Smoke and Mirrors

The second-hand of my Rolex was spinning backwards furiously – I was looking at its reflection in the mirror of the washroom. Drying my hands on a towel, I desperately wished I go back in time. After two failed marriages, I had fallen in love with a girl fifteen years younger than myself, a journalist on the Chicago Echo, of which I am editor. She calls me 'Dad,' no doubt with the intention of keeping me at a safe, fatherly distance.

A few days before the attack on Iraq war launched, I took her out to lunch, to brief her on an assignment I had given her to interview the Iraqi president, Saddam Hussein. I told her about the watch-hand, intending to say that if I could lose a few years I would ask her out on a date. But she interrupted me to tell me about a short story she had just written with a time-travel theme, and went on to express fears for her nine-year old son's future in case she was killed while on her mission.

I said: 'In that unlikely event I'll take full responsibility for Daniel.' She said 'Thank you, Bill. But why should you?' It was obvious that she could only see me as her boss, middle-aged, paunchy, with a face like a mournful bulldog. I accepted defeat and we got down to the business of deciding on the questions she should put to Saddam.

Kate duly flew to Baghdad. After some difficult negotiations with the Ministry of Information in Baghdad, she managed to secure an interview with the President. Kate told me that she wore battle fatigues, because he had recently boasted of having a battalion of loyal female soldiers. As they approached the Presidential palace the car in which she and her camera crew were travelling stopped. The interpreter explained that they had run out of gas and they were transferred to a second car. As the result of the delay she missed her appointment. She and her crew were escorted back to their hotel.

Two days later she telephoned to say that she wasn't feeling well and requested permission to return to Chicago. I sent out a replacement. Kate arrived home the day war broke out. She offered to repay the expenses of her abortive mission. But I turned down her offer.

Three months later she disappeared.

*

Kate's father earned a Purple Heart in Viet Nam when his helicopter was brought down by enemy fire. He lay for three days in the jungle before being rescued. He died from cancer the year before Kate attended Rutger university. Her mother had divorced her father seven years earlier. Her new husband told Kate after he had been introduced to her in a restaurant that he was a "corn merchant" – his self-deprecating way of telling her that he told corny jokes for a living. She wondered why her mother had exchanged her handsome father for this tubby little wisecracking guy with fat lips. The reason was that she was mad about show business. Kate fended pretty much for herself from then on. She is feisty and strong-willed; qualities which have stood her in good stead.

She had an affair with a medical student while at university but gave him up when he told her that it was his firm intention to marry for money. Later, she married Giles Sanderson, another journalist. They divorced after two years because he drank excessively. She reverted to her maiden name Villeneuve. Her son, Daniel, at his own request, remained a Sanderson.

* *

On the first of July two-thousand and three, Kate called in at a local bar for a cup of coffee on her way home from the offices of The Chicago Echo. A grinning stranger in a long white raincoat came up to her table where she was sitting with her coffee and asked if he could buy her another one. She shook her head. He asked if she had tried a certain brand, pointing up to the list above the bar. She looked up out of politeness but said she wasn't interested. The moment had given the stranger sufficient time to spike her drink. As she started walking towards her apartment, her legs buckled and she lost consciousness. Many hours later she woke in a strange bedroom, bound, gagged and suffering from a nauseating headache. Her suit was torn There was blood on her shirt. She guessed someone had put a date-rape drug in the coffee. But she had not been raped.

She knew that her son, Daniel, who was due to attend a party that evening, would raise the alarm as soon as he returned home. A slight cut on her neck explained the blood on her shirt. The heavy blue curtains at the window were drawn. A very faint sound of traffic came from outside, suggested to her that she was fairly high up in a building. Her first thought was that she was being held for ransom but she soon dismissed the idea because neither she nor her family had much money. At this stage she thought she was still in Chicago.

A handsome youth of Middle Eastern appearance with glossy black-wavy hair came and sat on the edge of the bed. He unfastened the gag and looked down at her with dark eyes that offered deep sympathy.

'Are you in pain?' he asked.

She nodded.

'I am very sorry this has happened to you.'

'Then let me go. I promise not to tell the police.'

'I can't. Allah has decided you belong to me. I have fallen desperately in love with you.'

'If you love me, then let me go.'

'I cannot let you go. If we lived for ten-thousand years this could not be changed.'

'Stop talking crap. My head is bursting with pain.'

'I'll get you some aspirins.'

He brought some aspirins and a glass of water. She swallowed them, drank the rest of water and said she wanted to go to the bathroom.

He summoned an elderly woman servant and said something in Arabic. The woman released the plastic thongs which bound her wrists and she was allowed to hobble into an adjoining bathroom. She asked the woman what was happening but she did not reply. When she returned to the room, the young man was no longer there. The wrinkled old woman replaced her gag and white plastic bonds. Through the half-open door Kate that led to an anteroom could see a huge black man armed with an automatic rifle.

* * *

During the next few weeks Kate was supplied with food and drink by a succession of old women, who were occasionally assisted by male bodyguards As soon as the black man left his post, a scowling man with a large moustache took his place in the doorway. The next time the food arrived and the gag was removed she screamed very loudly. They quickly replaced the gag. Eventually she promised to keep quiet and normal routine was resumed. They refused to answer any of her questions.

She was not physically harmed at that stage.

Her bonds were eased slightly when she complained they were too tight. For several days the young man did not reappear. Kate could only guess that he was the son of an oil-rich sheik and had been given unlimited money to buy sex. Instead of spending his money on prostitutes he had chosen the more dangerous course of falling in love.

With little hope of escape, she decided that her best hope was to play on the sympathies of her captor. She ate sparingly and drank little, hoping to lessen the intake of drugs she became convinced were making her comatose. She drew up in her mind various plans to escape, including one which involved overpowering one of the old women, changing into her clothes and smuggling herself past the guard. But no such opportunity arose. After a time she became more resigned to her fate and took comfort in the thought that there must be people all around her in the same building who would help if they knew of her plight. She tried reaching out to them by telepathy and became angry and frustrated when nothing happened.

When her period began the old woman in charge took her into the bathroom and handed her tampons, without speaking. Kate realised with horror that she couldn't talk because she had no tongue.

The next time the young man came to see her he was wearing an Armani bomber jacket, smart loafers, a preppy shirt, and a powerful after-shave lotion. He looked like any rich, young American boy.

He told the old woman to remove the gag, ordered her out of the room and shut the door. She was very frightened. But he sat on the bed and apologised effusively for taking away her freedom. Untying the plastic bonds on her wrists with small, delicate hands he went on: 'Some actions are allowed by Allah that would not normally be permissible.'

'What are those occasions?' Kate demanded.

'When it is a matter of life and death.'

'That hardly applies here.'

'Yes it does. I would die if I lost you..'

'That's an insult to both of us.'

The young man shrugged.

'What is important is that if I cannot have you, you will die.'

'Why threaten to kill me if you love me?'

'I hope I won't have to. I think that we will live together for ever both in this world and in the hereafter.'

'We have never met, so how can you have fallen in love with me?'

'I just happened to see you and fell in love with you.'

'I don't even know your name.'

'It is Mohamed.'

'When and where did you see me?'

'I cannot tell you that.'

'Was it here in Chicago?'

'We are not in Chicago. As to your questions the important thing is that I feel as though I have known you for all my life.

This was the first time Kate realised that she was not in her home town.

She said: 'Mohamed, you are just intoxicated with your own words.'

'Not true. You are like a fine wine that is driving me to madness.'

How to clear away this heated, overblown imagery swirling around in the young man's head, Kate asked herself despairingly. She didn't realise what a long and difficult a task this would prove to be.

Mohamed left her. A few hours later he reappeared carrying armfuls of delicate lingerie and designer clothes. His face beaming with pleasure, he deposited the clothes on richly embroidered armchairs and turning his smiling face towards her, said: 'My darling you are the most beautiful woman in the world. Now you shall have the clothes you deserve.'

He removed the plastic bonds which bound her ankles.

She glanced at the clothes and said curtly : 'I don't want them. I want my freedom.'

'When you have come to accept that your destiny is interwoven with mine, you shall have as much freedom as you desire.'

Holding up a flimsy negligé, he stammered: 'P- p- please wear this.'

'Why should I?

'Because I want you to.'

'I want to go home.'

'You will eventually. But in the meantime you must do as I say.'

'I'm not going to put that on just to satisfy your childish whim. I want to know where you saw me?'

'It is not for me to say.'

'If you can't tell me, who can?'

'It doesn't matter. All that matters is that I want to experience again that first moment of joy when I realised that you were the only person I would ever love.'

'Why don't you find a young girl of your own age?'

'Because it is you I want. You are my shining star.'

Mohamed abased himself on the ground..

She felt slightly less threatened, perceiving that the more in love with her he was the less likely he was to harm her. Using a suitable strategy, she might be able to persuade him to let her go.

'I cannot possibly develop any kind of relationship with you while you are holding me prisoner. Let me go and we can then meet on equal terms and discuss the whole matter..'

A mutinous expression appeared on Mohamed's face.

'Don't treat me like a child. You would hand me over to the police and I would never see you again.'

'I promise I won't.'

'It took a long time to get you. I'm not going to risk losing you.'

'What, then, do you want of me?'

'I want to make love to you.'

'How can I possibly let you do that when you have been so cruel to me?'

'I have bought you lovely clothes. You can have anything you want in the world – within reason?'

'Where did you get your money?'

'It doesn't matter. The fact is that I can afford it. Just tell me what you want and I'll get it for you. Anything.'

'All I want is my freedom.'

He growled: 'You are being very uncooperative and you will pay for it.'

He went out, slamming the door behind him.

The old woman returned to the room and sat watching her impassively.

An hour later Mohamed returned. He shouted angrily to the old woman to leave the room. He lurched towards her, breathing whiskey fumes over her face and cupped his hand over her breast.

She recoiled and hissed: 'You disgusting brute!'

Appalled, he stood up and mumbled apologetically: 'I'm sorry. I didn't mean to do that.'

'Well, you did,' Kate said grimly. 'You have had a very bad upbringing.'

'My country was civilised thousands of years before the USA was thought of.'

'Where do you come from?'

'You will learn in time.'

'I shall die if you continue to keep me imprisoned.'

'I will do something for you. If you change into one of these garments, I shall allow you to move about unrestrained in this room. Of course, if you scream, or make any effort to escape, you will be tied up again.'

'Turn your back while I change.'

'No, I must watch you.'

Kate decided that having the right to move freely about the room would considerably improve her chances of escape. The thought of placing a placard in the window announcing her plight had entered her mind.

'Will you promise not to touch me.'

'I promise.'

He stood back, his eyes wandering eagerly over her.

'Go and stand by the door.'

He obeyed, his face wearing an awestricken expression. She drew the curtains and began with the minimum of fuss to remove her clothing, aware that she was entering unknown, and dangerous territory.

She said smoothly, as she stepped out of her skirt: 'Do you like what you see so far?'

He gave an appreciative laugh and said: 'Yes, you have lovely legs. You have a wonderful figure. One day I shall embrace it. But first I want to recreate that wonderful moment when I first fell in love with you.'

'How long do you think a relationship built on this kind of behaviour will last?'.

'For ever. I will never tire of you.'

'I may tire of you.'

'I shall never let you go.'

'That would be very selfish.'

She removed her shirt.'

'It cannot be helped. Our love is for ever.'

She stood facing him, with her arms folded.

He pleaded: 'Please let me see you without your bra.'

'Not yet. You said you wanted me to change into one of those garments.'

She put on a short black dress. He had guessed her size correctly.

She said: 'Sit on the bed,'

He hesitated, then moved towards the bed and sat down on one side. Kate sat on the other and said gently: 'If you harmed me I would hate you to the end of eternity. I am sure that is not what you wish.'

'Of course not. I want you to love me.'

'How do you see our relationship developing?

Mohamed frowned.

'It is a simple matter. Man meets woman in accordance with Heavenly laws. I do not know what else there is to say. Your reward for loving me will be that I shall grant your every wish and make love to you with all my heart and strength and soul. I have plenty of money. More than I shall ever need.'

'Suppose I find your love-making irksome?'

'You will learn to like it.'

' I am older than you. After a while you will tire of me and want a younger woman.'

'No.' he said, smiling: 'We shall always be the same age. Allah has decreed that it will ever be thus.'

'How long can a relationship brought about by brute force last?'

Mohamed sighed deeply.

'I did not think, when I fell in love with you, that you would be so argumentative.'

To distract him, she said suddenly: 'Did you ever hear the story of the shepherd who hid in a harem?'

'Is it a kind of joke?'

'No, but it is interesting and might have a lesson for you in your relationship with me.'

Stories often came into Kate's mind when she was working as a journalist. She hoped the one she was about to tell might give her some temporary respite from Mohammed's endless probing.

'You can tell it. But it mustn't take too long.'

'It won't take long. It is called: The White Ram.'

Ali, was a young shepherd who looked after a flock of sheep for the Sultan, a local ruler of enormous wealth He grazed his sheep in the mountains overlooking a great city where the Sultan lived. Ali often looked down from his mountain ridge at the richly ornamented building in the centre of the town which housed the Sultan's harem. It possessed graceful arches and slender minarets and was surrounded by a moat. From the distance he could also see faintly an inner garden full of lush plants and flowered parterres in which fountains played and young women congregated under the shade of palm trees, awaiting their master's wishes.

The Sultan's chief herdsman was very proud of a particular ram in Ali's flock which had a fleece of extraordinary whiteness. It was a rare albino but all attempts to breed from it had failed. One morning Ali awoke on his mountain top. The sun was shining. The few fleecy white clouds in the sky reminded him of the white ram. He breakfasted hurriedly off apples and goat cheese and set off towards his flock, which was grazing on a slope a few hundred yards away. To his horror he noticed that the white ram had disappeared. He searched high and low but was unable to find it. Having examined all the hollows and rocky places where the ram might have strayed, he came to the conclusion that it had been stolen because of its rarity. Knowing the severe punishment that would be meted out to him if it was lost, he hastened to the town, to make enquiries among the local populace. He ran through the market place breathlessly calling: "Who has seen the Sultan's white ram," but everywhere he was met with blank stares. Continuing his hurried passage through the town he eventually came to the moat surrounding the Sultan's harem. He sat by the edge, finding consolation in watching the peaceful, rippling blue waters, until suddenly he spied a white patch between some pillars on the other side of the moat. Convinced that it was the white ram, he threw off his shirt and swam to the other side. The guards had slept late that morning and failed to see him.

Making his way towards where the vision of the ram had momentarily appeared, he suddenly found himself surrounded by a group of beautiful veiled women One of them was wearing a white garment which in his confused state he had mistaken for the white ram. She was to become the Sultan's one-hundred and twenty-third wife the following day. The young women surged around him, giggling, admiring his youth and beauty and proclaiming him a welcome guest.

'What will happen if the guards find me?' he exclaimed, terrified of the terrible fate that awaited those who had the audacity to violate the Sultan's harem.

'Don't worry,' one of the young women said. 'We have a private room which the guards are not allowed to enter. Come with me.'

She ushered him into an antechamber full of lush carpets, curtains and furnishing. The bevy of women tried to follow her, but she pushed them all outside, saying: 'It will be your turn next.'

Taking him by the hand, she led him to a silken couch and asked him why had he risked his life by entering the harem.

He told her about the missing white ram.

Shame to say, Fatima, the girl in question, knew the fate of the white ram but fearing that Ali might leave her, held her tongue. Instead, untying some knots, she made him fondle the tender white fruit that lay beneath her bodice. They made love until the evening, when Fatima left him promising that food and wine would be laid before him.

Another girl soon arrived with wine, delicious cutlets of lamb and a variety of succulent loaves of bread and sweetmeats. But none so sweet as the lovemaking she showed him until dawn broke the following day. Not until three weeks later, when all the women had had their fill of him, would they let him depart.

That night Fatima led him to the main dining hall through a secret passage, where he witnessed the Sultan partaking of his evening meal in the company of some visiting dignitaries. After the meal the Sultan clapped his hand and the chief herdsman appeared leading the white ram into the dining hall so that it could be admired by all the guests.

'So you see,' Fatima whispered, 'you had no need to worry. The chief herdsman failed to tell you that he had brought the white ram here so that the Sultan could show him off to all his visitors.'

Ali did not upbraid the girl for deceiving him, reckoning that the punishment he had received was fair just and to all concerned.

*

'Did you like the story?' Kate enquired. Mohamed, looking slightly puzzled, said: 'Yes, it was very good.'

Kate said: 'Which of the protagonists in the story do you think you represent?'

'Ali, the shepherd?'

'No. The white ram.'

'Why?' Mohamed enquired, frowning.

'Because the ram's whiteness represents innocence. You possess it in great measure and it is a very rare quality.'

'Why do you think I am innocent?' Mohamed said, looking slightly aggrieved.

'The manner in which you fell in love with me makes your innocence very obvious. It is a great credit to you. Most young men of your age are like Ali in the story and boast of all the women they have had. They don't understand that love has a spiritual component as well as a physical one.'

'Yes, I have an enormous spiritual longing for you. That's why I want to make love to you. '

'Then we are in a very difficult situation, because I have sworn not to accede to your request until you have told me all about yourself.'

'I could force you,' Mohamed said, menacingly.

' Kate replied calmly. 'But it would defeat the whole object of the exercise. I would then hate you, not love you.'

'Do you think you might still come to love me, in spite of what has happened?' Mohamed pleaded.

'If you conduct yourself properly. How old are you, by the way.'

Kate had noticed a faint down above his mouth suggesting that he was considerably younger than she had at first thought.

'My age is not important.'

'I should like to know.'

'I am seventeen,' he said boldly.

She decided not to challenge his statement, which was palpably untrue.

'You are old enough to fall in love. But you must first learn the gentle arts of courtship.'

'Will you teach me?' he said eagerly.

'Yes, but it may take a long time.'

'When shall I have my first lesson?' Mohamed enquired.

'Tomorrow. But you must let me sleep now. The whole experience of being held captive makes me very tired.'

'Very well. I have promised I won't tie you up any more. But I have given instruction that you are to be instantly killed if you attempt to escape. Do you understand?'

'Yes.'

'Good. I will bring in some magazines tomorrow.'

He hesitated for a moment and then asked: 'May I kiss you?'

She allowed him to plant a kiss on her cheek.

*

After he had gone, Kate felt more cheerful. Through the open door the black guard was visible, sitting with his gun at the ready. The old woman was out of sight in the outer apartment which, presumably, contained a kitchen where her food was cooked. She looked out of the window and for the first time recognised the New York skyline. She made a surreptitious attempt to open the window, but found it locked.

The guard was watching her every movement. She lay on the bed and closed her eyes. She had written off as impractical the notion of placing a placard at the window. The thought of bribing the guards with the promise of large sums of money came into her mind – she was aware that the syndicated story of her abduction would be worth a great deal of money. But it was impossible to communicate with them. Their knowledge of English was too limited. The biggest puzzle was where Mohamed, obviously from a Middle Eastern country, had first seen her. Possibly, she thought, in the Hilton, Heathrow Airport, where she had stayed one night in en route to Baghdad. What was only too obvious was that she had been captured by a juvenile from somewhere in the Middle East possessed of immense wealth and a ruthless will to back up his obsession.

But why her, when there were countless millions of nubile girls who could just as easily have caught his attention. The answer was sheer bad lack – Cupid's capricious arrow had fallen at random. This was not the first time it had happened to her. Paul Sanderson had wooed her with desperate urgency; it had taken less than two years for her to discover that he was a hopeless alcoholic. She realised that as soon as Mohamed fell out of love, as in time he undoubtedly would, her situation would become immeasurably worse. He would probably kill her to escape the consequence of his illegal action. She sensed the sinister presence of adults, who while temporarily tolerating his aberrant behaviour, would insist that he dispose of her once his obsession had ended.

Her best hope of survival was to try to gain control of Mohamed's unpredictable mind. She would give in to the sexual demands of this spoiled scion of an immensely rich family, perhaps from Bahrein, Saudi Arabia or Kuwait, only as a last resort. It was bad luck to have fallen into the hands of this juvenile psychopath. Had he possessed the mind of the fictitious Ali she would seem no more desirable to him than any other woman. But he was extremely naive and obviously incapable of controlling his overactive adolescent hormones. He seemed to have been diverted by the story which she had deliberately given a Middle Eastern slant. She was wryly amused at having assumed the role of Sheharezade, the queen in the Arabian Nights, whose tyrannical husband allowed her to stay alive only as long as she continued to entertain him with her fascinating stories.

One of the prints on the wall of the apartment depicted a magnificent horned bull confronting a beautiful woman clad in colourful silken robes.. The woman was holding out a cluster of red roses towards the bull with a disdainful expression, which seemed say: "Do your worst.' Mohamed, she thought, was like the bull, driven blindly by instinct. She must use all her wiles to distract him from his fixed purpose until she managed to escape.

Her worry about her son Daniel was soothed a little when she remembered that Bill Hummelstein, her editor, had promised to look after him if she was killed in Iraq. She hoped he would keep his promise in these very different circumstances.

2

I was reminded of my own boyhood, as I drove down to Pittsburgh with nine-year old Daniel, who is to be looked after by his aunt and his three cousins until his mother is found. I enjoyed our conversations.

I wagered him during the journey that we would see more Plymouths than Mercedes

An hour later, he said with a disappointed tone as we sped along the freeway: 'That's another Plymouth isn't it.'

I explained that I was winning because more Plymouths were made than Mercedes and they could therefore be produced more cheaply.

'Everyone should be able to afford a Mercedes.'

I gave him a brief lecture on economics and then turned my mind to puzzling over his mother's disappearance. I was aware that if she wasn't found, keeping the promise I had so rashly made to educate her son would cripple me financially. I had two sons of my own to support by my previous marriages. But I felt bound by the promise I had made. Meanwhile her son needed her, I needed her and the newspaper needed her. If she didn't come back, I would be heartbroken, and probably bankrupt as well.

The Chicago police were reasonably hopeful. The FBI, who had been called in when I told the police that she had spent a few days in Baghdad, were less so. They suggested that if she had crossed the path of El Quaeda somewhere along the line her chances of survival were poor. I preferred to think that she'd had a nervous breakdown and had gone away to think things through. I had once spent a few days in Yellowstone National Park trying to regain my equanimity when the alimony awarded by the judge to my first wife had turned out to be much higher than my attorney had anticipated. It was reduced on appeal, which taught me a lesson. Never give up, things are never as bad as they appear. I wasn't easily going to give up hope that Kate would be found alive and well.

Daniel said: 'Do you think they will find my mom soon?'

'Sure,' I said heartily. 'She has probably gone away for a week or so to think things over. Adults do that sometimes.'

'What would she have to think about?'

'You and your future. Whether perhaps she might be better off with another newspaper. Anything like that.'

'She would have told me if she was going away.'

'She may have decided to go on the spur of the moment.'

'Then why hasn't she sent me a message?'

I had no answer.

After a while, I said with a heartiness I didn't feel: 'The Chicago police told me that people often disappear and come back when their personal problems have been sorted out.'

'I think I was her problem.'

'Nonsense. She loves you and is extremely proud of you. She told me that many times.'

'She told me you weren't a bad old kraut.'

The word 'kraut' didn't bother me. The word 'old' did.

Daniel then asked me if the police had discovered any clues when they entered the apartment.

'I replied: 'I'm sure they have but they wouldn't tell me.'

What I had learned was that there were some doubts about whether she had arrived home that evening. No one could remember seeing her. Her son was not due home until much later. The front door, which opened with a swipe card had not been forced. Only Kate, Daniel and the janitor held cards that opened this door. There were no signs of a struggle. Her bed had not been slept in. There remained the possibility that she had voluntarily gone on some private mission. But since she hadn't contacted any of her friends it didn't seem likely.

An unfamiliar, large, four-wheel drive vehicle had been seen in the car park on the night of Kate's disappearance. But the resident who noticed it could remember neither the colour nor the make of the vehicle. There was one other notable clue: Kate's laptop was missing, which tended to support the theory that she had gone off on some private mission. On the other hand, it might have been stolen for its resale value by her presumed abductors.

Daniel was a little tearful when I left him after delivering him to his aunt. I realised as I started on the home journey, that I was his only link with normality. He knew as well as anybody that his mom was in mortal danger. A child often sees things more clearly than an adult. I tried to analyze the situation during the drive home. The fact that there had been no ransom demand suggested the possibility that Kate had absconded with a secret lover. But it didn't seem plausible to me that she would have callously left Daniel to fend for himself. However, I had heard of several cases of impassioned women deserting their children in such circumstances.

My predecessor at The Echo advised me always to be on the alert for the joker in the pack. 'Sure as hell,' he used to say, 'the wild card comes up just as you put the paper to bed, forcing a last-minute change of headline and layout.' A nasty wild card eventually gave him throat cancer. Since when I have been on the alert for the wild card that will necessitate another change of editor.

I was flattered when one of the detectives enquired whether my relationship with Kate was strictly that of employer to employee. He pointed out that I had taken her out to lunch a couple of time – these guys are nothing but thorough in their investigations. I explained that I often did this when I needed to give one of my journalists a special briefing.

He flourished a photograph of her and said with a suggestive leer: 'She's pretty dishy, isn't she.'

I replied: 'You're right. I'd hazard a guess there's a sexual motive for her disappearance. If I catch the bastard before you do, I'll rip his balls off.'

'Sounds as if you were soft on her,' he said with a sour laugh, putting the photograph back in his briefcase.

How true, I told myself, as I overtook yet another Plymouth. But how reassuring that a complete outsider could see me as her potential lover. It would be a terribly tragedy if she was never found. But, I told myself, she is inventive, strong and if by any chance she has been abducted, she'll find some way to survive.

3

Kate awoke the next day with increased apprehension. Although she was no longer gagged or manacled, precautions against any escape attempt had become even more stringent. The old woman kept her away from the window. She inspected the bathroom carefully when Kate came out, as if expecting to find some evidence of a crime. Kate had, in fact, thought of jamming the toilet with paper, so that they would be forced to get a plumber. But her captors supplied only a small amount of paper. Towels were not allowed in the bathroom. She was forced to dry herself in the bedroom under the watchful eye of the old woman.

The guard sat on a chair at the open door of the bedroom, moving away only to let the old women come and go. Kate now had even less privacy than before. The shock of her abduction had set in very deeply. She tried hard to calm herself for Mohamed's next visit. Le petit monstre, as she mentally christened him, was short but very muscular. She doubted whether she could win a trial of physical strength. Years before she had gained a brown karate belt and she wished that she had continued to practise that skill.

Loath to wear the garments he had left her, she slept in her underclothes. The next morning she retired to the bathroom, taking the negligé and panties he had brought her, indicating with signs to the old woman that she wished to have her discarded underwear laundered. Before taking a shower, she inspected the walls and ceiling for peepholes or spy cameras. She was still puzzled as to where Mohamed had first seen her.

He arrived soon after she had eaten breakfast.. The armed guard, bowed to him obsequiously and retired to the position he had formerly occupied when Kate had been tied up. The old crone, too, withdrew.

Mohamed, threw some glossy magazines onto the floor and said politely: 'Are you comfortable?'

'As comfortable as anyone can be in these circumstances.'

He said airily, sitting on the arms of an armchair. 'Why are you wearing your old clothes?'

'I feel safer in them,' she replied.

'It will be different when we have made love. I read somewhere that if you take an emperor from his palace and place him in a tent, within a few days it will seem to him just like his home.'

'I'm not an emperor – just a human being who wants to go home.'

'You will soon feel safe and sound.'

'How can I feel at home without my freedom?' She pointed to the window. 'Have you heard of the Statue of Liberty?'

'We are not here to discuss such abstract things. You have promised to teach me the arts of love.'

'It is very difficult when I am living as a prisoner.'

'If you don't like the concessions I have made, I can put manacles on you again. In a battle of wills I shall always win.'

She examined the complacent expression on his plump, handsome face.

'Obviously we need to find a way of living together until such time as you decide to let me go. So what do you want to know exactly?'

Mohamed tested his youthful beard by running his knuckles down the side of his face, and said grimly: 'Get one thing straight. You have promised to teach me the arts of love, so that you can become my lover.'

' Have you slept with a woman before?'

'Does it matter?'

'Of course it does I might first have to teach you about the female body and how it functions.'

Mohamed nodded eagerly.

'Yes,. I have heard of the word cunt. What does it mean exactly?'

'Vagina is the correct word. It is the orifice into which a man deposits his seed when a man and a woman make love. It is a very sensitive area containing many nerve endings.'

'I haven't seen one. I don't wish to touch yours until I have explored other places.'

'The most important thing to remember, Mohamed, is that the way to a woman's heart is through her ears.'

'Do you wish me to caress your ears?'

'No, but you can win a woman's heart simply by talking to her.'

' I dreamed of you last night and had a nocturnal emission.'

'You masturbated?''

'No. You made it happen.'

'I made it happen?'

'You must have wanted it. You visited me in my dreams. '

'You can hardly hold me responsible for that.'

He became very excited. 'You must have wanted it to happen. You came like an angel in the night. We had a sample of the bliss we will enjoy when we finally consummate our love for each other.'

'Mohamed. That will never happen.'

'You will love me. It is fated.'

Kate realised how close he was to insanity.

He went on.: 'I try to please you all the time. Why won't you wear the clothes I bought for you. I had great difficulty in describing your size. And now you won't wear them!'

Kate had hoped that his shopping expedition might have aroused the sales person's suspicions when he bought women's clothes. But it dawned on her that it was fairly common for male visitors to New York to take clothing home for their womenfolk.

'Do I gain a woman's love by entering her vagina?'

'First you must court her – cajoling her, so that she can hear the poetry that her soul yearns for.'

'I cannot write poetry.'

'Letters or stories can work their way into a woman's heart.'

'My friends say that rubbing and touching works best.'

'Not with me.'

'Before we make love do I have to write to you?'

'Yes.'

