'Do you want a drink?' I said.

With no more than a glance at the opened bottle of Bell's on the kitchen table in front of me, she had noted its level. 'Not whiskey,' she said, 'but I'll have a tonic water, and sit with you for a moment. I'm absolutely exhausted.' She took a chilled can of tonic from the refrigerator, a cut-glass tumbler from the shelf and then ice from the dispenser.

This apartment, a legacy from Fiona's wealthy sister, was extraordinary. The kitchen had been cleverly designed to conceal its function. It had fake-antique cupboards in which to hide away the saucepans and crockery so that I could never find anything. The refrigerator was disguised as well, and the twin ovens concealed behind decorative tiles. Every working surface was stark and bare, and lingering in the air there were the scented sprays with which Mrs. Dias staked out her territory. As usual she'd been through the whole apartment mercilessly eliminating all traces of human presence. Flower arrangements past their prime were protruding bent and broken from shiny black trash bags. No trace now of food or drink; of bowls of peanuts, half-read books, carpet slippers, newspapers or magazines, or any other evidence that human beings had ever passed this way. What this morning had been a comfortable apartment now looked like a set erected for a photographer from House and Garden.

'Everything all right with Mrs. Dias?' I asked cheerfully.

'It's about her money, ' said Fiona, still examining the note. Indecipherable writing or not, this was a safe bet.

'Sit down,' I told her. She looked uncomfortable standing there in her fur coat, hands resting on the back of the Windsor chair.

'I'm better standing. It's my back again.' As if in demonstration she arched her back and grimaced. 'I'll be fine if I stand for a minute.' There came an impatient fanfare of assorted car horns from the street below. This was the penalty for living in the most exclusive part of London's West End. Here were the nightclubs, fancy restaurants and top hotels and the never-ending noise of traffic, car doors slamming and the high-pitched exchanges of the rich and famous. Fiona gave up reading and dropped the note on the table.

'Is there something wrong?' I said.

'They've made it official. George. We've notified the Warsaw embassy to request a copy of the death certificate. The D-G just nodded it through; there was no argument or discussion.'

'Was Dicky there?'

'For the morning meeting, yes.'

'Dicky is obsessed about proving George Kosinski's contacts with the Stasi. He'll chalk it up as a success story. I suspect he'll use the Polish death certificate to turn over everything George owned or had contact with.'

'How?'

'It's in the new Police and Criminal Evidence Act. He'll use the certified death to support a claim that an arrestable offense has been committed. On that basis he could claim that all George's property is "of substantial value to the investigation." His one-time property too. Nothing could stop Dicky seizing, searching and entering anywhere he fancies, and grabbing what he wants to look at.'

'Does it matter?'

'Are you forgetting that this apartment would be included in that description?'

'He wouldn't dare.' She paused. 'Would he?'

I don't like it, Fi.'

'Because you don't like Dicky,' she declared categorically. 'No, not because I don't like Dicky. I don't like it because I don't believe this is Dicky. I think Dicky is acting on instructions.'

'From above? Who?'

I don't know. Who has he been with recently?'

'No one. He came in for the first meeting and then said he was too ill to work and went home.' She was still standing. Remembering her tonic water, she sipped some as if it was medicine, and then put the glass on the table, sliding the note from Mrs. Dias under it to prevent ring marks on the polished table top.

'I thought that he was suddenly taken ill because the Polish beds were too hard and there was no central heating.'

'No, it was genuine,' she said.

'Genuine hypochondria. Well, that's a step in the right direction. Should you see a doctor about that back of yours?'

'Dicky says George is dead. He wants to put a notice in the newspapers. What do you think?'

'About Dicky or about George?'

'Dicky wants them to repatriate George's body. But I said George is a Swiss resident. What would be the legal position? Is there any member of George's family who might be persuaded to request the return of the body you saw?'

'We saw no body. Just a lower leg and foot.'

'What's the difference?' said Fiona. 'It's the burial I'm thinking of.'

'You sound like Dicky,' I said. 'Examining a leg is inconclusive. No one Mes away records of toe prints. And most hospitals amputate far more legs than arms, so it's often possible to buy a leg from some unscrupulous incinerator man or theater orderly.'

'How disgusting. Why do they amputate more legs than arms'? And why couldn't anyone see it had been surgically amputated?' This was Fiona as she used to be; argumentative and challenging.

'It hadn't been surgically amputated; it had been crudely hacked away from the upper leg.'

'Doesn't that rather overturn your theory that it came from a hospital?'

'On the contrary; it strengthens it. 'The reason hospitals amputate more legs than arms is due to the way that circulatory problems more commonly affect the legs when patients become unable to walk or exercise. Such limbs are dead and blackened, but these jokers needed a good-looking leg — that means one amputated because of physical damage . . . in a traffic accident or whatever. But such a limb would have come complete with the trauma, the damage. To make it convincing they would have to cut it off at the knee, and that's what they undoubtedly did. Anyway it wasn't George, rest your mind on that. The foot wouldn't have fitted into George's shoe.'

She was still standing, resting her hands on the back of the chair. She stared at me for a moment: 'No one else noticed that?'

'That's why they'd hacked off the big toe. And anyway it was all too phony: the flesh obviously hadn't suffered that kind of damage while the shoe was still on it. The shoe was in relatively good condition. Obviously they got one of George's shoes afterwards, then they saw it was too small for the foot, so they hacked the big toe off the foot. That meant they had to make the shoe look as if it had been chewed by an animal. So then they had to make the shoe look like some animal had bitten into it while the foot was still inside it. It would be a difficult piece of fakery even if it was done in a laboratory. Far beyond those jokers.'

'Is that conclusive? Perhaps the leg you saw wasn't George's leg, but that doesn't prove that George isn't dead.'

'I know I'm right,' I said in a way that perhaps I wouldn't have chosen except for the last drink or two. 'And no killer would have had time enough to dig a grave into that icy rock-hard ground. Then he'd have to dispose of the spade. How? Worry about fingerprints and other traces? No way. You'd be crazy to think about burying a corpse when you could simply toss it into the river and let it be carried away for miles. Or hide it somewhere it would never be found. That whole forest is a tangle of old bunkers, trenches and decaying fortifications.'

'Did you discuss all this with Dicky? He seems certain that George is dead.'

'He didn't ask me. He didn't ask because it suits him to believe it.'

'I didn't ask you either.' She was still standing behind the chair, gripping the back of it so tightly that her knuckles were white.

'No, you didn't, but I'm telling you anyway. I'm telling you because I think your ownership of this apartment might be in jeopardy.'

'Why should you care? You hate this apartment. I can see it in every move, you make.'