displayed an aircraft taking off for India. The scene changed to a bedroom in a baroque hotel. Soft, languorous romantic music accompanied by a tasteful Bollywood-type demonstration of the Karma Sutra.

'Voila! A second honeymoon without the strain of travelling,' Dwindle said.

'Very nice,' Maureen said, dryly.

'So shall we make love, my darling?'

'After dinner.'

Later, Maureen led him upstairs, unplugged the video, closed the curtains and switched off the bedroom lights.

:'That's a complete waste of money,' Dwindle declared. But his protest evaporated as they made love.

Dwindle whispered afterwards: 'But, darling, didn't you say you wanted something completely different?'

'It was different. I could feel that box of Belgian chocolates under my butt the whole time.'

Dickens's proposal to Dwindle was that they should pay for a series of advertisements to appear in local newspapers in the South of France addressed to 'Adam and Eve.' The advertisement would inform the couple that if they got in touch with the D and D Detective Agency in London they would hear something to their advantage. If and when Firsby made contact with them, Dickens would offer to share the reward with him in return for information leading to the killer.

'Excellent suggestion,' Dwidle had said. 'I'll put the ads in both English and French.'

With Maureen fast asleep by his side, Dwindle propped the computer on his lap and continued reading Firsby's novel.

*

I went to see Harry Duncan at his home on the Sunday before Yvonne and I were due to travel to Perpignan. I pointed out to him that three accidents had now occurred which shared common features. I asked if he would like to accompany me to Perpignan.

'For God's sake, man,' he replied, 'I've been living with the other accident for the past seven months. It's finished. It's over. We have taken every precaution to prevent bombs being place on our aircraft in future. There is nothing more we can do.'

'I still think you should look into it. It was, after all, another Finch that crashed.'

'I can't attend an enquiry into every aircraft accident that occurs in the world. The French will do a thorough job -- it happened on their territory. Danish accident investigators will attend. We'll get to know the results when it's all over.'

He offered me as sherry, which I declined.

Filling his own glass, he continued peevishly: 'If every airline sent a representative whenever a crash occurred, it would need Wembley stadium to accommodate them. If there is any connection between the two crashes -- and it's most unlikely -- it will be noticed by the French investigators and brought to our notice.'

'Three crashes,' I reminded him. And added: 'Since there has been no suggestion of a bomb at Perpignan, which was the verdict on the accident in which Sally died, they will hardly be looking for a connection.'

Harry gestured dramatically, spilling some of his sherry.

'Nor should they, because a connection probably exists only in your over-heated imagination.'

His face had gone pink during our conversation.

I said obstinately: 'Anyway, I'm going down there. It will be a final tribute to my late fiancée.'

'You'd do yourself more good taking a proper holiday instead of nosing around like a vampire. Isn't that so, Enid?'

'What umpire?' his partially-deaf wife enquired sweetly.

'Never mind!' he shouted at her.

Turning to me again, he said impatiently: 'Jim, you're wasting time and money. Don't you think that if there had been a cause other than a bomb it would have occurred to me, or to the other pilots and engineers who have spent months analysing the final flight of Golf-Mike?'

'Okay, Harry, I'm going to employ an insurance man's hunch to look for something unseen.'

'What is that supposed to mean?'

It means keeping a watchful eye on coincidences. Three Finch's have hit the dust. Doesn't it worry you that there may be a fourth?'

I detected a subtle change in his expression and wondered if I had succeeded in planting a tiny seed of doubt in his mind. On the spur of the moment, I asked him if he would provide me with a copy of the technical manual on the Finch.

'Can't do that, old boy. 'They are for authorised personnel only.'

'Come on, Harry - what harm could it do?'

He remained silent for a moment, studying his empty glass. Then with a friendly smile, he said: 'All right, Jim, it's quite plain to me that you're off your rocker. But out of respect for Sally Carstairs I'll lend you a copy.'

He commented later, as he handed it to me: 'When your father went off to Africa to take over that farm, he asked me to keep an eye on you. Frankly, I'm a little worried -- you have been quite unbalanced since the bombing attack on the Finch. Much as I admire your courage, it was a damn fool thing that you did in Ireland. Incidentally, one of my pilots told me you were up on the flight-deck quizzing him about the accident. You've become quite irrational since the tragedy. But whatever you do, get it out of your head that there has been any kind of cover up.'

'Okay,' I replied taking the manual. 'But there's no harm in going down there to ask a few questions.'

'If -- if -- by any remote chance you do hear anything that is new and pertinent, will you promise to let me know before you inform anyone else?'

'Okay, Harry. That's a deal.'

As I was about to go, he said with an amused smile: 'How will you know what questions to ask?'

'Sometimes outsiders can see things more clearly than experts.'

'What would you say if I queried your actuarial work?'

'If my figures are wrong, nobody suffers except the insurance company. When you get things wrong people die.'

'That was unnecessary, Jim.' he replied with a hurt look. 'I spend the whole of my life trying to make the airline safe.'

As I drove back to my hotel, I wondered if Harry's request to be informed of any new facts suggested that I had sewn a tiny grain of doubt in his mind. Or was he just covering himself against all possible contingencies? I felt sorry for him. He certainly carried a heavy load of responsibility. The Finch was only one of the four types of aircraft his airline operated and he had to be familiar with all their flying characteristics and complicated mechanical systems. If I had succeeded in making a slight dent in his armour, it did not necessarily follow that going to Perpignan was sensible. The odds were heavily against a mere amateur stumbling on the cause of the crash. Perhaps Harry was right and I had become unbalanced. I had been asked to take leave because of my supposed monomania. If my boss knew I was planning to go to the scene of an aircraft crash, his suspicion would be completely vindicated.

I experienced a momentary doubt.

Then a vision came to me of a gigantic pair of wire-cutters reaching up towards the sky and bringing down the aircraft in which Sally had been carrying out her duties. And I knew that I had an absolute duty to continue with my mission.

The French Embassy in London had informed me that the wreckage of the Danish Finch airliner had been removed from the hillside on which it had crashed and taken to a local military airfield for minute examination. The flight recorder -- the so-called 'black box' which records important flight data -- had not yet been found. Danish accident investigators and representatives of the charter firm operating the crashed aircraft would be at the enquiry. I had asked if I might attend as an unofficial observer. They informed me that this would be entirely a matter for the President of the Enquiry. I had decided on a plan. If I was barred from the proceedings, I would masquerade as a journalist and try to extract information from the investigators when they were off duty.

Yvonne was helping in the hotel kitchen over the weekend, earning money to pay for her board and lodging. That evening I took her out to an Indian restaurant. She ate ravenously. She had been studying our route down to the south of France and was in a state of high excitement. Her mind kept running ahead to the places of interest she wanted to see. I had to keep reminding her of the serious purpose of our journey.

'I hadn't forgotten, Jim. But can't we have just a little fun?'

She pleaded with such engaging charm that I had to agree.

I suddenly remembered the traffic clerk who had been fired for disobeying company regulations. The bomb theory rested heavily on the evidence concerning the unattended Dublin-bound suitcase. I asked Yvonne if she recalled the reaction in Dublin when it was reported that two Irishmen had planted the bomb with such devastating results.

'God, the atmosphere was electric, Jimmy. The curses would have shrivelled the two men to a cinder. The Irish Times put up a reward of ten-thousand pounds. The Irish Independent said they were the most hated men in Ireland since the Black and Tans. Rumours were flying around. It was even suggested that the two men had been smuggled out of prison and then smuggled back again for their own safety!' She paused and said: 'But I knew they would never be found.'

'Why do you say that?'

'It struck me at the time that although the two Irishmen had changed their mind about going to Dublin, it didn't necessarily follow that they had planted a bomb. Our French teacher, Sister Casey, got all uptight when I said that. She seemed to think I was defending terrorism, which I wasn't in the least. But there are so many ways of planting a bomb -- it doesn't have to be in a suitcase.'

'That,' I said eagerly, as she helped herself to curried chicken, was a shrewd comment.'

'Everyone got so hysterical and wound up about it I kept quiet after that.'

'Ah, but there is this point. These chaps never claimed for the unexpired portion of their tickets. Which is a highly suspicious circumstance.'

'They might have been so stoned they didn't know what they were doing.'

'Okay. But surely when they sobered up next day they would have realised that they had narrowly escaped death.'

'Who said they would sober up next day?' Yvonne poured gentle scorn on the idea. 'I've seen Uncle Aidan go off on a three-day bender and he'd not have the slightest notion of how much money he'd thrown away while he was drunk.'

'What about the reward? They would have read about it subsequently, It must have been mentioned in the British newspapers.'

Yvonne's face crinkled into childish helplessness. Then thoughtfully rubbing her thumb across her lower lip, she said: 'They might not have been in Britain or Ireland when they sobered up.'

'Where. then, would they have been?' I enquired sarcastically. 'On the moon?'

'No, darling, not on the moon.' With gentle irony, she said: 'On a ship. They might have gone to sea. They could have been a couple of Irish seamen on a binge.'

'You're a very imaginative girl, Yvonne,' I said with genuine admiration. 'But the fish -- what about the fish that was supposed to have been decomposing in the suitcase bound for Dublin?'

'It might have been something else -- not necessarily a bomb.'

'You're forgetting one thing,' I said doubtfully, 'a terrorist organization did claim responsibility. Anderson, the man I killed, denied that it was the work of the Unyielding Republican Army. But it might have been planted by another terrorist organization.'

'Some of those terrorists would claim responsibility for an earthquake, if they thought anybody would believe them,' Yvonne replied scornfully.

Right,' I said cheerfully. 'Now that you have driven a coach-and-horses through the Bomb Theory, we'll press on down to Perpignan tomorrow and unravel the mystery like Holmes and Watson.'

Yvonne gazed at me petulantly.

'What's the matter now?' I enquired, innocently.

'You said you'd treat me like your sister. Now I'm supposed to be Doctor Watson. I'm getting worried about your sexual orientation, James Duncan.'

We walked back to the hotel along the promenade. The night was calm. Out at sea distant lightning played under a bank of dark, overhanging cloud. Yvonne clutched my arm tightly. I pretended to be indifferent.

'Jim, what makes you think you can beat the experts?'

'It's not a question of beating the experts. I'm fully aware of my limitations. But, at least, if I go to the scene of the crash at Perpignan, I can make sure that any theories I come up with will be brought directly to the knowledge of the investigators. We both believe that the bombing theory no longer holds water. At least my presence there will ensure that the crash is not examined in isolation from other similar accidents.'

'There's something else, urging you on, isn't there.'

'You mean Sally? Yes, I suppose so. I feel I owe it to her. She was a great girl.'

'Come and sit in the shelter over there.'

But guessing what she had in mind, I steered her firmly towards the hotel.'

*

I was trying to understand some unfamiliar terms in the Finch technical manual, when Ian Morrison telephoned in a state of high excitement to say that someone had taken a pot shot at Noel Jameson with a rifle. The bullet had pierced a seventeenth-century map of Cork on the wall of his office.

'Have they any idea who was responsible?' I asked.

'The police are working on the theory that it was a disgruntled policy holder. Someone who's angry because we refused to pay out on phoney claim. They're working systematically through the files.'

'He's okay?'

'Yes, he's fine. He went home early. It happened on Friday afternoon. Incidentally, I wondered if it could have been one of the gang that captured you when you were based in Dublin.'

'Why should they want to kill Noel Jameson?' Even as I spoke I knew the answer.

'It was hard luck for you they missed him. You narrowly missed promotion.'

'Oh, belt up, Morrison.'

I wasn't in the mood for his mordant humour.

After giving the matter some thought, I went round to the local police station and asked to see the inspector in charge. Pennington, a tall, ascetic man with closely cropped gray hair, eyed me quizzically when I told him the story of my brush with terrorists in Ireland. I suggested to him that they might have attempted to kill Noel Jameson, because I had his name when I registered in the hotel.'