'And then you will come to bed with me?'

'It will have to be very good to win my heart.'

Mohamed looked so downcast she almost felt sorry for him. He looked round the room, his expression becoming ever more angry. Then his eyes alighting on the magazines, he picked up a copy of Vogue and suddenly flung it at her with tremendous force. She protected herself from it with her hands, as he stalked out of the room. The guard resumed his position in the doorway. Kate could hear Mohamed shouting loudly at someone in the outer apartment as he left.

Soon all was quiet. She congratulated herself on having gained another respite.

She picked up the magazine he had thrown at her and browsed through it, worrying about the anger she had provoked. Se asked herself would it be less dangerous to give in to his demands. She decided she would do so only as a very last resort.

The only hopeful sign was his childish romanticism. The first story she had told him had diverted him for a while from his obsession. She hoped it might be a recipe for keeping him at bay for a while longer. Reality, though, would inevitably enter his fevered brain and he would come to accept that she was an ordinary human being and not the goddess of his imagination. At that point he would probably take his revenge for ending his dream by raping her. She knew that she must delay any form of sexual activity for as long as possible, because her death would probably follow soon afterwards.

Glancing through the magazine she came across an advertisement for hotels which provided a small map of New York. By examining the well known buildings on the sky line, she thought it might be possible to deduce exactly where she was. Her spirits rose. Knowing exactly where she was would raise her morale, even though it would not help her to establish contact with the outside world. An idea for advertising her plight came to her and she exclaimed to herself: "My torch, my torch, my kingdom for a torch." How to flash an SOS from the window occupied her mind for some time afterwards.

An article from the magazine gave her an idea for another tale with which to divert Mohamed.

The guard moved away from the doorway to allow the old woman to bring in

a tray containing her lunch. It was a couscous, again very spicy but she was becoming accustomed to it, She gave the woman a grateful smile. When she had placed the tray on the bed, Kate silently at her own mouth, curious to know how the woman had lost her tongue. The woman looked angry and scuttled out of the room. Kate regretted having asked and shuddered at the thought that she might suffer the same fate.

Soon after lunch Mohamed returned. He seemed in a more affable mood and showed her a laptop computer which she recognised as her own. He sat in an armchair and said: 'I looked through your computer. Beside your newspaper articles, I noticed you write some good stories. But I didn't see the one about the white ram.'

'I made that one up.'

Mohamed said solemnly: 'The White Ram is like me, innocent and good-natured. A pity he could not make baby lambs.. I hope to make plenty of children.'

'I am sure you will, Mohamed. But you must respect the women who gives them to you.'

'Ewes do not worry about respect,' he replied, his eyes glinting with amusement.

'Women demand it.'

'Women must respect a man's needs.'

'Only if his demands are normal and reasonable.'

'What I have asked of you is reasonable enough. I have chosen so far not to exercise force. But my patience is wearing thin. Today I shall expect you to do what I require willingly and without fuss. If you will do so I will let you have your computer back and allow you to write more stories.'

'Does the Koran say that conditions may be demanded for returning stolen goods to their rightful owner?'

'It is what I say that counts, not the Koran.'

Mohamed thrust forward his lower lip – a sure sign that trouble was coming. He suddenly jumped to his feet and called out in Arabic.

The old woman came running in, wiping her hands on an her apron.

Mohamed shouted at her venomously. She left and returned a few minutes later holding the plastic manacles Kate had learned to detest.

She said to Mohamed in a low voice: 'Why are you doing this to me.'

'You have not cooperated at all'

'But I have been doing as I promised – telling you how to please a woman.'

'You have been teaching me how to please yourself. All this nonsense about pleasing a woman through her ears! My friends tell me that a woman needs punishing now and again to persuade her to do your will''

' Mohamed? your friends are mistaken. If you harm women they can exact a terrible revenge'

'And how do propose to do that?' he enquired sarcastically.

'I did not say that I would. But it will inevitably happen.'

Mohamed held up his hand, muttered something to the old woman, who departed, looking disappointed, clutching the white plastic manacles.

'Why do you doubt what I have been saying?' Kate asked, plaintively

'Because if what you say is true about pleasing women though the ears, only poets and novelists and essayists would fuck women. Just because you are a journalist you assume that words are all that matter. There are other ways to a woman's heart.'

'There is only one way to my heart, Mohamed, and that is for you to give me back my freedom.'

He replied, shaking his head vigorously: 'Do not ask for the impossible, or I will have you trussed up again like an Egyptian mummy.'

Kate did not answer. She was puzzled by the contradiction between his desire to earn her love and affection and his willingness to hurt her. She had told Mohamed he was like the white ram in her story because of these opposing sides in his mind. He combined an almost childlike innocence with the instincts of a ram born to violate and impregnate. Once she allowed physical contact he would go on to demand more. She thought of giving him oral sex as a delaying tactic, repugnant though the idea was to her. It would be a last resort, signalling the end to her resistance, because a demand for full sexual intercourse would inevitably follow soon afterwards.

'Mohamed,' she said softly 'I am sorry if you think I have misled you. Of course words are not the only way to a woman's heart. Some women will be swayed by gifts of diamonds and jewellery. But most will respond to flattery, kind treatment and thoughtful gifts. If you give me enough time I shall teach you to become a generous lover who will inspire confidence in women. I could tell you many stories that will teach you the arts of love. But you must have patience. The trouble is that when a misunderstanding occurs you lose your temper and threaten to tie me up again.'

He thrust his head forward in a manner that reminded her of the bull in the picture on the wall and shouted fiercely: 'Stop teasing me and get undressed.'

Her heart sank. She tried desperately to think of a way of distracting him.

'Let me undress in the corridor.'

'How absurd. You would run away.'

'Why don't you let me go?'

'Because I would no longer have you.'

'You haven't got me now, Mohamed. All you have is some deranged notion that I will fall in love with you. It will never happen while you keep threatening me. But I can offer you an alternative.'

He looked at her questioningly.

'You said that your friends doubted if a woman could be won over by the power of words. Let me see if I can win you over in this way.'

'What do you mean?'

'Let me teach you the proper way to love a woman. Instead of viewing them as passive objects of desire, I will teach you how to see them as partners in the act of love. And then when I rid you of your obsession with me, you will fall in love with girls of your own age and lead a happy life.'

'You don't understand' he muttered. 'When I first saw you I fell hopelessly in love. My heart beat like a thousand sledgehammers. I saw a golden halo which surrounded us both in a brilliant light. I glimpsed eternity at that moment. When I recapture it I shall see bliss again and we shall become one person for the rest of time.'

He held out both hands and pleaded: 'Please, please, undress and let me make love to you.'

Kate knew that her problem with Mohamed was greater than she could ever have imagined.

4

Occasionally I write a piece in my own newspaper under a pseudonym. It gives me an opportunity to develop a few speculative ideas. One of the themes on which I occasionally sound off is the drug trade. We got rid of a lot of gangsters when we got rid of Prohibition. We'd get rid of a lot more if we legalised drugs. Our capacity to adapt has enabled human beings to survive for thousands of years in the face of perils much worse than drugs; it will enable us to survive when drugs are sold freely in supermarkets. Lives will be saved in the long run, if we place our trust in the common sense of ordinary men and women. I realise, of course, that my campaign will get nowhere. The drug trade is too deeply embedded in the economic system. Getting rid of it would be like asking politicians and the police to pluck their own hearts out. I sound off about it occasionally, though, without any hope that the situation will change.

I will admit that I take this view because I am one of those people who don't find drugs addictive. I have smoked a few joints in my time and fried my brains with a few lines of cocaine but I soon got bored with it. To tell the truth my real addiction is to my own thoughts. I like to sit in my armchair at dusk, when the light over Lake Michigan, which I can just see from my apartment balcony, is beginning to fade, drink a beer and watch the whole parade of historical personalities pass before me. I majored in history, which perhaps accounts for this weakness.

Occasionally sea gulls perch on the railings of the balcony and I throw them pieces of bread. There is one with a black, almost blue-black, skullcap I call Harry, who is a regular guy and a regular visitor. He is a Republican. I am a Democrat. We have some lively political arguments, which I usually win. He goes away bloated with bread crumbs, leaving me satisfied with my display of polemical skills.

We argued about the Iraq war. Harry the seagull said it had been necessary to have a regime change. I asserted that it set a dangerous precedent in international law. He insisted that nobody would ever be able to challenge the might of the United States and topple our own regime. I told him this was a very short- sighted argument, because who could say with certainty that an, as yet unheard of, superpower will not one day try to effect a regime change in the United States.: 'Harry, you stupid guillemot,' I told him, 'you don't know your politics from your ass hole.'

He flew away at that point. I took another sip of beer. Just then the phone rang.

It was Miranda, my first wife. She complained that I had not sent our son, John, who is majoring in Business Studies at Harvard, his maintenance money for the next semester. I pointed out that the semester hadn't started yet. She replied: 'Well, you usually send it in advance.'

'Is he in debt, or something?'

'No but he has a little business going of his own and he needs the money now.'

'If he spends it now, how will he manage to keep himself next semester?'

'He'll have the income from the business to keep him going.'

'What sort of business is it?'

'I ... er- don't know.'

She obviously didn't want to tell me.

'Why should I risk my hard-earned money on some wild undergraduate business scheme?'

'He's not asking you to do that. He's just asking for his regular money in advance.'

'Well, let him ask me himself. I'll discuss it with him.'

'You know very well he won't to do that.'

John has spoken very little to me since the divorce.

'Then he'll have to pay the price of not talking to me. Why don't you lend him the money.'

Miranda is a lawyer and earns a good living.

'Because the courts said it was your responsibility.'

'Well, you lend him the money until it comes due.'

'Bill, you're getting grouchy in your old age.'

I put the phone down. I can't stand being told that I am old, least of all by an ex-wife who has gone downhill even faster than I have.

I had brought in a sandwich from the sandwich bar downstairs but still feeling hungry, I made a sardine-burger, my own special invention, of which I am rather proud. I put the sardines in a hamburger covering, add lemon and tomato and a dash of pepper. Not exactly haute cuisine I'll grant you. But nourishing. I'm also rather fond of bratwurst sausages out of sentimental regard for my ancestors.

I was just wiping some crumbs off my mouth, when the phone ran again. To my great surprise it was Daisy, my second wife.

'Hi, Daisy,' I said cheerfully. 'I'm not about to increase your alimony.'

I was greeted by a hurt silence, followed by: 'Willyummy, you know I didn't want to contest the settlement. It was my attorney who insisted on trying to raise it.'

My given name is William and she used to say: 'That was yummy, Willyummy, after we had enjoyed sex.'

'Sorry I mentioned it. But Miranda has just been on the phone putting the squeeze on me.'

'I'm not surprised,' Daisy said primly. 'But I only rang you up for a little chat.'

'How's the boy friend?'

'I don't have one, Bill, at the moment. I just thought it would be nice to talk about old times.'

'Weren't they pretty dreadful?'

'No, it was heaven when we were in love. If you hadn't loved the newspaper more than you loved me we might still have been together.'

'OK. OK. Is James all right?'

'Yes, he's doing quite well at school. He's always asking after you.'

'I'll be in to New York soon. I'll take him to see the Yankees.'

'He'd love that. But I've got news or you. I shall be in Chicago next weekend. Would you like to have dinner with me for old times sake?'

A small, persistent question mark burrowed into my brain. Daisy hasn't to my knowledge been in Chicago since we divorced two years ago. She runs a mental health salon in NY, where they go in for faith-based treatments. We Americans used to deride our own indigenous population for being superstitious but they appear to have won us over. I was pleased that she was now making a good living. The boy friend for whom she deserted me had long since left her and had been replaced by a new one. She didn't grumble about the divorce settlement as much as her predecessor. As the late PG Woodhouse whose works I am very fond of would have said: 'She is quite a good egg.' So although I suspected an ulterior motive, I said: 'Sure. That would be very nice Daisy. I'll treat you to an excellent lobster thermidor.'

'No, not lobster -- doesn't have enough antioxidants. '

'OK. Something else. I'll meet you at O'Hare airport.'

I put the phone down, resumed eating my sardine-burger and wondered was she angling for a rematch? I had heard of such things happening before. In fact a friend of mine met the wife he had divorced ten years before by accident, woo-ed her and married her again and was now just as unhappy as he had been the first time. Well, I certainly wasn't going to fall for that. Daisy, I might mention, is a highly decorative adornment to her mental health salon. Blond, curly hair, delicate complexion, buxom figure that always displays an indiscreet amount of cleavage, slender legs, an eminently graspable ass and a haunting cloud of the very latest intoxicating perfume. But, I told myself, if she has any ideas of worming her way again into my affections, she'll be out of luck, because I am in love with someone else.

Where was Kate, my lovely, slender, high-spirited woman journalist, I again asked myself – that witty and able young woman whose writing always sparkled with new and amusing ideas. I once asked her if she would like to write fiction full time and was relieved when she said that she rated journalism above writing stories. The last thing I wanted was for her to become a successful novelist and resign her job.

I telephoned the night editor. Nothing interesting. I checked the sports news on TV. The Toronto Blue Jays had beaten the White Sox. I sat on the balcony again, switched on a reading lamp and tried to get to grips with a book called The Reality of Politics. Its basic theme was that politicians are always fighting out-of-date battles. I thought I would write an editorial reminding the book's author that politicians are not automatically granted crystal balls. What we should insist they possess is 'golden balls'; in other words good luck. This was what Napoleon demanded from his generals. But I doubted if the expression 'golden balls' would be appropriate for our august newspaper.

I read a little more. The author had obscured his argument with a scholarly reference to Plato's Cave.

My thoughts then returned to Kate. Where was she? What was happening to her. She must be somewhere out there beyond the waters of the Lake Michigan in which the lights of the city were dimly reflected.

Did she ever think of me?

Her disappearance had not made much of a splash in the media. Naturally, I gave it as much prominence as I dared in my own newspaper. But I had been obliged to tone it down as more pressing and topical issues appeared. The owner of the newspaper – he owns a dozen more – but because he was born and lives some of the time in Chicago, has a special interest in The Echo – criticised me for keeping Kate's disappearance on the front page when the story had gone stale. He brushed aside my explanation that she was one of our own journalists when I spoke to him on the telephone, saying thousands of people disappear every week and don't even get a mention in the newspaper.

'The circumstances in this case, sir, are different.'

'Oh, really. What were they?'

I said I would explain at our weekly meeting. That would give me time to come up with a convincing argument. My theory that her journey to Baghdad might have something to do with her disappearance was rather weak. The only excuse I could give to Paul Schneider, my boss, for keeping the story alive was the possibility of an El Quaeda connection.

My mind reverted to my planned editorial. I looked up Plato's Cave in my encyclopedia, to refresh my memory. Yes, as I had thought, Plato suggested that we human beings are shut off from reality. He said that it is as if we are condemned to sit in a cave, unable to turn our necks, and only able to see the shadows of objects behind us that firelight throws on a wall in front of us. We are permitted to see the shadows but never the real objects. The old guy wasn't far off the track, I thought. Our brains are hardwired by heredity and afterwards twisted beyond measure by prejudices passed on to us by our parents and our peers, making it extremely difficult to arrive at the truth.

Kate's disappearance was another example of how opinions can differ, depending on one's point of view. Paul Schneider sees it as an every day event completely lacking in news value. To me it is not only a matter of deep personal concern but one with all the potential of a dramatic news story. But only by managing somehow to convert him to my point of view can I keep the story alive.

Meanwhile back to the author of The Reality of Politics. He said that members of our current administration should get out of Plato's Cave, where they are blinkered by their addiction to intelligence agencies. But the information we get from any source is invariably, not only out of date, but corrupted by the channels through which it has passed. The author should acknowledge that this problem is common to us all. But I agree with him wholeheartedly that it would be better if politicians would admit that they are no better equipped than the rest of us to deal with this problem.

• *

Paul Schneider has a small office at the top of the Chicago Echo building that hardly reflects his huge wealth and importance. It has a leather swivel chair, a small office chair, a notebook computer (which he doesn't know how to operate) and a telephone. He is a small man with sparse sandy hair and large teeth which become very visible when he becomes animated. One is never quite sure whether he is snarling or smiling. I believe he is well aware of that baffling ambiguity; it is all part of the poker game he plays with the world.

He directed me to the swivel chair and then sat astride the smaller one facing me across the desk. Was he was raising me up with a view to knocking me down? Or was he going to try and extract a favour? We discussed the paper's circulation, which, thankfully, had been rising steadily under my stewardship. I congratulated him on the success of his baseball ball team, tactfully ignoring the recent defeat. He drew my attention to a couple of misprints in the classified ads. I promised to take the necessary steps to prevent a recurrence. We discussed certain promotion schemes I had introduced to increase our appeal across the spectrum of the ethnic population, which included a recent influx of Chinese. I asked him whether he thought the expression 'golden balls' in an editorial might offend old-fashioned readers. He was obviously flattered that I had sought his opinion, and said he thought it would be OK. He gratified me by adding that judging by recent progress in our finances, I seemed to have acquired 'golden balls myself. I wondered what favour he was about to ask. Sure enough, he had a young nephew with an ambition to become a journalist. I agreed to give him an interview.

It was time now for my big pitch.

'You were right, sir, about Kate Villeneuve.'

'Who?'

'The woman journalist who went missing. I ran the story a shade longer than I should have done.'

He snapped: 'It's past history. I hope they find her soon.'

'So do I. She's a first-class reporter.'

'Don't make it too easy for her when she asks for her job back,. I don't approve of staff allowing their private lives to intrude into their work.'

'Paul, I'm far from sure that's the way it is. The FBI think she may be the victim of El Quaeda.'

He blinked behind his pebble spectacles and said: 'Don't give me that hogwash. People have gone terrorist crazy.'

'She was in Baghdad for three days before the war started. It's possible that while she was there she came into contact with El Quaeda. It is possible that they are questioning her somewhere. Torturing her. Who knows.'

'Don't let your imagination run away with you,' Schneider snapped.

'If we did nothing about it I'd feel pretty badly afterwards.'

'There's nothing you can do.'

'There is something.'

'Go on.'

'It would be in the interests of the newspaper if we stirred up greater interest in her disappearance. Finding her would amount to a real coup. It could bring in a lot of money by syndicating her story to the rest of the media.'

Schneider looked at me suspiciously.

'I should like to employ a private detective agency to look into the whole affair and give regular reports on how the investigation is progressing, It could prove as addictive as crack cocaine.'

Schneider stroked his chin.

After a long pause, he said: 'OK, give it a shot. But I know from personal experience that these private investigations are not cheap. Give me a monthly report on how it's doing.'

And that's how I inveigled Paul Schneider into allowing me to spend the company's money on what seemed at the time a lost cause.

5

Why had Daisy, my ex-wife, come all this way to see me? I could see her wriggling her way sexily through the crowds of fellow passengers as she emerged through the arrivals exit. I pecked her on the cheek and she responded by kissing me on the lips.

'That's my New York present for you, Billy-boy. Where's your car?

'Come on.'

I grabbed her overnight case and hustled her along. Teetering on her high heels, she clung on to my arm.

'Nice bit of luggage,' I commented, as we joined the stream of traffic heading into town.'

'Vuitton,' she volunteered,

'How can you afford that on the alimony I pay you?'

'It comes from my mental health salon.. My accountant says it's allowable against tax. I have to keep up appearances.'

'Good for you. Don't get too rich, or I'll claim alimony from you.'

She rested her head on my shoulder and mused: 'Mmm. There's a clause that requires a review every seven years, isn't there, Who knows, one day you might be my kept man.'

The prospect appealed to me considerably, but knowing the vagaries of the business world I wasn't going to bank on it.

'Where are you taking me?' she asked.

'There's a very nice Thai restaurant close to where I live. You used to enjoy spicy food.'

'I've a better idea. Stop off for a bottle of Chablis and I'll make a nice meal in your apartment,'

'I've made a booking in the restaurant.'

'Cancel it, honey. What's the number?'

We argued for a few more minutes before I gave in..

Her overpowering fragrance was doing its best to close down intellectual activity. My instinct for self-preservation warned me that. having forgotten our explosive quarrels in the past, she was intent on trying to seduce me.

'If you come to my apartment we had better agree the terms. I promise not to make a grab at you and you must promise likewise.'

'Of course, honey.'

'Right, then. A nice meal together, a loaf of bread, a jug of wine and thou and a chat about old times. Will that so?'

'Of course, Bill. What else did you expect?

We didn't stop off for the wine. I had plenty in my apartment.

Daisy stalked around, appraising every item and made the comment that if it weren't so untidy my home might even win a prize for good housekeeping. The condominium was nearly as large as the three-bed apartment we had once shared. After the divorce I moved closer to my office, wishing to distance myself from an unhappy period.

She removed her wrap and draped it over an armchair. Her figure was of the hourglass variety. The hustle and bustle of New York had put a few worry lines on her pretty face. It had been rash of me to bring her up here. Why should she wish to seduce her old sparring partner, unless she had some idea of extorting more alimony. If she was seeking a rematch she was out of luck. My emotions were totally focused on Kate Villeneuve.

I followed Daisy into the kitchen. She opened the fridge and said: 'Hmm, not much in the way of nourishment there. You'll have to be satisfied with an omelette. Do you have French fries?'

I said: ' I can't have my guests doing the hard work. I'll make you one of my sardine-burgers.'

'You're what?'

'Sit down and try one.'

When she had finished eating it, she professed herself satisfied. I topped up her glass again with red Chablis, which made her more tolerant of my maverick concoction. Eating my own sardine-burger, I reflected that she has always been fairly tolerant. She hadn't complained about being made pregnant before we got married and she hadn't criticised my first wife when her unreasonable demands were making severe inroads on our standard of living. When I brought drunken colleagues home late at night, she would cheerfully make a meal to help us sober up. Our sex life had been good. So why the divorce?

By the time I had opened a second bottle of Chablis it seemed a big mistake. She lapped up a tiramisu dessert I took from the fridge, wiped her mouth afterwards with a paper napkin and declared: 'It's yummy, Willyummy. Absolutely yummy. We should never have parted. It was the biggest mistake of my life.'

'What has happened between you and your last boy friend?' I enquired.

'Do I have to talk about it?

'Not if you don't want to.'

She wiped her mouth – on the back of her hand this time – and said: 'He was cheating on me.'

'You threw him out?'

'Yes and regretted it afterwards.'

'Why?'

Se said fretfully after a pause: 'Because half of him was better than none.'

'Did it hurt your pride having to share him?'

'Let's not talk about it anymore.'

Daisy picked up her nearly empty glass of wine. I took it from her, and refilled our glasses.

'And how about you? Daisy asked. 'How's your love life?'

'I'm too busy at the moment. We have a big story. One of our woman journalists has gone missing.'

Daisy listened intently as I described the circumstances. She commented, frowning: 'She might have got pregnant and didn't want people to know.'

' She has a nine-year old son. She didn't even leave a message for him.'

'If she was pregnant, he's the last person she would want to know.'

'If she was going to have a baby, she would have told everyone.'

'Are you sure you didn't make her pregnant?'

'Don't be stupid, Daisy. There was nothing between us..'

'You sound as if you would have liked there to have been.'

'So would thousands of other men. But she's a professional journalist first and foremost. She's a smart cookie and she knows how to look after herself.'

'It's very warm in here. Do you mind if I change into something cool?'

' Go ahead. There's the bathroom.'

She returned shortly, wearing a white silk robe. She had been sunbathing recently. The robe was a size too small. I could see on her shoulders the strap marks of her bikini top.

I suggested we move into the sitting-room.

I had a pee and studied myself in the bathroom mirror. A crumpled, lined face with a large, shapeless nose stared back at me with a weary expression. I consoled myself with the thought that I hadn't done too badly with women in the past. Daisy was coming on to me now; her behaviour was exactly the same as when I first met her at a party in New York. She, as now, had granted me titillating glimpses of her enticing white cleavage and excellent legs. She had been a splendid lay. I had never been able to get enough of her. So why had we parted?

Feeling a little drunk, I steadied myself on the towel rail and cast my mind back.

It had come about because of a series of ridiculous little deceptions. A couple of years into our marriage Daisy had gone to visit her mother in Frederickstown, Canada, where she grew up. When she came back she told me her father had gone off with another woman, leaving her mother penniless. Would I help her out. I had been under the impression that she was from an affluent background, the family wealth based on a chain of liquor stores. The request for financial assistance came as an unwelcome surprise. I made enquiries from the local newspaper in Canada and learned that Daisy's father's single liquor store had gone bust. When I reproached Daisy for exaggerating her father's wealth, she burst out: 'He always acted like a big shot and I believed him. I always thought he had several liquor stores.'

It got worse. Instead of the BA degree she had claimed to possess it turned out that Daisy was a drop out. I forgave her for that, too, reckoning she had not told me lies –

merely fantasies, and who does not fantasize now and then. But discovering that she had a boy friend in New York was the last straw. Now her latest boy friend had left her. Perhaps he, too, had lost patience with her fantasizing

But I was not going to allow history to repeat itself. My heart, mind and soul were firmly fixed on finding Kate Villeneuve.

I sat in a chair next to the sofa on which Daisy was reclining.

'I'm glad to hear your business is doing well. Tell me all about it.'

'Our main therapy is For Fu.'

'What exactly is that?'

'For Fu was a disciple of Wen Wang in the Confucian tradition. His writing were only discovered recently. He said all mankind is bound together, the past and the future as well as the present. Humankind is just one animal. By letting your spirit move freely from one person to another you achieve a unity with your ancestors as well as with posterity. When you have learned the technique of letting your spirit flow all evil thoughts disappear and this restores your body to health.'

'How did you get into this.'

'I bought a franchise. I have the whole of the East side of Manhattan. It's a very moneyed area.'

'Where did you get the money to pay for it?'

'I borrowed it,'

I groaned inwardly, feeling even more convinced that she was going to put the squeeze on me.

'I'm not going to increase you alimony to pay for your stupid investments,' I said with a cynical laugh.

'Why ever should you think that, Willyummy. I'm making a good living. You don't think I came all this way to get money from you.'

'What did you come for?'

A pleading expression appeared on her face.

'I want to marry you again. I don't like to keep changing boy friends. You were solid and permanent, Willyummy. That's what I've always wanted.'

'Then why did you have boy friends on the side?'

Daisy allowed her robe to fall away, displaying large, globular breasts, imprisoned in the flimsiest of brassieres.

'I can't help it. I'm a sexy person. I like to make love. But not with people I don't respect and like.'

'Why then did you go off with Ricky?'

'He gave me multiple orgasms. It was wonderful. At the time it seemed worthwhile to leave.'

'Did you fake them with me?'

'Occasionally. It was nice with you. It was cosy. But with him it was like the sun bursting inside you.'

'Other women appreciate my lovemaking.'

'I did, too. sometimes.'

She held out her arms 'Please make love to me now.'

'Didn't we agree not to grab each other?.'

'Yes. Billy. I suppose we did.'

She pulled the robe round her again. 'Tell me more about this lady journalist who's gone missing. What's her name?

'Kate Villeneuve.'

'How old is she?'

'Thirty-three.'

'Good looking? ... I don't need to ask. I can tell you're in love with her.'

'She is dishy and very talented.'

'So how do you hope to find her?'

'I'm going to put a private eye on the job.'

'I know a good one.'

'We intend to use a reputable agency.'

'The one I mentioned works for the Rupert agency.'

She had mentioned the most famous one of all.

'Really? How did you get to know him?'

'He's a member of our For Fu group.'

'How do you know that he is a private investigator?'

'It's Bobby, my last boy friend.'

'The one who gave you multiple orgasms.'

'He wasn't bad but not like Ricky.'

At that moment my resistance began to crumble. She wasn't dishonest in the true sense of the word. When she did tell lies they were never malicious, simply convenient. She was good-natured enough to praise lovers who had deserted her. And she was trying to help me, even though I wasn't treating her particularly well at that moment.

I looked at my watch.

'I'd better drive you to your hotel.'

Her face dissolved helplessly.

'Oh, Willyummy. I didn't make a booking.'

She held out her arms. The robe fell off completely.

I took her to the airport early the following morning. She had given me the telephone number of her private investigator. Perhaps she was hoping that if I employed her ex-lover it would help her to become reinstated in his affections. Perhaps she hoped to become reinstated in mine. She was a fantasist, but not a cunning one, just a simple, good- natured girl who loved making love. She also, apparently, enjoyed working at the franchise she had bought. Mixing people all together was just her style. Her foolish customers stood in circles hand in hand, mumbling arcane messages across the oceans and continents and centuries. I didn't suppose it did much harm. Everybody, included Daisy, appeared to have a good time.

My good resolution, incidentally, hadn't worked. She pulled me down on top of her, her lips blindly seeking mine, her body performing frantic contortions in its efforts to find me. Years of abstinence did wonders for my virility. I performed feats of sexual athletics I hadn't managed since I was a young man. She climaxed as never before in all the years we had been married. She cried and shrieked till I thought the apartment building would come tumbling down on us.

I enquired: 'Are you having multiple orgasms?'

She responded with blasphemy, cursing and demanding more, which I had the greatest of pleasure in providing.

I remembered in the midst of climaxing the composer Bach, who had seventeen children. He was no stranger to this kind of sexual experience. One of his fugues was ringing forcefully in my head. They reek of counterpointing thrust with come and come with thrust.

When we had finished, I asked mischievously: 'Was that cosy enough for you?'

Neither of us spoke of getting back together again. She had my measure and I had hers. There was no mention of meeting again. Time had gone backwards for a short while and we emerged feeling exactly the same as when we parted.

However, she had given me the telephone number and address of her former lover, the private investigator.

6

When Mohamed came the following day, he seemed at first to be in a gentler mood. He dismissed the old woman with a casual wave of the hand and invited Kate to sit in one of the two armchairs. He sat on the end of the bed. Judging its firmness with a few gentle bounces, he smiled and said suggestively: 'Good for fucking. Yes?'

