“I suppose you showed him how to do a comic-book tree?” Hutchman dipped his finger in a spot of beer and drew two straight parallel lines surmounted by a fluffy ball. “Like that?”

“Yes.” A suspicious look passed over Atwood’s slablike face. “Why?”

“You fool,” Hutchman said with alcoholic sincerity. “do you know what you’ve done? Your Geoffrey, your only child, looked at a tree and then he put his impressions of it down on paper without reference to any of the conventions or preconceptions which prevent most human beings from seeing anything properly.” He paused for breath and, to his surprise, saw that he was getting through to the big man.

“Your boy brought you this… holy offering, this treasure, the product of his unsullied mind. And what did you do, George? You laughed at it and told him that the only way to draw a tree was the way the tired hacks who work for the Dandy and the Beano do it. Do you know that your boy will never again be able to look at a tree and see it as it really is? Do you realize he might have been another Picasso if — “

“Who d’you think you’re kidding?”Atwood demanded, but his eyes were clouded with genuine concern. Hutchman was tempted to confess he had only been playing with words, but the giant was discovering that his privacy had been invaded by a stranger and he was growing angry. “What the hell to you know about it, anyway?”

“A great deal.” Hutchman tried to be enigmatic. “Believe me, George, I know a great deal about such things.” I’m the ground zero man. Didn’t you know?

“Get stuffed.” Atwood turned his head away.

“Brilliant,” Hutchman said sadly. “Brilliant repartee, George. I’m going ho… to bed.”

“Go ahead. I’m staying on.”

“Please yourself.” Hutchman walked to the door with unnatural steadiness. I’m not drunk, officer. Look! I can crawl a straight line. It had stopped raining, but the air outside was much colder than before. An icy, invisible torrent flooded around him, robbing his body of heat. He took a deep breath and launched himself through the darkness in the direction of his car.

There were only four vehicles in the parking lot, but it took Hutchman a considerable time to accept the simple fact that his car was not among them.

It had been stolen.

Muriel Burnley was going through a new and very unsatisfactory phase of her life.

She had never been happy working for Mr. Hutchman, with his thoughtlessness, and his disregard for company regulations, a disregard which caused her endless work of which he was not even aware. As Muriel drove to the office in her pale-green Morris Mini she added to the catalogue of things she had disliked about Mr. Hutchman. There was his casual attitude about money — which was all right for somebody who had married into it, but not all right for a girl who had to help support her home on a secretary’s salary. Mr. Hutchman had never inquired about her mother’s poor state of health, in fact — Muriel stabbed her foot down on the accelerator — Mr. Hutchman probably did not even know she had a mother. She had made the biggest mistake of her career when she had allowed the personnel officer to assign her to Mr. Hutchman. The trouble was that, shameful admission, in the days when she had seen him only from a distance she had been impressed by his resemblance to a young Gregory Peck. That sort of look was unfashionable now, of course, but she had heard that Mr. Hutchman often had trouble with his marriage and, as she worked so closely with him in the office, there had been a possibility that…

Appalled by where her thoughts were leading, Muriel urged her car forward, overtook a bus, and got back into lane just in time to avoid a van traveling in the opposite direction. She compressed her lips and tried to concentrate on the road.

And to think that all the time Mr. High-and-mighty Hutchman had been carrying on behind his wife’s back with that tart in the Jeavons Institute! It had been obvious that something was going on, of course. Mr. Batterbee had gone the same way, but even filthy Mr. Batterbee hadn’t got himself involved with underworld characters and brought the police snooping around the office. Muriel’s face warmed as she remembered the closeted interviews with the detectives. The other girls had been delighted, naturally. They talked a lot in the corridors in small gleeful groups which fell strangely silent when she approached. It was obvious what they were thinking, of course. Mr. Hutchman had turned out to be a… whoremaster, and Muriel Burnley was his secretary, and the police weren’t paying all that attention to our Muriel for nothing…

She swung the car past Westfield’s security kiosk and braked with unnecessary abruptness in the parking lot. Gathering up her basket, she got out, locked the doors carefully, and hurried into the building. She walked quickly along the corridors without meeting anybody, but on rounding the corner nearest her own office she almost collided with Mr. Boswell, head of Missile R and D.

“Ah, Miss Burnley,” he said. “Just the person I wanted to see.” His blue eyes examined her interestedly through goldrimmed spectacles.

Muriel drew her coat tighter. “Yes, Mr. Boswell?”

“Mr. Cuddy has been seconded to us from Aerodynamics, and he will be taking over Mr. Hutchman’s duties today. He’s going to have a lot on his plate for a few weeks and I want you to give him all the co-operation you can.”

“Of course, Mr. Boswell.” Mr. Cuddy was a small dry individual, who was also a lay preacher. He was sufficiently respectable to counteract Mr. Hutchman’s aura to some extent.

“He’ll be moving his things over this morning. Will you fix up the office before he arrives? Get him off to a good start, eh?”

“Yes, Mr. Boswell.” Muriel went to her office, hung up her coat, and began tidying the larger adjoining room. The police had spent a full morning in it and, although they had made some attempt to put everything right before leaving, had created an air of disorder. In particular, the desk’s oddments tray, where Mr. Hutchman kept an astonishing number of paper clips and pencil stubs had been left in a hopeless jumble. Muriel slid the tray out of its runners and emptied it into a metal wastebin. Several pencil ends, clips, and a green eraser fell wide and bounced across the floor. She gathered them up and was about to dispose of them when she saw something printed in ink on the side of the eraser. The words were: “31 CHANNING WAYE, HASTINGS.”

Muriel carried the eraser into her own office and sat down, staring nervously at it. The detective who interviewed her had returned again and again to the one line of questioning. Had Mr. Hutchman another address, apart from the one in Crymchurch? Had he an address book? Had she ever seen an address written on any of his waste paper?

They had made her promise to contact them if she remembered anything that even seemed like an address. And now she had found what their careful search had missed. What did the Hastings address represent? Muriel tightened her grip around the piece of India rubber, digging her fingernails into its pliant surface. Was this the place where Mr. High-and-mighty had gone when he was with that whore who disappeared? Had he been in Hastings with her all those days last month?

She lifted the telephone, then set it down again. If she called the police her involvement with those awful detectives would begin all over, and her so-called friends along the corridor had had enough fun at her expense already. Even the neighbours were looking at her strangely. It was a miracle that none of them had seized the chance to upset her mother with their gossip — but why should Mr. High-and-mighty be shielded? Perhaps he was hiding in Hastings at this minute.

Muriel was still struggling to reach a decision when a furtive sound from next door told her that Mr. Spain had arrived, late as usual. She stood up and smoothed her blouse down over her breasts time after time before carrying the eraser into his office.