'Frankly, it doesn't seem likely to me,' Pennington replied. 'We're working on another theory at the moment. But if we change our minds we'll get in touch with you.'

'I can give you the telephone number of a Dublin policeman with whom I was in contact during my stay in Ireland, if you think that might help. I'll be away for a couple of weeks holidaying in the south of France.'

'That's okay, Mr Duncan. Pop in and see us when you get back.'

The police inspector had not seemed very interested. But I felt I had done the right thing by alerting him to this possibility.

I resumed my study of the Finch technical manual, and even though I knew that, as an amateur, I would be unable to recognise any basic weakness in the design, my interest in the profession I had been frustrated from entering carried me along. As of course did my desire to be able to discuss the matter with the accident investigators on a technical level.

The first part of the thick volume described the hydraulic, electrical, flying controls and other systems. But I found myself drawn towards the second section, which dealt with the handling of the machine in normal and abnormal conditions. I could find nothing in the emergencies section which could account for the catastrophic descent of the Finch from its cruising altitude. Everything I looked at seemed to have been examined and eliminated by the enquiry.

I fell asleep and dreamed that I had been asked to fly the aircraft because both pilots had become incapacitated. I was awakened by a sudden noise.

Yvonne had come into my room.

'What are you doing?' she asked.

'I've been studying the Finch technical manual.'

'Oh, Jimmy, aren't you taking the whole thing a mite too seriously.'

She took my free hand and kissed it.

Reclaiming it, I enquired loftily: 'How can one take an air crash anything but seriously?'

'Jim, why don't you become an amateur brain surgeon as well as an aircraft accident investigator?'

'I did once hear about a ship's captain who saved a seaman's life by performing an appendectomy while they were at sea?'

'Jim, for your own good you must admit it's almost certain to be a wild goose chase.'

'What's it to do with you?' I said peevishly.

'I don't want you to be angry with me, if it all goes wrong.'

'I won't be angry with you.'

'Yes, you will... You'll always be angry with me because I'm not Sally.'

She looked downcast.

'If you want to, go to Spain with your friends instead of coming with me, you're welcome to do so.'

'But I do want to go with you.' She seemed close to tears.

'Okay. But try to understand why I'm going.'

'You're going because you're still in love with someone who's dead.'

'I'm going because there have already been three crashes involving this aircraft.' I tapped the manual. 'I hope to prevent a fourth.'

That evening I took Yvonne me to meet Mrs Carstairs. Mrs Carstairs seemed unnaturally quiet as she went about making the tea. When Yvonne left the room, she whispered urgently:

'Are you sure you know what you're about, Jim?'

'You're not suggesting that I'm interested in that little girl. She's barely out of school. I used to give her maths lessons in Dublin!'

'She'll teach you a thing or two, if you're not very careful, young man.'

'She's just a kid, for God's sake.'

I forgave Mrs Carstairs for her unnecessary concern.

On the whole, Yvonne handled the situation with a surprising aplomb. She pretended she had a keen interest in the Other World. My perfect romance with Sally and her angelic disposition was, of course, the main theme of Mrs Carstair's conversation. She had forgotten how angry she had once been with me.

'She's a nice old bird,' Yvonne volunteered as we drove back to the hotel. 'But quite off the wall. She talks about Sally as though she's in the next room, It's weird.'

'You shouldn't make fun of other people's beliefs.'

'One can't live in the past forever.'

'The past can catch up with you when you least expect it.' I told her about the attempt on Noel Jameson's life.

'It wasn't terrorists,' she said categorically. 'They'll have more important things to do than getting their own back on you.'

'Possibly,' I conceded. 'Anyway, Mrs Carstairs is entitled to her beliefs. We all have our weaknesses. It so happens that mine is with finding the cause of Sally's death.'

We parted with a certain coolness to go to our separate rooms. I was a little worried, in case she decided to change her mind about coming with me.

I was idly thumbing through the technical manual, when the telephone rang. I lifted the receiver and heard Mrs Carstairs saying in a rather strained voice.

'I'm just ringing to wish you bon voyage, Jim.'

'Thank you very much.'

'She's a nice little girl, your friend Yvonne.'

'Her French is excellent. That's why I'm taking her with.'

'Perhaps she'll make a replacement for Sally.'

'Nobody will ever replace Sally, Mrs Carstairs.'

'Somebody will one day, Jim. Only mothers are entitled to mourn for ever.'

She continued: 'Sally and I had a long conversation tonight. She has a message for you.'

'What is it,' I enquired, politely.

'She says your trip will be eventful but some good will come out of it.'

'Thank you,'

I put the telephone down and asked myself why spirits utter the kind of vague banalities they would never dream of uttering when they are alive.

I put the technical manual in my suitcase and went to sleep.

*

As we drove to Newhaven to board the car ferry, Yvonne told m again that one shouldn't live in the past.

'Loving those who have died isn't living in the past. It's a way of recalling their special qualities.'

'I'm not saying anything against Sally, It's Mrs Carstairs -- it's silly of her to believe in messages from the dead..'

'If it consoles her, what difference does it make? You must learn to make allowance for people's weaknesses. You'll understand when you're older.'

Her hurt silence lasted until we boarded the ferry.

It was a cloudy, windy day. As we drew out of Newhaven harbour, Yvonne and I stood by the rail watching the swirling white foam behind us turn into a pale knitted pattern that finally dispersed into the green sea.

'How are your sea legs?'I enquired.

I could not help noticing that they were rather pleasantly shaped.

With her hands tightly clutching the ship's rail, Yvonne replied resentfully: 'If I feel sick, it has nothing to do with being at sea -- but a lot to do with your spoiling what should be a wonderful experience.'

'Now what have I done?' I enquired, watching a sea gull alight delicately on the ferry's rear flagpole

'Here we are on the lovely ocean that God made, with a glorious breeze blowing, and all you can think about is that horrible accident.'

Touched by her youthful despair, I put my arm around her.

'Darling girl, we shouldn't quarrel. With a bit of luck some good may come out of this trip. If we work together as a team, we might surprise all the experts and solve the mystery.'

'You really think so!'

Yvonne huddled against me and gazing up at my face cheerfully, asked: 'What else can I do to help besides acting as your interpreter?'

'You can apply that bright mind of yours to solving a puzzle.'

'But I know nothing about airplanes.'

'That's an advantage. The experts, including my uncle, only see what they want to see.'

A sudden squall blew up, whipping my face and shaking Yvonne's curls into frenzied motion.

I shouted: 'Let's go below.'

We found shelter in a bar on the lower deck. I ordered Coca-cola for Yvonne and a Guinness for myself.

I said, gazing into Yvonne's tawny eyes, 'Leaving aside the implausible bomb theory, I wonder if it could have been an explosive decompression.'

'What's that?'

I explained how engine-blowers raise the pressure inside the cabin to compensate for the falling air pressure outside, so that the passengers and crew could breathe easily. 'Perhaps,' I went on, 'a door or a window gave way under the pressure. That's what caused the Comets to crash when they first went into service.'

Yvonne said thoughtfully: 'The aircraft designers wouldn't make the same mistake twice.'

I was forced to agree.

'In any case,' I mused, 'it wouldn't necessarily cause a fatal accident. Any other theories?'

'A mid-air collision?'

'If that had happened, two aircraft would have crashed, not one.'

'How about hitting a piece of debris from a satellite coming back into the Earth's atmosphere?'

'Millions to one against.'

'A hijack that went wrong?'

Pilots have a way of indicating to Air Traffic Control that they have been hijacked by secretly operating a switch. My uncle told me about it when I put that question to him.'

Yvonne pulled a face and shook her head impatiently.

In a sudden movement she exchanged our drinks and downed the remains of my Guinness. Shuddering at the taste, she told me that she was doing me a good turn by making me drink less. She then made the humorous suggestion that perhaps the aircraft had been refuelled with Guinness.

'Contaminated fuel? Not a bad theory -- it has happened before. But the flaw in the theory is that the crew would have had plenty of time to make an emergency call.'

Are we going to talk about airplanes from morning to night?' she complained fretfully.

'Okay, we'll give it a break.'

'You called me darling before.'

'Did I? It must have been a mistake.'

I ordered two more glasses of Guinness. But Yvonne refused to drink hers and became unaccountably sulky.

She cheered up when, after stocking up at a supermarket with food and drink for our journey in Dieppe, we started our drive down the auto-route. I intended to cover as much ground as possible before sunset. The interior of the car reeked with a heady perfume Yvonne had purchased on the ferry. She was wearing pale blue shorts, sandals and a tee-shirt that moulded itself around her lissom body.

You have very nice legs,' I said, seeking to please her.

Wriggling her painted toes, she said: 'I'm surprised you noticed. They're my one good feature.'

'That isn't true at all.'

'What other ones do I have?'

'You're a bonny lass - I'll have a job keeping you when we get down to the coast.'

'Do I have nice boobs?'

'Charming. You could model bras.'

'I'm not wearing one.'

'So I've noticed.'

'Why are you so distant with me?'

'I'm not distant -- I'm treating you exactly as I'd treat my secretary on a business trip.'

'You promised we could have fun as well.'

'Later on, when we've finished with the accident enquiry.'

There was a pause in the conversation as I overtook a Renault Clio, reminding myself as I did so to return to the right-hand side of the road. The car was overloaded with two adults and four young children. There was a mattress strapped to the roof. I envied the driver. I remembered that I, too, would have been a father, if tragedy had not struck.

'Do I attract you, sexually?' Yvonne asked.

'For God's sake, Yvonne!'

I changed into third gear, pressed hard on the accelerator and overtook a giant trailer with a great deal of engine noise, slipping into the space ahead with inches to spare. Yvonne gasped. Then I delivered another lecture and reminded her that we had agreed to act with propriety.

She started to giggle

'Jim, darling, you're so funny.'

'What's so funny about keeping to an agreement?' 'Don't you know women only keep to an agreement when it suits them to do so.'

'Well, we're certainly going to keep to ours.'

'All right, Jimmy, if you say so,' she replied, indulgently.

She yawned, laid her head on my shoulder and went to sleep. I thought about our relationship as my automatic driving reflexes took over. My thoughts had been dominated by the air crash since Sally died. But revenge had now ceased to be my motive; I was only interested in solving an intriguing intellectual puzzle. I wasn't unaware of Yvonne's warm, nubile young body resting against me. But I kept reminding myself of the gap between our ages. Glancing at my reflection in the driving mirror. I couldn't help feeling flattered by her devotion, even though I told myself it was unlikely ever to come to anything.

My brief run through the technical manual of the Finch had brought me no nearer to finding the reason for the crash; but now, at least, I had some insight into its construction and the manner in which it was operated. I still felt sure there was a fatal flaw somewhere that had remained hidden from the engineers who had designed it. This had been obstinately denied by my uncle. I remembered the old saying that a dog is allowed one bite. The Finch airliner had already been allowed three bites.

I ran through the facts of the Perpignan accident again. Radar had plotted the aircraft circling, apparently aimlessly, which ruled out the possibility of either a bomb or catastrophic structural failure. A hijack seemed improbable, because the pilots had not used the normal means of informing Air Traffic Control that they were being threatened. If it were a simple case of radio failure, why had the captain not followed the correct procedure of continuing to his destination. One could be forgiven for believing that creatures from outer space had taken over the aircraft, silenced the crew and capriciously thrown it to the ground.

Yvonne woke up, stretched herself and complained that she was hungry. I drove down the next side road and pulled in under some lime trees growing by a narrow stream. Golden medallions from evening sunshine shining though the leaves ran lightly over Yvonne's slim body as she laid out the meal on a table cloth. She had bought croissons, brie, Camembert and green peppers. We sat in contented silence, enjoying the meal and a bottle of St. Emillion.

Sitting cross-legged on the grass, Yvonne suddenly said: 'I suppose losing Sally was like losing a wife.'

'Exactly.'

'But it can't go on for ever.'

