They invited Reggie to join them but Reggie thought someone should keep a sober eye on things in case they became drunk in charge of a baby but, of course, Dr Hunter wasn't like that and she made one drink last until the afternoon had begun to lengthen into twilight when Mr Hunter arrived home and said, 'Still here, Reggie?'

Both women had looked disconcerted at the sight of Mr Hunter, striding across the lawn with a can of beer in his hand like someone who'd crash-landed from another world but then he said, 'Can anyone join this session then?' and Dr Hunter said, 'You've come late to the party, we're as tight as ticks here,' which wasn't true and Mr Hunter said, 'Aye, a right pair ofjakies,' and they all three laughed and Reggie went out and scooped the baby up from the lawn and put him to bed with a bottle -Dr Hunter kept a stash of expressed milk in the freezer. Reggie had once seen Mr Hunter take out the bottle of Stoli he kept in the freezer and frown at the sight of the little containers of frozen breast milk. 'The difference between men and women,' he laughed when he saw Reggie watching. 'By the contents of their freezer shall you know them.'

'It's Reggie, isn't it?' Sheila said. She pointed at her chest and said, 'I'm Sheila,Jo's friend. Sheila Hayes.'

'Yes, I know, I remember. Hi.'

'How are you? Are you looking for Jo? I don't think she's in today, I haven't seen her anyway.' 'She's gone away to see a sick aunt in Yorkshire.' 'Really? She never said anything. That would explain it. We were supposed to be going to Jenners last night, for their Christmas shopping evening, and she didn't turn up and that's just not Jo.' 'And when you tried to phone her -no answer?' Reggie hazarded.

'Yes, strange, isn't it. Her phone's her-'

'Lifeline?' Reggie supplied.

'Still,' Sheila said, 'an illness in the family, that explains it. An aunt?'

'Yes.'

'She's never mentioned an aunt. Is everything OK with you, Reggie?' 'Totally. Thank you.'

Lucy Locket lost her pocket, Kitty Fisherfound it. From the pocket of her new jacket Reggie took out the scrap ofgreen blanket that Sadie had retrieved from Dr Hunter's front garden. A pocket was where prostitutes kept their money, Dr Hunter said. 'Nursery rhymes are never what they seem.' That could be said about a lot of things in Reggie's opinion. When Sadie laid the baby's muddy bit of blanket at her feet she had been horrified. It belonged with the baby. The baby belonged with Dr Hunter. The dog belonged with Dr Hunter. Reggie belonged with Dr Hunter. It was all wrong. The whole world was wrong. Hard times.

Pilgrim5 Progress HE WAS DREAMING. HE WAS WALKING ALONG A DESOLATE COUNTRY road, following a woman. It was the strolling woman from the Dales. Still strolling. He shouted to her, 'Hey!' and she turned round to look at him. She had no face, just a blank oval like a plate where her features should have been. She was terrifYing. He woke up.

'Nice cup of tea?' a nurse said to him. A nurse (with a face) was putting a cup and saucer on a bed-tray in front of him. And he remembered everything. Not the train crash, not being on the train at all, the last thing he remembered was finding the lost highway, waiting on the slip road to the Ai, looking for a gap in the traffic.

But he knew who he was, his name, his history, everything.

'My name's Jackson Brodie,' he said to the nurse. 'I remember , now. 'Jackson Brodie?You're sure?' 'Sure.'

'Where am I?' Jackson asked a nurse.

'In the Royal Infirmary in Edinburgh,' she said.

'Edinburgh? Edinburgh, Scotland?' Listen to him, he sounded like an American tourist.

'Yes, Edinburgh, Scotland,' she affirmed.

What on earth was he doing in Edinburgh? The scene of some of his greatest defeats in life and love. Why was he in Edinburgh? 'I was on my way to London,' he said.

'You must have gone the wrong way,' she laughed. 'Bad luck.'

He might not know where he had come from but he knew where he was going. He was going home. Edinburgh. Louise was in Edinburgh. A sudden spasm of panic gripped Jackson. No one had looked for him. Did that mean he had not been alone on the train, that perhaps Tessa had joined him at N orthallerton and he couldn't remember? And now she was lying in the hospital somewhere? Or worse? Jackson sat bolt upright and grabbed the nurse's arm. 'My wife,' he said. 'Where's my wife?'

(An Elderly Aunt'

LOUISE HAD NOT JOINED NEIL HUNTER IN HIS BREAKFAST WHISKY even though, more than most, she appreciated the medicinal taste of a Laphroaig. She could drink most guys under the table if she had to (sometimes you had to) but she had her rules. She never drank and drove any more and she never drank on duty -she would have been mortified if anyone at work had smelt whisky on her breath. Only alcoholics smelt of alcohol at nine in the morning. (Her mother. Always.) Instead she picked up a double espresso from a street stall and returned to her office where she sat in solitary confinement and reviewed, for the hundredth time, all the reported sightings ofDavid Needler.

The heat had gone out of the case, Louise could feel it growing colder by the day, feel it slipping away. It had been big news for a while and now it was almost as if it had never happened and it was beginning to feel that it might turn into a never-ending limbo for everyone concerned, one ofthose cases that detectives brood over for decades. Louise took this extremely negative thought and held it under waves until it went limp and then forced open her rusted seachest on the seabed and threw it in.

There had been no sightings ofDavid Needler at all until they got the case on to Crimewatch, after which they had been deluged by callers claiming to have seen him everywhere from Bangor to Bognor, but not one of them had checked out. The man had disappeared off the radar. He hadn't used a credit card, hadn't used his passport. His car was found parked near Flamborough Head but Louise thought that was the work of someone who thought they were cleverer than the police. She was surprised he hadn't painted 'Clue' on the side of the car in big black letters. She was disinclined to think that he had killed himself, he wasn't the type, his sense of self-importance was too great. 'Hitler killed himself,' Karen Warner said. 'He was what you might call self-important.' She was standing in front ofLouise's desk, eating a prawn sandwich from Marks and Spencer that was making Louise feel nauseous. 'Napoleon didn't,' Louise said. 'Stalin didn't, Pol Pot, Idi Amin, Genghis Khan, Alexander, Caesar. Let's face it, Hitler was the exception to the rule.'

'My, you're in a mood,' Karen said.

'No, I'm not.'

'Yes you are.' Karen's stomach was huge. Louise didn't remember being that big with Archie, he had been tiny, almost premature.

Louise blamed herself, she had smoked through the first three months because she had no idea she was pregnant. Louise was sure that buried deep inside her, lurking in the murky labyrinth of her heart, there was an incredibly well-behaved person wondering when she would ever be let out. Patrick probably wondered the same thing. Patient Patrick, waiting for her to come good. Long wait, baby.

Karen was right, she was especially cranky today, all the coffee had taken the edge off for a while but now she could feel a headache rolling in like haar up the Forth.

'Just came to report back on the woman who said she saw David Needler sitting on the harbour wall in Arbroath "eating a fish supper" , she said.'

'And?'

'Tayside police seem doubtful,' she said, through a mouthful of food. 'No one else remembered him and when she looked at the photograph again she wasn't so sure.' 'He's gone underground,' Louise said. 'He's not the kind to be hanging out eating chips in Arbroath.' David Needler was the clever , cunning sort, plus he was English, so he had probably run for the border. And he still had lots of blokey mates down south who might have helped him, they all denied it blind, ofcourse, but a few of them were flash with money so it wouldn't have been impossible for him to get abroad. But Louise thought he was still in the UK somewhere, the ordinary guy living next door to someone. Maybe he was already courting another woman.