Kate. ignoring his remark, commented: 'You're looking very smart today, Mohamed.' He was wearing a very smart pair of blue shorts and a colourful designer T-shirt. It was a very hot day – the temperature outside somewhere in the nineties.

'I'm glad you noticed, Kate. Pleasing you is my highest concern.'

It was the first time he had called her by her first name. She hoped it heralded the beginning of an improved relationship. But she was always aware of the menacing violence that lay just below the surface.

He remarked: 'Your looking very beautiful yourself today. I see you are wearing one of the dresses I bought for you.'

She had put on one of the less garish creations he had bought her, hoping to appease him. She had in mind to try to persuade him that it would be better for him to go with girls of his own age. She had been racking her brain for knowledge of errant sexual behaviour on the part of male adolescents. . At High School a boy she had known had made an inept attempt to rape a girl and had afterwards committed suicide. There was a boy who boasted of having a huge collection of stolen brassieres. There was an apocryphal story of a young man with a relentless addiction to making catapults. His psychiatrist decided that lovemaking might be a cure. After persuading him to go out on a date, he asked him to describe what had happened. The young man said he had kissed the girl and then removed her bra. 'Good. And then?' The young man said he removed her panties. The psychiatrist enquired: 'What happened next? He was horrified when the young man replied: 'I took the elastic out of her panties and turned it into a catapult.'

Kate did not repeat the story to Mohamed. His most unnerving characteristic was a complete and total lack of humour.

'Yes, thank you for the dress. Have you ever bought someone a dress before?'

'Never,' he said, slowly shaking his head.

'Have you ever been in love before?'

'No. This is the first time.'

'It is always difficult the first time. I was once married, you know.'

'Yes, I knew.'

'How did you find out?'

'It is mentioned in your computer.'

Kate was taken aback at this reminder of the personal information held on her notebook.

'Doesn't it put you off me that I have slept with other men.'

'No,' he said airily. 'I know now that you will be faithful to me for ever more.'

'How can you be certain of that?'

'Because I will kill anybody who dares to come near you.'

'Would it not suit you better to marry a virgin?'

'No,' he said solemnly. 'I have not fallen in love with a virgin.'

'Would it not be better if you did?'

'It's not possible,'

'What about your family. Wouldn't they prefer it if you married someone of your own age?'

'I have no family. I have my own money. I make my own decisions.'

She realised that the jaws of his mind were set inexorably. There seemed nothing she could do to change it. She had managed on one occasion to divert him with a Middle Eastern fable. This time she could not even think of a story line.

He started again on his favourite theme: 'I want you to take off your clothes, Kate Villeneuve. This time I will not be thwarted.'

'Why don't you go to a strip joint? There are hundreds of them in New York.'

'No. They are barbaric.'

'Isn't what you are asking of me barbaric?'

'No. This is between you and me. Seeing you naked will inspire me to even greater love.'

'But my body is not very pretty.'

'It will be to me.'

'Perhaps you see me as an artist sees his model.'

'Exactly. You must do it now,'

'Would you like to be an artist? Have you ever painted?'

'No.'

' I could give you some art lessons.'

'Don't put it off any more,' he said angrily. 'or I shall punish you.'

. 'I would like to tell you a little story about an artist and his model. If you listen it will enhance the experience when eventually I undress before you. It will only take a few minutes and afterwards you will enjoy seeing me a thousand times more. The story is called Beauty in the Round and it concerns Picasso.'

'I have heard of him,' Mohamed interjected eagerly. 'He liked painting bulls.'

'He was also fond of painting nude women.'

Having captured his attention. she went on: 'One of the problems Picasso had was that he wanted to convey a vision of his model that was not purely a visual impression. He wanted to convey his emotions when he was making love.'

Mohamed stretched himself out on the floor and looking upwards at Kate, who was sitting on the bed said: 'This is exactly how I shall feel when you have undressed before me.'

'The problem with this particular model was that she would not allow him to make love to her. She was married to another man.'

'Then why did her husband allow her to undress before him?' Mohamed said, mystified.

'It was what she did for a living. Her husband, who was also an artist, hadn't been able to sell his pictures. They were very short of money.'

'Where was all this happening?' Mohamed enquired.

'In the South of France.'

'Frenchmen must be barbaric,' Mohamed said contemptuously. 'Who would allow another man to look at his wife naked.'

'We are not discussing morality,' Kate said indulgently. 'You must understand why this strained situation existed. The husband and his young wife, Lois, needed food and she was being paid for modelling. There are worse crimes than allowing someone to paint your wife in the nude.'

She glanced at Mohamed to note the effect of her words. She was pleased to see that he was listening intently.

'Anyway, the artist ...'

'Was it Picasso? Mohamed enquired.

'If it makes the story more interesting for you. The artist had become besotted with the model. He wanted to have her at all costs. He kept reducing the fee that he paid her, hoping in this way to make the couple so unhappy that they would part. The husband became furious. Each time she came home with fewer francs in her purse, he upbraided her, saying that he would kill the artist for being so mean.

He was also jealous. He became so worried that Lois, his wife, might succumb to the artist's blandishments that he arranged for her to signal him from a window every fifteen minutes during the sittings to show that she was safe from Picasso's advances. During the fifteen minutes she was allowed to rest from posing she would wave a rose taken from a vase so that her husband could see that she was all right.

The roses died eventually and the housekeeper threw them away. On the next occasion Lois was allowed to rest, she looked around, saw a loaf of bread on a table nearby, and waved it instead. The village baker thought the signal was meant for him and hastened with a pannier of bread to the artist's house. He paused to feast his eyes on Lois through the window before hastening to the front door. The housekeeper appeared at the door and took a loaf. She went back to the artist and asked for some money to pay for it. The artist came to the front door with a banknote. As the baker had no change, the artist told him he would pay him the next day and put the money back into his pocket. The husband watched with interest and wondered what exactly was going on.

When the artist paid Lois, however, he unwittingly included the banknote intended for the baker. So what when they arrived home, she opened her purse and discovered that she had been given extra money.'

'Why has he paid you more this time?' the husband asked, suspiciously.

'Perhaps he has repented of being so mean.'

'That man hasn't an ounce of repentance in his body,' the husband retorted.

'Don't complain. We shall have meat for our dinner this evening,' said his wife and counted the money again to make sure.

The compulsion to gossip is irresistible in small villages. The baker told the wine merchant that he had enjoyed success by first watching through the window and then taking his wares to the front door. The wine merchant repeated what the baker had done. He too gazed into the window before asking the housekeeper if more wine was required. Other tradesmen followed suite, besieging the house with offers to supply products at the lowest prices.

By now the artist had realised that Lois was the chief attraction and offered to sell the tradesmen sketches of her which they could use to advertise their wares. They enthusiastically took up his offer.

When Lois's husband heard of this, he stormed into the artist's house and said he would not allow him to distribute unauthorised pictures of his wife. An unholy row ensued. Finally, they agreed to share the proceeds.

'Is that the end of the story? Mohamed enquired.

'No, it is just the beginning.'

The artist, who might or might not have been Picasso, became very rich, as indeed did Lois and her husband. The signalling at the window which by a stroke of good luck had made them rich was no longer necessary, because the husband was now invited into the house to watch his wife being painted. He learned from Picasso the technique of painting nudes and soon became famous himself.

People, however, rarely appreciate their good fortune. The artist was still obsessed with making Lois his mistress and offered his total fortune if the husband would divorce her. The husband refused. The artist asked him if he would mind living in a ménage a trois.

'You understand what that means, Mohamed?

'Yes, I do. I would not have agreed.. Nobody can have you but me.'

'The husband, it seemed, felt the same way and no solution could be reached. One day, when they were all in the studio, the artist became very emotional and threatened to commit suicide. Lois ingored his threat and sat down on the couch near the window from which she had formerly signalled to her husband. The artist was smoking a pipe. The husband was smoking a Gaullois. The studio was heavy with smoke. Lois, feeling utterly helpless had an inspiration. Turning to the two men, she said: 'I shall let you both do paintings of me and I shall choose whoever makes the best likeness of me.''

The artist grinned. He had painted her so many times that he was convinced his painting would surpass that of the husband.

The husband smiled, thinking I am her husband. She loves only me and has invented this stratagem so that I can finally claim her as my own.

He said: 'OK. That's a deal. How long do we have to do the painting?'

Lois said after a brief pause: 'Not one painting. You wil each do four. And there will be no sittings you must paint me from your imagination.'

'Why?' the artists enquired in chorus.

Lois replied: Because in each of the paintings I will be at a different age. In the first I shall be thirty. In the second forty. In the third fifty and in the fourth eighty.'

Both men looked at each other, completely mystified.

'We don't know what you will look like when you are older,' Picasso complained.

'Exactly,' the husband echoed.

'Then this will be a true test of your artistic powers. Lois said with an enigmatic smile. 'While you are working on this project, I shall take a holiday with my sister in Normandy. I shall be away for three months and when I come back I shall inspect the eight paintings and decide which one of you I shall live with for the rest of my life.'

Lois went to Normandy. The two artists worked hard at their paintings. Neither allowed his rival to see his work. On one occasion, though, Picasso – if that was his name– broke into the husband's studio when he was drinking at the local tavern and inspected his work. He went home delighted with himself. The stupid man, he told himself, doesn't understand her beauty at all. He has given her breasts that are much too large. He has painted out the tiny imperfection on her nose, which is one of her most delightful features, and he has given her fat ankles instead of the slim, streamlined ones she possesses. Lois is already undoubtedly mine.

Lois's husband paid a surprise visit to the artist's studio when he was out and bribed his housekeeper to let him view the paintings. Lois in her old age looked disgusting. The artist had painted her with a bowed back, her chin and nose were much too large, her breasts sagged horribly, she had a big belly and her legs were scrawny and bent.' I have already won,' he told himself, as he left the house.

On his way home he called in at the tavern and found Picasso – if such were he– drinking a glass of absinthe.

'Can I buy you another one?' he demanded of his opponent.

'No, no, let me buy you one. Or two, if you like. We might as well start celebrating your divorce now. Only a true artist like me can interpret female beauty in every sense of the word. A husband only sees what has become too familiar to him. He is blind to the inner light that shines beneath the surface.'

'Nonsense,' the husband responded, knocking back his first absinthe. 'You can only understand a woman when you have slept with her and heard her cries of ecstasy. Then you know the true woman and are able to delineate it truthfully on the canvas.'

The argument raged all night and ended in fisticuffs when the tavern closed. Their faces still bore signs of their injuries when Lois returned from Normandy.

'Which of them, Mohamed, do you think she chose?'

'I don't really care,' Mohamed said sullenly. 'If you were an artist's model, you wouldn't make any fuss at all about being seen naked.'

'An artist's model is free to choose whether she will pose or not.'

'I would pay you far more than the average artist pays his model.'

'But I would not be free,' Kate insisted.

'My father always said freedom is an illusion.'

'Who is your father?

A stubborn look appeared on Mohamed's face.

'That is my secret. It cannot be told.'

'Then his opinion is worth nothing. If we don't know who he is we cannot judge whether his opinions are worth listening to. More to the point, what is your opinion on the question of which artist Lois should choose.'

'I have no opinion in the matter,' Mohamed said impatiently.

'Should she not choose her husband to whom she has made her vows?'

'Perhaps,' Mohamed replied.

'Or should she choose the man whose painting reflect her true image?'

'I don't know,' Mohamed replied listlessly.

'You don't understand women, do you Mohamed.'

'Does anyone?'

' Would you like to belong to the exclusive set of men who do?'

'Yes'

'It's getting late now. But I shall give you some lessons tomorrow.'

Mohamed stood up, went to the door, turned a grim face towards her and waved good bye.

7

I telephoned Daisy, when I arrived in New York, and told her that I was about to ring Bobby, her private investigator. She said: 'Come to lunch. James will be home from school. Bobby will be at one of our meetings tomorrow evening. If you come along, I'll introduce you to him.'

It was great seeing my son. James, now aged twelve, was the image of his mother. He was tall for his age, very engaging and good looking. According to Daisy he excelled at drama and sport. I thought how good it would be for him if Daisy and I got together again. Then Kate's image appeared in my mind and I discounted the notion. If I did remarry Daisy, she would soon be off again in search of bigger and better orgasms.

I was quite amazed by the banality of the For Fu meeting, although I must admit Daisy conducted it with composure and quiet sincerity. She obviously devoutly believed in the junk she was foisting on her customers. At one stage she invited me to join hands with a group of about twenty New Yorkers, who apparently had nothing else on which to waste their time and money. I tried very hard to persuade myself that I was achieving connection with the Cosmos. To tell the truth, I didn't feel a damned thing. But when I spoke to Bobby Francino, my wife's former lover, supposedly a typical hard-boiled private investigator, he assured me with unfeigned enthusiasm that it left him all charged up and ready to go out conquer the world.

I told him I had some business I wished to discuss with him and we went to a local bar. I had a beer, he drank coffee. Daisy had already mentioned that I was a prospective customer. He was a little, forty-year old guy with a mop of black hair, a thin lined face and a habit of squeezing his Adam's apple as he tried to absorb information. He remembered reading about Kate Villeneuve's disappearance and asked if I had any theories. I said it seemed obvious that she had abducted. She would never have gone away without informing her son and her friends. He replied that it was unwise to assume anything when people disappear and quoted various cases in which he had been involved, including a case of 'fugue' when someone – usually a man – completely forgets his past life. I asked him how much he would charge, tried unsuccessfully to haggle and I arranged to meet him at his office the following morning.

I took a cab to my hotel, and sat in my room feeling lonely, half wishing I had stayed at Daisy's place. But I was reluctant to get involved again. I asked myself why had I gotten into this situation. My motivation was confused – a mixture of love, hope and curiosity. I was fully aware that the machinery I was setting in train in my efforts to find Kate might land me in trouble with my boss, even though he had, albeit half-heartedly, given his assent. I was familiar with his mercurial changes of mood that might lead him at any time to change his mind.

Bobby Francino occupied a fairly senior position in the Rupert organization, which has been in existence for nearly one-hundred and fifty years. he invited me to sit opposite his desk in his large, airy office and opened up a note-book computer, which he told me, contained a microphone, adding that the conversation would be analysed for pauses and inflexions in my speech that might offer clues.

'Do you use a lie detector?'

He gave a noncommittal flourish with his hands. I wanted to let him know that I was not entirely unacquainted with the tricks of his trade. The thought had also crossed my mind that my intense awareness that he was my wife's ex-lover would affect the readings. But, I reassured myself, he was the expert and would make allowance for that.

I said: 'Mr. Francino, why do you go to these For Fu sessions now you've split with Daisy?'

He looked faintly amused.

'I've paid for a full year and want to get my money's worth.'

'Do you think Kate Villeneuve is still in America?'

'Probably, if she is still alive.'

'What are the odds of finding her?'

'If she has crossed El Quaeda somewhere along the way, the odds are not good. But we'll go through all the relevant facts very carefully.'

He asked me to sign a form to sign that freed the Rupert Agency of responsibility for personal injury or financial loss arising from the investigation. I agreed to pay four weeks fees and expenses in advance and produced my Amex card. To my surprise he refused to accept it. After some argument he said he would accept a check from my boss and promised to start work as soon as it arrived.

'Now, he said, putting the signed form back in the drawer, 'let's have some more information about the missing woman. What family did she have in the USA and abroad?'

I told him and gave details of her educational and other qualifications.

Has she been know to use drugs? What boy friends did she have? What is her sexual orientation? Did she play the stock market? What clubs did she belong to? Did she have a criminal record? Have you fucked her?

I gave an embarrassed laugh at the last question. He noted my negative answer without a glimmer of a smile. I asked myself was I wasting the company's money by employing someone naive enough to have been suckered into Daisy's mental health salon.

He looked up from the notebook into which he had been entering my answers and said, 'I bet you wish you could answer in the affirmative to the last question.'

'What does that have to do with the investigation?'

'Everything and nothing,' he said with a cheerful grin. A girl appeared with a tray of coffee and cookies. He said solemnly, dunking a cookie in his coffee: 'I only provide cookies when I see a long, complicated lucrative case ahead.'

' I'd better not tell Paul Schneider, or he won't sign the check.'

'He'll sign it.'

'How do you know?'

'We've worked for him before.'

'Really. That's very interesting. What kind of work?'

'Can't tell you that. When you get back to Windy City give him my regards,'

'One more question – will you be able to get any assistance from the FBI?'

'If we can demonstrate it's to their advantage. They know all about you.'

'You've been in touch with them already?'

He gave me a pitying look.

'When the FBI get the faintest smell of El Quaeda, they're like a dog after a rabbit.'

• *

I flew back to Chicago later that morning and went straight to the office. I chose a story to head the next day's edition. I telephoned Paul Schneider and told him that a bill would be arriving for the private investigation into Kate's disappearance. He grumbled when I told him that my attempt to get a better deal had failed.

I said: 'Look on it as an investment. Her story could be worth millions to the Chicago Echo.'

'You'll to find her first,' he commented sourly.

I wasn't optimistic at this stage. Who would place any trust in an investigator who believed in the obscure philosophy of a long dead Chinese philosopher?

I went home fairly early that afternoon, made myself a cup of coffee and sat on the balcony, hoping to see Harry the Seagull. The doorbell rang and a Mrs Schultz, who said she was a neighbour from across the way, asked if she could borrow some sugar. I found a spare pack in the kitchen press. She chatted aimlessly for a while, until I had to remind her that I had work to do.

I resumed my vigil on the balcony. The seagulls appeared to have emigrated. I considered a game of golf at my country club, but remembering my dismal performance the last time I had played, thought better of it.

The phone rang. It was Paul Schneider's PA.

'I've been trying to get in touch with you.'

' I have been home over an hour.'

'I called you a few minutes ago but your number was engaged.'

'That's odd. I haven't used the phone since I got in.'

'A Mr. Francino is on your way to see you.'

'I saw him in New York yesterday.'

'That's the message, anyway.'

The front door bell rang again. I cursed, thinking it was Mrs. Schultz again. Bobby Francino stood there. I invited him in and expressed surprise that he hadn't been able to get through to me on my telephone, adding: 'You told me you wouldn't start work until you had received the first payment.'

'I've just collected it from Paul Schneider.'

'Is anything wrong?'

He smiled and said: 'No, but presumably you want me to get on with the job as soon as possible.'

'Of course. Would you like a beer?'

'I'll have a soft drink.'

I motioned him towards a chair on the balcony. Handing him a glass of orange juice, I said: 'I was just amazed that you have turned up so quickly.'

'The reason is that I have to go to Rome. But first I telephoned the Chicago police department. They have some interesting information. You failed to mention that Kate Villeneuve's notebook computer was missing. The police have a print out of the e-mails she sent during the past six months.'

'Anything useful?'

'I'm going down to police headquarters shortly to find out.'

He sipped his orange juice.'

'Will you let me know if it provide any clues to her disappearance.'

'Our local man, Archie Macalinden, will contact you shortly. I have briefed him on your case.'

'Why are you going to Rome?'

` 'Just following up a hunch.'

I gulped down my beer and got another one from the fridge. When I returned, Harry the seagull was standing on the balcony rail, which for some inexplicable reason gave me a feeling of hope that the investigation would be successful.

I asked Francino: 'Did you join For Fu before or after you met Daisy?

'Does it matter?'

'Frankly, I am puzzled as to why any one would want to join it.'

' I'd join the Klu Klux Clan, if my job demanded it.'

'So you met her there.'

'I didn't say that.'

He was one canny guy. You could pump him for information all day and get nothing out of him. Still, it was an essential part of his calling. I wondered why Paul Schneider hadn't mentioned the fact that he had employed him when I first suggested a private investigation.

Francino touched his throat and said: 'Do you find it embarrassing dealing with your ex-wife's ex-lover?'

'No, but I'd like to know why you split with her.'

'You could hardly expect me to talk about that.'

'I guess not.'

'But we'll agree on one thing: she's a lovely lady.'

'Agreed,' I said heartily and then asked 'What kind of information are you hoping the print out of Kate Villeneuve's e-mail might provide?'

'It's possible that she communicated over the Internet with the person or persons who abducted her.'

'I went through her e-mails to the newspaper but there's nothing of any relevance to her disappearance.'

'Are you sure?' Francino said, leaning forward in his chair.

'Of course I'm sure,' I snapped.

'Try casting your mind back.'

Idiot, I thought.

I pointed to Harry, the seagull, who had just perched on the railing

'That little fellow helps me write editorials for The Echo. He also tells me how much better off I would be if I was a seagull, fishing for my supper, instead of having to spew out millions of words every year for a living.'

Francino was gazing at me steadily, almost hypnotically.

I suddenly remembered.

'Kate did send me a little piece of doggerel in one of her e-mails.'

'Let's have it.'

'It said something like: 'Dad's bag has become a hag. She keeps smoking a fag and losing her rag.' She often called me Dad. She was describing her frustration while waiting to interview Saddam Hussein. She was so angry that she bought a packet of cigarettes, although she hadn't smoked for a long time.'

'I understand that she came back without ever seeing Saddam.'

'That's right. I believe the strict surveillance the regime imposed made her feel quite ill. I don't see that her little joke could have any significance.'

'Everything is linked. When you know most of the linkages everything becomes clear. A few more apparently meaningless clues like that and we might find out where she is. In the meantime I'll tell Archie what you have just told me.'

He held up the hand-held computer on which he had recorded our conversation and said: 'That'll be all, Mr Hummelstein.'

'Thanks for filling me in, Mr Francino.'

'Call me Bobby. We'll be seeing more of each other. Nice place you've go here.'

'Thanks. I'm Bill to my friends.'

We shook hands and he left.

I went back to the balcony to commune with Harry but he had gone.

8

Archie Macalinden, a good-looking guy, about thirty, with close-cropped ginger hair and a supercilious smile on his thin lips, came into my office. He wearing a cheap watch. He looked at me with disdain, obviously wondering what kind of an old slouch edits the Chicago Echo. I don't wear sharp clothes to the office; it's not the image I like to convey to my staff.

I invited him to sit down and asked if he would like beer or a coffee. He said a beer would be welcome. I took two out of the mini-fridge and we got down to business.

'Did you get to see the print out of Kate Villeneuve's e-mails? I enquired.

'Yes, the police have been very cooperative.

'Anything significant?

'Mr Francino mentioned that little piece of rhyme to me. She certainly hated staying in Baghdad. That's confirmed by another e-mail she sent to her sister in Pittsburgh. Here's a copy.'

Archie Macalinden pulled out a sheet of paper from his jacket pocket and read it out to me. It was addressed to her sister in Pittsburgh.

"Hi, it's getting hotter by the hour. My fellow journalist are expecting cruise missiles to be flashing past our window any time now.

I haven't managed to get to see Saddam and the way tension is ratcheting up now, seems very unlikely that I will. If our car hadn't run of gas yesterday I would have got my interview. Just unlucky I guess. My boss will be disappointed. He sent me out here with great expectations. He's a nice guy. Ribs me about my French descent. I get my own back by ribbing him about his age.

I feel very uncomfortable. I have a spooky feeling that I am being watched all the time. Even in the privacy of my own bedroom I seem to feel the presence of Saddam's spies. But I suppose this is normal in war time and we are already to all intents and purposes at war.

I'm considering asking to be recalled, even though it will harm my professional reputation. I'm obviously not as tough as I thought I was.

Will telephone when I arrive back in Chicago.

Love to you, Sam and the children.

Katie."

'So what do you think?' Archie enquired.

I replied: 'Doesn't sound very helpful to me. What do you think? You're the expert.'

Archie said thoughtfully: 'It could be unnerving to know that every movement you make is being recorded by Saddam's intelligence organization. They made the weapons inspectors feel uncomfortable. It must be worse for a woman on her own.'

'So do you have any theories?'

'Only that she may have accidentally got hold of sensitive information without being aware of it. Saddam's spooks may have believed that she knew something and was coming back to the USA to report it.'

'Why should they wait all this time? Anyway, the regime is now a busted flush.'

'They are still a force to be reckoned with. They have billions of dollars stashed away.'

'Why should they persecute one innocent woman journalist who didn't even get to see Saddam?'

'We don't know what happened during those three critical days just before war broke out. It may have nothing to do with Iraq. She may have offended members of the local criminal fraternity in Chicago.'

'I've been through all her copy and I couldn't find anything that would bear out that theory.

'Have another look. If you find anything that might be significant, meet me in Jackson's Bar at eight o'clock this evening. I usually pop in for a drink at about that time.'

I said: 'OK, but I doubt if I shall find anything.'

'You never know. When your mind has been alerted to something you sometimes sees things to which you have been blind before.'

I nodded and asked Anabelle Wong, my PA to show him out.

At the time I had no intention of meeting Archie MacAlinden. But later that afternoon, when everything seemed settled I found ten minutes in which to glance through some of Kate's work. Occasionally, she offered ideas for feature articles, most of which I turned down. But there was one article which had a premonitory quality. It was almost as though she knew something unpleasant was going to happen to her. Called Fear of the Stalker it was about a British television presenter who had been shot on her doorstop by an unknown stranger. The general theme of the article was that the more famous you are the greater your chances of being killed. She quoted various assassinations from Lincoln to Jack Kennedy and his brother Bobby and John Lennon and then pointed out that as a journalist with a thousand readers you were probably safe, with a million you were in the danger zone, with a zillion, statistically, you were as good as dead. It was that touch of gruesome humour that appealed to me.

Jackson's bar was not far from where I live, so I decided to stroll round and ask Archie if he thought there might be a grain of truth in what she had written.

I sat at the bar and ordered a Guinness. Archie came in five minutes later, saw me immediately and sat beside me.

I said, indicating my glass. 'Will you have one?'

He shook his head.

'Can't stand the stuff.' He ordered a Scotch whiskey.

I showed him the article and asked if it might have prompted someone with an unbalanced mind into the notion of stalking, capturing or killing the author. He thought it unlikely but tucked the article into his shirt pocket.

I rarely drink in bars. I usually have a few beers, or a few slugs of whiskey, on my balcony with Harry the Seagull as my sole companion. We – that is to say Harry and I – discuss my editorials, sometimes my ex-wives and, occasionally, Michelle Pfeiffer, Nicole Kidman, Sharon Stone and other remote female icons. I never discuss Kate with Harry, because that would somehow carry the implication that she was as totally out of reach as the afore-mentioned.

I have always assumed that Harry is male. It enables me to share my thoughts with him, although I did once think of making him gay, so that he could offer an objective opinion about women. But who wants reality to enter their most precious dreams?

I asked Archie how he had got into his line of work. He told me that after a run of bad luck as a stockbroker he noticed that the shares of the Rupert Investigation Agency were going up fast when most other stocks were heading south. Guessing that he would shortly be fired, he telephoned the agency and asked when they would be recruiting more staff. He was successful with his application and spent a couple of years tailing men and women suspected of cheating on their partners. I wondered if Paul Schneider had been one of his clients. Recently, Archie had been promoted to fraud and other criminal investigations.

When I saw his eyes settle on a gaggle of attractive women sitting at a table under the window, I said: 'Go ahead and make a move. I'm a tad too old for them'

He shook his head.

'Are you married?' I enquired.

'Nope.'

I sipped my Guinness, and noticing that he was again wistfully gazing at the girls, tried to persuade him to make a move. But he shook his head and turned his attention to his glass of whisky. The expression willing to wound but afraid to strike came into my mind.

He bought me another drink. By this time we were both comfortably drunk. Thinking to get him to open up on the secrets of his trade, I bought him another drink. He, in turn, bought one for me.

The girls went out, chatting and giggling.

'There's your chance,' I said. 'One of them will fancy a handsome young Irishman.'

'I'm not Irish' he said thickly. 'I'm American. A good Catholic American.'

'You must be Irish with a name like yours.'

'In the distant past, perhaps.'

'I still count myself German, although my family have lived in Illinois for two- hundred years.'

He called out to the barman and ordered more drinks. This time I asked for a double Scotch.

'What did you major in at university?' I enquired.

'Economics. I always thought I'd make big bucks. But haven't so far. Not yet, Will some day. You're wondering why I didn't go after those girls. The fact is there are too many fuckerholics around.'

'Just as well, or there wouldn't be any children.' I reminded him.

He stared at me foolishly and declared: 'Did you know that the National Fuck Index has gone up sixty-per-cent in the last twenty-five years, and that's discounting immigrants, who fuck like rabbits.'

'Where d'yer get those statistics?' I enquired.

Archie tapped his nose and said: 'We have our secret sources.'

I got down from my stool.

Archie tried to do the same and would have fallen, if I hadn't held him up.

He staggered to the door: 'You'd think that increased output would decrease the cost per fuck, but no .... The law of diminishing returns has set in ...'

I helped him into a passing cab. He shouted to me out of the window: 'Aren't I fucking right?'

I walked home, my trust in private investigators much diminished. The poor guy was not only sex-obsessed but also, apparently, hopeless with woman.

I was so drunk that when I got home that the seagull sitting on the rail of my balcony looked quite unfamiliar. Private eyes and seagulls melded into one great blur. I was feeling sad. The odds against ever seeing Kate again seemed to have lengthened enormously.

9

At our weekly meeting Paul Schneider asked if the increased coverage of Kate Villeneuve's disappearance was selling more newspapers. I brazenly lied and told him that there was strong evidence that it was. He then said: ' Francino probably mentioned to you that I hired him to do some work for me.'

I said nothing, puzzled by his statement.

He went on: 'I used the agency to look into the credit ratings of some of my financial advisers.'

'A wise move, sir.'

We discussed advertising revenues. He complained about adverse reports by one of our sports writers on his baseball team. I told him the truth never hurts and advised him to speak to the team's trainer, because that was where the problem lay.

He bared his teeth in what might almost have been a smile.

When we had finished our discussion, he told me that he was only prepared to continue financing the investigation into Kate Villeneuve's disappearance for another six weeks. I opened my mouth to protest. But he held up his hand and declared 'Enough is enough.'