'Mrs Carstairs will mourn for ever.'

'It would be a terrible waste for you to do so. You should find someone else.'

'Thanks.'

'Pass me the wine.'

'I think you've had enough.'

'Don't tell me how much wine I can drink!'

We simultaneously made a grab the bottle and it spilled over Yvonne's tee-shirt.

'Sorry.' I said apologetically. 'You mustn't keep asking me such personal questions.'

With a sudden movement, Yvonne stripped the tee-shirt over her head, walked down to the stream and swirled it in the rippling water. She returned a minute later, her breasts wobbling, as she vigorously squeezed the water out of the drenched tee-shirt.

'Don't look at me like that. Haven't you seen tits before?'

'Not as nice as yours.'

'You'll see plenty more on the beach -- that is if we ever get down there, which I'm beginning to doubt.'

She put on another tee-shirt and we set off again down the auto-route; our relationship seeming to have been improved by our little spat.

I told her how my mother had been killed and how I had stayed in England when my father and step-mother emigrated. I was nettled, though, when she suggested that perhaps I had over-reacted to Sally's death as a result of losing my mother.

'That had nothing to do with it,' I responded angrily.

'The mere fact that you're shouting proves my point,' Yvonne replied with irritating complacency. 'And it's utterly dishonest of you to pretend to believe in Mrs Carstair's spooky messages.'

'I was simply trying to be kind.'

'Hypocrisy isn't kindness.'

'It was in this case. You're too young and immature to understand.'

She listened in silence as I attempted to justify Mrs Carstairs's devotion to spiritualism, mentioning some famous people who shared her belief.

'Codology,' Jim,' she said contemptuously. 'The dead are dead and that's all there is to it.'

'Weren't you taught about Heaven and Hell in your convent school?'

'Oh, sure. A nun once told us that real life only happened after you had died and gone to Heaven. I told her it only came after you had left school. She laughed like billyho.'

'I thought you were supposed to believe in Heaven and Hell.'

'I'm not much into religion. The way I see it is God wants us to keep our eye on the road ahead, not glued forever to the driving mirror.'

I was curious about a Ford Escort that had been tailing us for nearly half an hour and mentioned it to Yvonne.

She glanced back through the rear windscreen, then commented: 'It's probably a hit team.'

I asked Yvonne how close Aidan Kelly's connections were with terrorist organizations.

She laughed uproariously.

'Oh, he has a few drinking pals in Sinn Fein, that's all. He's half-stoned most of the time and doesn't know what he's doing or saying. He telephoned the Guardai about you because he was jealous and wanted you out of the house.'

'He's disgusting,' I replied and remembering how Yvonne had obtained the fare to Limerick, enquired: 'What exactly happened when you blackmailed him that time?'

'He put his hand inside my shirt, that's all. You're not jealous, are you?'

'Of course not,' I lied.

'How did you get on with my predecessor, Ray Jackson?' having just remembered his philandering propensities..

'Oh, he was a darling.'

'He didn't try anything on?'

'No, he behaved like a gentleman. He said he would like to have first call on my virginity, if I hadn't lost it by my eighteenth birthday.'

I grunted.

She asked theatrically: 'Do you think he will be having his way with me?'

At that moment the driver of the Ford Escort decided to overtake. Half-expecting a hail of bullets after Yvonne's comment about a hit team, I glanced sideways and saw that the car contained a harmless-looking elderly couple.

Feeling ashamed of my nervousness,' I said impulsively: 'Yvonne, shall we chuck this whole thing. We could go rambling, sailing, swimming -- anything you like.'

'What's got into you all of a sudden?'

'I don't know. Perhaps it was a bomb after all. If terrorists came to England and tried to assassinate my boss, it's obvious that they are capable of anything. To tell the truth I'm rather confused about the whole thing.'

'The police didn't go along with that theory. There are loads of guns around these days. This idea of a revenge mission is just a product of your overheated imagination. Anyway, since you're so set on looking into this accident we might as well go though with it, even though it's a dreadful waste. I tell you what, Jimmy, we'll spend three days nosing around the crash and then we'll go on a glorious holiday.'

'It's a deal,' I replied, pleased with her suggestion.

Dusk was settling.

I left the auto-route again and soon arrived at a small village- an assembly of unkempt stone houses surrounding a war memorial in a small square. Bats were wheeling and screeching against a background of a vivid pink sunset as we stepped out of the car. One of the houses had a pension sign at the window. I asked a haggard blonde lady who appeared at the door for two rooms in my schoolboy French. She appeared to understand. But my attempt to arrange for a meal to be served outside was less successful. Yvonne intervened and a spirited conversation ensued, which I was unable to follow. There was a great deal of laughter. I discovered later that it had to do with the self-righteous expression on my face when I emphasized that we required two rooms.

We climbed up a narrow staircase to our bedrooms. I had been given a pleasant airy room overlooking the war memorial. It was plainly furnished with a brown-stained wardrobe and a large double bed. A ewer of water stood in a cracked glazed basin on a marble-topped table by the window. I could well have afforded better accommodation but wished to spare Yvonne's purse. She had insisted that she would pay a quarter of our total expenses, but I had a shrewd inkling that even that proportion would tax her slender resources.

I took off my shirt, poured the cool water into the basin, had a strip-down wash, dried myself on a coarse gray towel and lay on the bed. I wanted to plan my course of action in Perpignan the following day. I had changed my mind and now intended to gain entry to the enquiry by saying that I was a journalist. If they did not accept my story that I had lost my press card, I would fall back on my family connection with Captain Harry Duncan. I particularly wanted to pursue the question of the time lapse between the ending of air-to-ground communication and the final crash.

There was a knock on the door.

I called "Entrez" and Yvonne came into the room.

She had changed into jeans, her blue denim shirt was unbuttoned to the waist, half-exposing her breasts. Coming towards the bed, she bent over me, tenderly cradled my head and pressed her lips against mine. Giggling nervously, she whispered in a parody of a French accent: 'Let us make love before dinner, mon petit aviateur manqué.'

I turned my face away and said: 'Yvonne: 'Go downstairs, there's a good girl. I'll be down directly.'

'Don't you have any feelings for me?' she demanded reproachfully.

I fought against a powerful urge to take her in my arms. To take advantage of such a young, immature girl would be wrong. I put on my shirt and said: 'I'm extremely fond of you, Yvonne. But let's wait until you know what you're about.'

She fled from the room.

I went downstairs and waited for her at the table on the pavement, under a faded yellow awning that was rapidly turning gray as darkness fell. The patronne asked if she should serve the meal. I nodded. After a minute or so I went upstairs and found Yvonne lying on her bed, crying, her face turned to the wall.

I apologised.

She said I had refused to admit that she was a grown woman with a mind of her own. Finally, after much persuasion she agreed to come down for dinner.

We at the wooden table outside. The blonde lady served delicious cheese omelettes and sautéd potatoes, followed by liberal helpings of cherry pie and ice cream. Yvonne chatted to me cheerfully.

However, later on as we returned to our rooms after a stroll around the village, she declared with an air of desolation that she thought we should split up when we arrived at Perpignan.

'Why?' I asked perplexedly.

'I can't fight ghosts any more.'

'What will you do?'

'I'll join my friends. They're in Barcelona by now. I know where to find them. We agreed on a meeting place.'

'How can I manage without an interpreter,' I asked dolefully.

'You'll manage, Jim. You don't need me.'

24

D windle attended the London office every day while Dickens was in Wales. Among the mail was a letter from a prospective client who wanted him to check on the private life of another private detective. He threw it away. He referred a request by a firm to debug their offices to an agency who specialised in electronic security. He discarded a letter from an American detective agency offering to provide tuition on commercial spying.. There was plenty of junk mail but a dearth of enquiries that might lead to new business.

His hopes were raised briefly when the manager of an opera company informed him breathlessly over the telephone that their leading soprano was being blackmailed. An hour later he called again to say that the diva had paid off the blackmailer. 'Get in touch with me when he comes back for another bite at the cherry, ' Dwindle advised. 'Rest assured he will.'

He placed the advertisements Dickens had suggested in a number of French provincial newspapers and spent the rest of the day reading the daily newspapers and exploring the Internet on the office computer. Ten days after the advertisements appeared in French local newspapers, a reply came:

Reference your ad, the contents have been noted. Call me at this telephone number any evening between eight and ten pm. Adam.

Dwindle called the number at eight o'clock that evening. Fifteen minutes later, he telephoned Dickens and said excitedly: 'I've been speaking to Adam Firsby. He's prepared to meet us in a village in Roussillon. I have guaranteed to respect his privacy.'

'Has he got his girl friend with him?'

'Yes, it's just as I guessed.'

'Did you say that we're prepared to share the reward?'

'Yes. I explained how the information on his computer had led us to Los Angeles. He says the novel has a bearing on what happened.'

'Let's go on down and meet him. I must congratulate you on your brilliant guess.'

'It was a great idea on your part to put the ad in the newspapers.'

'That's where thirty years of police experience comes in.' After a pause, Dickens said: 'Firsby will require cash up front.'

'I'll bring some with me.'

'Our bank account is almost empty.'

'Don't worry. My Las Vegas winnings will cover it. The business can pay me back when Rossano pays us the reward.'

25

D windle had arranged to meet Adam Firsby in the small village of Castelnau thirty kilometres from Canet-de-Rossillon. They flew to Toulouse airport and hired a car. In the latter stage of their journey, the Renault Clio clattered and bounced madly over potholes along winding country lanes.

'We should have hired a larger car,' Dickens commented. He was always nervous when Dwindle was driving.

'You're the one who's usually keen to economise.'

'Now you've brought up the subject, I have to tell you that regardless of the outcome we may have to consider dissolving the partnership. Even if Firsby helps us to identify Carol Rossano's killer, it may still prove difficult to get Joe Rossano to pay up.'

'We have an agreement in writing from his attorney.'

'He'll probably try to wriggle out of it.'

'You always were a pessimist, Dickens. But if I continue to pay the outgoings on the office, will you be prepared to soldier on until new business comes in?'

'Of course.'

Dwindle drove on in silence. He was recalling another chapter of Firsby's novel he had read during the plane journey.

*

My attempt, as we drove south, to concentrate on the puzzling aspects of the Finch accidents was frustrated by the accusing silence of my juvenile companion. She sat throughout our journey, lips angrily compressed, staring through her sunglasses at the vista ahead of sun-drenched motorway.

After a while, I said huffily: 'I wish you'd stop sulking. I've promised that things will be different after we have attended the investigation.'

'It's obvious that the only reason you wanted me to come is that I can speak French.'

'I enjoy your company. Really.'

'Then why were you so beastly last night.'

'I didn't want to kiss you, in case it gave you the wrong idea.'

'What idea?'

'Putting it bluntly, I don't feel it would be right for me to fuck you.'

'Would it matter?'

'Yes it would. Very much. You're much too young.'

'Ray Jackson didn't think so.'

'What has he got to do with it?'

'He understood women. I don't think you have the faintest idea about us.'

'Did you spend much time talking to him?'

'Yes, I used to go up to his room and we had long conversations about sex. He had some very interesting ideas.'

'I bet he had.'

The idea of that worldly divorcé discussing sex with a young schoolgirl infuriated me.

'He said the first time it should be with someone you love.'

'That's hardly very original.'

'Perhaps not. But I have taken his advice.'

Her words provoked a fury inside me. I said testily: 'Why didn't your mother ask him to leave?.' 'There was no reason to. We were just good friends.'

Glancing across at her soft slender neck and charming profile, I could feel my resistance weakening. Nevertheless, I said: 'The truth about us, too, is that we are good friends and I hope we always shall be.'

'God, you're stuffy. You talk a load of clichés.'

'I'm just making it clear how I see our relationship.'

'I wouldn't sleep with you if you were the last man in the world.'

'You'd have to take your place in the queue.'

She muttered: 'My God, you're conceited!' and stared out of her window.

