And she loved the baby. Gabriel -of course, Gabriel, Gabrielle. The baby was named for Joanna Hunter's dead mother. Louise hadn't made the connection, probably because neither Joanna Hunter nor Reggie Chase called him by his name. He was 'the baby' to both of them. The only baby, the light of the world.

'Chase and Hunter' -what was that about? It sounded like a bad seventies sitcom about amateur detectives. Or 'Hunter and Chase', upmarket country estate agents. Reggie. Regina. You didn't meet many girls called Regina.

'I found this in the man's pocket,' the girl said, shyly handing over a filthy postcard.

'What man?' Louise asked, taking the postcard reluctantly between her thumb and forefinger. Like the baby's blanket, the postcard was a bio-hazard of mud and blood and looked as if it had been trampled by a herd of horses.

'The man whose life I saved.'

Oh, that man, Louise thought. That imaginary man. The postcard was a picture of somewhere European. Louise struggled to make it out beneath the muck.

'Bruges,' the girl said. 'In Belgium. His name and address is on the other side. I didn't imagine him.' 'I didn't say you did.' She turned the postcard over and read the message. Read the name and address. 'Jackson Brodie,' the girl said hopefully. 'I don't know if he's alive or dead though. Maybe you could have a wee look for him?' Louise handed the postcard back and said, 'I'm very busy at the moment.'

She didn't come off the A1 on to the bypass. Instead of taking the road home she turned at Newcraighall and headed to the hospital, as obedient as a dog to a shepherd calling her home.

Nada y Pues Nada NO WAY WAS SHE GOING BACK TO GORGIE SO IT WAS JUST AS WELL SHE had the keys to Ms MacDonald's house. And on the plus side, Musselburgh was currently the focus of national media attention. Reggie couldn't imagine that the would-be terminators would go looking for 'a guy called Reggie' in Ms MacDonald's dull street, especially when it was still crawling with police. The more time that had passed since this morning the more unlikely it seemed that the idiots, rechristened 'Ginger' and 'Blondie' in her mind now, were actually looking for her. They were looking for Billy. She should just have given them his address in the Inch, he'd obviously given her address to them. She should return the favour.

'This is where you live?' Inspector Monroe said, peering through the windscreen at Ms MacDonald's house.

'Yes,' Reggie said. 'My mother's not here at the moment.' One lie, one truth. They cancelled each other out and left the world unchanged. It seemed so much simpler not to go into any kind of detail whatsoever.

Inspector Monroe had at least listened to her, even if she clearly didn't believe her, but if Reggie had added, 'And in an entirely unrelated incident two men trashed my flat and threatened to kill me this morning, and oh, yeah, they gave me a copy of the Iliad,' at that point Inspector Monroe would probably have made a swift exit from Starbucks. She didn't really look like a policewoman, beneath her winter coat she was dressed in jeans and a soft sweater, the same offduty clothes as Dr Hunter. Her hair was scraped back into a ponytail that it wasn't quite long enough for and she had to keep tucking a wayward strand behind her ear. 'I'm still growing it,' she said. 'I had it cut really short but it didn't suit me.' Mum used to say that women had drastic haircuts at the end of unsuccessful relationships. Mum's friends were always appearing with shorn heads but Reggie's mother knew her hair was an asset to be valued. She was so besotted with Gary though that she might have cut her hair if he had asked her to. She would have done just about anything to keep Gary although a lot of his attraction was simply that he wasn't the Man-Who-CameBefore-Him. Imagine if he'd said to Mum, 'I'd love to see you with short hair,Jackie.' It was difficult to put words into Gary's mouth, he was so tongue-tied. (,You're very articulate, Reggie,' Dr Hunter had said to her once, which she had taken as a great compliment. 'Oh, she's a talker, our Reggie,' Mum used to say.) And then Mum might have gone to her hairdresser (Philip -'camp but married', according to Mum) and said, 'Cut it all off, Philip, it's time for a change,' and Philip would have given her a nice short bob, just below her ears or, even safer, an urchin cut like Kylie after the cancer and -ta-daa Mum would at this moment be stirring a pan of mince in the kitchen in Gorgie and looking forward to EastEnders.

Reggie wondered if Inspector Monroe had ever suffered a broken heart. She didn't look the type somehow.

Sadie had been a bit of a problem but in the end Inspector Monroe had put her in the back seat of her car (along with the burdensome Topshop bag) from where the dog had watched them walk away along George Street with such intensity that she might have been trying to burn them on to her retinas. Inspector Monroe didn't seem like a pet sort ofperson but then she said, 'I had a cat,' as if it had meant something.

Reggie was grateful for the muffin, she was ravenous -apart from Mr Hussain's Tic Tacs and the Mars bar (hardly a balanced diet) she hadn't eaten all day, the morning's toast having been *ejected before it was digested. She wanted to concentrate on eating the muffin so she got the words out quickly -the car, the phone, the piece of moss-green blanket, the shoes, the suit, the whole unlikely notbeing-thereness ofDr Hunter, as ifaliens had descended and whisked her away. She made a point of not mentioning alien abduction to Inspector Monroe. When she reached the end of her story, Inspector Monroe yawned and said, 'Excuse me. I'm very tired, I was up all night.'

'At the train crash?' Reggie guessed.

'Yes.'

'Me too,' Reggie said.

'Really?' Inspector Monroe gave her a doubtful look as if she was considering putting her in the fantasizing psycho box after all.

'I gave a man CPR,' Reggie said, climbing deeper into the box. 'I tried to save his life.' The lid of the box banged shut.

This was the first time she had mentioned the man to anyone. She had carried him around all day like a secret and it felt good to get it out of her head and into the world even though, once spoken, the idea seemed unlikely. The events of last night already seemed more unreal by the hour, then she remembered looking at the body of Ms MacDonald this morning and the events of last night seemed less unreal.

'Oh?' Inspector Monroe said. Reggie might as well have played the alien abduction card because Inspector Monroe couldn't have looked more sceptical if she'd tried.

'How did you get that bruise?' she had said, peering closely at Reggie's forehead.

Reggie tugged her fringe down and said, 'It's nothing, I wasn't looking where I was going.'

'Sure that's all it was?'

She looked concerned. Reggie knew what she was thinking, domestic violence, etcetera. She wasn't thinking 'slipped and fell in a shower when threatened by two idiots'.

'Sweartogod,' Reggie said.

She could have told Inspector Monroe about Ginger and Blondie but it wasn't going to help find Dr Hunter (and fantasizing psycho etcetera). And anyway perhaps their threats were real (Don't go to the police about this wee visit or, guess what?). What if they were watching her? What if they had seen her in Starbucks drinking coffee with a detective chief inspector, not even a humble uniformed constable. They would never believe it wasn't about them. It was only when Reggie said, 'Just here, please,' at Ms MacDonald's front door that Inspector Monroe said, 'Oh, I see, it was right on your doorstep,' as if she finally might believe that Reggie was not lying about the train crash.

'Well, nearly,' Reggie said.

'Right then,' Inspector Monroe said, 'best be getting off, things to do, you know.'

'Tell me about it,' Reggie said.