I nodded and left his office.

• *

Francino telephoned. I asked him if he had enjoyed his trip abroad. He replied enigmatically: 'East, west, home is best.'

I told him that Schneider had put a time limit on the investigation. He replied: 'Yes, I know. He sent a fax.'

The news depressed me even further. I had been hoping that Schneider did not intend to carry out his threat.

'So what are our chances of finding Kate in such a short space of time?

'I'm coming to Chicago tomorrow. We'll discuss it then.'

'OK. I had a few drinks with Archie the other day.'

'How did you get on with him?'

'OK. See you in my office, then.'

'I'd prefer for security reasons to meet you in your home. Say around thirteen-thirty.'

'Sure.'

I wondered why all this cloak-and-dagger stuff.

I had some misgiving about the Rupert Agency. They hadn't made much progress. It seemed to me that Francino was wasting time and money going to Rome when he should have been here in Chicago investigating Kate's disappearance.

A flurry of activity in the office took my mind off the problem for a while. When it subsided, a report came in from a local news agency that a female corpse had been found floating in Lake Michigan near the shoreline. I hoped it wasn't Kate and was thankful when shortly afterwards that proved to be the case.

The traffic snarl-up on my way home persuaded me that I should walk to work in future.

Arriving at my apartment, I made myself a sardine-burger, watched some baseball on television and sat on the balcony with a glass of wine. It was raining. No seagulls. I was totally alone, in spite of having two ex-wives and two sons. Would Kate Villeneuve, supposing she was ever found, marry me? There was little doubt that I was old enough to be her father – at age fifteen when she was born, I had enough sperm to populate most of the cities in the USA.

I selected a book from a bookcase called The Dynamics of Marital Sex, which had sold more than a million copies. I replaced it on the shelf, without opening it, telling myself I would only read it when Kate Villeneuve agreed to marry me.

First, however, I had to find her.

*

Bobby Francino arrived at my apartment at one-thirty p.m., as arranged. He had already had lunch. I sat with him at the kitchen table, drank beer and ate a Bratwurst sandwich while he drank coffee. I asked him if he had any particular reason for eschewing alcohol.

He replied: 'For Fu doesn't encourage it.'

'You never told me why you joined.'

'Why you join is immaterial. It's what you get out of it that counts.'

It was about to say: 'You got Daisy out of it.' But I managed to restrain myself. We were at a crucial point in the investigation. I needed to spur the Rupert Agency on to greater effort.

'OK, Bobby, first of all do you mind telling me: did your trip to Rome advance the investigation?'

He paused with his coffee cup halfway to his lips and drawled: 'You could say that.'

'Would you care to say more?'

'No.'

He drank the rest of his coffee.

'So where we stand? I asked.

'We're still in the intelligence-gathering stage.'

'Oh, come on. Time is running out.'

'We are making progress.'

'Enlighten me.'

'One way of solving crimes is by following transfers of money. Money follows crime and crime follows money. We believe that some Italian banks have been laundering money from the Middle East and since we suspect a Middle East connection in this case it might be important.'

'Did you get hold of any useful information?'

'A little, but it's a little too early to evaluate its significance.'

'So we're just as wise as we were before,' I said, grimly.

'No, we are wiser. I have been considering the way she missed her appointment with Saddam Hussein. You told me her car ran out of gas. That hardly seems likely in such an oil rich country.'

'I've ran out of gas on more than one occasion.'

'Perhaps somebody wanted her to miss her appointment with Saddam, for some reason we can only conjecture. Her abductors obviously knew she worked for your newspaper.

'They certainly know now because they stole her computer.'

'Why should they have bothered to take it?'

'They may have been trying to get hold of information, although for the life of me I can't think what they had in mind.'

'Did you intend her to fly home from Iraq immediately after the interview?'

'Yes. But, as you know, she came back early because she wasn't feeling well.'

'Could it be that someone who wanted her to stay may have organised her abduction?'

'It sounds like a far-fetched theory.'

'OK. We'll leave that conjecture aside for the moment. Until recently we have been looking at local criminals here in Chicago. We're now taking a much closer look at the Arab connection. I have been in touch with the Palestine hotel where she was staying. Saddam always kept half a dozen rooms there for members of his Intelligence services and family members.'

'Maybe Saddam took a fancy to her,' I said with a smile.

Francino replied seriously: 'It's possible Anything is possible in this crazy world. While we are on the subject of madness, how did you get on with Archie. I gathered you had a few drinks with him.'

'That's right.'

'He's one crazy guy, isn't he. Did he get on to his favourite theme of supply and demand.'

I smiled. 'Yes, he was going on about the statistics of copulation. He seems hung up on sex.'

'His wife ran out on him after only a few months of marriage. But when I said he was crazy, don't get me wrong. He's crazy like a fox. He's one of the best investigators we have.'

I nodded sagely.

'He pretends to see everything in terms of supply and demand. He has, incidentally, a hang-up about nudity.' Francino chuckled. 'He says he can get daily quotes on the Nudity Exchange. A square inch of naked flesh is worth so much in Bahrein, not so much in Boston, hardly anything in New York and nothing in Cannes.'

I laughed. I was revising my opinion of Archie.

Francino went on more seriously: 'Archie maintains that the value of life is also subject to the laws of supply and demand. Countries with a high birth rate have more suicide bombers than countries with a low birth rate. I reminded him that there were plenty of kamikaze pilots during the Second World War when the birth rate in Japan was not high. He insists this was an exception because the country was at war. My own belief is that young people sacrifice themselves because of the intense sense of obligation they feel towards their parents, an obligation that is clearly not reciprocated.'

'So his theories don't all work out. I must be getting back to the office. What is going to be your next move?

'We're following a trail of dollars.'

We went down in the elevator. I asked the janitor to call a cab for him.

I shouted: 'Keep in touch,' as I began walking towards the office.

He replied: 'You bet.'

It began to rain, and lacking an umbrella, I hailed a passing cab.

10

A telephone call came through from Francino soon after I arrived at the office. He said: 'Archie wants to pay you a visit. When will you be home?'

I had some work to do on the renewal of a contract with a news agency. I suggested eight-thirty that evening.

'OK. He'll be there. How long have you known your neighbour, Mrs. Schultz?'

'I don't know her. She hasn't been in residence for very long.'

' Archie will explain when he sees you.'

I had just arrived home when Archie rang the bell. I let him in and he immediately went to work on the telephone in the living-room with a miniature screw driver.

'It's a bug,' he said with obvious excitement, lifting out a small black object.

'Who put it there – the FBI?'

' More likely your neighbour, Mrs. Schultz.'

'Why on earth should she want to listen to my telephone conversations?'

Mr Francino and I think you may have been set up – perhaps by the gang that kidnapped Kate Villeneuve. Let's go and knock on her door.

There was no answer when we rang the bell. We learnt from the janitor that she had had recently checked out.

'The bitch borrowed some sugar from me,' I grumbled to Archie.

He was smiling.

'This is great news,' he said. 'Everything is falling into place.'

'What gave Bobby the idea of checking on my telephone,' I asked.

'He remembered that you told him that your secretary had rung but had got no reply. She must have rung while Mrs. Schultz was planting the bug.'

'I was only out of the room for a few minutes, looking for a carton of sugar.'

'That's all it takes. We'll report it to the police. But it's doubtful if they'll find her.'

'So where do we stand now?'

'We're making progress,' he said enthusiastically. 'We might even finish the job before Schneider puts the boom down. The people who abducted your lady journalist are obviously here in Chicago.'

'Why would they want to spy on me?'

'Kate Villeneuve might have mentioned your name to them. It would almost certainly be mentioned on the computer they stole. '

'Why should they be interested in me?'

'We don't know at this stage.'

' Archie, I'm forty-eight years old, an experienced journalist and as street-wise as they come. You're seriously suggesting that a gang of criminals originating in the Middle East – perhaps Iraqi in origin – have kidnapped one of my best journalists and are holding her here. What would their motive be?'

'Frankly, I don't know. What is fascinating about this business I'm in is that you can never predict what's going to happen next. When I was a stockbroker I could never fathom out why the market yo-yoed this way and that. But the intelligence business is even more unpredictable. Let me reassure you, though: the Rupert Agency has been going for a hundred and fifty years and the percentage of successes we have had has surprised everyone from the President of the USA downwards. "Rupert never gives up" is our motto. So, take normal precautions like double-locking your front door when you go to bed at night and always have a telephone within reach.'

I thanked him and let him out the front door.

I felt nervous, as I fried ham and eggs. The stakes seemed to have got higher. I wondered for a moment if Mrs. Schultz had been acting on the orders of a rival newspaper but I discounted the idea almost as soon as it came into my head. It seemed incredible that I should be bugged. But not altogether surprising in a situation where it was possible that foreign gangsters had kidnapped one of my journalists. I wished I had analysed the situation more fully with Archie MacAlinden. It struck me, though, that whoever was responsible for planting the bug was foolish, because it exposed them to greater risk of being caught. An idea then buzzed around my head like an angry bumble bee. I couldn't wait to discuss it with Bobby Francino. I calmed myself down with a glass of whiskey and went to bed.

11

Today I had to choose which of two news items to headline: a British government statement about its policy on Iraq and the rescue of a kitten caught up in a twister and deposited on top of a television tower. It took less than a second for me to chose the latter story.

I again featured our missing journalist on the front page, declaring that important clues had come to light. We asked our readers to continue to report any signs of suspicious activity that might have a bearing on her disappearance. I wasn't worried about whether the coverage given Kate Villeneuve's disappearance balanced the cost of employing the Rupert Agency, as long as the story was kept alive and the active search for Kate was continuing.

In the meantime I did my job, watched some sport, played golf occasionally (very badly), and kept in touch with the two investigators who, at considerable expense to Paul Schneider, were looking into Kate's disappearance.

I telephoned Bobby Francino and offered the theory that had been buzzing in my head for some time that Kate had been captured by a 'stalker,' an idea suggested by her own article. The bug in my telephone might have been a diversionary tactic on the part of the kidnapper.

Francino listened to me patiently and promised that he would think about what I had said. But I could tell that he thought I was verging on madness. I still didn't believe that Kate's disappearance might be connected with her abortive mission to Iraq. Francino's trip to Rome had produced some evidence that Saddam's money had found its way into the USA. But money becomes as directionless as a stagnant pool of water and I strongly doubted that line of enquiry would yield any useful clues. I tried to immerse myself in the running of the newspaper. But my mind constantly returned to Kate's disappearance.

12

Kate dreamt that she was swimming through an unfamiliar sea in which sharks and other predators were waiting to attack her. She was forced to keep swimming faster and faster to stay alive, but felt herself tiring rapidly. She woke in a panic, remembering that Mohamed had said he would come early that day. She had asked him about his education and he had told her that he was being instructed by private tutors, but refused to be drawn on the subjects he was studying. When she commented sarcastically that the proper treatment of women did not appear to form part of the syllabus, the irony was totally lost on him. He had replied haughtily: 'Isn't that what you are supposed to be teaching me.'

When he arrived, he took off his sand-coloured linen jacket, smoothed back his dark, glossy hair and ordered the old woman to leave the room. Noticing that Kate had a magazine on her lap, he asked civilly: Is there anything advertised in that magazine you would like me to bring you? he asked.

'No thanks. I just want to go home.'

'That's impossible. Why don't you just think about the lovely things I could buy you?'

Kate said impulsively : 'I should like an exercise bike.'

She thought that its delivery might give her an opportunity to convey a message to the outside world.

'I will consider that request and see if it is possible,' he said in a conciliatory manner. 'When are we going to make love? My friends have told me to put pressure on you.'

'Who are your friends?'

'Some guys I hang around with.'

'You friends are very ignorant. In the Western world putting pressure on women to have sex is considered a criminal offence.'

His lips curled into a supercilious smile.

'We are governed by different rules.'

'You are living in the United States of America. You flout its laws at your peril.'

'Don't give me that. We are impervious to American arms and you can never defeat us.'

Mohamed's flamboyant rhetoric had a familiar sound. She decided to avoid further confrontation and said: 'I won't make love until such time as we understand each other perfectly.'

'In the meantime, let me see you naked.'

'You told me that you loved me.'

'I do. That's why I want to see your beautiful body.'

'We must get to know each other better first.'

He said petulantly: 'You're supposed to be teaching me important things about women. You haven't taught me anything yet.'

'Patience is the most important thing of all. You are slowly absorbing that important lesson. Did you give any thought to the story of the two artists. Which one did she choose? Have you come to a conclusion yet?'

'Picasso, I think. He was the better artist.'

'Even though he made her appear ugly?'

' My friends say she would choose the one with the biggest dick.'

'Who are your friends?'

'Just some people who study with me.'

'When it comes to choosing a mate people look for a healthy, good-looking, intelligent partner with common interests, who will stick by each other in good times and in bad.'

'I will stick by you,' Mohamed said eagerly. 'And my dick is quite large, too.'

'We have not yet reached that stage in our relationship yet,' Kate said earnestly, her heart sinking. She had remembered that in Louis Golding's novel Lord of the Flies, schoolboys shipwrecked on a remote island had become murderous savages. It seemed to her that she was in a similar situation The one consoling feature was Mohamed's willingness thus far to listen to her stories. She devoutly hoped that her ordeal would not last as long as that of Sheharezade, the queen in The Arabian Nights who had survived for a thousand and one nights by spinning yarns to her tyrannical husband.

'Do you believe in the afterlife, Mohamed?'

He looked at her suspiciously and then said: 'It says in the Koran that good deeds will be rewarded in Paradise.'

'And where is Paradise?'

'Somewhere up in the sky. Why do you ask such questions?'

She had asked because an idea for a time-consuming fable had come into her mind.

'I should like to tell you about a woman who thought she knew where it was located.'

'Will it take long to tell me. I am dying to see you again without clothes.'

'When did you see me without clothes.'

'I have sworn on oath not to tell you.'

'Where did it happen?'

Mohamed replied: 'Never mind. Go ahead and tell me about this woman who discovered Paradise.'

Kate watched his face closely and went on: 'The story is called a Piece of Pi. Do you know what Pi is?'

'Something to do with a circle?'

'Yes, very good. It is the ratio of the circumference of a circle to its diameter If you divide the circumference of a circle by its diameter, what number do you get?'

'We did this at school. It is 3.142 approximately.'

'Approximately, yes. The whole point of the story is that the number is apparently never ending. People have spent their lives exploring this mystery. Towards the end of the eighteenth century there lived in Prague a brilliant woman mathematician called Lucille de Bruisson. She is an ancestor of mine.'

Ahmed's eyes widened. Her claim had obviously impressed him.

'Have you ever heard of Mozart, Mohamed?'

'Who has not heard of Mozart!'

'Mozart visited my ancestor in the year seventeen-hundred and eighty-eight. He was as much impressed by her mathematical ability as she was of his musical genius. The story goes that after she had shown him one of her works he improvised a series of arpeggios on a flute, which expressed her theorem in musical terms. He later incorporated it into a flute concerto. It was K – something. I have forgotten the number, but it doesn't matter. Lucille was a very beautiful woman with dark violet eyes, hair the colour of new-mown hay and, it was said, the most beautiful bosom in Europe. In those days there was a fashion for wearing low-cut dresses that even sometimes displayed the nipples.'

Mohamed's eyes widened again.

She was not only beautiful but had also inherited immense estates from her father and was extremely rich. As a result she was courted by suitors from all over the world. Hardly any of them, however, could match her brilliance at mathematics. She made it known that she would never marry a man inferior in that branch of knowledge. As a result a whole series of academies grew up all over Europe exclusively for the purpose of teaching advanced mathematics to her prospective suitors.

Eventually, two men emerged from the crowds of eager candidates One was Francois Molyneux, a relation of Jean Jacques Rousseau, who had studied at the Sorbonne university in Paris. The other was Tom Ramsbottom, a former blacksmith from Darlington in England, who was a self-taught mathematician of considerable distinction. They were both asked to present themselves to Lucille at her castle just outside Prague.

The night before she was due to meet them Lucille disguised herself as a bar maid and served beer at a local inn where they were staying. She found them both men attractive. She slightly favoured Tom Ramsbottom because she was fascinated by his nose, which had been broken in a pugilistic encounter. However, she was not the sort of woman to allow such a trivial matter to influence her final choice. Nor did she take it amiss that Francois Molyneux lightly patted her flank while she was serving him ale. In due course she interviewed the two suitors and having questioned them about the theories of celestial movements taught by the Marquis de la Place and Newton's Principia Mathematica, she went on to discuss Leonhard Euler's introductio in analysin infinitorum. Satisfied that their answers were of equal merit, she asked a footman to escort them outside the room while she prepared some more detailed questions.

While Francois Molyneux waited impatiently outside, tapping his gold-headed cane on the parquet floor, Lucille invited Tom Ramsbottom to come in and sit beside her on a chaise-longue. Speaking to him in English, she enquired: 'Do you believe in God?

'I am a Pantheist, Ma'am, he replied. I believe God is everywhere. When I walk across the Yorkshire moors I marvel at his works and feel at one with nature.

'Supposing the winds howled and thunder roared and lightning destroyed an oak tree a few yards from where you are standing, would you still feel the same?'

' I would,' Tom said stoutly. 'Such an incident would merely prove it is God's will that I should remain alive to do his bidding,'

'Is it God's will that you should seek my hand in marriage?'

'Yes, God formed my nature which demanded that I search for the most beautiful woman in Europe.'

His eyes roamed hungrily over her face and bosom, the latter discreetly covered since it was daytime.

'Would you marry a serving maid if she was as beautiful as you appear to think I am?'

'Yes,' Tom said, gazing into her eyes, 'if I cannot have you, I know where I can find such a one. She lives not far from here.'

Lucille guessed that he had recognised her as the girl who had served him ale the night before. But she was satisfied with his answer and continued testing him with other questions.

'What are two people seeking when they join together in marriage, Tom?'

'Happiness, Ma'am, is what we all seek. And when we find it we should never let it go.'

'Is there such a place as Paradise where we can all be happy all the time?'

He said hesitantly: 'Most religions suggest that such a place exists.'

'Do you have doubts?'

'It is a controversial subject, except perhaps in Paradise, where doubt cannot exist.' he added with a smile: 'Perhaps a corollary of that statement is that if one had no doubts one would already be in Paradise.'

'Wouldn't that not be a little boring?' Lucille enquired gently.

Tom smiled and said: 'By definition nothing in Paradise can be boring.'

Lucille said: 'You have said you would marry me if I had no possessions. Would you marry me if I was ignorant of mathematics.'

'No, Ma'am, Tom said vigorously. 'Your lively intelligence is as much a part of your dowry as your beauty. Let the rest can go hang.'

'Thank you, Tom. I am satisfied that you have a good, well-balanced mind. But I must tell you that I shall be satisfied with nothing less than perfection in my marriage.'

Tom recognised that he was up against a force stronger than both of them: the force of ideas. With some trepidation he waited eagerly for the next question.

' Where can Paradise be found, Tom?'

'In your arms, Ma'am,' Tom declared passionately, trying to embrace her.

Lucille evaded his outstretched arms and declared: 'It has been said that true Paradise can only be found where numbers no longer exist. Tell me where that might be.'

Tom suggested hesitantly: 'Perhaps Paradise exists when Pi runs out of numbers. To my knowledge Pi has only been worked out to seven-hundred and fifty decimal places. It appears to go on for ever without stopping.'

'Oh, Tom, you are so clever. Francois Molyneaux is waiting outside. If I find that he is equally clever I intend to set you both a task and I shall marry the one who performs it best.'

Disappointed, but with hope still left in his heart, Tom kissed the hand which Lucille graciously held out and withdrew.

A footman then invited Francois Molyneux to be questioned again by Lucille. He curtly acknowledged Tom as he passed him by, bowed before Lucille and at her command sat on the brocaded-silk seat sat beside her.

After questioning him closely about Leibnitz, Newton, and their works on differential and integral calculus, Lucille put to Francois the same questions she had put to Tom. She appraised him as he answered,. He was tall and slender – Tom Ramsbotham had a stockier figure. Francois's nose was as refined as a rapier blade and his hands, unlike those of the former blacksmith, were long and slender. But she found that she was physically drawn towards the two men in exactly equal measure.

Francois was Catholic but he wore his catholicism lightly, his ideas having been modified by the Enlightenment. He believed that the force which had given the universe its initial impetus deserved profound respect and where it impinged on human affairs demanded worship. Satisfied that their views on such important matters were compatible, Lucille asked his views on Paradise. Placing his hand on his heart, Francois declared that a perfect marriage of minds would produce a harmony as close to Paradise as it was possible to get.

Suitably impressed, Lucille then enquired lightly: 'Do you think it necessary that our bodies should also harmonise?'

'Of course,' Francois declared enthusiastically : 'Your ravishingly beautiful body can only deserve the most perfect kind of loving.'

Lucille looked demurely down at her lap and then went on: 'What will happen to your love when old age has ravished my body.'

'I shall still love you for your profound understanding of mathematics.'

'That, too, may fail when my memory and sharpness of intellect decline with age.'

'Madam, it is your whole personality that I love. And that love shall not perish with age – it will go on daily, weekly and for ever.'

'How many days are there in forever?'

Francois looked puzzled.

'He said: 'No one truly knows that, Ma'am. Numbers seem never to end.'

Lucille said: 'You are right, monsieur. If for example, you divide the circumference of a circle by its diameter the numbers seem to run to infinity.'

Lucille then asked the footman to bring in Tom Ramsbottom. She addressed the two men and said: 'Gentlemen, in every respect I find your qualities and virtues identical. There is not a scintilla of difference between you. I am therefore going to ask you both to bring the world nearer to Paradise by finding an improved solution of Pi during the next few months. I shall marry the man who calculates it to the highest number of decimal places.'

Both men bowed and went away to do her bidding. Modern computers have since calculated Pi to ten billion places but in those days there were no computers and the number could only found by a very laborious process. However, the two men set forth upon their quest in high hopes of achieving their goal.

A young, sprightly Irishman called Fergal O'Donnell worked at the local inn. He was small, slender, nimble on his feet and something of a dandy. He wore a waistcoat of many colours which he referred to as his rainbow garment. He had come to Prague to improve his knowledge of the Czech language. He it was who had facilitated Lucille's wish to take a preview of her suitors before they arrived at the castle by allowing her to masquerade as a serving wench. He, too, had fallen madly in love with her.

When he heard of the task that Lucille de Bruisson had set her suitors, he realised that his situation was hopeless, because he was totally devoid of mathematical skills. He was fluent in many languages, including his native Irish but it appeared that only through mathematics could he hope to capture Lucille de Bruisson's heart.

When he told the owner of the inn that he had decided to return to Ireland because he had a broken heart, the old man persuaded him to stay another week, saying: 'Who knows: circumstances might change.'

Fergal had a dream that night in which he became a swallow, then a squirrel, then a leopard, then a bird again – this time a parrot. He interpreted the dream to mean that mathematics was just another language and although he was not proficient in mathematics he might arrive at the truth and the heart of Madam de Bruisson by speaking his own language. My eloquence will win her, Fergal vowed.

Two days later, Fergal heard that a robber trying to enter the castle had been foiled because of the warning given by a flock of geese. This gave him an idea. He let loose a dog in the grounds of the castle. While the guards were chasing it and were hampered by the distraught geese, Fergal managed to slip into the castle unseen. He found Lucille de Bruisson sitting quietly in her room, doing embroidery. She recognised him instantly and said: 'Fergal, what are you doing here?'

He knelt down, took her hand and said: 'I've this to say to you, Ma'am: Those two gentlemen you have sent on an errand will never find Paradise at the end of a string of numbers. They might as well count the grains of sand in the Sahara. But I've something better to offer. That night you served at the inn you admired my rainbow-coloured waistcoat. 'Tis well known that a crock of gold lies at the end of the rainbow. My heart has been torn out of me for the loving of you. I'm an empty reed without you, with nothing but an agonising yearning to hold you for the rest of my days. So cast all those arid mathematical formulae aside, run away with me and I guarantee we'll find Paradise at the end of the rainbow.'

Lucille paled.

He took her hand, led her down to the stables, they jumped on her favourite horse and rode away. Some years later they settled down in a large house by Killarney Lake with their seven children and numerous servants.

'So that's the end?' Mohamed enquired.

'Yes, that's the end.'

'Where is Ireland?'

'It is an island to the west of England.'

'I shall go there some time,' Mohamed said thoughtfully. 'Did any of her suitors see her naked?'

'None of them did. They had fallen in love with her mind.'

'I have fallen in love with your body.'

Kate said grimly. 'If you loved me properly you would love my mind as well as my body.'

'I love your mind as well,' Mohamed insisted.

'If that were really true, you would let me go free.'

'That can never be. Allah has decided. You are to be mine forever. Now will you undress for me.'

'We haven't discussed the story yet.'

'What is there to discuss?'

'Why did the Irishman succeed where the other two men failed?'

'He had a smart waistcoat?'

'That's a very superficial answer.'

'Perhaps the lady preferred fine words to mathematical formulae.'

'You are getting closer to the truth.'

'Then what is the answer?'

'The answer is that there is no answer.'

'You mean women are fickle?'

'Not just women. So are men. We are swayed by an infinity of unseen factors – the shape of someone's face, their smell, the sound of a voice and a millions of other qualities. Love is an extraordinarily complicated business.'

'Kate!' there was tension in Mohamed's voice. He had never called her Kate before.

She said: 'Yes?'

'I have come to a decision. You are to be punished.'

'Why?'

'Because you keep fobbing me off with your stupid stories.'

'How am I to be punished?'

'I haven't decided yet. But you will find out.'

He left the room, furiously haranguing the guard as he went. A door banged very loudly.

An idea occurred to her in bed that night. Although she lacked a torch, it might be possible when the guards nodded off, as they did occasionally, to flash an SOS to the world outside by reflecting the light from her bedside lamp onto a hand mirror.

13

Mrs. Schultz seemed the last person one would suspect of planting a listening device. She was plump, middle-aged, homely, shabbily dressed, and wore cheap spectacles. |Perhaps this should have aroused my suspicions. Most of the women around here dress smartly.

So who would want to spy on me? Francino had appeared slightly sceptical of my theory that the bug had been planted by someone who was holding Kate captive. Miranda, my first wife might have wished to satisfy her curiosity about my financial affairs. Or it could have been planted by a rival newspaper seeking information about our circulation numbers. Commercial spying is not all that uncommon.

Although the Echo, in general, approved of Bush's war on Iraq, I still felt entitled to criticise the administration's lack of planning for the post-war situation. Wanting to clarify my thoughts on this for my editorial the following day, I sat on the balcony and looked up at the mackerel sky overhead. It augured good weather. Sunshine glinted on the distant lake. Seagulls swooped overhead and I decided that if I ever wrote my autobiography it would be called: 'Colloquies with a Sea Gull.' I collected my camcorder from a closet in the hall, in case Harry put in an appearance, thinking that I might amuse my guests some time by playing a video of myself in earnest conversation with a sea gull. As I pulled it out, I suddenly remembered that it contained a clip of Kate taken at an office party. It flashed through my mind at that moment that if an image of Kate were to be posted on the Internet someone somewhere might recognise it. I rang Archie with my idea but he informed me that a photograph of Kate had already appeared on the Internet Missing Persons' Bulletin Board.

I bellowed ill-naturedly: 'Why didn't you tell me?'

'Our enquiries go in so many different directions it would be impossible to brief you on all of them.'

'OK. OK. I'm very disappointed that nothing has turned up.'

'Something will soon,' he said, soothingly.

I said: 'Why don't we put up a web site dedicated exclusively to Kate Villeneuve.'

He commented without enthusiasm: 'It's an idea.'

End of conversation.

A few minutes later I rang him back and asked him to meet me at my country club at ten o'clock. He didn't hold his drink well, but I thought, what the fuck, a few drinks with a private spook won't do any harm. I would probe a little more and find out if the Rupert Agency were wasting my time and Paul Schneider's money.

I faxed my editorial to the office, changed it, and faxed the amended draft with a request for confirmation. The telephone rang a few minutes later. My personal assistant informed me that Paul Schneider wanted me to get in touch with him. I wasn't prepared for the torrent of abuse that was hurled at me when I got through to him.

'I hired you, you bastard, to edit my newspaper, not to fucking well spy on me.'

'I haven't been spying on you, sir.'

'Bobby Francino from the Rupert Agency has been on to me, asking me if I had employed someone to bug your telephone.'

'Well, did you?'

'First tell me why did you employ the Rupert Agency?'

'Because my ex-wife was acquainted with Bobby Francino.'

He sounded surprised.

'Oh, so that's how it came about ... I have to tell you that my fucking ex-wives and some former girl friends have been spying on me for the past five years. The bastards are in cohorts, trying to extort money from me.'

'I'm very sorry to hear it, sir. But precisely what has that got to do with me?'

'A man in my position has to fight fire with fire.'

'Are you admitting that it was you who bugged my telephone?'

'It was done without my knowledge by another agency I employ. I was worried in case the Rupert agency had been passing unauthorised information on to you about my personal affairs. Information that could prove useful in a pending court case.'

'I can assure you, sir, that the Rupert Agency have not passed any information about you on to me. And if they did you would be the first person to know.'

'OK. OK. I approve of tomorrow's editorial. No need to take the other matter any further.'

Now at least I knew that my telephone had been bugged by my own boss and not by a kidnapping gang or a rival newspaper.

14

Archie and I sat in the bar of my club, discussing my idea for a a web site devoted to finding Kate. I explained that I would give it as much publicity as possible in the Echo and the group's other newspapers. Still sceptical, Archie pointed out that Schneider's time limit would soon expire and that it would cost a heap of money and take several weeks to organise.

'I'm prepared to pay for it.'

'You must be very keen on the girl?'

'She's one of our best journalists.'

He gave a sceptical grin and sipped his whiskey. At that moment a nice-looking divorcee, Jane Pearson, came over and greeted me with the words: 'Haven't seen you on the golf course lately, Bill.'