Conversation ceased until we stopped for lunch at Clermont-Ferrand. I tried to placate her by taking her to a rather grand restaurant. It had marble pillars, towering exotic plants and white-coated waiters bustling around bearing silver salvers. Facing her across impeccably white linen, I said cheerfully: 'This is better than Macdonalds.'

'It's all right,' she replied. wrinkling up her nose disdainfully. 'But I don't think I can afford a quarter of the bill.'

'This one's on me.'

'That's not what we agreed.'

'Forget about money for once.'

'Why should I?'

She spilled out the contents of her purse on the tablecloth.

'You're not to spend more than four times that amount.'

'That won't cover the bill.'

She swept the money back into her purse and said briskly: 'Come on. I'm not eating here -- it's too expensive.'

I followed her, as she swept briskly through the swing doors into the sultry heat exhaling from the pavement outside.

A few minutes later we were eating steak and chips in a working man's café.

We seemed to be getting along quite well, until she said tartly: 'I suppose if you don't succeed in finding out what happened to the Finch you'll go into a decline and spent the rest of your life telling everyone how you had been frustrated by officialdom.'

'Don't be so absurd.'

I ordered another carafe of mineral water.

'Anyway, she said with some satisfaction as she broke into a crisp bread roll: 'I've saved us both a lot of money.'

'I only took you to a posh restaurant to please you.'

'And I was only trying to please you last night.'

'You were violating our agreement.'

'Don't be so self-righteous. You're totally wrapped up in this maniacal notion that you know better than the experts.'

I answered mildly: I'm doing it for the sake of other people who will be travelling in Finch airliners.'

'How about showing me a little consideration.'

'Oh, grow up, Yvonne. You're acting like a spoilt kid.'

Half an hour before we reached Perpignan Yvonne apologised, saying that I should not take to much notice of her bad temper. It always happened just before her period

It was just after midnight when we arrived in the town and booked two rooms in a small hotel. As the owner, a lean swarthy man with a villainous turned-down moustache, handed us our room keys, I asked Yvonne to enquire if he knew anything about the aircraft accident. He answered volubly, interspersing his words with an imitation of aircraft engines, and pointing towards the ceiling.

Yvonne explained that he heard the aircraft coming in from the direction of the sea some minutes before the crash occurred about twenty miles outside the town. The following morning when he heard the news on the radio he had driven out to the scene of the crash. It had been a horrible sight -- bodies burnt black and pieces of wreckage spread out over a hill top trailing towards a small lake. He wished he had not let his curiosity get the better of him. The enquiry was still in progress in the town hall.

Exhausted by the long drive, I went up to my room and unpacked shaving gear and the suit I intended to wear at the enquiry the following morning.

Yvonne knocked on the door and announced that she had persuaded the patron to provide some supper for us in the dining-room. I followed her downstairs. Salad, salami and rolls had been set out on a small table covered with a red gingham cloth. Faint guitar music issued from a hidden radio.

Yvonne appeared to be in a better humour as we sat in the dimly-lit room.

Toying with her food, she announced that she had made up her mind to join her friends in Spain as soon as I had concluded my business with the crash investigators. She added challengingly that at that stage she would have carried out her part of the bargain.

'I thought we agreed to have some fun afterwards.'

'I could have more fun with Count Dracula!'

'Okay, you're entitled to do whatever you like. But you can hardly expect me to be cheerful while we're dealing with such a serious matter. I promise it will be different when it's all over.'

'No, I've decided you were right after all -- you're too old.'

My appetite disappeared. I drank some of the coarse red wine the patron had left on the table.

'These friends of yours -- where exactly have you agreed to meet them?'

'They were spending a week in Barcelona and then going on to a seaside town called Sitges.'

'Were the girls all in your class at school?'

'Oh, Jim, you're such an eejit. It's only Maraid who was at school with me -- the others are two boys we knew in Dublin.'

'Well, that's too bad,' I said heavily. 'I had hoped we would have a good time.'

'Jim, I'm really sorry. But you must admit we don't exactly hit it off.'

'I guess not.'

'When you've finished with the enquiry, we'll split. No hard feelings. You can head off to the beaches and find someone your own age.'

'Right.'

'Some older woman might fancy you and then you'll be able to sleep with her and wake up with a clear conscience.'

I replied curtly: 'That's enough. Let's go to bed.'

The following morning, as I had feared, I failed to gain admittance to the room in the town hall where the preliminary enquiry was being held. Yvonne declined to translate the scornful tirade of the uniformed doorman. Later, when we were out of earshot, she informed me that he had said that half the citizens of Perpignan had tried this same ruse. We retired, defeated, to discuss our next move.

Yvonne suggested consolingly that I might like to attend the full enquiry which would be taking place in Paris later on in the year.

I replied dispiritedly: 'It's doubtful if I shall be able to get the time off'

She then reminded me that I had said that in the event of my application being rejected, I would approach the investigators when they came out of the town hall for lunch.

We spent a couple of hours sightseeing. She entwined her arm in mine as we strolled idly around the Rigaud museum. I was almost tempted to ask her to change her mind about rejoining her friends. She seemed happy and relaxed at the prospect of going on to Spain, chatting cheerfully in her soft, beguiling Irish tones about the exhibits. The faint perfume from her hair and the occasional brief physical contact as her thigh brushed against mine aroused painful desires. But knew it would be wrong to persuade her to stay with me. A plodding, earnest bachelor, whose experience of life had made him older than his years, was not a suitable match for a vivacious young girl on the threshold of womanhood. I reminded myself again that I was never more than a few millilitres of insulin away from death.

Just before one'clock we returned to the town hall and waited outside the room in which the enquiry was being held. Soon, a group of solemn-faced men emerged. I approached one of them, a tall, tow- haired man in his mid-forties and explained my situation. Captain Ericson told us later that he had been an airline pilot until he had suffered a mild coronary. He was an accident investigator representing the Danish government at the enquiry. I invited him to join us for lunch. He hesitated for a moment before accepting, ignoring the Finch technical manual held out as proof of my dedication. The reason he hardly noticed it was because his attention was concentrated on Yvonne.

We went into a local restaurant. Here at last I had a prized opportunity to parade my theories before an acknowledged authority in the field of air safety -- one, presumably, without an axe to grind. He listened politely. But his eyes were on Yvonne all the time. His gaze even followed her as she went to the washroom.

'That's a great-looking chick. I wish I were in your shoes. Instead I sit all day in a hot, sticky room.'

'Captain Ericson, do you think there is any significance in the fact that all three aircraft lost contact with Air Traffic Control after approximately the same length of time?'

He appeared to consider the question.

After a while, he said: 'We don't have any definite theories at the moment. First of all we sift all the evidence -- that is what we are doing at present. Later on is the time to formulate theories. It would help a great deal if we could find the flight-recorder. Tomorrow, frogmen will start searching the lake where we think it has fallen.'

I told him about my experience in Ireland, explaining that I was in a minority of one in accepting the denial of responsibility I had personally received from terrorists, which in my view ruled out the bomb theory.'

Ericson lugubriously thrust out his lower lip.

'How can you trust the words of terrorists? Anyway, didn't you see yesterday's English newspapers?'

'No.'

'It is reported that they are holding someone they believe has been responsible for the bombing.'

'Are you sure?.'

'Yes, one of my colleagues showed me the article in the Daily Telegraph.'

I felt thoroughly disheartened. I addressed a few more questions to him about the Perpignan accident. His answers were precisely formulated in technical terms, the meaning of which sometimes eluded me. His voice contained a hint of condescending irony. However, before we parted he had the grace to say that he was sorry I had lost my fiancée. He then cast a lingering glance at Yvonne, which appeared to suggest I had not lost much time in finding a replacement.

Yvonne and I walked slowly back to the hotel.

She said: 'I love those blond Nordic men'

'He's a dirty old man. He practically ravished you with his eyes.'

'He wasn't so old.'

'A damn sight older than me.'

'He's young inside -- you're not, that's the difference. Was the discussion you had with him helpful?'

'Not much.'

I told her about the report in the English newspaper.

So what will you do now?'

'I'm going to ring up Harry Duncan when we get back to the hotel to see if there's any truth in it.'

She glanced up appealingly.

'Oh, Jim, why bother?'

'You know very well why I must bother.'

She clung to my arm, impeding my progress.

'Jimmy, I know you have this obsession with finding out exactly what happened to Sally. But if there was a bomb you can do nothing about it, and if there wasn't it makes no difference any more. When you were talking to Johan -- '

'Johan?'

'Captain Ericson -- I could tell he thought you were pretty ignorant about airplanes.'

'Ignorant I may be, but he and his fellow experts don't have any more clues than I do as to what caused the accidents. Until they find out, my guess is as good as theirs.'

'Jimmy, please forget all about those grisly air crashes. If you promise to do so, I'll stay with you.'

'Wait until I've telephoned my uncle.'

I slowed down and we linked arms again.

I said: 'Darling, I have to know what happened. I feel I owe it to Sally. You wouldn't understand, but she meant so much to me. She helped me to get rid of a totally irrational fear.'

'What was that?'

'I used to worry about my supply of insulin being cut off.'

Yvonne said sombrely: 'And in the end it was she who died.. Okay, go ahead and telephone your uncle. If they've caught the man who planted the bomb, that's it, isn't it. You'll know what happened and we can forget all about air accidents and get on with our lives.'

She stopped and hugged me excitedly.

I telephoned Harry Duncan from the hotel. His secretary told me he was out but would be back in just over an hour.

We went up to Yvonne's room. She drew the curtains and we lay down on the bed in the subdued golden light filtering through the curtains. Rolling suddenly into my arms, she peremptorily ordered me to kiss her. I obliged, almost absent-mindedly. But when she placed her hand on the back of my head. the kiss dissolved into something inexpressibly tender. My concern over the disparity in our ages disappeared as we clung to each other. I caught a glimpse of a happy future for us.

Some time later, Yvonne sighed and moaned, fluttering her eyelids. She whispered softly: 'Not yet, Jim.'

'No problem,' I said cheerfully. 'As long as I can have you before Ray Jackson claims his prize.'

In between bouts of fervent kissing we went over our lives, amusing ourselves with a fantasy that our meeting in Dublin had been somehow preordained.

I said, before going down to use the telephone at the reception desk: 'Having seen the way Captain Ericson was eating you with his eyes, from now on I won't let you out of my sight.'

A few minutes later she was flinging my words back in my face.

Harry Duncan, his voice booming over the long-distance wires, had informed me that the Worthing police were holding a man under the Prevention of Terrorism Act suspected of responsibility for the attempt on Noel Jameson's life. They thought he might be one of the men who had left the suitcase on board the Finch aircraft at Gatwick and answered to the description I had given to the Irish police of one of the terrorists at Ballydragun. 'Of course, you'll come home straight away to identify him. The police will pay your fare -- if they don't I will. It's your duty, Jim. Don't let us down.'

I said I would catch the first available flight'

But I had forgotten female illogic.

'You can't go and leave me now,' Yvonne wailed, when I told her.

'But I have to go. They can only hold the suspect for a few days.'

'You don't have to go. If he is the man, they'll find other ways of identifying him.'

'My evidence is crucial. What is more. it will prove the bombing theory one way or the other.'

'You've been arguing against the bombing theory.'

'Darling, don't you see it's the truth I'm after. I have to go. It's my duty.'

'What about me? A few minutes ago you said you loved me.'

'I do. But I must go.'

'Very well. If you leave me, it will prove what I've known all the time -- that you are still in love with a ghost. I'll catch the train to Barcelona.'

She shrank away from me when I attempted to kiss her.

I packed my suitcase, paid our bill and dashed to my car. The local travel agent booked me on a flight from Toulouse to Gatwick via Paris. I was tortured by regret as I drove to the airport.

When the familiar silhouette of a Finch airliner came into view on the tarmac at Toulouse airport, I asked myself if perhaps there was after all some justification for Yvonne's taunt that I was still in love with a ghost.

26

When they arrived at Castelnau, Dwindle parked the car under the shade of a massive plane tree next to the village school. They had arranged to meet Firsby in a tavern. It was dark and quite chilly for late August. There was no one around. Dwindle knocked on the door of a house with a lighted front window. He enquired of the elderly woman who opened it, Pardon, Madame, ou est Le Coq en Pâte, s'il vous plait.'

She mumbled some words and pointed down the road. They continued walking down a winding road, until a large weather cock came in to view on the tiled roof of a building surrounded by a thick laurel hedge. A few men were sitting outside the inn, their figures hardly visible in the fading light.

Inside the dimly-lit tavern there was a thick haze of pipe tobacco. Dickens sniffed the aroma appreciatively as he entered. The room was full of wrinkled, ruddy-faced agricultural labourers. At the far end of the bar stood a tall man wearing a blue beret. By his side was a slim, black girl whose lovely face would have graced any fashion magazine, her lithe figure any cat walk.

Overcome by jealousy, Dickens muttered to Dwindle: 'By God, isn't she magnificent!' What kind of justice, he asked himself, was there in a world which allowed Adam Firsby, an unscrupulous gambler whose irresponsible antics has led them on a chase across two continents, to enjoy the love of such an extraordinarily beautiful young woman.

He whispered urgently to Dwindle: 'Make damn sure he has something useful to tell us before you part with any money.'

'Don't worry, Dwindle assured him. 'I won't give him a penny until he tells us who killed Carol Rossano.'

They walked over to the couple and introduced themselves.

Firsby said simply: 'Glad to meet you. Can I buy you gentlemen drinks?'

The long-awaited encounter seemed about as dramatic as a meeting with neighbours in a local pub.

'A beer, please,' Dickens replied with a scornful expression. Dwindle asked for a glass of Sancerre white wine.

'Darling?' Adam enquired, turning to the girl beside him.

'She responded, shyly: 'Rien, merci.'

Having ordered drinks from the barman in halting French, Firsby said to Dwindle: 'I see you've brought my computer.'

'It has led us a merry dance. Is that why you left all that information on it?'

'To tell the truth, I thought the person who bought it would wipe everything off the hard disk. But I was delighted when I saw your ad in the local paper.'

Firsby was a handsome, swarthy man, wearing blue jeans, a Ralph Lauren shirt and Gucci loafers. His lean face was stubbled. His black eyes had a hypnotic quality. An edginess about him suggested a low boredom threshhold.

Dwindle said: 'You must have known that someone would read all about your private affairs, including love letters to this lady.'

'I'm not ashamed. I want to announce to the whole world that I love her.'

He smiled fondly at Eve, who seemed about to swoon as she returned his smile.

Dickens said impatiently: 'Someone else but my partner might easily have missed the significance of what you left on the computer. He just happened to notice the mention of a reward.'

Firsby stroked the stubble on his chin and said: 'The truth of the matter is that when I heard about Carol's death I was between a rock and a hard place.'

'Are you going to tell us who killed her?'

'I can tell you what killed her but it's hard to define exactly who was responsible.'

'Rossano wants to know precisely who killed her before he pays out the reward.'

'I can point you in the general direction.'

He turned towards Eve and said; 'Would you like to go home, darling? You don't want to listen to all this unpleasant stuff.'

'I do, if it concerns your happiness.'

Firsby shrugged resignedly and said: 'She's a great girl. She insists on sharing all my problems. She might as well know everything. If you guys manage to get that reward from Rossano, I get half of the total. Okay? Incidentally, how will I know whether Rossano has paid up?'

Dwindle said: 'We'll come to that later. In the meantime, am I correct in assuming that the clue to Carol Rossano's death is located in the final chapter of your novel?'

'It is.'

Dickens intervened eagerly: 'Why did you put it in code?'

Firsby replied with a grin: 'I'm surprised that a couple of smart guys like you were unable to break it. It's the simplest code in the world. I simply changed the Times Roman font to the Botanical font -- which uses a flower or a leaf for each letter of the alphabet. It seems especially appropriate, now that I've found my Garden of Eden.'

Dwindle said: 'I could kick myself -- it's so obvious now you've told me. But what was the point in encoding the last chapter?'

Firsby replied solemnly: 'We human beings are like balls being tossed around in a lottery wheel. I decided to let fate determine whether the whole business should come out into the open.'

Dickens said: 'You still haven't told us what it is.'

Firsby replied: 'Hand me the computer.'

Using the word processor, he then changed the Botanical font into Times Roman. The last chapter in his novel miraculously turned from leaves and flowers into words. He handed the computer back to Dwindle, pointed to an unoccupied bench in a far corner of the tavern and suggested that they acquaint themselves with its contents.

As they began to read, he put his arm around Eve and spoke to her in low and loving tones.

*

The wheels of the Finch left the ground and I suddenly remembered with a sickening sensation that Yvonne had not given me a contact address. I could hardly blame her in the circumstances. The ruthless logic of youth had told her to write me off as someone unworthy and obsessed with the past. I had thrown away a last chance of happiness.

The aircraft gave a slight lurch. I caught a glimpse of farm buildings and a line of cars streaming south as we entered cloud.

The time was five-past six. In approximately ninety minutes I would be in Paris, with an hour to spare for my connecting flight to Gatwick. Later that evening, I would face a suspected terrorist. If he was not one of my former captors, it would not necessarily invalidate the bomb theory. But if, under interrogation, he admitted bombing the Finch, Harry would take the greatest of pleasure in saying: 'I told you so.'

The image of a pair of giant pincers reaching up towards the sky and clawing down the Finch in which Sally had been flying came into my mind again. But that peculiar vision didn't help to solve the mystery which all the time I had felt I had to tackle.

Yvonne had never understood the compulsion I was under to solve the mystery of Sally's death. She had obviously seized this opportunity to get rid of me, having decided that I would never escape from it. Anyway, I was much too old for her.

Time is the key to all Life Insurance business calculations. It was this preoccupation with time that had caused me to wonder why all the crashed Finch's had lost contact with Air Traffic Control after a similar period of time.

I glanced around at my fellow passengers. A plump, pallid priest wearing gold-rimmed spectacles was reading his breviary. Constantly dwelling on Eternity presumably meant that he did not regard time in the same way as the rest of humanity. Next to him across the aisle a fresh-faced youth was engrossed in Le Figaro. Of course, I had to accept that Yvonne would be drawn towards friends of her own age. The thought made me so miserable that my preoccupation with air accidents faded momentarily .

Mrs Carstairs had telephoned me to tell me that some good would come out of my trip. I had no faith in messages from the dead. I tried to conjure up an image of Sally's face. But all I succeeded in doing was to catch a faint echo of her husky voice singing Mrs Carstairs's favourite Cole Porter song: "In a spin, loving that spin I'm in, loving that Old Black Magic called love."

What kind of black magic, I asked myself, had caused her aircraft to fall out of the sky? I remembered during the few flying lessons I had taken I had once rashly entered cloud. Untutored in the skill of instrument flying, within seconds I was lost -- caught like a bird caught in a spin dryer. Deprived of the visible horizon which had enabled me to fly straight and level, I become totally disoriented. If my instructor had not taken over the controls we would soon have plunged earthwards. He explained afterwards that before the invention of gyroscopic instruments pilots sometimes deliberately spun their airplanes after venturing into cloud, so that they would know in which direction they were spinning when they came out of cloud, enabling them to kick the correct rudder pedal to bring them out of their spin.

A stewardess came round with coffee. I rummaged automatically in my pocket for a sweetener. 'A fellow weight-watcher,' said the plump priest in excellent English, offering me a phial of saccharine tablets. He indicated his generous paunch.

I thanked him and examined my watch anxiously. We had been airborne for twenty-five minutes. I remembered that both Finch's had lost contact with Air Traffic Control after a similar period of time. A quarter of an hour later, when nothing disastrous had happened, I felt a great sense of relief. Thinking about the career I would have liked to have taken up, I guessed that even if I had been able to pass the medical examinations my nervous temperament might have disqualified me from becoming an airline pilot.

The Finch droned on towards Paris. The sunshine flooding in through the cabin window on my left was pleasantly soporific. I must have dozed off for a few minutes, because when I woke the sunshine was absent, although we were still on top of cloud. I concluded that we had changed course. I yawned and stretched. The priest asked me if I was returning from a vacation. I explained that I was interrupting a holiday in order to help identify a suspected terrorist.

I had lighted on the priest's favourite subject. He told me he had studied politics at the Sorbonne and was inclined to accept the justice of violence in certain well-defined cases. I enquired mischievously how he would feel if someone had placed a bomb on our aircraft for the soundest of ideological reasons. He was about to answer, when I heard an American complaining loudly to a stewardess that we were already late for our landing at Charles de Gaulle airport. I looked at my watch. It was seven-forty-five. Our scheduled landing time was seven-thirty p.m. I was in danger of missing my connecting flight to Gatwick.

A stewardess emerged grim-faced from the connecting door to the flighteck. The priests spoke to her in French. When she had gone, I asked him why we were late.

'Operational reasons,' he answered with a shrug and returned to his breviary.

Passengers usually display a commendable stoicism when the landing is delayed. However, on this occasion, perhaps because no explanation had been given over the public-address system, passengers kept badgering the stewardesses for information it was plain they did not possess.

'Perhaps the weather is bad in Paris,' I suggested to the priest.

He said, smiling: 'Regarding your hypothetical bomb, it is obvious there isn't one, because in that case the pilots would wish to land as quickly as possible. Do you agree?'

I agreed.

He continued: 'But if there were such a bomb and it would kill me but save the lives of millions of other people, I would be happy to accept it as God's will.'

'You wouldn't have much option,' I replied, feeling resentful of his smug self-righteousness. 'And that raises another question: would you yourself be prepared to place such a bomb, supposing that it would save millions of other lives?'

His answer was full of learned quotations from Marcuse, St. Thomas Aquinas and Karl Marx. But I had suddenly become more interested in the surprising fact that brilliant sunshine had flooded in as the stewardess opened the door leading to the flightdeck . Which informed me we were heading westwards into the setting sun.

'This is crazy,' I muttered to the priest.. 'We're flying due west -- that's the wrong direction for Paris.'

He replied philosophically: 'We must be diverting to another airfield. No one can control the weather.'

I looked at my watch again. It was now certain that I would miss my connection. But the purpose of my journey now seemed to have lost its importance. The evidence against the man being held by the police in Worthing must be pretty weak if it relied solely on my identifying him as one of the terrorists. The room in which I had been interrogated had been dimly lit, and with the passage of time it was doubtful if I would still be able to recognise him, I decided that if we were diverted I would catch the next flight to Barcelona. I had it in mind to scour every beach, every bodega, every pension, every hotel in Catalonia, until I found Yvonne.

'Have you any idea which airport we shall land at?' the priest enquired.

'Not the faintest,' I said and added that I thought we were lost.

'Man is only lost when he loses faith,' he pronounced sententiously.

'We're heading towards America.'

He chuckled.

'It appears then that you have lost faith in the pilots.'

'What I do know is that we're going in the wrong direction.'

Convinced that I was mad, he shrugged, and returned to his prayer book. I seemed to have made him nervous, because his lips trembled as he read.

I stared through the cabin window. We were still flying above a solid layer of cloud. I recollected Harry Duncan telling me that a little knowledge is a dangerous thing. Challenging the considered views of aviation professionals had already got me into a great deal of trouble. The last thing I wanted to do now was to start a panic among my fellow passengers.

I settled back into my seat and tried hard to control my mounting anxiety. I told myself it was ridiculous to lose faith in the Civil Aviation industry. There might be a dozen reasons why we had changed direction -- a hundred reasons why our landing had been delayed. The pilots were checked for their flying ability every few months and had thousands of hours flying experience. As for the Finch turbo-prop airliner hundreds of them were flying safely all over the world. I was worrying needlessly because of three totally unrelated accidents. There was no reason to suppose there would be a fourth.