'My game has gone to hell.'

'You should take some lessons.'

I introduced her to Archie. She smiled. Their eyes met and lingered for several seconds, before she left to join some friends at the bar.

I told Archie that she was as rich as Croesus. He nodded thoughtfully. Some time later, he confided that most of his pay went on keeping his sick, widowed mother in a nursing home. He was certainly in need of a rich wife. I told him that Jane was a leading and very talented member of the club's Dramatic Society and offered to give him her telephone number. He shook his head.

We resumed our discussion on the projected web site.

Suddenly he announced that he wanted to go to a strip club. I replied: 'Off you go. I'm too old.'

' I bet you like watching pussy as much as anyone.'

Against my better judgement, I allowed myself to be persuaded to go to an expensive night club called Cats-Ago-Go.

The show was very stylish and mildly erotic. Archie was fascinated. "Watching pussy," as he called it, appeared to be his favourite hobby. Bored, after half an hour I left him watching naked women flinging themselves around the stage.

A quirky idea entered my mind in the taxi on the way home. It occurred to me, in connection with my idea to put up a web site dedicated to solving the mystery of Kate Villeneuve's disappearance, that porno web sites attract a huge number of visitors. It would increase my chances of finding her if I posted a picture of her on such a site. I mentioned the idea to Archie over the telephone the next day, expecting him to shoot it down. But he replied: 'You're quite right. The Missing Persons Bureau site attracts thousands. Porno sites attract millions. Do you have nude photos of the lady in question?'

'Of course not. We did not have that kind of relationship.'

We could fake it.'

'You mean transpose her face onto that of a nude?'

'A still picture wouldn't be enough. Porn watchers want action.'

'That's the end of my cute idea, then,' I responded.

There was a pause and Archie said: 'Unless we could get someone else to do some nude dancing and transpose Kate's face.'

*

I had a long, imaginary conversation that evening with Harry the sea gull.

'Harry, I can't do this. Kate would hate me for ever and a day.'

'It's her survival you should be worried about. Not her feelings for you.'

'If it came to light that she had danced on a porno site her life wouldn't be worth living.'

'Nobody gives a fuck nowadays.'

'Perhaps I'm doing this for my own gratification.'

'Think again, wise guy. You're consulting your own feelings instead of those of the person who is in danger.'

'Should I go ahead?'

'You'd better check your bank balance.'

I did and discovered that by selling some IT shares that had recently bucked the trend I could afford to pay for it.

15

At night, Kate could see a flashing neon sign familiar that was to her from previous occasions when she had visited New York. She could not remember its exact location but hoped it would come back to her. Then, by taking a transit line from a building that looked like the Empire State building, she would be able to fix her approximate position in the city.

Her worry about Mohamed immediately carrying out his threat of punishment had waned. His rages and lurid threats of punishment flared up occasionally and then faded again as quickly as they had begun. He seemed torn between his strong desire for her and an urge of equal power to gain her good opinion. She did her best to play on these opposite sides to his nature. She was comforted by the belief that it was only a question of time before the police found her. They would have at their disposal advanced techniques such as electronic surveillance and computer analysis. In her more pessimistic moods it struck her that she wasn't important to justify a prolonged search. She recalled that, many years before, the search for the heiress Patty Hearst had continued for a long time because she came from a famous and wealthy family. As for herself, she was just a name in a very long list of missing persons.

She tried deliberately to cultivate patience and settle into a routine. The guards changed regularly; she reckoned they were at last eight, two of them women. A pockmarked women had taken the place of Ayesha during the past week. But she, too, refused to utter a word, although Kate saw that she possessed a tongue. All of them of them apparently owed unquestioning loyalty to Mohamed, who she guessed must be related to a key figure in one of the Middle East rogue regimes, possibly even a member of the fallen Iraqi Ba'thist regime. She theorised that because of his male status he had control over funds that had been funnelled into the USA, and was thus able to exercise power over the older members of his entourage. New York was the last place anyone would expect to find members of a rogue regime. It even seemed possible – this was some months before he was captured – that Saddam Hussein himself had undergone cosmetic surgery enabling him to move silently and invisibly in American society. All this wild speculation, she recognised, was not going to help her escape.

She recalled how, during her brief sojourn in the Palestine hotel in Baghdad, even when alone in her bedroom, she felt that she was being watched. Was it possible that Mohamed had spied on her there? She recalled a group of young Iraqis behind her in the corridor calling out remarks in Arabic. After Saddam's defeat it was just conceivable that members of his family, including Mohamed, had been spirited into the USA. But it would be very unwise to question him about this possibility.

She turned her thoughts to how she might divert Mohamed once again. During the past day she had noticed an increase of noise coming from outside the room she occupied. It suggested the possibility that preparations were being made to move. If that were the case her situation would become extremely dangerous. She decided to tell Mohammed that her next story would be in two installments. His reaction might give her a hint as to whether a change in her situation was imminent.

She felt instinctively that her next story should carry an appeal to his sense of right and wrong. He hoped his better nature might respond to a simple story in which good prevailed over evil. She was brooding over how she might incorporate such a theme into a story, as the pockmarked woman laid a tray of food on the end of the bed and departed without saying a word.

It was obvious that the women lived in abject fear. The food was not unpleasant. Kate wondered again if she was being sedated, but decided she must eat to maintain her strength. After she had finished her meal, she lay on the bed, closed her eyes and tried to think of a suitable story line. But she was distracted by thoughts about Daniel. She tried hard to convince herself that he had inherited the strength of character that had enabled her to face the world alone.

She accepted now that interest in her disappearance would have died down, although she still maintained a faint hope that Bill Hummelstein, her boss, would keep her story alive. But her hopes of being found were fading fast. They would be looking for her in Chicago rather than New York. Her captors must have decided that removing her to New York would fool the police – a thought which made her writhe with anger. In order to gain the strength to cope with Mohamed's next visit, she tried to sleep.

As she fell asleep an image came into her mind that gave her the outline of her story. A poor Arab boy alone and penniless in the city of New York desperate to make his fortune, his only possession an ancient gramophone picked up from a rubbish dump, is searching for a relative. In complete contrast to wealthy Mohamed, her chief protagonist would be very poor. She hoped Mohamed would sympathise with his sufferings. Perhaps – although she recognised that this was a dangerous delusion – it would move him sufficiently to let her go. She had no other source of hope.

When Fatima had retired that night, and the door to the outer apartment was closed, she took out a mirror from the bathroom, switched on her bedside lamp and tried flashing a SOS, using the mirror. The effect was much weaker than she had hoped, so after a while she gave up and went to sleep.

At ten o'clock the next morning Mohamed, arrived smiling broadly. He was carrying a large bouquet of flowers.

'Hello, my darling one. My friends have been giving me advice. Here, take them.'

He thrust a colourful assortment of flowers into her hands.

'Thank you very much.' Kate pointed to the pockmarked woman, said: 'Ask Fatima to put them into a vase of water. What exactly did your friends advise you to do?'

Mohamed handed the flowers to the woman and spoke briefly in Arabic. As she scurried into the outer apartment, Mohamed said: 'My friends say that you should either submit to my demands, or suffer extreme punishment.'

'Who taught you the good cop, bad cop routine?' Kate enquired, raising her eyebrows.

In response to his mystified look, she said impatiently: 'It doesn't matter. Don't expect flowers to make me change my mind.'

'It's too late for any further delay. ' Mohamed said, his mouth tightening. 'You will either comply or die a horrible death.'

'What will happen, if I decide to go to bed with you?'

'You may have anything in the world.'

She shook her head and said: 'All I want is my freedom.'

Mohamed barked at her peremptorily: 'Undress!'

'Do you want us both to enjoy making love?'

He looked at her, uneasily.

'Well do you?'

'Yes of course.'

'Then please listen to another story and when it is finished l promise a happy outcome for both of us.'

'His face lit up.

'Are you sure?'

'Yes. But first a question: did you ever see a gramophone with a horn? One of those wind-up machines that play the early vinyl records.'

'I may have seen one somewhere.'

'I am going to tell you about such a machine and the effect it had on a young man who, like you, came from an Arab country.'

'What country are you talking about?' Mohamed enquired, looking suspicious.

'It doesn't matter. But there is one essential difference between you and him – he was very poor and rarely had enough to eat. All this happened a long time ago. She went on: 'It is very important that you listen because it has a lesson for you.'

'OK and then you have promised afterwards to take off all your clothes and we will make love.'

'Yes, Mohamed,' she said with a beguiling smile. 'But the story I am about to tell you is very long. I will tell you the first part today and the second part tomorrow.'

'Impossible,' he said irritably.

'Why is it impossible?'

'Because my soul is bent on achieving what I set out to do months ago. Allah demands that it shall be done now.'

Kate wondered if he had been set a deadline because the lease on the apartment had run out.

'Allah would not approve of your impatience.'

At that moment the woman returned carrying the flowers set in an ornate golden vase, which she placed on a side table. Mohamed dismissed her and said to Kate petulantly: 'I don't want to hear any more of your stories. I have had enough of your endless delaying tactics.'

'This one you could affect your whole life.'

He shook his head irritably.

She ventured: 'And if you promise to listen carefully and heed the message it contains, then I will do exactly what you desire.'

'You will do exactly as I wish.'

'Yes, I promise.'

'You will undress and we will make love?'

'Yes,' Kate said, with a sinking heart.

'OK, I'll be patient and listen to your story.'

'You understand that it will take two days.'

Mohamed grunted and nodded his head.

*

The story is called Smoke and Mirrors. It happened in the year nineteen-hundred and thirty-three. Abdul was a fifteen-year old Arab boy who lived in a poverty-stricken village in Iraq, which was then called Mesopotamia. His parents had died. His sister Mumtaz had disappeared the year before. Various rumours about her were rife in the village. It was said that she had gone to New York in the United States of America and married a rich man. Abdul, who had barely enough money to buy one day's food, decided to go to America and find his sister. An elder of the village tried to dissuade him by showing him on a map the vast distance he would have to cover by land and by sea. But Abdul insisted on going. He pointed to Beirut on the map and declared that he would make his way there first.

'When you get there, thousands of miles of ocean will still remain between you and New York.'

'I shall swim the Atlantic, if necessary,' Abdul vowed.

After a long and tiring journey across the desert that took weeks, Abdul eventually arrived at the shores of the Mediterranean. But because of a series of misunderstandings he found himself in Haifa. His adventures there, and subsequently when he worked his passage to Sicily and then to Halifax in Nova Scotia, would fill a book. But we will concentrate instead on what happened after he smuggled himself from Canada into the United States by hiding himself in a train which carried him to New Jersey. The driver of the vehicle from whom he hitched a ride to New York was very drunk and kept swerving all over the road. When he ran out of liquor, he threatened Abdul with a gun, forcing him to give up his last few dollars in order to buy more.

It had taken Abdul a whole year to reach New York. During that time he had learned to speak, pray and swear in English. But now he was penniless. The buildings rose high into the air, blotting out the sky. The noise of the traffic overwhelmed him. He slept the first night on the pavement outside a leather shop and was awakened the following morning by savage kicks from the shop owner trying to enter his shop. Cold and hungry, Abdul rose to his feet. Ignoring his sore ribs, he spoke civilly to the bearded owner.

'I am sorry I got in the way of your boot. I will work all day for you, fetching and carrying, if you will promise me a meal.'

Aaron Aaronski, the shop's owner, considered the offer. A lorry was arriving with a large load of hides that morning/ He normally paid the driver to unload. them. If the boy did it instead he would save money.

'Where are you from?' he asked.

Abdul gave the name of his village.

'And where is that?

'On the other side of the world,' Abdul replied.

'Never mind. You can start work as soon as a delivery of hides arrives.'

He invited the boy into the shop. Then seeing that he was weak from hunger he sent him with a few cents to buy bread from a bakery across the road.

Abdul worked with such enthusiasm that Aaronski gave him regular employment, allowing him to sleep in an outbuilding. At night he roamed the streets of Brooklyn, making enquiries for Mumtaz. He asked Aaronski for advice. The merchant advised him to give up the quest as hopeless. He showed him a map of New York and explained that combing thousands of streets in search of a young girl would take an eternity. He suggested that it would increase Abdul's chances of being reunited with his sister if he took employment with his brother-in-law, an old pedlar named Louie, who travelled through the East Side in a horse and cart, buying secondhand goods

Abdul found the work more to his liking. Louie Abrahamson was getting old. When people called from the balconies that they had items to sell, Abdul would run up the stairs, two at a time, and bring the items down for Louie to examine. Completing the haggling between seller and buyer often took several journeys up and down endless flights of stairs. But Abdul worked tirelessly and earned Louie's gratitude.

On one occasion he had a dispute with Louie concerning the value of an ancient gramophone with a horn; it had a picture of a dog, and the words HMV on the side. The owner asked for a dollar. Louie offered fifty cents. The owner demanded eighty cents. Louie offered seventy-five cents, his last and final offer. With the negotiations deadlocked, he urged his horse forward. But Abdul grasped its muzzle-strap to stop it moving and insisted that he would pay the extra five cents himself. While inspecting the machine on the fifth floor of the brownstone building, he had been entranced by a recording of On with the Motley sung by Caruso.

'Why do you want to buy it?' Louie asked incredulously.

'Because it makes beautiful music. I want it for myself. You can deduct it from my wages.'

'It will take you half a year to pay it back,' the old man grumbled. Reluctantly he gave Abdul eighty cents. Once again, he ran up to the fifth floor to collect the wind-up gramophone. He then made a second journey to bring down the detachable horn and the record of Caruso.

They set off again on their travels, Abdul, as usual, inspecting all the passersby in the hope of finding his lost sister.

The winter passed. Abdul continued to work for the old pedlar. He now lived in a shed used by the old man as a store room. Abdul had become friendly with the pedlar's grandson, Maurice, who was the same age as Abdul and attended a local Jewish school. Abdul taught Maurice words in Arabic and Maurice, in turn, taught Abdul Hebrew words. Both were surprised to discover how phonetically similar the two languages were.

One Sunday in June with a clear blue sky above, Maurice suggested to Abdul that they should go to Coney Island to look for girls.

Abdul demurred, thinking that the expedition would consume too much of his hard-earned savings. But Maurice persuaded him to accompany him by suggesting that Mumtaz might be there. They took a ride on a roller-coaster, bought hot dogs from a stall and hung around, watching girls in their summer finery. They whistled and catcalled but were too shy to approach them.

They wandered around the resort, smoked cigarettes without much enthusiasm, and inspected the various shows on offer. A circus clown was spinning plates on a rod outside a tent advertising a circus. A barker was inviting customers to view two-headed monsters and freaks. Abdul was fascinated by a man who was making a considerable sum of money betting on the three-card trick.

They walked to the sea front and leaned over a rail, watching the waves lapping gently on the beach. Abdul said sadly:' I don't think I will ever find my sister. I wish now I had stayed at home.'

Maurice replied: 'You can't expect to find her straight away. It could take years, but eventually you will find her.'

'She may be in another American city.'

Maurice was silent for a while and then he said: 'What was Mumtaz like?

'She had chestnut-coloured hair. She could run very fast. She was quite beautiful. She was very kind to me and hugged me and comforted me when our parents died. But my memory of her is fading.'

'If she is beautiful, she would attract rich men,' Maurice said sagely. 'My mother says beautiful girls always marry wealthy men.'

'So how shall I be able to find her? I can't afford to mix in such circles,'

Maurice said: 'You must become wealthy yourself.'

'How will I do that? Abdul enquired, lighting up another cigarette.'

'Learn how to do the three-card trick like that man was doing. He was taking plenty of money off the suckers. You'll have to do the same,'

'Let's go back and watch him,' Abdul suggested. 'We might learn how to do it.'

But when they got back to his stall he had been replaced by another man who doing a roaring trade in bottles of coloured liquid which, he assured women, would not only take away the bags from under their eyes, but would prevent them forming in the first place.

They hitched-hiked back into town. The first driver took them only a couple of miles towards their destination and then branched off. After more attempts to hitch a lift, two young men and two young women in a large car stopped and offered them a ride in the backwards-facing rear 'dickey' seat. Shrieks of laughter from the girls and coarse language from the young men accompanied them on their journey into town. Peeping into the car, Abdul and Maurice were shocked by what they saw. When they were finally dropped off, Maurice said to Abdul, as they started walking home, 'Don't you think it was disgusting what they were doing?'

'Absolutely right.'

'You wouldn't act like that, would you?'

'I would if I got the chance,' Abdul said after a moment's thought.

They both laughed and ran excitedly home.

Lying on his truckle bed, that night Abdul became very depressed. The novelty of accompanying the old pedlar on his rounds had now worn off. He realised that he would be condemned to poverty for the rest of his days if he continued with his present job. If, as he supposed, Mumtaz moved in wealthy circles, there would be little chance of ever finding her.

Something then happened that changed his whole life. He got out of bed, intending to raise his spirits by playing the record of Caruso. The ancient gramophone was lying on a mound of rags. In his haste to lift it onto an orange box that served as a table, he dropped it and the wooden base of the gramophone fell off. He ignored the damage and played On With The Motley, experiencing the utmost sympathy for the clown because his own heart also felt broken. After listening to the record, he knelt down to recover the wooden base and noticed that, when viewed from below, the vinyl record appeared to turn in the opposite direction. What he had noticed was simply the change in perspective which explains why anti-cyclones and cyclones spin in opposite directions on either sides of the Equator.

A few days later, when he was reflecting on how people so easily succumbed to the blandishments of hucksters and tricksters, a picture of the clown spinning the plates outside the circus formed in his mind. He exclaimed out loud: 'Allah be praised!'

The following day he told his friend he intended to go to Coney Island at the weekend. But instead of the three-card trick he would employ a trick of his own. On Sunday he and Maurice took a bus to Coney Island. In the meantime, Abdul had been assiduously practising spinning plates on a rod.

They took up a position under a large oak tree opposite the orange-coloured tents. Barkers were shouting out their wares. One promised the amazing sight of a two-headed dog and a three-headed cat for fifty cents. The other declared that for a dollar a glamorous lady would sing God Bless America and strip down until she was only wearing the American flag.. Crowds were gathering and some good-humoured bantering was going on.

'How many dollars does she charge to wave the flag?'

'How much for a blow job?'

'What'll she do for my three-dollar bill?'

Abdul stuck a piece of chewing gum on his plate and set it spinning. He called out: 'For a dime I'll set the plate spinning in the opposite direction and you won't even see it stop spinning.'

An elderly man wearing a lumber jacket and a stovepipe hat at the back of the crowd, intrigued by the bet, slapped a dime onto the back of his hand and said: 'You're on. But if it stops spinning you lose.'

Abdul separated the plate from the rod, set it spinning at waist level and said to the man: 'It's spinning clockwise. Right?'

The man looked down at it and agreed.

Abdul then raised the rod above his head and said: 'It hasn't stopped spinning and now it is spinning the other way. Right? Do I win the bet?'

Looking somewhat mystified, the man handed over the dime and walked off.

During the next couple of hours Abdul took a dollar and a half. He increased the bet to a nickel. A number of onlookers detached themselves from the crowds around the tents, responding to Abdul's cry of: 'Bet on the spinning miracle plate.'

A mean-looking man wearing a crimson baseball hat approached the boys and said: 'You gotta licence to operate here?'

Abdul stopped his plate spinning with his other hand. He didn't reply.

'OK, wise guys. You have five seconds in which to fuck off.'

The boys moved on to another part of the resort nearer the sea and Abdul repeated his performance, earning another two dollars, twenty cents.'

The boys went home, elated at having fooled so many grown-ups into parting with their hard-earned money.

'How many suckers do you think there are in New York?' Maurice asked.

'Enough to make a fair living,' Abdul answered confidently.

Sitting in the hot, stuffy shed that was his home, he began to see a way forward which would allow him to earn enough money to mix in the high social circles in which he assumed his pretty sister Mumtaz moved. The following day Louie bought a load of secondhand books. Among them was one called: The Art of Magic. Abdul asked if he could borrow it. In a generous mood, Louie said: 'Keep it.'

From that moment Abdul worked at becoming a professional magician. Every Sunday he went to Coney Island and added to his plate-spinning routine various sleigh-of-hand tricks. A mouse disappeared up his left sleeve and then appeared from his right sleeve. Shrewd enough to notice that the women shrank away from the realistic-looking mouse, he changed it to a tiny toy kitten and this helped him double his takings. His biggest problem was with the fair ground professionals, who constantly hounded him off his pitch. Towards the end of the summer he asked the fat lady who stripped down to her Stars and Stripes underwear what he should do. The good-natured lady introduced him to her husband. He watched Abdul perform some tricks, and deciding that he had a natural aptitude for magic, offered to finance a second tent in which they would share the profits. Abdul was at first reluctant to leave his employment, which gave him shelter and a guarantee of sufficient food. But remembering his primary aim of finding his sister, he decided to give Louie one week's notice. He then joined the hazardous but exciting life of the itinerant fair ground operators.

* *

'That's all for today,' Kate declared.

Mohamed took the gum he had been chewing out of his mouth and said listlessly: 'Did ever Abdul find his sister?'

'You'll have to wait until tomorrow to find out,' Kate replied.

'It may be too late by then.'

'Why will it be too late?'

'Things are happening.'

'What kind of things?'

'I have an aunt who's always interfering. I try to slap her down, but it doesn't seem to work. She wants me to get rid of you.'

'You mean let me go free?'

Mohamed looked guilty.

'What exactly are her plans for me?'

Mohamed stuck his chewing gum on the gilt-brocade covering of the armchair on which he was sitting. and said with a sinister smile: 'She wants to drug you and dump you somewhere.'

'Where will I be when I wake up?' Kate enquired, her heart pounding.

'My aunt wants you dead,' Mohamed said with a satisfied air.

'And you intend to do her bidding?'

'There's nothing I can do,' Mohamed flourished his arms helplessly.

Kate knew he was lying.

'You could stop her allowance.'

'She's got money of her own.'

'But she can't force you to kill me?'

Mohamed frowned.

'She says they will eventually find you if I keep you here. I believe her. So you must do what I have asked of you.'

'Why don't you stand up to her. Don't let her treat you like a child.'

' It would be foolish not to take her advice. If you had not kept delaying I would have let you go free by now.'

'You said you would never kill me because you love me.'

'I did. But things have changed.'

'I have promised to do everything you ask after I have told you the rest of the story about the spinning plates.'

Mohamed moved across the room towards her, gazing at her with an evil expression on his face. There was a smell of cannabis on his breath. He continued to study her for what seemed an age. Then he gave a little grunt, retrieved his chewing gum from the armchair and marched out of the room.

16

Worried about the effect the porn web site might have on young Daniel if he got to hear about it, I rang him up his aunt and explained the reason for what I was doing.

She said doubtfully: 'He would hate it.'

'Of course. But it's pretty well our last chance of finding her. All our other enquiries have hit zero.'

'Well, I guess if that's the case you'd better go ahead. But you had better tell Daniel yourself what you propose to do and the reason for it.'

She put me on to Daniel and I gave it to him straight. I added: 'Your friends in Pittsburgh have never seen your mom, so they wouldn't recognise her. Have you made many friends there?'

'Hundreds. I like Pittsburgh.'

'Shall I go ahead,'

'OK, if you think it will help to find her. What's the domain name?'

I was puzzled by the expression for a moment. He was better acquainted with the Internet than I was.

'OK, Dan. Give your aunt my best wishes. I'll be in touch soon.'

And so the way was cleared for me to enter the world of website pornography. I decided it would be sensible to inform Paul Schneider of our intentions. At our next meeting, after was had discussed the month's figures, he leaned back in his chair, eased his shoulders backwards and forwards and said: 'You understand that bugging your phone was absolutely essential. It was unavoidable in the circumstances in which I find myself where I'm being plagued by the fucking Furies.'

'I must tell you that questioning my loyalty really upset me.'

'Yes, Bill. I understand.'

'There would be a heck of a row if it came out that a prominent businessman had bugged the editor of his own newspaper.'

'Letting that particular cat out of the bag would be more than your job's worth.'

'Of course, Paul,' I said, forcing a smile. 'It will forever remain our secret.'

I then told him about the plan Archie and I had devised. Anxious to make amends for bugging my telephone, he offered to pay for the website himself, an offer I quickly accepted.

The old hypocrite then said: 'I won't pay for child porn or anything nasty.'

'Of course not. Naked girls dancing in a very tasteful manner to classical ballet music. That sort of thing.'

'OK. Let me know when I can log on to it.'

I left him studying the current issue of the newspaper.

*

Now that we had the financial resources of Paul Schneider behind us, Archie and I were able to draw on sophisticated technical help from the world of movies. We had plenty of photographs of Kate in the newspaper archives. But for a more glamorous portrait we had to call on the goodwill of the Chicago police department, who had taken photographs from her apartment. The police were interested in the idea of a porno web site, whether from prurience or from a purely professional point of view I wasn't sure. From them we obtained a portrait of Kate that would have done justice to a movie star. My heart pounded when I saw it. I had recently become so interested in the elaborate procedures for setting up the web site that I had been in danger of forgetting how beautiful she was.

I telephoned Bobby Francino. He told me that Paul Schneider had cancelled the contract with the Rupert Agency investigation, indicating that he might reactivate it if anything significant emerged from the Internet operation. When a rich man opens his left pocket, I thought cynically, he invariably closes his right.

'Does that mean you're out of the picture from now on?' I enquired.

'I'm afraid so. But keep Archie informed, if there any new developments.'

'Have you seen Daisy recently?' I asked out of curiosity.'

'I see her once a week at our For Fu sessions.'

'Yeah. Of course. I had forgotten.'

And this reminded me to telephone Daisy.

'Hi, sweetheart,' she responded. 'How are you getting on? Still on the trail of that lady journalist?'

'No sign of her so far. How's James?'

'Call him Jim. Everybody else does.'

I felt a twinge of conscience.

'O.K. I will in future. Give him my love.'

'Will do, Bill ... Next time you're in New York come to one of our For Fu sessions.'

'I don't believe in that ... that sort of stuff.'

'It might help you find that girl with the French name.'

'How could it help?'

'An electronic engineer who joined us recently says that linking hands is just like linking up computers. You get enhanced intuitive power that way.'

In a rash moment I promised to attend a For Fu session next time I was in New York.

That evening I went to the club and was surprised to find Archie in the bar sitting at a table with Jane Pearson

'How did you folk get acquainted?' I enquired.

Jane said with a cheerful smile: 'You introduced us, remember?'

Archie intervened: 'I got in touch with her because you told me she's a prominent member of your dramatic society. We went out on a date.'

I ordered drinks from the barman and sat at their table. 'What does that have to do with it?' I enquired.

Archie explained: 'I was looking for someone who would be able to superimpose Kate Villeneuve's face on that of a dancer as she performs her strip tease. Jane knows Crispin Dubroszki who does a lot of work for the Walt Disney Corporation. When he heard what it was all about he promised that if we send the finished movie he'll do the job.'

'That's great,' I said. 'Now we're getting somewhere. All we need now is a camera man, a sound man and a good stripper.'

Archie stroked his chin thoughtfully.

'I took Jane to Cats-a-Gogo last night. After the show we spoke to some of the girls but they're all under contract and none of them would sign up.'

Jane suddenly said: 'Would you like me to do it? '

'Can you dance?' I enquired, stunned by her suggestion.

'I was trained as a ballet dancer.'

'Couldn't possibly allow it,' I said firmly, not wishing to spoil Archie's budding romance, although casting a covert glance at Jane's figure, I could see that her dimensions were eminently suitable.

'But I should like to,' Jane said, pouting.

I said: 'Definitely not.'

'All I have to do is take my clothes off artistically. Isn't that what you want?

'I couldn't possibly allow it.'

'Why not?'

I lowered my voice: 'For one thing the club committee would probably deprive you of your membership.'

Jane said scornfully. 'If they did, they'd have to admit they'd been watching porn sites. In any case, nobody will recognise me. It's the missing girl who'll bear the brunt because it will look like her.'

Archie looked worried. I thought it was because he didn't want his new girl friend to expose herself. But I was quite wrong.

He said: 'If we display Kate Villeneuve dancing nude on the Internet and she is subsequently rescued there might be legal repercussions.'

I replied: 'The Rupert Agency couldn't be held responsible. They will no longer be involved by the time she appears on the web site.'

Jane said: 'She wouldn't dream of taking legal action if the website resulted in her being rescued.'

Archie said: 'Think of the consequences, though, if she has disappeared voluntarily and wakes up one day to find herself doing a strip tease on a porno web site.'

I said: 'Kate would never in a million years have left her nine-year old son without informing him of her intentions. If she had, she would surely have contacted him by now.' I added firmly: 'Anyway, I'm going ahead, And in the extremely unlikely event that she brought a case against me, I'm prepared to pay up.'

I turned to Jane: 'Are you sure you want to go through with this?

'It's for a very good cause. If an acting part called for it, I'd be prepared to take my kit off. This is no different. Here, come with me.'

She grabbed us by our arms. Somewhat sheepishly, Archie and I followed her into the corridor. She stopped outside the ladies' rest room, ignoring our protests, and shepherded us inside. Humming the latest tune, she did a strip-tease routine down to her bra and panties, her lithe, sinuous figure reminding me how very similar she was to the girl she was going to impersonate.

Deeply moved, Archie wiped his forehead.

Jane playfully flourished the shirt she had just taken off and announced: 'I'll save the rest for the web site.'

Someone once said that the perfect marriage was that between a sadist and a masochist. A union between an exhibitionist and a dedicated voyeur like Archie also seemed like a match made in heaven. I was very grateful in the meantime to have a solution to the problem of getting someone resembling Kate to dance on the Internet.

17

Thanks to the way I had cunningly exploited my boss's embarrassment at being caught out bugging my telephone, I now had sufficient funds to employ Jim Rankin and his wife, both first-class web site designers. I immediately contacted a number of advertisers who might wish to become associated with the web site. Kate's face and Jane Pearson's body would launch a thousand pop-ups, increasing the chances of Kate being found.