I closed my eyes and tried in vain to sleep.

Just before eight o'clock a note was handed around the cabin. It said in both French and English: 'We much regret delay to our landing. Unfortunately, we are unable to land at Paris. Soon I shall issue another in-flight bulletin.'

It was signed: Henri Saberski, co-pilot.

The hand-written note did little to allay anxiety in the cabin. A very tall man stood up in the mid-section of the plane, hitting his head with a resounding thump on the overhead rack. His face was flushed. He harangued a stewardess in angry tones. A plump woman in a pearl-grey shirt stood up and joined his protest. Others noisily demanded more information. The rebellion was subdued by the issue of complimentary drinks.

The atmosphere rapidly improved when a group of rugby players returning from a match in Toulouse began singing bawdy songs.

I refused my free drink. I wanted to think clearly. I was sure now that something was seriously wrong. Why would the crew pass hand-written notes to the passengers, instead of using the public address system? The words of Mrs Carstair's favourite song again came into my mind:: 'In a spin, loving that spin I'm in.' An image of the aircraft hurtling into the ground, and exploding in a cloud of fire and black smoke involuntarily sprang into my mind.

Sally's mother had predicted that it would be an eventful trip.

Soon the temptation to do something positive became irresistible. I knew it was wrong to trade on my family connection, but I hailed a passing stewardess and putting on a confident air, said: 'Would you ask permission for Captain Duncan of Mercia Airlines to visit the flightdeck?'

At least if they allowed me access to the cockpit, I would be able to assure myself that everything was okay.

After a short time she came back with a woried look and ushered me forward. But the moment I passed through the narrow door into the flightdeck, I could see that disaster had struck. Among the collapsed ruins of the aircraft flight instruments warning flags pointed like so many red mocking tongues. The engine instruments were registering zero -- although plainly the engines were functioning normally. The only instruments which appeared to be still functioning were the slip-ball (useless for maintaining correct attitude in a modern aircraft). the emergency altimeter, and airspeed and vertical speed indicators, none of which would allow safe flying in cloud. This modern airliner, packed with electronic gadgetry, had been deprived of its artificial horizons, its radios and its navigational aids. In one calamitous moment we had become isolated on top of cloud, and thus cut off from the rest of humanity.

The two pilots were too absorbed in their tasks to notice my presence. The co-pilot was studying some electrical diagrams. The captain was flying the aircraft manually, the auto-pilot having ceased to function.

Suddenly, the reason for our appalling plight dawned on me. We lacked that essential commodity: electricity. Normally, aircraft engines provide enough electricity to supply a small town. But we had obviously lost our supply. Even the public address system had ceased to function, which explained why the stewardesses had distributed hand-written notes to the passengers.

It didn't require an expert to appreciate the dire nature of this emergency. We were literally marooned on top of cloud. Without flight instruments, if the pilots attempted to descend into the murky depths below, we would inevitably go into an uncontrolled attitude and spin into the ground. We were unable to communicate with other aircraft, or with the puzzled air traffic controllers on the ground. Nor could we use radar. We could only navigate by the sun and a wobbling, floating compass of the kind that a self-respecting yachtsmen would scorn.

I now had the answer I had been seeking these past nine months. But it had come too late. The generators which charge the aircraft batteries had failed without giving any warning. Continued use of electrical equipment had drained the aircraft batteries. After twenty-five minutes of flight they had died from exhaustion. A simple fault, which at times inconveniences motorists, had totally disabled this magnificent flying machine, which was about to share the fate of three others.

The irony was that, having stumbled on the truth at last, I would never be able to reveal it to anyone. Because, short of a miracle, we would crash like the other Finch's.

I suppressed a despairing groan.

We were heading West towards a sun which seemed cruelly indifferent to our fate. Its blinding rays illuminated the dust in the cockpit and the tense profiles of the pilots. Below us, the carpet of milky white cloud extended to the horizon. But to enter cloud would mean death within minutes. Confused by the no longer functioning artificial horizon, the pilot would lose control. The aircraft would become an undirected missile and hurtle into the ground.

Now I knew what had happened to Sally. The flight instruments of the aircraft in which she had been flying had collapsed through electrical failure when the aircraft was in cloud. Deprived of all visual references, the pilot had spun or dived uncontrollably into the Irish Sea. A similar fate had overtaken the Finch which had crashed at Perpignan. In the latter case the electrical failure must have occurred when the aircraft was flying above cloud. Unable to inform Air Traffic Control of his dilemma, the pilot, trying to thread his way down through gaps in the cloud like an early pioneer of aviation, had descended over the Mediterranean, only to come to grief when he ran into cloud again and hit high ground.

This was now the only manoeuvre available to our captain. He was evidently heading west over the Bay of Biscay, hoping to find a gap in the clouds through which he could descend safely.

I coughed.

Looking up, the co-pilot said to me rapidly in English: 'Captain, we are having a grave emergency. I am trying to discover why our electrics have collapsed completely.'

Handing me a Finch technical manual, he said: 'Perhaps you can see how we can restore the generators. I must have missed something. Nothing we try has worked.'

I knew it was impossible. Clearly the pilots on the other three aircraft which had experienced a similar failure had tried and failed to reinstate the generators, because with the batteries completely dead the electrical relays required to bring the generators back on line could not be activated.

Ashamed of myself for coming into the flightdeck under false pretences, I said: 'I'm extremely sorry. I'm not a pilot -- I was just curious. I'll go back to the cabin.'

I handed back the manual.

The captain, transfixing me with an angry glare, said: 'Oh, no, monsieur. Now you are here you will stay. An extra pair of eyes will be useful. We are looking for a hole in the clouds.'

He spoke a few words in French to the co-pilot. I realised he did not want me to go back into the cabin in case I spread alarm among the rest of the passengers. Ironically, I had achieved a life-long ambition by becoming a de facto member of aircrew. Unfortunately, it would be my last flight.

My eyes ranged over the endless expanse of cloud. Ahead the sun, a golden ball suspended low in the sky, hurt my eyes. I lowered my gaze to the chaotic instruments lying at unnatural angles like beached ships. Apart from the faint whine of the engines, there was no sound. Totally cut off from communication with the ground we resembled a lost space ship.

I told the captain of my quest to discover the cause of the other three air crashes. He commented ruefully that it was a pity I had not managed to solve the mystery and was now about to suffer the same fate as my late fiancée.

I asked: 'How long have we been flying west?'

'Since one hour,' he replied. 'I am flying at a very low speed to conserve our fuel and for the same reason have climbed to twenty-four thousand feet. I calculate that we are two-hundred miles from the Atlantic coast of France. We have enough fuel for seventy-five minutes. After that we become a glider! I turn south-east in a moment -- hoping perhaps south of here the clouds will be less solid. If we find an opening we can perhaps descend and ditch in the sea. If not, we are all dead.'

Pointing to the collapsed instruments, he added dryly: 'You should pray for a hole in the clouds, Captain.'

I forgave him his sarcastic use of the title. He was being tested to breaking point by a total failure of all the flight instruments on which a pilot normally relies. He had travelled westwards as far as he dared in a vain search for a break in the clouds. Travelling further west would take us away from shipping lanes and, should we be fortunate enough to ditch in the sea., any chance of being rescued. The fuel tanks were emptying; once the engines stopped turning, we would be forced to descend into the dark, confusing depths below.

I prayed for a gap in the cloud that might lead us to safety. I prayed that the pilots' nerve and judgment would hold out. I prayed for all the lives in their hands -- especially my own.

As we banked towards the south-east, I saw the opalescent shadow of the Finch in which we were travelling moving against the layer of glistening white cloud. It was this level sheet of cloud which was providing us with a natural horizon. On entering it, the pilot would become completely disorientated and we would plunge helplessly earthwards.

The anguished thought occurred to me that perhaps the song Black Magic that had earlier been running through my mind might have been Sally trying to warn me from The Other World that soon inevitably we would be spinning downwards.

I was trying to remember how to pray, when I heard an excited shout from the co-pilot. Well above us, outlined against the blue sky, three jet fighters were flying in V-formation. They appeared to be turning towards us.. From where I was standing they were soon lost to view. The captain, peering upwards, turned the control column, trying to keep them in sight. Our eyes strained upwards towards the dazzling blue.

'Merde!'

The captain swore angrily.

Then he pushed the stick forward, because we were losing flying speed. Giving vent to a heartfelt sigh, he headed south-east, gradually descending closer to the clouds, entrance into whose vapourous depths would certainly spell our doom.

'C'est malheureux, n'est ce pas!'

This inane remark from the co-pilot drew a look of contempt from the captain.. The co-pilot was busy scribbling on his note pad trying to calculate our position,. He had given up as hopeless his study of the aircraft electrical circuits. Some part of his mind was resolutely refusing to recognise that we would soon die. Every few seconds his eyes would concentrate on the emergency compass, waiting for the floating needle to settle down. He was very young, his olive skin glowing with health; his black hair stylishly groomed, perhaps in readiness for a date in Paris -- a date he was going to miss.

The captain, a stocky man in his fifties, threw me an eloquent look, which seemed to say: my co-pilot has unlimited faith in me, but this time it is misplaced.

I looked down. Was it my imagination, or could I see a charcoal-grey depression in the cloud?

'A hole?' I suggested, pointing .

The captain shook his head, his lips pursed, grimly. As we passed over it, I realised that it was a mere stained valley in an unending desert of white alto-stratus that was subtly changing its colour to faint lilac.

I glanced at the altimeter. We had descended to twenty-two thousand feet; the cloud tops were still well below us.

'How high are the cloud tops?' I enquired.

'About twenty-thousand- perhaps a little less,' the captain replied. 'It is, of course, freezing at that altitude, so even if by some miracle we could maintain our correct attitude -- which is impossible without an artificial horizon -- the pitot heaters will freeze without electrical heating and we will lose airspeed indicators and altimeters as well. We shall become just a piece of falling metal.'

'What do you intend to do?'

'I turn back towards the coast. We stay above clouds until the engines fail from lack of fuel, then we descend and pray. Perhaps if the base of the cloud is high enough, there is a small chance that we recover from whatever attitude we find ourselves in. But I think not.'

A stewardess entered the flight-deck. The captain spoke to her rapidly in French. Her face muscles tightened as she returned to the passenger cabin.

He explained: I 'ave told 'er to prepare the passengers for a landing in the sea. But more likely we shall make a very big splash.'

The emergency compass settled down as we turned east. The cloud tops were darkening.

'Is it possible that the clouds are thinner than they look?' I enquired, hopefully.

'According to Meteo, they are solid from two-thousand feet to twenty-thousand feet. That gives us no chance.'

'Weather men often make mistakes,' I replied, encouragingly.

As I spoke, saw a movement through the side window on the captain's side, as though we had grown another wing. One of the jet fighter had formated on us. I tapped the captain on the shoulder and pointed. He took his gaze off the airspeed indicator for a moment, as a shark-like fuselage with a roundel of the French Air Force accelerated ahead, climbed sharply to the left and disappeared.

The captain said 'Merde!' and then reverting to English, said despairingly: 'He does not comprehend our predicament.'

A minute later, the Mirage fighter again took up close formation on our left-hand side. The pilot appeared to be staring at us curiously. I heard the captain ask the co-pilot for a torch. He fiddled with it clumsily for a few seconds and then began flashing a message in morse code. When he had finished he repeated to the co-pilot the message he had passed: 'Pas d'électricité' and repeated it in English to me: "No electricity."

'Those words will be on my tombstone,' he added, grimly.

The fighter edged ahead and rocked its wings violently.

An altercation broke out between the captain and the co-pilot. I learned later that it was about the feasibility of remaining in close formation with the fighter as it descended into cloud. Visibility in cloud varies considerably. The odds were heavily against the manoeuvre being successful. But no other choice remained.

We edged towards the Mirage. I caught a passing glimpse of two other fighters circling overhead. Looking forward, I experienced a sudden sensation of speed, as tufts of cloud turned orange by the setting sun, flashed pass the cockpit window. Then with the dark shape of the Mirage barely visible ahead, we dipped into murky vapour.

I lost sight for a moment of the ghostly shape of the aptly-named fighter leading us down into the darkness and experienced the dreaded vertigo of a pilot deprived of his artificial horizon. We seemed to be rolling and tumbling into a bottomless pit - an inferno of Hell, lacking only the flames. My eyes reached out gratefully again, as the wing of the fighter which was substituting for our horizon again came into view

If the captain lost sight of this elusive image ahead for more than a few seconds we would die. Our lives depended on his skill in formation flying, a skill he had not practised for nearly thirty years and which is normally never attempted in cloud. Even if we were eventually successful in establishing visual contact with the sea below us without mishap, it was doubtful if our remaining fuel would take us as far as the coast.

But at least there was hope.

The cloud thickened again. The shape of the fighter's wing vanished. The captain swore vigorously and eased the power levers forward, until the wing of the Mirage reappeared. The entire shape became visible for a few encouraging seconds, as we descended through a clear layer between clouds- the altimeter read fifteen-thousand-five hundred feet -- until once again it became shrouded in mist.

Like a foal seeking the comfort of its mother we moved even closer to the fighter. The co-pilot indicated the airspeed indicator, which had started to flicker. He grimaced and gesticulated helplessly. The pitot tubes which measure the pressure of air and translate it into air speed were beginning to ice up through lack of electrical heating. Soon, we would be totally without aircraft instruments.

I vowed silently that if I survived I would never again take love for granted. I shut my eyes and tried to take the memory of Yvonne's endearments and passionate kisses with me into the watery grave that awaited below.

Opening my eyes again, I could see the complete outline of the fighter as we swept past tattered scud at the base of cloud. Below us was sea, grey and forbidding.

The captain ordered me to return to the cabin. A crumpled orange life-belt awaited me on the seat. I put it on and adopted a crouched position, awaiting the first impact as we hit the water.

The priest whispered querulously: 'What is happening?'

'We have suffered a power cut', I answered and added, cynically: 'The pilots have lit candles for us all.'

Acting on instructions from the stewardess, the priest had removed his dentures. As we waited our ditching in the sea his comical appearance would be the last joke before the cold water of the sea flooded the cabin.

*

Five minutes later, with almost empty fuel tanks, we landed at a military airfield near La Rochelle. Soon, we scrambled hastily onto the tarmac and joining in a welter of handshaking and mutual congratulations. Putting aside my customary British reserve, I joined in the frenzied celebrations. An American went down on his knees and repeatedly kissed the ground. The stewardesses served champagne from the aircraft bar.

As the captain came down the aircraft steps,the rugby team hoisted him on their shoulders and carried him two-hundred yards to the Control Tower, to the accompaniment of hand-clapping and cheering.

Ignoring the Peugot van which had just arrived, I stood alone for a few moments, dazed but thankful to be alive. I had just witnessed first-hand a re-run of the airborne events which had led to Sally's death -- this time with a happy ending. I had seen what supposedly could never happen -- the total loss of electrical power -- the lifeline on which the safe operation of every aircraft depends. Looking up at the darkening sky, I saw in my imagination a flock of birds falling to the ground. They represented in my mind's eye other Finch aircraft which might suffer the same fate if an urgent warning was not given.

I walked over to the Control Tower. I found the captain about to telephone his company. I told him of the promise I had made to the Operations Manager of Mercia Airlines. He said he would telephone Captain Harry Duncan with the news of what had happened as soon as he had contacted his own airline.

The captain told us as we returned to the aircraft that we owed our lives to Air Traffic Control, who guessing that something was seriously wrong, had diverted three Mirage fighters from a military exercise to investigate our inexplicable and random changes of direction as the captain sought a hole in the clouds. The captain, as a drink was pressed on him by a stewardess, proposed a toast to the pilot of the Mirage who had led us safely down through the clouds. The stewardess proposed a toast to the captain. There followed in rapid succession of toasts to the co-pilot, Air Traffic Control and the stewardesses.

I stood back from the gaiety all around me, feeling very humble because I, an ordinary airline passenger, knew the secret of four airborne dramas, three of which had ended in tragedy. But I felt guilty for having rushed to revenge myself on those whom I mistakenly believed had been responsible for one of them.

The question arose in my mind: why had the crew not noticed that the generators had stopped charging? I would find that out later. In the meantime I was free from an obsession that had dominated my life for months.

The airline coaches soon arrived and I joined a group of passengers who had elected to return to Toulouse by train.

It seemed an interminable journey -- we missed our rail connection and stayed overnight in Bordeaux. My friend, the priest, was in a jovial mood. Confused about the astonishing events in the air, he was still under the mistaken impression that the Finch had suffered engine failure. When I informed that it was due to a fundamental mistake in the aircraft design, he declared: 'There is no sin in making a mistake; the only sin is in refusing to admit that you have made one,' a view with which I heartily concurred.

After a sleepless night in a hotel, I caught the train to Toulouse, went by taxi to the airport and retrieved my car from the car park. The previous night I had made up my mind that I would find Yvonne, even if it meant scouring the whole Iberian peninsular. But driving through the fields of ripening maize, my eyelids drooping behind my sunglasses, common sense caught up with me. I knew that I should acknowledge my mistake in falling in love with her. Nevertheless, I kept seeing her shapely torso as she bent over the brook to wash out the wine stain in her tee-shirt. I would miss her youthful vivacity, her teasing changes of mood and her ardent kisses. But there was no one better qualified than I to appreciate the disadvantage of the disparity in our ages.

. The piratical-looking proprietor was cleaning the hotel windows when I arrived back in Perpignan.

I tried out my schoolboy French.

'La jeune fille, elle n'est pas ici?' I enquired.

'Non, monsieur, pas ici.'

He continued making a circular motion on the glass with his chamois leather.

Yvonne had taken the train into Spain. Youth had called to youth. I had no right to complain.

I climbed the stairs wearily and started packing, feeling a depressing sense of anti-climax. Finding out the cause of the aircraft accident no longer seemed a cause for self-congratulation. The bachelor life ahead of me seemed miserable and unrewarding. I realised now that my quest had simply been a way of escaping painful memories. The only person with whom I could now share those memories was Mrs Carstairs.

I decided to go in search of a small present for her. In the window of a small boutique by the side of a church there was a small Lalique figurine of a girl holding a crystal ball in her lap. It was hideously expensive. The dear old lady had prophesied that good would come out of an eventful trip. I decided that a bottle of perfume would suffice for this somewhat imprecise prediction. Then it occurred to me that the word 'trip' must surely include the 'tripping off' of the generator relays. Construing it this way her prophesy could be considered uncannily accurate, so I went inside and bought the Lalique figurine.

Hearing the distant sound of a flute, I wandered into the Place de la Loge. Some holidays-makers had formed themselves into a circle and were dancing to the slow, stately rhythm of a traditional tune. I watched the dancers circling for a few minutes. Suddenly one of them detached herself from the circle and came flying towards me. I caught Yvonne in my arms and whirled her round. When her feet regained the ground she buried her face in my chest. I steeled myself to tell her of the decision I had made.

'C'mon,' I said brusquely, 'let's go for a coffee.'

She hugged my arm excitedly, as I marched her purposefully towards a pavement café.

'Why aren't you in Spain?' I demanded.

'Unfinished business,' she replied, staring at me with shining eyes. 'How come you're back so soon?'

I told her.

'Oh, Jim, you're an amazing feller. Always getting into scrapes. You really do need someone to look after you.'

'Well, at least I know now what happened to the airplane in which Sally was flying. It all fits into place.' She regarded me steadily, as a white-aproned waiter came to take our order.

'You may think so, Jimmy, darling, but don't expect your uncle to swallow your story.'

'He'll bloody well have to,' I exclaimed angrily. After three accidents and a near miss how can he possibly deny it?'

'You're surprisingly immature in some ways, Jimmy,' Yvonne said, shaking her head. 'You're forgetting that people just hate changing their minds.'

She was right, of course. Harry only grudgingly conceded defeat, although, by the time I got home,. he had already taken the necessary steps to protect his fleet of Finches from a repetition of the accident. In the meantime, by accusing me of immaturity Yvonne was trying to rob me of my chief argument for ending our relationship.

'Yvonne, there is something I've got to discuss with you.'

'Call me honey-child like you did yesterday,' she pleaded, with a mischievous light in her eyes. I swallowed hard.

'Darling, I must say this - I thought last night I was going to die in an air crash. It gave me the opportunity of seeing our relationship more clearly. I hate -- '

She interrupted me,

'I know exactly what you're going to say -- that I'm too young for you. But as it happens my father is fourteen years older then my mother.'

'Precisely. And look what happened to their marriage.'

'That was because my mother was travelling all over the world at the time, seeking stage parts. The poor man hardly ever saw her.'

'She might have stayed with him if he had been younger.'

'Now that's where you are totally wrong. He's living with a bird fifteen years younger than himself in San Francisco. They're as happy as Larry even though they're not married in the eyes of the Church.'

'That's another problem. I'm not a Roman Catholic.'

'Who gives a hoot. We don't have to get married. Just as long as we're together.'

'Honey-child,' I said despairingly. 'It isn't that I don't love you. There's something else.'

'And what's the something else?'

She looked as though she was about to cry.

'Never mind. I'll tell you another day.'

The coffee arrived. I felt in my pocket for sweeteners, but Yvonne had already taken some out of her bag.

We spent the next week together.

On the last day of our holiday, we went to the beach. Yvonne was rubbing sun tan oil into my back, when I remembered the detained terrorist.

I said half-regretfully: 'I hope they've let him go by now -- the guy they suspected of shooting at my boss. '

'He wasn't a hit man -- you can be sure of that.'

'What possible grounds do you have for making this statement?'

'Just my intuition.'

'I don't believe in intuition.'

'What about the intuition that brought you down here to investigate the aircraft accident?'

'That was an insurance man's hunch.'

'Intuition -- hunch -- what's the difference?'

'My decision was based on a firm grasp of statistics; yours is based on -- well, nothing at all as far as I can see.'

On the way back to the hotel Yvonne said: 'Will you marry me if I'm proved right?'

'Have you been on the phone to England?' I asked, suspiciously.

Yvonne giggled.

'Do you honestly think I would cheat?'

'Yes, I do.'

But her intuition proved to be right.

At Worthing police station I described in dramatic detail the events which had prevented me from returning to identify the suspected URA terrorist. They weren't in the least interested. Yes, they had held a suspect called Rafferty whose movements had not been satisfactorily accounted for on the day a stray bullet had just missed Noel Jameson He had been released from custody when it was discovered that the bullet had been accidentally fired by a schoolboy across the road playing with his father's .22 rifle.

'Wasn't Rafferty the name of one of the men wanted in connection with the alleged bombing of the Mercia Airlines Finch?' I asked the desk sergeant.

'Correct. That's why we pulled him in. But it's a fairly common Irish name. When we contacted the Yard, we learned that the two men who left the aircraft at Gatwick were both in the clear. They had been located on an oil rig in the North Sea. They'd been drinking heavily on the way back from Barcelona and decided to visit the flesh pots in London instead of travelling back to Dublin. The suitcase they left on board was full of dirty laundry. They woke up hungover, never went to Dublin, returned to Aberdeen and flew out to their oil rig. They knew nothing about the reward offered by a Dublin newspaper. The so-called "rare fish?" was a figment of their alcohol-fuelled imaginations. When people are stoned they do a lot of irrational things. It's something you learn when you sit behind this desk.'

I told Yvonne that evening: 'You were wrong about the so-called bombers. They weren't sailors as you suggested; they were, in fact, working on an oil rig.'