'Fame at last!' Jane declared, striking an exaggerated pose, when I told her that she would soon be seen coast-to-coast.

'Are you sure you want to do it?'

'Of course I do,' she replied. 'If all the dance training I've had is going to help another human being, I couldn't put it to better use.'

'She had spoken with sufficient conviction to allay any doubts I might have had. She had already begun to choreograph her dance routine. When Archie told me one day that she practised so much she was too tired to make love, I said: 'That's good experience for when you're married. Have you ever noticed that Cupid rhymes with stupid? Never mind, I'm glad I introduced you.'

He replied: 'To be truthful, at first I was in love with her money. She has a magnificent house full of art treasures, several businesses, an apartment in Cannes and a portfolio of blue chip shares and bonds that would make Warren Buffet's mouth water. She's been very kind to my mother, who suffers from multiple sclerosis.'

'I'm very pleased to hear it.'

'But why would she want to marry a poverty-stricken private eye?'

'You're good at investing money, unlike her former husband who apparently squandered it.'

'That's true,' he said thoughtfully. 'Apart from that we're really compatible. We both boil at the same temperature and we're the same age.'

Which reminded me uncomfortably that the girl I was trying to find was fifteen years younger than me.

I asked Archie when he thought Jane would be ready to act in the movie.

He replied: 'Next week. It's going to take place in the drawing room of her house next week. Would you like to come along?'

'You bet.'

*

Jane Pearson's house stood in a couple of acres of forested grounds extending down to a small private marina on the Lake. It was approached by an avenue of lime trees that ended in a large circular parking space. I spotted Archie's Audi two-seater sports car and Jane's Mercedes. The other cars, presumably, belonged to the technicians.

A butler greeted me on the broad marble steps and after ushering me into the drawing-room where Archie was waiting, offered us a tray of drinks. I took a large malt whiskey. Archie declined. He was looking anxious. I realised that he was taking a gamble. There was no knowing how it would affect his relationship with Jane if things went wrong. Many years ago, Florence Foster-Jenkins, a talentless soprano with a terrible voice and too much money for her own good, had given a public performance in Carnegie Hall, egged on by so-called friends who had secretly conspired to witness her humiliation. The cream of New York society applauded enthusiastically as she gave the worst performance of singing ever witnessed. Jane's humiliation would be just as complete if she gave an inferior performance.

A record of the Chicago singer Buddy Guy was playing background music as we entered a spacious drawing room in Jane's mansion. The camera man was focusing a large camera onto a raised area of brightly-lit, highly-polished parquet flooring. Two pillars had been erected on either side of the area on which Jane was to perform her routine. A sound man was sitting at a small desk near the stage.

Archie explained that it had been decided that making it more like a ballet than a run-of-the mill porno-movie would attract more visitors to the site. My idea had blossomed into a full scale production. All this because I had introduced Archie to Jane at the country club. The point of what we were doing was obvious. Without paying for extremely expensive TV advertising, we would soon make Kate's face visible over the whole of the USA. I hoped Jane's performance would draw in enough viewers to bring about a sighting.

Jane, wearing a dressing-gown, waved cheerfully to us from a room at the far end of the drawing-room which had been temporarily turned into her dressing-room.

Five minutes later a sound track of Rimski-Korsakov's Sheharezade began playing. The main light were lowered. The lights illuminating the stage came on. The camera man called: 'Action.'

Jane totally wrapped in a royal blue cloak, strode on to the stage, her feet enclosed in golden, oriental sandals. She stood silently for a moment facing us and then went up to a pillar and lovingly embraced it. Slowly sliding down onto her haunches, she allowed the cloak to part, exposing a beautifully-shaped leg. Then she straightened up to her full height, her face expressing an arrogant confidence.

She walked vigorously across the stage, folding and then unfolding the blue cloak. Underneath she was wearing a white, beaded and fringed bra and matching white pants. A large red ruby set in her bare midriff glinted as she slowly removed the cloak, held it high and then, parting her fingers, allowed it to fall onto the floor.

She retired to the back of the stage and then advanced towards us, wriggling her hips enticingly and pirouetting first on each leg and then on the other, a wanton expression on her face. She seemed to be saying: 'Watch this, you guys, in case you miss something.'

After performing three graceful somersaults, she sat perfectly still centre stage. Soon, she rose very slowly, her body wriggling sensuously and sinuously, her hands fluttering, an inviting smile on her face. She bore no resemblance to the polite, well-mannered lady I had seen on the golf course, although come to think of it, I had noted how gracefully and purposefully she had swung at the ball.

Jane stroked her left leg from calf to thigh with her hand, repeated the action with her right leg and then rushed off stage.

Archie and I glanced at each other. He was blinking rapidly.

In a moment she was back again, making a series of furious leaps, hands outstretched. like a tigress trying to pluck a butterfly from the air, as though exasperated at wasting her lust on the empty air.

Her mood then changed and she advanced in long steps towards a pillar and swung round it, teasingly exposing the lines of her beautiful body. The volume of the background music of Rimski-Korsakov's Sheharezade from the speakers above the stage increased, reminding us of the distant land where this erotic dance routine had been an art form for thousands of years.

An appreciative whistle issuing from the cameraman at that moment had to be edited later from the sound track.

With her eyelids furiously fluttering, Jane then performed a sensuous belly dance, her body quivering and shaking, the ruby glistening in her navel.

What we had seen surpassed any of the girl's performances in Cats-a-Go-Go. Every subtle movement she made called attention to her alluring physical qualities: the dark mystery of her armpits, the roundness of her breasts nestling in the fringed brassiere and the soft splendour of her thighs.

She began tentatively to release her bra straps, fluttering her eyelids, casting mock hoydenish glances at her audience, until finally her breasts toppled into view. The lights momentarily darkened, as stepped daintily out of the beaded and fringed pants. Then, as they came on again, she performed a dazzling series of somersaults across the stage.

Finally, she stood, bolt upright, her arms enfolded round her breasts and slowly subsided into a classic ballet position.

A maid appeared with the cloak and draped it round her naked form. Jane dashed to the changing room to the accompaniment of loud and enthusiastic catcalls and cheers from the technicians. It had been an extraordinary performance. She was a splendid dancer, with a natural talent for playing on men's desires.

Archie was perspiring profusely and shaking with emotion. I commented to him, unaware of my double-entendre, 'She could dance the pants off some professional dancers.'

After a while, when he had calmed down, he replied huskily: 'Jane doesn't need the money. She just loves dancing.'

'Do you think it will bring in the punters to the website?'

'If that doesn't, nothing will.'

I nodded enthusiastically. Kate Villeneuve was becoming inextricably confused in my mind with her seductive alter ego, Jane Pearson.

*

Three weeks later, www. katevilleneuve.com was sending its erotically-charged message into cyberspace. Crispin Dubroszki had masked Jane's face with an image of Kate's, although the facial expressions were not as true as I would have liked them to be. The web site included an appeal for anyone who thought he might recognise her to contact the web site. Ten-thousand dollars was on offer if she was found alive. The Rankins, who had designed the site had, on my instructions, offered the police unlimited access, so that they could study any feedback that might come from the general public.

18

Kate lay awake much of the next night. She guessed that concern was mounting among Mohamed's relatives that his mad escapade was endangering the rest of the family. She asked herself if it had been a mistake to keep him to keep him at bay so long. It was impossible to know whether having sexual intercourse with him might increase her chances of staying alive. But her fear that he would kill her soon afterwards had equal validity. She had no doubt that the threat to her life was increasing. Checks by the guards on her movements were now being made much more frequently. One of the new guards kept throwing knowing glances at her, as though aware of what was being planned.

She had by now remembered the location of a building she had recognised from a previous visit to New York. She calculated that her position was somewhere along Fifth Avenue in Manhattan. The discovery did not seem very helpful but it helped to prop up her sagging morale. She had given up trying to signals with a mirror at night. The chances of anyone noticing a flashing low wattage bulb among the millions of brilliant lights in Manhattan seemed far too low to make the effort worthwhile.

Ayesha brought in an excellent breakfast that morning of coffee and pancakes in maple spirit. She wondered if, in the tradition of the special meal granted to a prisoner the night before execution, it might be her last. But she forced herself to eat it, telling herself that it was important to stay strong.

Afterwards, she jogged round the room under Ayesha's watchful eyes and performed some exercises. After taking a shower she put one of the frocks which Mohamed had bought her, hoping it might placate him. He had shown very little interest in her latest story. It was impossible to know whether he had been sufficiently intrigued to let her finish it. If he did, she allowed herself to entertain a slight hope that he would absorb the lesson it contained and refrain from harming her.

He seemed quite cheerful when he arrived later that morning. After settling himself into an armchair, he announced: 'Today will be your last day.'

'You're going to let me go free?'

'When you have done what I have always requested – yes.'

'Will you let me finish the story?'

'If you insist.'

'How can I be sure you will let me go?'

'You'll have to take my word for it.'

'When I have done your bidding, will you take me downstairs and let me out on Fifth Avenue?'

'How do you know this is Fifth Avenue?' he enquired, startled.

'By using a little common sense.'

'We plan to put you to sleep, and take you somewhere. I'll tell my driver where to dump you. You can then find your own way back to Chicago.'

'Why not put me on the train to Chicago, or take me to the airport?'

'Because it's not part of my plan.'

'You said your aunt wants me dead,' Kate said, accusingly.

'Did I? Well, it makes no difference, I am in charge.'

' I have a feeling that someone in your entourage wants to kill me.'

'It's not my fault this situation has arisen. If you had done what I asked quickly and without fuss, I might have let you go immediately afterwards.'

'You told me that you would never let me go – that we were to be together for ten-thousand years or some such rubbish.'

'I was in love with you then.'

'But not now?'

He shook his head vigorously and said: 'No. Not now. You have teased me for too long. You keep promising me this and promising me that and you never keep your promise.'

'I have told you that I'll do everything you ask when I have finished telling the story of Abdul.'

'I don't want to hear it now.'

'Then go. I have nothing more to say to you.'

Kate started sobbing. It had the desired effect. He sat on the edge of her chair and whispered: 'I will hear out your story. And if you do exactly what I want this time, I'll plead with my aunt that you should not to be killed.'

She looked up at his face, knowing that his words would be forgotten as soon as he left the room. She was about to become another victim in the long catalogue of cruelties he would probably inflict on both men and women during his lifetime.

'Have you found another woman?' she asked.

'No. What makes you think that?'

His cheeks reddened and she knew he was lying. Not that it made any difference now. Some mysterious factor had made him fall in love the first time he had first laid eyes on her. A few months was probably the average term for an adolescent crush. She had hoped to prolong it. But she sensed now that it was all over. When she had finished her story, he would kill her without compunction.

'Did your new woman perform a striptease for you?'

Mohamed shouted angrily: 'Stop that. I told you there was no one else. And if there were, it would be your own fault for teasing and obstructing me. I'm going now. I shall tell the guards to kill you while I'm gone.'

'Don't you want to hear what happened to Abdul? It could change your whole life.'

'I shall live my life the way I want to. Your stupid stories are just a devise to frustrate me.'

He got off the chair and stormed out of the room.

Kate reproached herself for using the wrong tactics. It should have been obvious that with all the money at his command he would be inundated with offers of drugs, alcohol and women. The first idealistic first love that had inspired him to capture her had lasted as long as she could reasonably have been hoped. The deadly game was nearly over.

But she was encouraged when, shortly afterwards , Mohamed put his face around the door and said airily: 'I am having lunch with my friends. Afterwards I shall come back and hear the rest of your stupid story.'

*

He came back smelling of liquor. He threw himself into the depths of an armchair, waved to her distantly as though only half aware of her presence, and said after a prolonged silence: 'OK, Let's hear your story.'

'I don't think you are in a fit state to appreciate it.'

'Yes, Marie Antoinette?'

'Why call me Marie Antoinette?'

'Because you're going to have your fucking head chopped off.'

Ignoring his threat, she said brightly: 'If you like I will tell you now what happened to Abdul.'

'Go on ...'

He carelessly gestured with his right hand. But she was pleased when, soon after she began to speak, he leaned forward in his chair, and began to listen to what she was saying.

During the next few months Abdul made enough money to enable him to rent a small room in the Bronx. Because he was eating well, his physique and general appearance had improved. He was no longer the skinny malnourished waif who daily ran up and down thousands of steps in pursuit of secondhand goods. Girls admired his scimitar-like nose and his fine features. He had learned many tricks from the book on magic and improvised several of his own. His deft fingers became adept at filching watches and even bracelets from onlookers without them even noticing they were gone; these same onlookers were immensely surprised and gratified when he returned them. Even when he occasionally 'captured' valuable jewellery, he invariably returned it to its owner. Conscious of his illegal status in the country, he was determined not to come to the attention of the police. Jimmy O'Hara, his partner was delighted with the amount of money they were taking, and at one stage when a big hike in their rent occurred suggested they might be able to get protection from the law if they paid taxes to the Inland Revenue. Abdul, for obvious reasons, declined to accept his suggestion.

Soon, he accumulated a considerable pile of dollars, which he decided to lodge in a bank. He had recently begun dating an Italian girl called Rosita and he asked her how he could bank his money without attracting the attention of the authorities. She told him that her uncle, Paolo Venezzo, owned a private bank which offered a high rate of interest. Abdul was reluctant to lodge his hard-earned money with someone he didn't know. He went to see his former employer, Louie Abrahamson, and asked his advice. Louie stroked his beard and said he would improve on the interest offered by Paolo Venezzo. Abdul prudently divided his money between the two men.

He still took money from the bystanders with his spinning disk trick. But his mind was on higher things. He had by now perfected a trick which involved putting a coloured peg on a rabbit's ear. The audience had to guess whether the peg was on the rabbit's right or left ear. The live rabbit could be clearly seen facing the audience, tethered and unable to move.

'There you see, Ladies and gentleman, the red peg is fastened to the rabbit's left ear. Now, I wave my yellow scarf in front of him and, lo and behold, the peg is now on his right ear.

No one suspected that the rabbit had been replaced by a mirror image.

He then went on to perform his Lindbergh act. Lindbergh, the famous aviator, was in the news again, because of the kidnapping of his baby son. A model aircraft based on the Spirit of St. Louis in which Lindbergh had made his famous Atlantic crossing was exhibited outside the tent. A movie was projected onto a white cloth which showed the aircraft flying through clouds on its way to France. Abdul asked his audience to guess how exactly much fuel it needed to cross the Atlantic depending on the speed of the tailwind. Bets were placed. Since Abdul was able to select the speed of the wind the 'House' always won. During the ten minutes the flight lasted Abdul gave a graphic description of Lindbergh's fight with the elements. The spectators became so engrossed in the great adventure that no one seemed to mind losing. Abdul, as well as being an expert magician, was rapidly becoming a first-class showman.

He was also becoming an expert at card tricks. Truck drivers gathered occasionally at a neighbour's house to play poker. He was invited to join in and was occasionally tempted to cheat his fellow players. But he resisted the temptation, reckoning that in the long term his reputation for honesty was worth more than the few paltry dollars he could win by cheating. He never forgot that his main purpose in coming to America had been to find his sister, Mumtaz.

One day after the show a middle-aged man with sparse, crinkled ginger hair and a raddled, craggy face approached Abdul and said: 'How do you do those tricks?'

Abdul replied civilly: 'It's all done with smoke and mirrors, sir.'

Finbar Donnegan had made a fortune smuggling liquor during the days of Prohibition and in a quest to become legitimate had opened a small theatre off Broadway, called The Gaiety named after a theatre in Dublin, where he had been born.

'Tis smoke and mirrors is it? Well, they say you can see your soul in the mirror, if'n you look hard enough. Howd'ye like to perform your tricks in a proper theatre? T'is only small, mind you and you'd be first billing to do the warm up. Tell a few jokes perhaps before you do your tricks.'

He gave Abdul his card.

Jimmy O'Hara told Abdul that Donnegan was a gangster with a reputation for cruelty and advised him to steer clear of him. But Abdul saw this as an opportunity for improving his prospects. He still hoped to move upwards in society because of his belief that his sister's beauty would have raised her status in the world. Donnegan gave him an audition. At his request, he told a few jokes and then proceeded to dazzle Donnegan and his stage manager with some impressive sleight of hand, which ended with him pulling a live hen from a top hat. Originally he had used a rabbit. But the rabbit died. Undaunted, Abdul trained the hen, which seemed not to mind the experience of being compressed in a small space. Abdul was good with animals. But too trusting with human beings. He had given up seeing Rosita after her uncle ran off with his money and the savings of a lot of other people. Thankfully, he still had the money he had lodged with Louie.

After a few weeks successfully performing at the Gaiety he was given a higher billing and a six-months contract. He was well enough off now to rent a one-bed room flat with its own bathroom, an unparalleled luxury. He found himself mixing on easy terms with people in show business, some of them quite famous. He was billed as Abizar the Oriental Magician. His Hen-dian Rope Trick was widely admired among his fellow magicians. Instead of a boy climbing up the rope which magically extended itself upwards from a basket, he had taught his pet hen to clamber up to reach some corn perched at the top. A piece of clear glass with a hen-shaped picture was then lowered over the bird. A quick flick from an assistant made the glass rise into the roof. Unseen by the audience, the bird meanwhile flew away to a comfortable cage in the roof where more corn awaited it, leaving the empty rope swaying in a slight breeze.

Abizar taunted his audience: 'You're wondering where all the hen's eggs have gone, aren't you!' He then produced eggs from his sleeves, from his ears and his nose and peppered the audience with them. They flinched, thinking they were real eggs. They were, in fact light-weight plastic eggs and they became highly sought after by members of the public eager to demonstrate that they had been to one of his shows.

He now felt that he was in a position to make a systematic search for Mumtaz. He made a list of restaurants and night clubs of the kind he thought she might frequent and, when he was not on stage, would go round making enquiries for a girl of Arab appearance with fine features like his own and glorious chestnut hair. But after a while he realised that it was a hopeless quest and became discouraged. Nevertheless, wherever he went he kept his eyes open for someone of that description, hoping that she might turn out to be his lost sister.

When his six-months contract was up, Abdul was offered a lucrative contract with a night club called The Orange-Banana It was a very different, much more sophisticated kind of audience. He had to fight against the competing distractions of booze and cocaine. But clad in an immaculate dinner suit, he adapted to his audience, telling risqué jokes in between the skilful legerdemain with which he astonished his audience. He even composed a song called Magic Ain't So Black, which he occasionally sang.

His life changed when a double act was booked to play in the night club, a dancing team called The Parakeets. He fell instantly in love with the girl, a spectacular-looking blonde. They specialised in South American dancing and their version of the tango made Abdul's blood race. Pedro was an ex-polo player from the Argentine, whose deteriorating eyesight had forced him to retired from the game. Having always excelled at dancing, he had taken it up professionally and paired up with Eva whom he had seen dancing in a small club in Buenos Aires. Abdul was delighted when he learned that Pedro had a wife and children and that the relationship between the dancers was purely a business one.

He determined to make her his own, began to learn Spanish and took lessons in the rumba and tango. He was told that Eva was an American girl who had learned to speak Spanish while working in the Argentine. Pedro was a taciturn fellow. But when Abdul asked Eva out on a date he intervened and said: It's in our contract. No dates when we are on tour. What she does when her contract is finished is her own business. But for now, no dates. Understood?'

At the time Eva and Pedro were standing by the piano in the night club. She gave a helpless shrug when Abdul asked her if that was true. She seemed totally dominated by her dancing partner. But Abdul would not give up easily. When Pedro was taken ill with flu, he took her to Mindy's restaurant for lunch, saying: 'Never mind no dates. A girl's gotta eat.'

During the meal she told him she had gone to the Argentine under the impression that she was to appear in a chorus line. But it was an attempt by a group of pimps to sell her into white slavery. She narrowly escaped and then managed to find work dancing in a bar frequented by socialites. Pedro, at that time a member of a polo team, had seen her there. When he stopped playing polo, he persuaded her to join him in a dancing act. She told Abdul that Pedro was in love with her. But so far she had managed to resist his advances. However, intensely jealous, he insisted on introducing the 'No dates' clause into their contract.

'The United States Constitution says everyone must have the freedom to love,' Abdul said cheerfully, motioning to the waiter for the bill.

'I could lose my job, if I dated you,' Eva said with a smile.

'I'll employ you as my assistant. Would you like that?'

'No,' Eva replied firmly, 'I'm a dancer first and foremost.'

Abdul collected their coats, ordered the driver of a Yellow cab to take her home and set off on foot, feeling very cheerful. I'll get her in the end, he told himself. She is certainly the most beautiful girl I have ever met. Those long shapely legs, those peach-like breasts and that long, blonde hair! Phew! she takes my breath away.

He met her in secret several times after that and took her to the cinema and the Gaiety theatre, where he had once worked. He was so much in love with her that he broke the rules of his professional body by telling her how some of the magic tricks were performed.

The news that he was dating Eva reached Pedro's ears. He cornered Abdul in the wash room one night and threatened him with a knife, saying that he would cut off his balls if he ever went on another date with Eve. Abdul threw up his right hand to protect himself. Pedro thought he saw a vicious-looking eagle's claw about to pluck out his eyes, fell over into a row of ceramic hand basins and sustained concussion. Because he had been threatened with a knife, Abdul was exonerated from blame. But during the course of the police investigation it became known that he was an illegal immigrant. Influential customers of the night club, however, acting on his behalf, managed to persuade the authorities to issue a working permit, at the expiry of which he would be entitled to apply for US citizenship.

It took several weeks for Pedro to recover. The dancing contract was suspended. In the meantime Abdul persuaded Eva to act as his assistant. She danced a spectacular solo before starting their main act during which Abdul in double-quick time made watches, necklaces and sometimes even neckties, disappear with astonishing rapidity from the members of his audience. When Pedro decided to go back to his native Argentine Eva threw in her lot with Abdul with whom by now she was very much in love. She promised to marry him when he obtained United States citizenship.

One night she invited him to her flat for a coffee. As she was putting on the kettle, he came up behind her, nestled his face in her blond hair and placed his hands on her breasts. She turned round and they embraced passionately. They flung off their garments. Eva paused for a moment, when a pleat in her skirt had became entangled in her suspender belt, as Abdul sat on the bed and watched her in bemused delight.

Glancing at a bookcase, he was surprised to a see a copy of the Koran in a jewelled binding. But he forgot this when Eva joined him in bed. They caressed each other tenderly, Eva moaning with pleasure. Suddenly Abdul noticed an oddly-shaped birthmark on her belly, which reminded him of one he had seen long ago in his youth. He murmured: 'Mumtaz!' But the full message failed to come home to him and they continued making love. Just as he was about to enter her, Mumtaz gave a piercing shriek, having belatedly recognised the name she had been given at birth.

Time rewound itself. Abdul, suddenly aware of what had happened, moved away from her and confessed that he was her long lost brother. In the most bizarre circumstances possible he had found his beloved sister. Her peroxided hair, the transformation in her language and her personality had completely disguised her identity. And she had failed to recognise as her brother the debonair, accomplished magician she had met in the night club.

Mohamed commented: 'How can time stop?'

Kate answered: 'Time slows when we are bored and hurries along when we are busy. A minute to a baby can seem an eternity whereas to an adult it can pass in a flash.

'Time cannot go backwards.'

'Will you let me go, if I prove that it can?' Kate said desperately, remembering a conversation she had once had with her boss.

Mohamed nodded rapidly

'Yes, prove it to me.'

Kate held a wristwatch against a mirror on the wall.

'Time is going backwards. Now will you let me go free as you promised.

'That is just a trick.'

'What would you have done in Abdul's position?' Kate enquired.

Mohamed shrugged and gave a puzzled grimace. 'I would never commit incest.'

'Are you sure?'

'Of course I am sure.'

Kate said very slowly and deliberately: 'Then you know the difference between right and wrong.'

Mohamed, concentrating intently on unwrapping a pack of chewing gum, did not answer.

Kate continued: 'Which proves that you are basically a moral person.'

Cramming gum into his mouth, Mohamed said: 'Are you trying to trap me?'

'No, but you have just shown you are a moral person.'

'Did Mumtaz and Abdul become just good friends?' Mohamed enquired with a sneer.

'They were the last surviving members of their family and they loved and supported each other for the rest of their days. Wouldn't you have behaved in the same way?'

Mohamed said aggressively: 'You're not a blood relative. So it doesn't apply in this case.'

'Taking a woman against her will is worse than incest.'

Mohamed reflected for a while and then said nonchalantly: 'Perhaps.'

Kate's heart gave a leap, thinking she had won a great victory.

She said in a small voice, as he made ready to go: 'Have I convinced you to let me go?'

His mouth twisting humorously in appreciation of his own joke, Mohamed said: 'OK, sister. You've won.'

Kate believed at that moment that she would be freed unharmed.

19

The website was up and running. I was using all the power and influence I possessed to publicise it in the newspapers and journals of the Paul Schneider empire. So far my boss had not raised any objections. He had recently taken up with a young starlet he had met while on holiday in Barbados. I strongly suspected that he was being set up again by the group of his ex-lovers who were suing him. But I didn't warn him, in case he thought that by questioning the girl's sincerity I might be casting doubts on his manhood. Billionaires' egos are very sensitive in that area.

I had informed him of the web site address. He telephoned me to say: 'That's the best porno site I ever visited. Nice-looking girl that Kate Villeneuve. What a dancer! What tits! If ever you find her, I'd like to meet her.'

I couldn't be bothered to explain that it wasn't Kate who was performing the erotic dance.

In the meantime, having found his soul mate, Archie had got lucky in another way. He had been promoted to take full charge of the Rupert Agency's business throughout Canada and was very busy.

I was pretty well on my own now in respect of the search for Kate Villeneuve. I called the police regularly but they had nothing to report.

It takes time for a web site to develop. I hoped that because it was free and offered a reward of ten-thousand dollars for information about Kate it would attract a large audience. One page contained a poignant appeal, pointing out that her young son, her sister and nephews and nieces were grieving for her.

I learned that Poppy and Jim Rankin had not neglected their own interests; they had circularised ballet companies round the world, citing the Kate Villeneuve site as evidence of their skills and imagination. I couldn't fault the site design. As for Jane Pearson's role, I was prepared to argue with anybody that her performance was not only selfless, inasmuch as she hoped to save another human being, but in its own right it possessed least as much artistic merit as the Rokeby Venus and Titian's Venus of Urbino.

With no tangible results so far I was feeling at a fairly low ebb. I played in a golf foursome and let down my partner by sloppy putting. My mind was a long way from the golf course. The Rankins had told me it would take at least a month before the web site began to show results, although apparently some e-mail messages were streaming in, mostly from porno freaks. They came in the form of nonsensical suggestions concerning Kate's whereabouts. None of them, Jim Rankin told me, were worth investigating. But he assured me that when eventually things started moving it would be like a tidal wave. Not that I believed him.

I was at the club having a drink in the bar, when I felt a tap on my shoulder. I looked round and saw Jane Pearson clad in tartan trousers and a pink shirt that showed off her lithe figure.

I said: 'Hi, Jane. Good to see you. How's Archie?'

'Well, thanks. He's in Toronto chasing up some business, I believe. How's the web site doing?'

'Very well, thanks to your incredibly glamorous dancing. Lots of hits but no worthwhile leads yet.'

'I hope something turns up soon. Poor girl. What a terrible thing to have happened.'

'You've done your very best to help. Not many people would have put themselves on the line like that. Incredibly brave of you.'

'Not really' She gave a mischievous smile and said: 'I just love showing off. If I didn't have other responsibilities, I'd be in show biz.'

She went on to explain: 'My father died, and left me in charge of his businesses. I couldn't let him down. He used to say: "If you stop expanding, you start going backwards." I promised him I wouldn't let that happen.'

Jane's joyous, sensual dancing had given her an escape from the competitive world of business. It had been weird, watching her on the web site, swaying and weaving like a shapely concubine from the Arabian Nights.

'Are you playing golf today?' I asked.

'No, I'm about to take a class in dramatics. Why don't you come along?'

I smiled and shook my head.

'I have no acting ability whatsoever.'

'Oh, come on. It will do you good.'

'OK. I suppose I could play Caliban ...'

'Enough of that!'

Jane grabbed me by the arm and propelled me towards the lounge overlooking the swimming-pool, which was reserved one morning a week for the drama class. Fifteen or so men and women were sitting at cloth-covered tables, drinking coffee.

Susan quickly organised them into two groups and pushed me into one of them.

She announced: 'Bill Hummelstein is joining us this morning just for the experience. He says he is too busy to participate in our regular shows. But a lot of our best performers start off saying that. When the acting bug gets into you it never lets go.'

I smiled foolishly.

Jane went on: 'This is a session where we all prepare ourselves mentally for the time – it's only three weeks away now – when you will all be given specific acting roles. Today I shall be asking you to fall, and I use that word advisedly, into any situation I describe for you. I want you to let your subconscious take over and propel you into the action your natural self feels is appropriate to the situation. You will ad lib words and gestures. You will slip into your new persona and try instinctively to grasp the messages coming through to you from your partner.'

'You, Johnny,' she pointed towards a tall, handsome lad with tousled hair. 'I want you to chat up Mary Rheinhart,' She pointed to a middle-aged, plump woman wearing a stylish, emerald green bomber jacket in the group where I was trying to make myself as inconspicuous as possible. 'You're at a railway station. You have made an excuse to talk to her, but you are only doing so because you suspect her of stealing your wallet.'

A very engaging battle of wits ensued, as Johnny tried to ensnare the lady with well designed compliments. After she had pretended to swallow them, he tried hard to persuade her to open her purse. She resisted his suggestion but fawned on him and suggested a date. Johnny made asides over his shoulder about the chutspah of homely female pickpockets, getting some laughs in the process. For this he was criticised by Jane for showing a lack of respect for his acting partner. He rejoined his group, looking somewhat subdued.