'I was pretty close, wasn't I.'

'A lucky guess.'

'No, intuition.'

I asked Harry Duncan why the pilots had failed to recognise that the generators were not charging, when even the cheapest motor car has a warning red light. He explained that the company was operating two different marks of Finch aircraft. The generator switches on one mark pointed up, on the other they pointed down. It was all too easy for a pilot going from one aircraft to another to switch them off, thinking he was switching them on. The warning lights were tucked away in a position behind the pilots out of their field of vision. It had been assumed at the design stage that another light on the dash panel would give warning of impending electrical failure. But this one only warned of the loss of alternating current and since an emergency inverter fed from the batteries automatically took over this function, the pilots were left unaware that battery power was draining away. Twenty-five minutes after take-off, as a result of the generators being offline, there was insufficient electrical power left in the fading batteries to switch them on. By this time they had lost the power to operate their radio telephones and were unable to inform Air Traffic Control of their plight.

Such a simple oversight, such fearful consequences!

I, too, had learned a valuable lesson. Fate had dealt a blow with one hand, but had handed me a priceless gift with the other. I married Yvonne on her twentieth birthday. She now works in the computer department of Harbour Life and Pensions and is studying to become an actuary.

We make a great team.

27

D ickens said to Dwindle, when they had finished reading the final chapter: 'What do you make of it?'

'It pretty obvious, isn't it, that the so-called Finch aircraft in the story corresponds to Rossano's Aristocrat in which his daughter died. The assumptions in both cases that the aircraft had been blown up in mid-air were totally incorrect.'

'So where does that leave us in relation to the reward?' Dickens enquired.

'We don't know yet what evidence Firsby has for claiming that the accidents were caused by faulty design. But if it turns out that the Aristocrat aircraft crashed for this reason, then Rossano would have a case against the aircraft manufacturer -- and possibly against the operators.'

'Will that entitle us to the reward?'

Dwindle rubbed his chin.

'We are now an entirely new situation from the one we had envisaged.. But the principle remains the same: We have found the culprit -- defective aircraft design. The difficulty is that we don't know the extent to which Firsby's story is based on fact. It may be just a product of his imagination. Can we, after all, trust a half-mad, unreliable gambler who leaves a trail of cryptic clues about his whereabouts on his computer? The problem is that just as his fictional character, James Duncan, found it hard to persuade people to change their opinion about the cause of the crashes that took place in his story, it may prove just as difficult in real life.'

Dickens patted his side pocket. Relieved to find that his pipe was there, he brought it into view and sucked noisily on the stem.

'Beautiful girl, isn't she,' Dickens remarked between puffs. 'Adam and Eve, if you please! How does he do it?'

'Good looks, irresistible charm and the gift of the gab. Just what we would all like to have. We must ask him if he can back up his story.'

They returned to where Adam and Eve were sitting at the bar.

Dickens said: 'Okay, we've read it. So where do we go from here?'

Firsby said: 'You appreciate the essential point that Rossano's aircraft crashed when it lost all its electrical power?'

'How are you going to prove it?'

'By reference to two other similar accidents that occurred to the same type of aircraft in the airline I worked for until recently as well as others that have happened subsequently.'

'Did your airline operate the Aristocrat as well?'

'Yes, it was called by a different name. But it was the same type of aircraft. I flew it for a while before I left to go to join a small airline in the Caribbean. When I came back and heard that two of our aircraft had crashed, I told management what I thought the cause might have been. They refused to believe me. It was easier to accept a verdict of Cause Unknown than to admit the true cause, which would have damaged the reputation of both the aircraft and the airline. That's when I started writing my novel.'

'Why did you call it the Moth in the Washing Machine?' Dwindle enquired..

'Because that is what it feels like when a pilot is in cloud without an artificial horizon.'

Dickens intervened: 'You are saying then that three Aristocrats have crashed because of this fundamental flaw in design.'

'Yes, and there may have been others. The newspapers do not always report aircraft accidents that have occurred in other parts of the world. Operators are supposed to report defects on aircraft to the International Civil Air Organization. It is an essential feature of world air safety. Reporting defects promptly allows the necessary remedies to be carried out and saves lives.'

Dickens, noticing the expression of intense concern on Eve Linklater's face, for a moment lost his thread of thought. Then taking control again, he said: 'Look here, Adam, how can we trust the word of a man who walks out on his wife and his children, incurs a huge gambling debt and fakes his own suicide.'

Firsby smiled and said: 'It's entirely up to you whether you believe me or not. I'm simply presenting you with the facts. If you want to make use of the information I have given you in order to claim the reward from Rossano, I can provide you with the necessary evidence. Crashes did occur on similar aircraft before Carol was killed. The fundamental flaw in the aircraft design that brought the accidents about does exist.'

Dickens said: 'Why did you fake your own suicide?'

Firsby took Eve's hand and gave her a fond glance. 'If it hadn't been for Eve here I would be dead. But first, let me assure you that the defects in the aircraft's design were exactly as described in the last chapter of my novel. Having told you that, I think I am entitled to ask for the cash you promised me over the telephone.'

Dwindle handed over a parcel containing the money and commented: 'That's what we agreed. The balance to be paid when Rossano pays us the reward. We will inform you should it happen. But it will be in all the headlines, including the International Herald Tribune. So it's up to you to keep your weather eye open.'

Firsby tucked the bank notes inside the purse that Eve was holding and continued: 'Okay, here's the answer to your question about my faked suicide. I had intended to commit suicide. I fitted a hose pipe over the exhaust and was breathing in carbon monoxide. The car was bumping furiously down the cliff face. Just when I was on the point of unconsciousness, Eve's face came into my mind. It was as though she was willing me to live. I flung myself out of the car seconds before it plunged into the sea. I was badly bruised but when I remembered Eve, I was glad to be alive. I laid low for a few days while I thought about my next move. I had nothing to live for at home. I telephoned Eve and asked her to meet me. She sold all her belongings and flew to France with me.'

Dickens, resisting a strong impulse to criticise his actions, enquired: 'Why did you attempt suicide?'

Firsby lit a Gauloise and inhaled slowly, a sad expression on his face. After a pause, he said: 'Everything had gone wrong in my life. Suzanne was having an affair with her boss. I was feeling desperate because my suggestion as to why two of our aircraft had crashed had been totally ignored by the Company. I felt like the proverbial prophet crying alone in the wilderness. When the enquiries came up with an open verdict, it caused me so much distress that I sought relief in gambling. I gambled at home and I gambled when I was on duty. I gambled every time I flew into LA. Then I met Carol in a casino owned by her father. She was a very pleasant girl. We had fun. My luck turned and I lost a packet of money. After Carol was killed I went to see Rossano, intending to tell him what I believed had caused the crash. But I changed my mind when he threatened to break my arms if I didn't pay back the money I owed him. He was so angry I couldn't reason with him at all. He was even less inclined to listen to what I had to say than my bosses back home. I didn't know which way to turn. So I made up my mind to commit suicide.'

Dwindle said slowly: 'So to obtain the reward, we shall have to produce firm evidence of what caused the crash and name the person responsible. Clearly, impossible in the circumstances.'

'It looks like it,' Firsby said cheerfully, drawing on his Gauloise.

Dickens was horrified. The reward, which a few minutes ago had seemed almost within their grasp, was fast receding. They had solved the mystery of Carol Rossano's death for all practical purposes. But Rossano would be able to wriggle out of the agreement, because pinning down the person responsible -- if indeed it could be said that any one person was responsible -- would obviously take them well past the time limit he had set. To make matters worse, Dwindle had just given away eight-thousand pounds.

'But you knew all this when you took our money,' Dickens said indignantly.

Firsby replied. 'That is precisely why I wanted cash up front. But I'm quite prepared to give evidence, provided you pay my travelling expenses.'

He then ordered a pastis and asked if anyone else would like one. Eve and Dwindle declined. Dickens, determined to get back a little of the money Dwindle had just given away, nodded assent.

As the barman poured out the drinks, Dickens said to Firsby: 'Do you have any other evidence to back up what you have told us about the Aristocrat aircraft?'

'Not direct evidence. But one crashed in Germany six months after we had lost two in very similar circumstances. Another crashed in very similar circumstances in Venezuela.'

Dwindle suddenly asked Eve: 'What did you make of Vivienne Vanderbot?

'She was a real phoney-baloney. As artful as a cart load of monkeys.'

Dwindle responded with a deep 'Hmm,' realising that Maureen's guess had been correct. He went on: 'I hope you were not embarrassed by the fact that we saw the love letters Adam addressed to you.'

Eve smiled, her eyes widening: 'Of course not. Aren't they wonderful! He's so poetical, So passionate...'

Dwindle interrupted: 'Did all those references to fruit reflect your personal liking for fruit?'

'Oh, sure. Adam and I are going to use the money you just gave him to buy a small holding near here, specialising in peaches and plums. It's going to be our Garden of Eden. He has promised faithfully never to go near a casino again.'

Dwindle then asked Firsby a question that had been puzzling him throughout their enquiry: 'When you were drafting letters on your computer to Eve, did you deliberately leave a trail of clues?'

Firsby threw back his pastis, wiped his lips with the back of his hand and said dryly: Doesn't everyone writing a novel leave clues to his past? I have cut my links with mine and intend to enjoy living here in Roussillon with Eve. I've always loved this place. That's why I mentioned it in The Moth in the Washing Machine. -- what did you think of my book, by the way?'

Tactfully avoiding the question, Dwindle said: 'You spelled tête-à-tête incorrectly. Were you hinting at the River Tet?'

Firsby pulled a face. 'My French spelling was never very good.'

'You also wrote something about having to pinch yourself to make sure it was real. Were you referring to the childhood riddle of Adam and Eve and Pinchme going down to the river to bathe?'

Looking very puzzled, Firsby shook his head.

Dickens interjected: 'You were way off the mark there, Dwindle.'

Dwindle shrugged and said: 'I was right for the wrong reasons. But being right is all that counts in the end.'

He turned to Firsby and said: 'Do you intend to stay here for the rest of your life?'

'Sure. From now on I intend to live with Eve in my little Garden of Eden.'

*

'So what do you reckon? Can we believe the yarn that Firsby spun us?'

Dickens was anxiously monitoring Dwindle's driving, as he drove them back to Toulouse airport.

'Yes, why not? Even scoundrels sometimes tell the truth. We can check up on his story when we get home. But I doubt if will be possible to get the reward from Rossano.'

'Then why the hell,' Dickens enquired angrily, 'did you give him all that money. The firm is now bankrupt.'

'It was worth it to solve the mystery of Murder In The Clouds. Anyway, it was my money, not the firm's.'

'You never did tell me how much money you won in Vegas, Dwindle?'

'Quite a lot. And I have enough in the kitty to keep the show on the road until the next case comes along. There's an interesting blackmailing investigation in prospect.'

Dickens said, thoughtfully. 'You never know what strange things will happen when you start on a new case.'

'That's what is so fascinating about detective work,' Dwindle replied enthusiastically. 'Incidentally, do you remember that I mentioned Marilyn Monroe the very day this case started. As it turned out, she played a part in it, too.'

'Which reminds me -- we never did get to see Hollywood.'

'We'll take a peek when we go to Los Angeles to collect the reward.'

'Fat chance,' Dickens grumbled.

'You were always a pessimist, Dickens.'

*

Extract from a report by the office of Civil Aeronautics, Federal Republic of Germany on a crashed British Eagle Airways Viscount and published by the Accident Investigations Branch of the British Department of Trade and Industry.

"The accident is attributable to the fact that the aircraft's electrical power supply failed in cruising flight -- possibly without the generator warning lights illuminating or illuminating distinctly -- which meant that during the subsequent descent, which had to be carried out by instruments because of the weather, the vital instruments for showing the flight attitude showed increasingly incorrect readings and failed completely after the gyros stopped rotating."