When it came to my turn, I was directed to imagine a conversation with a strange lady while watching a gorilla at the zoo. The audience were convulsed with laughter at the scatological questions and answers we threw at each other. I realised that Jane had cleverly chosen a witty, humorous woman who would find double-entendres in every remarks I made about the great primates.

Myself conversationally: 'Did you know he shares ninety-eight per cent of my genes.'

Susan Griffith, gazing at my posterior: 'I'm not surprised. Your jeans suggest that your ass is nearly as big as his.'

'I'm told they have very small penises.'

'You guys are always looking for comparisons that will make you feel good.'

'Thanks for that remark. What would you do if I pushed you into the cage and he tried to make love to you?'

'I'd tell him I have a headache.'

I enjoyed it so much that I asked Jane for the lady's telephone number. She told me that Susan was happily married with six children.

Back home I mooched around and made some minor alteration to a feature article that was to appear the following day. I logged onto the web site and shook my head in disbelief at Jane's incredibly sexy performance. Then I sat on my balcony, a slice of bread in my hand, and waited for my muse to put in an appearance. He soon came in the form of Harry the Seagull.

I tore off a piece of bread, threw it to him. He gobbled it, eyeing me with beady eyes.

I said: 'Now earn your bread, you son of a bitch, by answering my questions. Why is my life so pointless?'

'Because you have too much bread. You wouldn't have time to worry if you had to hunt for it. Every second of my life is taken up with finding food, so my life can never be pointless. You'll excuse me if I say I haven't the time to answer silly questions.'

One up to you, I thought.

'What do you do for sex, Harry?'

'I copulate, feed the chicks till they can fend for themselves and then go back to the daily grind of looking for mutts like you have too much bread.'

'You're lucky. We humans are constantly under a constant compulsion to seek the most beautiful and intelligent mate in the world.'

'In my experience one female seagull is much like another.'

'We need to be reassured that we are leaving offspring behind for posterity.'

'I've fertilised twelve hundred eggs of which two hundred and fifty hatched successfully and fifteen survived into adulthood. That has assured my immortality.'

'Good on you, mate, as an Australian journalist on my staff is fond of saying. And now, back to my personal life, what happened to Kate Villeneuve?'

He didn't answer, so I threw him another piece of bread. He then surprised me by saying: 'You should be proud that she calls you Dad.. She obviously identifies you with someone who was an important influence in her life.'

'Thank you, Harry. You're a great comfort.'

'You human beings are jerks. Just because you have large memories you think you're the masters of time. But you are slaves, all of you. Your butt is attached to the past by that huge piece of elastic called memory, so every time you imagine you're going forwards, you get flung backwards into the murky past.'

'And you, Harry? Do you fare any better?'

'Sure. I'm free as a bird.'

Harry disappeared off the railing, leaving me feeling surly and grumpy.

I called my PA on the telephone and told her to tell one of my staff that the article about Kate Villeneuve he had written on my instructions was crap. I drank a beer and made myself a sardine-burger. After that I began to feel better.

20

A note on my desk left by my PA said: 'Web site cluster found. Signed Jim Rankin. It was the first intimation of a possible sighting.

I called Anabelle Wong and asked her how the message had come in.

'E-mail. I asked him on the telephone to elaborate and he said he didn't want to raise false hopes at this stage. He'll contact you when he has any further information.'

'Thanks, Anabelle. 'Try to get him on the phone again.'

Anabelle tried unsuccessfully. She left a message on his voice mail asking him to contact me again. It was two days before I succeeded in speaking to him at his cottage in New Hampshire from which he and his wife operated their web site service.

Almost inarticulate with rage, I said: 'What the hell, Jim, do you think you're doing? Leaving a message and then disappearing off the face of the earth.'

'Hang on there. I've been in LA following up some business contacts,'

'You shouldn't leave your clients up in the air. What's happening for Christ's sake.'

'I just e-mailed you to say I had detected a cluster.'

'What the hell does that mean?'

'It means we – my wife and I – analysed the geographical locations of everyone who had so far responded to the appeal for information and we thought we detected a significant cluster of responses in and around New Orleans.'

'Does that mean that Kate is being held in New Orleans?'

'I'm afraid not. Sending you the e-mail was a mistake.'

'Really?' I said sarcastically.

'Since sending it my wife and I have decided that the cluster is of no particular significance. It was a glitch. A disproportionate number of people in New Orleans responded to the web site because the name of the person we are seeking happens to be French. We confirmed that by checking on the names of the respondents and discovered that seventy-three per cent of them were French. When we discounted the demographic density factor, we found that is wasn't a genuine cluster.'

'So how the hell are we ever going to find her,' I asked disconsolately.

'By patient detective work,' Jim Rankin said cheerfully.

I had a sudden thought.

'Jim, how much of your time is presently taken up with the KateVilleneuve web site?'

'I would guess about twenty-per-cent.'

I had remembered that the money I could realise by selling my rejuvenated IT shares was now no longer committed to paying for the web site. I said: 'Jim, time is running out. If you will concentrate all your energies on my web site during next week, I'm prepared to pay you a substantial amount. I want you and your wife to give it your concentrated attention, in an attempt to bring the search to a conclusion.'

We haggled for a while and finally agreed on the sum I would pay them.

'One last thing ,' I said.

'What's that?'

' Is there a hotel near where you live? I'd like to come and watch the whole operation.'

'You can stay with us, if you like. The nearest hotel is fifty miles away.'

I was due a vacation. Paul Schneider was too wrapped up in his own misery to make any objection. I left my deputy in charge, reminding him that the juciest news always comes just as you are about to put the paper to bed.

*

Anabelle organised travel arrangements to Boston and booked a hire car. During the flight I wondered if I had been over generous in the deal I had made with the Rankins; it was, after all, in their interests to keep on the right side of an editor with influence in a large publishing group. Looking back on my journalistic career, I felt proud of what I had achieved. Promotion hadn't come easily. But Schneider had recognised my gift for handling people and my astuteness in business dealings. He had good reason to congratulate himself in choosing me. The newspaper steadily improved under my guidance and has enhanced its reputation and my own.

It was a great pity, though, I reflected, that my ability to handle people did not extend to my marriages. I particularly regretted the less than perfect relationship I had with my sons. If Kate were found alive, would I be able to persuade her to become my third wife? Although I entertained serious doubts, it would not stop me from continuing my search. It had become a huge challenge. Getting her back would wipe out all my failures in other areas.

As the aircraft descended into Logan airport, I brooded on the headlines that might appear after I found her.

STRIPTEASE WEB SITE FINDS MISSING JOURNALIST.

PORN ADDICTS ASSIST MERCY MISSION.

We landed with a thump. The macabre thought occurred to me that a blow of the approximately the same force delivered to Kate's slender neck might already have killed her. This sad notion dominated my mind as I drove to the Rankins' home in New Hampshire. I asked myself, if her body was ever found, would I search for her killers? I decided I would leave that to the police. At some stage normal life would have to be resumed.

• *

The leaves of the trees were already turning red, copper and gold as I drove through the lower slopes of The White Mountains. I telephoned Jim Rankin when I was about twenty miles away from his home. I found his large chalet set on a slope among a wilderness of trees.

I parked the car in the drive.

He appeared in a red tartan shirt and blue jeans and assisted me in getting my luggage out of the car. As we approached the front door, he told me that he and his wife, Poppy, loved living there. Wasn't it lonely, I asked. On the contrary he replied. He was in contact with more people than most city dwellers. Because his computers were connected to the whole of the USA, he and his wife enjoyed an advanced social life. Furthermore, he added with a grin, since one computer was working exclusively for NASA, he could claim to have contact with the whole universe. And he enjoyed a further luxury – he and Poppy commuted a mere thirty yards to their place of work in an air-conditioned barn.

Poppy was pretty, about Kate's age, her sandy hair piled carelessly at the back of her head. She wore trousers and a man's blue shirt. Their young son, Toby, was at school. Both husband and wife had graduated in computer sciences at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and had built up their business during the previous three years. While Poppy prepared lunch, Jim showed me to my quarters upstairs, a small room with pine furniture and an adjoining washroom.

'There's a laptop there, if you feel like surfing,' Jim said. 'Come down as soon as you're ready.'

'That's a sexy show on your web site,' Poppy remarked with a grin, as she poured coffee.

'Is it going to do the trick?' I asked with a wry expression.

'It has attracted a huge number of hits,' Jim pointed out. 'I'll show you some of the e-mails we're getting later on. Sorry I misled you about that cluster from New Orleans. It took Poppy and I a while before we realised that it was simply a local response to the French name. People with a French background are naturally drawn towards French names. One has to be constantly on guard for misleading local factors of that sort.'

'How many sightings have you had?' I enquired.

Jim looked at Poppy and they both gave me sympathetic smiles.

'Many thousands. But cranks abound on the Internet and make extravagant claims. You'll see what I mean later on.'

'Why should they lie?'

'Some just think it's fun. Others talk themselves into believing they've seen someone resembling Kate Villeneuve. '

'Is it possible that one of the claims may be genuine?'

'We do our best to separate the genuine from the false and we hope we'll eventually come up with something. '

'How does your system work?' I asked.

'We ask respondents to give points of resemblance on a scale of one to ten in respect of eye colour, nose shape, mouth shape, chin shape, skin tone and hair colour. They can also listen to the recording of her voice you gave us. So far none of those who recognised her face have recognised her voice. We have made it a rule that people can have only one shot at the prize money to stop the system clogging up.'

'Can't they get around that by using different screen names?'

'We tell them that we can prevent that by identifying the computer.'

Munching thoughtfully on my cheese and lettuce roll, I again asked myself if I had been over generous in the deal I had struck with this young couple.

A black labrador licked my hand and looked up with soulful eyes. I patted him on the head.

'Any golf courses near here? I enquired

'There's one about twelve miles from here. I'll organise a game, if you like,' Jim said. I shook my head. 'No, I must concentrate on the job in hand. I'll be happy to walk your dog for exercise, though.'

Poppy said: 'Bruce will like that, won't you Bruce.'

Later, Jim and I walked over to the barn. The name Spider's Web had been burned on a shingle made of wood by the side of the door. Inside were dozens of powerful computers We mounted a wooden staircase to the loft, which had been set up as office. he invited me to sit by his side in front of a monitor and then scrolled up some e-mails addressed to my web site.

From Texas. Hi there. I've seen yo chick bird. I can tell it's her because she have the same shape pussy.'

From Minnesota. Hello, Mr. Villeneuve, I'm sure I saw your lady swimming in our pool last night. She has xactly the same mole on her left shoulder.'

From Montana: Saw a lady resembling your dancer in a travelling strip show. It's moved on now. But if you send me, say, a thousand dollars, I'll follow it to its next destination.

From Georgia: I beat myself to a frazzle watching Kate. And I'll do it again tonight. I sure am in love with that girl. Send me ten thousand dollars so's I can spend some time with her.

From Nebraska: That girl Kate is the best dancer I've seen in years. I have contacts in show business. When you find her I'd like to act as her agent.

From Florida: Kate es una niña maravillosa. Ella desempeña en un club de noche Yo no puedo ir en allí porque es demasiado caro. Me envíe algún dinero y Yo la encontraré para usted.

From California: I saw a lady last night with a strong resemblance to your Kate Villeneuve in our local supermarket yesterday. She was wearing a tasseled jacket with a cowboy hat and thigh boots. She moved like a dancer but I'm not sure if she's the kind that would bare all. I append a list of likenesses.

'That looks promising,' I said.

'Not when you have checked the points,' Jim remarked.

'How much did she score?'

'Six hundred.'

'Perhaps we've found her,' I said excitedly.

Jim shook his head.

'We've checked on the sender's identity. She's in prison.'

'Why the hell do people do it? I asked.

Jim shrugged. 'Porn sites attract some very odd types.'

'Who cares as long as we find her.'

'When we get a cluster of sightings around an identifiable geographical location, we'll know we're getting closer. Have a look at this ...'

Jim drew from a shelf above the desk a large roll of paper. He unrolled it and displayed a large black and white map of the United States on which he and Poppy had plotted all the sightings so far reported. He showed me a distinct cluster that was visible around New Orleans and Baton Rouge and then showed me a distinct but much smaller cluster in New Hampshire.

'You think she may be near here?' I enquired excitedly.

Jim laughed and said: 'No such luck I'm afraid. It is simply that a lot of French Canadians settled here and they, like the people in Lousiana, are more prone to notice French names.'

'It looks like a lost cause, then,' I said grimly.

'Don't be downhearted. Reports of sightings are flooding in all the while. By methodically analysing them there is a good chance that we'll come up with something. Incidentally, we found your offer most generous. Although we have a huge backlog of work, we felt in the circumstances we should concentrate exclusively to your project this week. Is she your married daughter by any chance?'

'No, just one of my journalists. But I felt under a moral obligation to do all I could to find her.'

I forgave Jim for suggesting that she might be my daughter, when he commented: 'That was a great idea to post her likeness on a porn site. The dancing is brilliant. We have even had an enquiry from Hollywood from someone about to make a musical.'

'Genuine or a hoax?'

Jim hadn't checked. He went on to explain the statistical parameters they were using to weed out the false claims. I felt satisfied that the scheme was in good hands. Kate was being sought from all over the United States of American and I congratulated myself on coming up with the idea. I slept well that night.

The following morning I was talking to my PA on my cell phone, when a chubby kid of above five walked into my room.

Covering the phone with my hand, I said: Hi, there, Toby, I'll be with you in a minute. As I continued my conversation, he explored the contents of my suitcase, and found a photograph of Kate.

'Who's that?' he asked.

'Just a friend,' I replied.

He insisted on staying while I shaved.

Jim was absent, already working, as I sat down to breakfast with Toby. Poppy served us a sumptuous breakfast of ham on muffins.

Toby then told his mother that I had a photograph of Kate upstairs.

I said to Toby: 'Do you know who Kate is?'

He said: 'Sure, she's the girl who dances on the porn site.'

I said incredulously to Poppy: 'You let him look at a porn site!'

'Why not? He sees us naked. Why shouldn't he see her?'

I nodded and continued to eat.

Later, Poppy took Toby to school in their four-wheel drive.

Having asked permission, I put Bruce on a lead and walked through a gate in the fence at the rear; it led into a narrow path, winding uphill towards a forest of spruce and pine. A few minutes later I was looking down into a valley and the small town of Edwardsville. High above I could see in a clear blue sky the contrail of a jet descending towards Boston.

As I entered the forest, I took Bruce off the lead. He galloped off ahead of me, his impressive gonads wobbling, his back legs sprawling in the typical fashion of labradors. Deep in thought, I followed him, speculating on whether my mission would shortly end in failure. If I didn't find Kate, was I fated to spend my declining years having imaginary conversations with sea gulls? Why had one of my best journalists disappeared in such mysterious circumstances? Had I driven her away by panting after her like a lecherous hound? I decided to exonerate myself. I had behaved towards her in exactly the same way as I had towards my other employees. Only very rarely had I given any kind of hint that I cared.

I suddenly realised that some time had passed since I had last seen Bruce. Soon I heard him rustling in the undergrowth ahead and walked on calling: ' Heel, Bruce. Heel ... '

I still couldn't see him. The awful thought occurred to me that I might have lost him. I came to a clearing full of moss-covered ground covered with pine cones. The sun shining through a gap in the trees blinded me for a moment. Then with a great sense of relief, I saw him urinating on a fallen tree trunk.

A moment later, something else dark came into my view. Bruce turned tail and fled past me whimpering. A huge brown bear which had been on all fours nosing at something on the ground, suddenly raised himself to his full height, and looked straight at me. I froze. A few moments later – it seemed very much longer– the bear lost interest, dropped on all fours and lumbered away into the forest. With my heart pounding in my chest, I ran at full pelt for the house. Bruce joined me shortly, tail wagging, enjoying the excitement.

Once inside the boundary fence, I felt a huge sense of relief and began to experience pride at having seen a wild bear in his native habitat. Looking back on the brief moment when we looked at each other he seemed to have a sense of humour, almost as though relishing his power to intimidate me. I admired his composure – his bearishness

Inside the house, I gave Bruce a large piece of ham from the fridge, to celebrate our narrow escape.

Leaving Bruce in the house, I walked over to the Spider's Web building and climbed the stairs. Jim was seated at his desk, pondering a map of the United States on which the state boundaries and major towns were clearly marked.

I exclaimed breathlessly: 'Jim, I've just had a narrow escape.'

He said abstractedly: 'What?'

'I was nearly eaten by a bear.'

Ignoring my remark, he said; 'I think we have got a significant cluster of responses from Arkansas. The population density is quite small there and yet we've some e-mails claiming sightings from a small town about fifteen miles from Pine Bluff.'

I repeated: 'Jim, I was nearly eaten by a bear.'

He turned round on his swivel chair and said: 'Bears won't hurt you unless you go up and punch them on the jaw. Now this cluster might be important. Grab a chair and we'll run through all the e-mails we've had in the last twenty-four hours. There's a whole swathe coming through at the moment from the Midwest. A lot of people log on at lunch-time.

Annoyed that my narrow escape had been taken so lightly, I drew up a chair and helped him go through the alleged sightings from Winston Heights, Arkansas. It soon became obvious that a group of drunken men had enjoyed seeing Jane's dance on a computer set up in a bar and had decided collectively to claim the prize for seeing her.

We gave up after reading the last one, which said: 'Kate Villeneuf dances just like a gazel. She's so durned pretty that I could still see her when I refuelled my car an' I said: 'Let me put my refuelling nozzle inside you an' move it around a mite.'

We had many more disappointments that morning. My only consolation was that during lunch Poppy, after listening patiently to an account of my adventure with the bear, commented: 'You did the right thing to stand still. They can run a lot faster than you.'

'Don't you find the bears unnerving?'

She answered tersely: 'Motor cars and guns kill a lot more Americans than bears.'

I accepted that. As it happened the adventure with the bear reinforced my conviction that just as there are times when it's best to do nothing, there are also times when it's imperative to act quickly and decisively.

I enjoyed my short vacation with the Rankins but couldn't help wishing that it had produced a more positive result. On the last day they asked if they could have special terms when advertising their services in the journals and newspaper controlled by Paul Schneider. I gave a noncommittal answer. But I couldn't blame them for asking. They had had to endured my company for a week during which time they 'tweaked' the web site several times in an attempt to attract more visitors, including on my instructions, increasing the prize from £10,000 to $20,000.

I had just put my suitcase in the back of the car, and was ready to drive off when Poppy emerged from the front-door. She looking very fetching, hurriedly wrapping a turquoise dressing-gown round her pajamas. Coming up to the car, she said with her voice quivering with excitement: 'Jim's just seen something which may be important.'

'Really. What is it?'

'You'd better go and see.'

Poppy said, as we walked back to the cottage: 'He's still examining some e-mails that came in last night. He called me to stop you leaving. I just caught you in time.'

Jim's eyes were riveted to a monitor when I hurried into in his office.

I enquired: 'What's happened?'

Without turning his head, he said: 'Come and look at this.'

The e-mail on the screen said: "Twenty-thousand dollars for such a lovely lady! You must be joking. We might be tempted for twenty-million. Signed: Pavarotti."

'Where's it from?' I enquired, unimpressed.

'Godalming. It's a town in Surrey, England.'

'So why is it of any importance.'

'He has tried to disguise his identity by sending the e-mail from Godalming. In fact, it was re-routed from a cyber cafe in New York. His internet service provider has just informed me that Pavarotti is a screen name used by a sixteen-year old called Justin Pilcher.

'How do they know that?'

'They know the identity of every screen name.'

'Why should a sixteen-year old have any information?'

'We don't know.'

'So what's its significance?'

'The fact that he has tried to disguise his whereabouts might be important. But its real significance is in relation to a cluster of alleged sightings that have occurred in the Big Apple.'

Jim then showed me a cluster of sightings in the New York area.

'Corrected for demographic density and other factors?' I enquired.

Jim gave me a pitying look.

'Of course.'

'And the rest of the e-mails?'

'I've been trawling through them. There's the usual shit from deviants and guys who think they're being funny. But there are three other e-mails from the same cyber cafe, which suggest that their sender, like the one who signed himself Pavrotti, knows something. They all demand twenty million dollars.'

'It sounds as though they're in collusion.'

'It does rather. They are probably hoaxers. They haven't replied to the computer-generated forms that were automatically sent to them. But I felt I ought to tell you.'

'Why Pavorotti? I enquired helplessly.

Jim said: 'I doubt if the name is significant. But if you could get Pavarotti to sing – in the gangster sense of coughing up hidden information – it might help.'

'You think that just because someone sent his message via another computer he might have something to hide?'

'I could ask his Internet Service Provider for his New York address.'

It seemed to me that he was clutching at straws, trying to justify the generous payment I had made for staying with them during the past week.

I muttered: 'I don't think we're getting anywhere.'

He said: 'Sorry, Bill,' and I went down the stairs.

Poppy was still waiting in the drive. I kissed her on the cheek, breathing in an attractive fragrance of perfumed soap in the process, and thanked her again for her hospitality.

Driving down the hill that ran through Edwardsville, I consoled myself with the thought, if I hadn't got much value for my money, at least when I got back to Chicago I would be able to boast about a hair-raising encounter with a bear.

21

Daisy called on my phone, as I was approaching Boston, to inform me that our son, James, was in trouble at school. The twelve-year old had been caught smoking a reefer. He was likely to be expelled. Would I fly down to New York and plead with his headmistress.

I shouted: 'How are you bringing up my child? Kids don't go in for drugs unless they're in a bad environment.'

'It's you fault for divorcing me.'

'I didn't tell you to go to New York so that you could live with your lover.'

'If you hadn't neglected me by devoting twenty-four hours every day to your wretched newspaper, I would never have taken a lover.'

'Why didn't you come back to Chicago when he left you.'

'I had a job by then. The alimony you pay isn't enough to keep me.'

I swerved past a parked truck, frightening myself, and then asked in a more conciliatory tone: 'How is the For Fu franchise?'

'It's a bit slow,' she admitted.

'Does Bobby Francino still attend?

'Not as much as he used to.'

Taking a shot in the dark, I enquired: 'How much are you in debt?'

'I didn't say I was in debt. I just asked you to do what any decent father would do and come and help your son.'

I said I would come straight away.

'You can stay with me.'

'OK. I'll stay with you.'

I started practising what I would say to the lad when I saw him and then suddenly realised that I was virtually a stranger and that whatever I said would have little effect. But I still felt morally bound to go. I called Paul Schneider on the phone to tell him. He asked how the web site was doing.

'Extremely well. Millions of suckers are logging on'

. 'That's good. Any signs of that beautiful dancing journalist of yours?'

I said:' No luck so far, Paul. But we're still hoping something will turn up.'

During the flight to New York, I ran through in my mind the tantalising scraps of information that had been gleaned from the web site, including that of the sixteen-year old who had tried to disguise his identity by e-mailing from England. The garrulous driver of the yellow cab, as he drove me to Daisy's place, kept interrupting my thoughts with details of an incredibly complicated plan he had dreamed up to bring about peace in the Middle East.

Soon, I was caught up in a flurry of activity that took my mind off the elusive clues that had appeared on the website. Daisy had managed to obtain an appointment for me with the headmistress. I felt like a delinquent myself – I suppose I am – as I acknowledged that the boy had been shattered by his parents' divorce and that this had made him an easy victim to pleas from some of his peers to experiment with soft drugs.

The headmistress remained stony-faced as I pleaded for my son not to be expelled. But my heartfelt admission eventually did the trick. Her stern expression changed into a faint wisp of a smile and she agreed to let him stay on, adding certain provisos with which I hastily agreed.

Daisy and I had an unwritten agreement: on those rare occasions when I stayed at her West 100th Street apartment. I slept on a couch in her sitting-room, I did not enquire about her current boy friend and I was free to come and go without consulting her. It was a civilised agreement. I saved money on over-night hotel expenses. In return, because of the fragility of her finances, I would buy clothes for James, or settle any outstanding bill that was worrying her.

On one occasion I left two-hundred dollars in the fridge and she raged at me on the telephone the next day, saying it made her feel like a whore. Since the launch of her For Fu enterprise her finances seemed to have stabilised. But knowing Daisy I did not expect it to last long. It was not that she was extravagant. On the contrary she lived on quite a modest scale. But she just would not allow for contingencies. When she worked for a public relations firm, she did not consider the possibility that it would go bankrupt. As a saleswoman, working on commission for a cosmetics manufacturer she did not believe the opposition would put them out of business. On both occasions I had to bail her out. Now, having been told the For Fu attendance was dwindling, I fully expected to hear the worse.

I took her and James out to dinner that evening. James was almost hysterical with gratitude for my intervention. I had become godlike in his eyes, which I didn't welcome because it emphasized the fact that I would no longer be here for him when I went back to Chicago. I told him, as he thanked me for the third time: 'It's OK. That's what dads are for.' Which made me feel even more conscience-stricken because I knew I wouldn't be there for him the next time a crisis occurred. But we had a good meal in an Italian restaurant – lasagne followed by ice cream.

James refused to take wine. 'No, it's got alcohol in it,' he said virtuously as though he was a thoroughly reformed character.

When James had gone to bed that night, Daisy instead of handing me blankets and a pillow for the sofa, whispered nervously: 'You can sleep in my bed if you like.'

She was clutching a silk dressing-gown around a pale blue negligee, offering glimpses of the plump promise beneath.

I replied stiffly: 'That's very kind of you, Daisy.' A sudden vision of Kate came into my mind, along with the recollection that perhaps I should call the police in connection with the cluster of sightings in New York. I was about to remind Daisy that it would be folly to repeat the mistake we had made, but I thought it would be churlish to refuse. So I took her in my arms, kissed and whispered: 'OK, darling. I'll lie on the sofa for a while until Jim is asleep and then I'll come to you.'

Half an hour later, having checked that James was fast asleep, I crept into her bed.

She was lying awake, staring up at a moonbeam on the ceiling. I put my arms around her but she did not respond.

I said: 'What's the matter, Plum Pudding.'

'You didn't seem very keen to sleep with me.'

'I waited until Jim was asleep. '

'I didn't invite you to sleep with me out of gratitude for what you did for him today.'

'Of course not. I was only carrying out my duty as his father.

'Why do you think I asked you to come to bed with me?'

'Because you thought I was horny?'

'No, because I'm still in love with you.'

'After that expensive divorce and all the junk that went with it!'

'It need never have happened.'

I lay back with my head on the pillow; it smelled faintly of lavender.

'Then why did you go off with Ricky and later, Bobby Francino?'

'I told you all about that. You didn't answer my needs at the time. You were so engrossed in your newspaper that you scarcely ever considered me. When you made love your mind was always elsewhere. You would flop off of me and start moaning: 'I hope they haven't forgotten this, that and the other.'

'Daisy, running a newspaper is tremendously demanding. There are millions of people relying on you for news and hundreds of staff to deal with. If you don't deliver, the circulation goes down and you're out on your ass.'

'I would rather marry a junior reporter than go through all that again.'

'If it wasn't for my job, I wouldn't be able to pay you alimony.'

'We needn't have divorced.'

Tired of Daisy's twisted logic, I lay for a while without saying anything, aware all the time of her soft body nudging against me.

A suspicion entered my mind. I said: 'Daisy, tell me the truth about your For Fu franchise.'

'It's losing money.'

'How long can you last out?'

'The lease-holder of the hall has given us a month's notice. I can't afford to rent somewhere else.'

Daisy started crying. I comforted her as well as I could. It was going to cost me eighteen-thousand dollars to clear her debts. But I knew I had to rescue Daisy from her own folly.

After I had promised to pay off her outstanding debts, she clung to me tightly and coo-ed her gratitude. I remained passive, thinking about my bank manager's reaction. Daisy started kissing my lips, my face and my chest.

I whispered: 'Daisy, I don't make the sun burst inside you.'

'Why don't you fucking well shut up,' she said fiercely and continued trying to arouse me.

As I entered her, I said humorously: 'As a Jewish friend of mine would say that's just the tip of the Goldberg.' She ignored my tasteless joke. The fireworks began to explode in a leisurely fashion. Finally, we both went out in a blaze of incandescent glory.

Some time later, having noticed that the moonbeam had disappeared, from the ceiling. I whispered: 'Let's do it again?'

Daisy mumbled: 'I'm too tired.'

I lay awake, feeling reasonably pleased to have learned that it was not my love-making that had led to Daisy going astray, but rather my insensitivity to other aspects of her life. That knowledge softened my resentment. It was probably not sensible to make comparisons between Kate and Daisy. One was smart, the other wasn't. It soon became all too evident after we had married that Daisy would be of no help to me in my career. She has no idea of entertaining, she doesn't dress well, she is unfashionably plump and has never understood the importance of networking. But she was incredibly sexy and I should not have resented her lack of sophistication. My obsession for Kate probably meant that I was behaving like a schoolboy level, seeking an ideal woman – someone incredibly beautiful, who would satisfy every single one of his needs – spiritual, physical and intellectual; in short, someone who could not possibly exist. It looked as though I would never find out if Kate was as exciting in bed as I had imagined. But having spent a lot of time and a not inconsiderable amount of money in my quest, I would not give up. I decided that now I was in New York I would investigate the cluster Jim Rankin claimed to have detected.

The thought: if I could go back in time would I undo my divorce came into my mind. I dreamed of buttons on a metal panel. A voice said that if I pressed one it would become possible to go back in time. Daisy seemed to have had a similar dream, because after rousing me with breakfast on a tray the following morning, she suggested that we remarry.

I replied: 'Darling, that famous Englishman, Doctor Johnson, once described a second marriage as a triumph of hope over experience.'

'Doctors don't know anything about marriage,' Daisy said scornfully.

'He wasn't that kind of ... Never mind. I think it would be a mistake.'

' Last night was the most beautiful experience of my life.'

'It wouldn't work. What are you going to do about the For Fu franchise?

' I'll have to complete the remaining sessions.'

I showered. dressed, and told Daisy that I had an appointment with the police, in order to make an enquiry concerning the supposed abduction of Kate Villeneuve.

'She's probably dead by now.'

'I have a theory I want to follow up.'

'If you finish whatever it is you have to do in time, please come to For Fu at three o'clock this afternoon. You have the address. There will only be five people there. I would like you to help make up the numbers.

I gave a noncommittal reply.

I kissed James, who was getting ready for school, and Daisy before hurrying down the steps, carrying my briefcase.

It seemed just like old times.

22

I took a cab to the precinct police headquarters, told them about Kate's disappearance from her home in Chicago, and explained that there was a belief in some quarters that she had been kidnapped by a Middle East gang. The words Middle East sent them into a spasm of activity. A policeman led me along a corridor into a small, inconspicuous green office at the rear of the building where I was introduced to a young FBI official. I told him about the cluster of sighting in New York. Soon afterwards, a shaven-headed, bulky man wearing a leather jacket and a ring in his right ear came into the small green office and dismissed the young man I had been talking to. It was apparent that he had been eavesdropping on our conversation.

He said: 'We've been investigating Justin Pilcher – "Pavarotti." His father is a foreign exchange dealer who was given a transfer to replace someone killed on nine-eleven. Justin attends school here in New York.'

'Why should he ask for twenty-million dollars, if he doesn't know anything?'

'We've been trying to figure it out. The other kids he hangs out with did the same.'

'Have you interviewed them?'

'Three of them. They all swear blind that it was just a joke. They lighted on this porn site and decided to inflate the prize money for fun. It kinda sounds convincing – just the sort of thing kids do. One of them, Joe Cassini, is the son of a police officer. He's a good kid and we can take his word for it that it was just a joke.'

'Not in very good taste,' I said with a grimace. 'Kate is one of our best journalists and she's been missing for nearly two months.'

'Well, you know what kids are. They don't take anything very seriously.'

'What about the fourth kid?'

'We haven't found him yet. But I'm sure when we do he'll just bear out what the other kids have said.'

'Would you mind giving me their names and addresses?'

'I'm afraid that's against the rules.'

He gave me a mock rueful look.

It seemed I had made a wasted journey. I thanked him and asked for his name.

'Simple Simon.'

'Is that your real name?'

He looked bemused and he said: 'Just ask for that name if you need to contact me again.'

The policeman who had led me to the office escorted me to the exit. I stood outside for a moment, feeling rebuffed and somewhat downcast. Looking up at billowing clouds passing rapidly between the gaps in the high-rise buildings, I decided to do a little detective work of my own. Using directory services I managed to locate the home telephone number of a John Pilcher. He lived in Midtown Manhattan.

A woman with an English accent answered – she admitted to being Justin's mother. I asked if she was aware that her son had been viewing porn sites. She said: 'What the hell is that to you.' I assured her that no offence had been committed, but that Justin's evidence might be extremely useful in tracking down a missing journalist. After I told her that I was the editor of the Chicago Echo, she agreed to see me.

I took a cab to the address on 3rd. Avenue and 80th.Street she had given me. She was a fluffy-haired. pleasant-looking woman in her early forties. My luck was in, because Justin was at home and I was able to ask him about his buddies. Justin had corn-coloured hair like his mother and a mischievous smile. He wasn't in the least apologetic for having added a few noughts to the reward money, reckoning that all porn sites were fair game for practical jokes.

He looked at his mother for approval and said: 'Aren't I right, Mom.'

She nodded and looked at me questioningly.

I said: 'Was it your own idea?'

He shook his head said: 'No, it was Little Mo's.'

'Who is Little Mo?'

'He's a guy we hang out with at the Blue Sky cyber café.'

'What's he like?'

'He's dark-haired, tanned. Good fun. Always ready for a laugh. Throws his money around as if there's no tomorrow. He's a bit younger than us and boasts about all the women he's had and the ones he's going to have. We don't take him seriously. But when we saw that nude dancer at the Blue Sky cyber cafe he went ballistic. He pretended that he knew her. He's real crazy but he's good fun.'

'When did this happen?'

'Yesterday. He said would rape her and then tear her to shreds. But he's always saying things like that.'

'Do you know where he lives?'

'No.'

'Do you have his telephone number?'

Justin shook his head.

'Why did you e-mail the website from Godalming?'

'I gave my computer to a friend when I left. I still have a link to it. It seemed kinda cool sending it from another computer.'

I decided to leave.

As Mrs. Pilcher opened the front-door for me, I shouted to Justin: 'Where's the Blue Sky cyber café?'

'It's on Long Island.'

There was no time to go there. But I found their telephone number. They had no idea who Little Mo was. I decided to keep my appointment with Daisy and took the subway. It was two o'clock and I was hungry. I bought a Hershey bar munched it on the train and thought very carefully about the situation. The oddball sounding off of this Little Mo might be a possible lead. But adolescents often make crazy boasts, trying to impress their peers. He sounded just like any young kid getting over-excited when joining with friends in Internet activities. The lead, if one could call it that, was no more promising than any of the other clues that had come in from the website. Rankin had only mentioned this so-called cluster at the last minute in a desperate attempt to prove that he was giving value for money. Anyway, I had no means of finding him.

The For Fu meeting was held on the ground floor of a large building. The floors above consisted mainly of offices. I was feeling very tense when I arrived. The meeting hall was about sixty feet by fifty feet. On the previous occasion I had attended, there had been twenty members solemnly circling the room linking hands. With only seven people present it was going to look even more absurd. I was pleased, as I entered the hall, to see a familiar face, that of Bobby Francino. I wondered whether his presence was due to personal loyalty to Daisy, or genuine belief in the healing properties of For Fu.

Daisy, wearing a black and white buclé suit, managed to look calm and serene. These proceedings increased her sense of self worth and seemed to release energies that she was able to impart to other people. I conceded there might be something to be said for the cult of For Fu in that regard but otherwise it was a complete waste of money. Her little business venture was coming to an end and I was resigned to the fact that once again I would have to help her out financially. When she announced that the sessions would shortly have to end, there were cries of dismay A tall, thin woman with a close-cropped black hair, her mouth exaggerated by vermilion lipstick, declared: 'You mustn't let it end, Daisy. It's too important. You are too important.'

A fat man with a moon-like face pleaded: 'Can't the governing body of For Fu offer financial support.'

Daisy explained that the individual groups of the For Fu movement were autonomous and financially independent. She was clearly ill at ease facing her remaining customers. In order to deflect attention and save her embarrassment, I interjected loudly: 'Daisy, something important has happened.'

She looked at me questioningly and said: 'What exactly?'

'The people who captured Kate Villeneuve may be here in New York.'

The group's attention was caught and I was bombarded with questions about Kate Villeneuve's disappearance. Theories were advanced. Arguments started. Suddenly Daisy said in a loud voice: 'I' m sorry for the interruption. Let's continue with our healing session. That's what you have all paid for.'

Bobby Francino said thoughtfully: 'If Bill thinks Kate Villeneuve is in New York, why not concentrate on helping him?'

I felt grateful for this intervention by my ex-wife's ex-lover.

I said: 'Thank you, Bobby. Thank you all for the interest you have shown. Thousands of persons go missing every week in the USA for all kinds of reasons. Many of them are young people seeking independence. A high proportion of them return to the bosom of their families unharmed. Others, unhappily, never do. Some for their own reasons refuse to go home. Some are never heard of again, because they have been abducted and killed. Kate Villeneuve's case may be one of those. Her case is no more tragic that any of the others. But she was very special to me. She was a fine journalist and I became very fond of her when she was working for me. This, and concern for her young son, is what has driven me during the last two months to try to find her.

'The owner of my newspaper, The Chicago Echo, has spent thousands of dollars on a web site devoted solely to making contact with people who might have seen her. There appears to be a slight chance that she is somewhere in New York. The only clue I have is that a fifteen-year old male, possibly of Middle Eastern appearance, living somewhere in New York and with a great deal of money at his disposal may have something to do with her disappearance. New York is a big place. I would welcome any suggestions for narrowing down the search.'

A complete silence followed. Bobby Francino had a hangdog air about him. Perhaps he felt guilty, knowing that his expensive agency had failed to find her.

The moon-faced man said: How about a radio appeal.'

I said: 'There have been plenty of radio broadcasts about her.'

A small black woman, wearing a tight-fitting yellow woollen hat, flashed dark, luminous eyes at me and said: 'Get the Mafia on your side. They know everything that goes on.

An elderly Jewish man wearing a skull cap said: 'Maybe she's working for an escort agency and doesn't want her relatives to know.'

The tall woman with the wide, red mouth said to me: 'I'm Marlene Farrow. Daisy has gone further into this Confucian stuff than any of us. Daisy, why don't you try the Book of Changes? You know all about 'I Ching. '

'I don't have the cards with me.'

'What's I Ching? I enquired.

Marlene Farrow said: 'It's an ancient Chinese way of getting your questions answered. Daisy knows how to read the cards.'

'I don't think that will help me find Kate.'

The Jewish man again murmured: 'Why not try an escort agency?'

'Any more suggestions? ' I asked.

There was a long silence.

The moon-faced man then said: 'You might as well get Daisy to read the cards.'

I shook my head and said firmly: 'I don't believe in gobbledegook.'

'You could try dental records,' the black lady said hesitantly. 'If she's in New York she may have gone to the dentist.'

Daisy glanced at me, as if recognising the absurdity of this latest suggestion and said hesitantly: 'I've got ordinary playing cards. I could try to read them if you think it might help to narrow the search.'

After a prolonged pause, Bobby Francino said: 'What else have you got, Bill?'

I looked down at my feet and didn't answer. The fact was that there was nothing else. Every avenue of investigation I had tried had produced nothing. And where would I go when I left? This small group of people, the remnant of Daisy's mental health business, were at least sympathetic to my plight. Outside, in the hustle and bustle of New York, I would be swept up in the impersonal wave of shoppers and office workers going home. At least the people here in Daisy's wacky mental health clinic were interested in my problem. So, feeling thoroughly ashamed, I followed Daisy into a small adjoining office. The others crowded in beside me.

Daisy took a pack of well-thumbed playing cards out of her purse and placed them on the desk in front of her. She looked up and said: 'It's a pity I don't have the right cards But I'll go through the pack and see if it reveal anything. Anything at all.'

An expression of intense concentration appeared on her face.

She shuffled the cards, placing them into little packs and staring at them bemusedly. The rest of us, with the possible exception of Marlene Farrow, hadn't the least idea of what the rigmarole meant. Marlene made some inane comments. I looked away, because her voice seemed out of synch with her crimson mouth, which was opening and closing in slow motion,

'You're getting closer.' 'I think you have a match there.' And later: 'I can feel it. My whole body feels it. You're there. You're nearly there ...'

Daisy went on calmly shuffling the cards, staring at the little packs she was making, ignoring Marlene's comments until suddenly, without any warning, she muttered something inaudible and slid onto the floor.

Bobby and I knelt beside her in the confined space . After a few seconds later she opened her eyes. We helped her to her feet and asked her if she was all right. She said: 'I'm OK now. I get over- excited when something like this happens I got the word Trump just before I passed out..'

Addressing Daisy, who by now was putting the whole pack together, Marlene said: Was it Trump or Trumps?'

Daisy folded her hand round the playing cards and put them into her purse and said: 'I don't remember.'

'What exactly am I supposed to deduce from that?' I enquired, sarcastically.

Daisy shook her head at my display of ignorance.

'You asked me to narrow down the search, 'she said defiantly. 'Well, I've narrowed it down. It's like a search on the Internet. You were looking for Kate Villeneuve. Now you're looking for Kate Villeneuve and Trump or Trumps. That's the best I can do.'

'For God's sake. How does that help? '

I looked appealingly at the other people in the crowded room.

The Jewish man said: 'There's a Trump Escort Agency somewhere.'

Bobby Francino's face expressed deep scepticism.

I said: 'Good bye everybody. Thanks Daisy.

I ran for the exit. Francino followed me. As we reached the lobby, he said: 'So what do you intend to do?'

'Why did I waste my time on this superstitious crap,' I roared.

He looked embarrassed and then said defiantly: 'She helped me find a missing document once. Some people are lucky in love and others are lucky at cards, Daisy is very good at finding things.'

'We both know she's unlucky in love. So what should I do now?'

He clutched at his throat and said: 'Ask the police See if they've got any new ideas.'

I nodded glumly, and as he drifted away through the revolving doors, I dialed the police department on my cell phone and asked for Homeland Security. A man's voice answered. I remembered to ask for Simple Simon.

'Speaking,' said the voice. 'What can I do for you.'

'Bill Hummelstein. I'm just ringing to ask if there have been any new developments in respect of the missing person, Kate Villeneuve.'

'It's only hours since I saw you.'

'Yes, since then I managed to find Justin Pilcher. He told me the fourth kid had a Middle Eastern look.'

'We know that.'

'Did it arouse your suspicions?'

'We are not going to start turning against our fellow Americans simply because of their appearance. The President has warned us against going down that dangerous track. Is there anything else I can do for you.'

Daisy's anxious face flashed into my mind. I had a sudden inspiration.

'Would you mind looking through your computer files and see if anything suspicious ever came up in New York in connection with Kate Villeneuve's disappearance that might have a connection with the word Trump? Anything. Anything at all.'

'Trump, as in a game of cards?'

'Yes, trump or trumps. Would you mind doing a search using those words?'

'OK.'

I paced up and down for what seemed ages. He came back on the phone and said: 'I've looked through the records. There is nothing of any significance. The only thing I can find is that about three weeks ago someone rang the police and said they had seen a flickering light near the top floor of the Trump Tower on Fifth Avenue. We investigated and it turned out to be a faulty circuit-breaker.'

'Could it have been someone trying to send a signal?'

'Definitely not. A physical cause was found for the phenomenon.'

I said: 'Thanks,' and put down the phone.'

I went into a Starbucks, ordered a coffee and tried to think over the events of the day. Daisy had told me to look for a combination of Villeneuve and Trump or Trumps. I had done so and found something that might, by a generous stretch of the imagination, be regarded as significant. But if I told the police that Daisy had used I Ching to come up with those words they would recommend I see a shrink.

I finished my coffee and went outside. A slight drizzle was falling. I looked up at the murky sky. A lone sea gull was up there.

'Harry, what should I do?'

'How can I answer, if I exist only in your imagination?'

'But if you were real what would you say?'

'I would say you human beings not only lie but are incapable of recognising the truth even when it smacks you straight in the eye.'

Harry's answer – I assume it was my pet sea gull – was helpful. It informed me that whoever told the police that the cause of the flickering light was a faulty circuit-breaker might have been telling a lie. In which case Daisy's cards might be telling me the truth. But I could not stomach the notion that the random shuffling of a pack of cards could help me find Kate Villeneuve. I do not believe, and never will believe, in the occult.

Suddenly, it came back to me that occulting means to shut off lights at regular intervals. That was pure coincidence and I should have ignored it. But on the spur of the moment I decided it might be a sign that I should check Trump Tower, against the remote possibility that someone had been signalling for help.

23

Kate's heart sank when she saw Mohamed's angry face. He rushed through the outer door, carrying something under his arm. He muttered something to the guard and shouted at Ayesha, who fled from the room in consternation. He placed a laptop computer on the small table near her bed, attached a length of telephone wire and unreeled it to a telephone point somewhere in the outer room. He obviously intended to go on line. Perhaps he was going to allow her to e-mail her family and friends. But the savage expression on his face made her fear the worst.

Turning to her, he said: 'You have been playing games with me, my dear little virgin, haven't you.'

'I don't know that you mean. Did my last story upset you?'

'There won't be any more stories.'

'You said that you would let me go when you last visited me.'

'Something has changed since then?'

'What has changed?'

Ignoring her question, he drew a chair up to the table and tapped on the keys of the laptop. She could see only the back of the screen and had no idea what was going on.

She repeated in a hurt voice: 'What has changed?'

'Everything.'

'What does that mean?'

'It means that you are a lying whore, worse than spit on the ground.'

'Are you saying that you fell in love with a whore?'

'Yes, a despicable one, too. A hypocrite of the worst kind,'

'I don't know what you mean?'

'Yes, you do. But you are afraid to admit that you have been cheating on me all the time.'

'How can I have been cheating on you, when I have been tied up and imprisoned in this wretched room for months?'

'You represented yourself as virtuous, when you are nothing but a dirty, rotten whore.'

'Why do you say that?'

'You didn't tell me you had sold your body.'

'That is a lie. A complete lie. But even if it were true it would not give you the right to hold me here against my will.'

Mohamed looked straight at her over the top of the laptop, and said with narrowed eyes: 'You refused me the smallest of favours when I asked you to undress in front of me.'

'It was a huge favour. One that you had no right to ask.'

'And yet you have granted it to others.'

'I have had boyfriends and I have had a husband. I was entitled to let them see me naked.'

Mohamed's mouth twisted into a bitter grimace and he demanded: 'What do you call a rich woman, who gives bread to the well-fed but refuses a crumb to a starving man.'

'I haven't the slightest idea what you mean,'

'You wouldn't let me see you naked. But you did let thousands of other people. The whole of the fucking USA.'

'You are out of your mind.

'No, I am perfectly sane. But you are a whore, a prostitute, a vile woman of the streets,' Mohamed shouted. He got up from the chair and punched her brutally in the nose. She fell across the bed, staining the white coverlet with blood from her bleeding nose. She lay on the bed terrified, her hand to her nose, trying to stem the bleeding.

Mohamed took a handkerchief from his pocket and wiped her face. Then standing with his hands on his hips, he said: 'So you see I can never let you go now. You have earned the death penalty.'

Kate mopped herself with a tissue and said: 'You are breaking your promise. Have you no sense of honour?'

'Honour applies only when both parties are honest. You have betrayed me in a shabby and heartless way.'

'At least tell me what I have done wrong. How can I face a charge when I don't even know what has offended you?'

'Did I not beg of you to let me see you undress?'

'You had no right to ask me.'

'And you had no right to portray yourself as a virtuous woman who would find the act distasteful,'

'Why should I not? You know all about my past life.'

'Not this.' Mohamed pointed towards the laptop.

'What do you mean?'

'Come, I'll show you.'

Still holding the tissue to her nose, Kate edged round so that she could see the laptop screen. At first, dazed from the blow, she could only see blurred movement. Then she saw someone dancing. She looked again and was amazed to see herself cavorting across a stage.

She exclaimed: 'But that's not me! I have never done anything like that in my life.'

Mohamed scowled.

'Deny it if you like. But it is plain that you have. You danced on pornographic sites and yet refused to give me the satisfaction I asked for.'

He gave her a resounding slap on the cheek with the back of his hand. It smarted, but she accepted the blow, trying furiously to think of a way to resolve the situation.

'How can that be me when I have been in this room for nearly two months.'

'You must have made that movie before I brought you here.'

'But I that isn't me. That's a professional dancer. I could never dance like that. I'm a journalist.'

'Anybody can expose themselves before the world if they are paid enough money,' Mohamed said contemptuously.

'But I tell you it's not me.'

Mohamed put his hands round her chin and then touched a mole on her right cheek. He pointed towards the dancer and said: 'It's not you! Look at that mole! of course it's you.'

He savagely shoved her chest, so that she fell backwards and roared at her: 'Now you will see who is master. Undress!'

She regained her position and sat on the bed, shaking her head silently, a look of grim determination on her face.

Mohamed called out to the armed guard. He came running into the room, his gun at the ready. Mohamed spoke a few words in Arabic and both men tore off her clothes. Her screams were silenced as they gagged and bound her. They wrapped her in the bloodied coverlet and carried her into the outer room.

She heard Mohamed say: 'Check that the way is clear onto the roof.'

24

A paunchy middle-aged man in a long raincoat stands in the pink marble foyer of the Trump Tower at 721 Fifth Avenue, New York. He walks past the fountain and begins to wonder why he there at all. He's here because he has persuaded himself that someone may have been flashing a lamp. But he knows it's extremely unlikely that he will find any evidence of this. Nevertheless, he finds a reception desk and enquires if he can speak to the manager of the building.

'What is it in connection with, sir?'

'I'm from the electricity board. I understand that a circuit-breaker caused some lights to flicker. I have come to make sure that it is serviceable.'

'We did have a report of a light going on and off. One of the residents on the fifty-eighth floor had a key to the switchboard cupboard and said he had fixed it.'

'Who was that person?'

'I'm not sure if I should tell you that. Perhaps you'd like to wait until the manager comes back.'

'No, I'd better deal with it now. It could be highly dangerous. If there's a short-circuit the whole building could go up in flames.'

The clerk looked doubtful but said: 'Well, yes. I suppose so. The name of the people in the condo is Husseni.' He leaned forward and whispered: 'They're Italians, I believe ... very rich.'

' I'd better investigate. A faulty circuit-breaker can be very dangerous.'

Rich men did not normally go into switchboard cupboards and meddle with circuit-breakers, Bill Hummelstein assured himself. The thought gave him sufficient confidence to go outside the building and seek assistance. A patrol car had stopped nearby and a policeman got out and accosted a passerby who was acting suspiciously. When the man had identified himself, Hummelstein went up to the patrol car and whispered something to the policeman. He nodded and said something to his driver, who drove off. The police officer then accompanied Bill Hummelstein into the Trump Tower building.

• *

I referred to myself just now in the third person because the events that followed seemed like a dream. I got into the elevator, followed by the police officer, and pressed the button for the fifty-eighth floor. It seemed ages before the door closed, during which time I enlarged on my reasons to the officer for requesting help, glossing over the extremely shaky foundation on which I had based my suspicions. I was grateful that he seemed impressed by my argument that wealthy residents did not normally meddle with electrical junction boxes.

The elevator stopped on the first floor. I cautioned the police officer that what would follow might be dangerous. He patted his gun holster and looked grim. He was a beefy man in his early forties with a veined complexion, a broken nose and alert eyes that gave me confidence in his ability to handle any situation.

He said, as we reached the third floor: 'This missing journalist. Was she the one they showed on the Internet?'

'Yes'

'Oh Jaysus, yes! She's a sweetheart. I hope we're on the right track. I'd like to meet her in the flesh – know what I mean.'

He nudged me in the ribs so hard that it hurt.

I inhaled sharply and said: 'Do you think we should devise some sort of plan of action?'

'T'would be foolish to tackle them alone. We'll have a quick inspection and if I think it necessary I'll call in reinforcements.'

I was pleased that he appeared to be taking me seriously.

He said: 'She's a journalist you say.'

'Yes – I'm her boss.'

'Lucky you. What paper?'

'The Chicago Echo.'

'If we find her, I'll read every word she writes.'

Paul Schneider will be pleased, too, I thought. If we find her, it will be the scoop of the century. It could really boost our circulation. And then I reminded myself that I was chasing a one-in-a-million shot. We won't find her, and the officer with me will in all probability trump up a charge for wasting police time. Trump – there's that word again! Trumps are the suit of cards that takes precedence over other suits in card games like solo or bridge. And because Daisy is a card addict, I'm looking in the Trump Tower for Kate, when she might be anywhere in the USA, or the world for that matter. My obsession has turned me into a raving lunatic.

I took another look at the policeman standing bolt upright on my right side, wondering, if there was a negative outcome, would he charge me with the criminal offence of impersonating an officer of the electricity board.

I glanced upwards at the indicator. We were on the fourteenth floor. Several people entered. Our upwards journey slowed to a snail's pace. We seemed to be stopping at every floor. The doors seemed reluctant to close.

I glanced at my wristwatch. The second hand flickered on its endless journey round a circle. If you divide each second into nano-seconds and even smaller denominations, you will eventually reach a particle of time so small that you will have reached eternity, where nothing ever changes. I seemed to be in such a place – Limbo, that's what it's called. My tortured mind then started to remember every painful and humiliating experience in my life: when I shat my pants in primary school; when I flunked a math exam; when I was castigated by a school mistress for uttering blasphemy, the meaning of which I didn't understand. Someone calls me a dirty kraut. A girl slaps my face for holding her hand. Another girl shouts: 'Get your hands off me, you filthy beast,' as my sperm hit the dashboard of the car in which we had been fornicating. My first wife calls me in court a misbegotten bear.

And then I saw in my mind's eye the smiling face of the bear in New Hampshire, as he sauntered off good-humouredly into the woods. Gott war in seinem Himmel! All was forgiven. From now on everything would go in my favour.

We left the elevator at the fifty-eighth floor.

25

I am reverting to the third person again to enable me to picture the events that followed more clearly.

William Hummelstein and the policeman look left and right along a corridor. They press the bell-push on one door and ask for the Hussenis. They are directed by a uniformed maid to the door of another apartment. William rings the bell. The policeman stays out of sight further along the corridor. After some delay a bulky man with a very large moustache opens the door. Hummelstein says he has come to fix an unserviceable circuit-breaker. The man says curtly in a foreign accent: 'Already fixed.'

'Are you sure?'

'Yes, completely sure. We fix it. No trouble.'

Hummelstein thinks he has heard a sound from within the apartment. He nods solemnly and hums to himself as he walks along the corridor to the elevator doors, where Corcoran has been waiting.

Hummelstein whispers excitedly: ' I heard a muffled sound while I was talking to him.'

'A vacuum cleaner perhaps?' Corcoran suggests.

'Well, maybe. I couldn't be sure. But I think I'll hang around for a while.'

Corcoran says: 'My partner will be wondering what's happened to me. I'll push off now.'

'The man says he'd fixed the defective circuit-breaker. Residents of expensive condos don't fix electrical things themselves.'

'Sorry, but no offence has been committed. There are no grounds for a search warrant.'

Hummelstein says in desperation: 'I think he had a gun. I could see a big bulge in his jacket.'

Corcoran shrugs and presses the elevator button. He gets in. The doors close.

Hummelstein suddenly feels lonely, helpless and stupid. He has been basing his belief that Kate was here in Trump Tower, at least partly, on Daisy's ability to juggle I Ching cards, a superstition which genuine Confucians view with disdain. But a strain of obstinacy in his nature inherited from his Germanic ancestors won't allow him to admit defeat. He retraces his footsteps, turns the corner and walks down the corridor. As he passes the front door of the Husseni condo, he is sure he hears an anguished cry.

He tries to think of another excuse for ringing the bell. He returns disconsolately to the elevator doors. But just as he is about to press the button, he thinks of a plausible excuse: he'll tell them there is a misdirected letter waiting at the reception desk. As he turns the corner, he sees two men carrying a large bundle, which is swaying violently from side to side. He waits until they disappear with their burden through a door further along the corridor and follows them stealthily.

He go through the door, finds himself looking upwards in a stairwell and feels a rush of cold air as another door above him is opened. He follows the men through the upper door and, looking out, sees them lowering their twisting and turning bundle onto the concrete. He guesses what the bundle contains.

One of the men, a young, short, muscular adolescent, picks up the bundle, staggers to the concrete balustrade surrounding the roof and, in the grip of a terrible rage, holds her over the edge, screaming: 'You bitch, you bitch, you unholy bitch. You betrayed me and now you will pay the price.'

Hummelstein shivers uncontrollably. Whatever he says or does is likely to produce a catastrophe. But doing nothing is not an option. An image of his watch hand reversing time gives him an inspiration.

He calls out in a calm voice: 'There's plenty of time to change your mind.'

The boy, aged fifteen or so, looks over his shoulder, astonishment written all over his face.

Hummelstein says: 'Time can go backwards. Don't let your evil impulse damn you for ever.'

The boy shifts position and then looks down, poised to loose his burden on Fifth Avenue far below.

But Hummelstein has sewn a seed of doubt in the boy's mind. He retreats from the parapet.

The faint sound of a helicopter is heard.

At that moment a shot rings out. The boy staggers and collapses onto the floor. A second shot is heard and the larger man, also falls, in the act of pulling a gun from his pocket.

Hummelstein looks behind him. Corcoran is standing, gun in hand, at the open door. The police officer advances towards the boy. He is lying open-eyed, dead, blood seeping from a jagged hole in his head. The larger man is squirming from a bullet wound in his right shoulder. He tries to reach another gun from his left pocket. Corcoran walks over in a leisurely fashion and knocks him unconscious with a huge fist. 'That was an anaesthetic for his suffering,' he says unfeelingly. 'What have we got here?'

He pulls at the white coverlet and exposes Kate, bound and gagged, but still conscious. He pulls the gag off.

She recognises Hummelstein and calls out: 'Dad!'

Corcoran gathers up the dead man's guns.

The police helicopter sound gets louder and louder. It hovers over the concrete. Two police officers heave the dead boy and the wounded man into it.

Kate refuses to go in the helicopter. She is taken down to the place of her former captivity. More police are in there. Its occupants have fled. Kate puts on her clothes and is taken in a police car to hospital for a check up. She's fine, apart from a bloodied nose and a bruised cheek.

Hummelstein asks Corcoran what made him return. He says: 'I wanted to see that lovely Kate in the nude.' Then he winks and says: 'Halfway down in the elevator I wondered if you were being honest when you said he had a gun. I decided I'd better check up on you.'

Hummelstein goes back in Chicago after that exciting episode. He is proud to have made news for once instead of just reporting it. His own account of the adventure, he reckons will make a few thousand dollars. Kate's book will make her a fortune.

* * *

I'm thankful that the words I spoke at that critical moment turned Mohamed back from the brink. What I said seemed to have rung a bell in the kid's mind. But ringing bells in other people's minds is what every good journalist tries to do. I'm sorry he was shot dead. But to be fair the police officer didn't have much time to make up his mind.

Daisy and I remarried. I'm as happy as an unhappily remarried man can be. Which is pretty happy compared with my former state when I used to chat with sea gulls.

Kate and I are the best of friends. On those rare occasion when I am not satisfied with her work, I say: 'Kate, this isn't good enough. Remember: you owe me.'

And she replies with mock humility: 'Yes, Dad.'