He had recommended to them a small local pub where he would come and look for them when he had made his diagnosis on the Citroën. Since Dirk's Jaguar had only lost its front right indicator light, and Dirk insisted that he hardly ever turned right anyway, they drove the short distance there. As Kate, with some reluctance, climbed into Dirk's car she found the Howard Bell book which Dirk had purloined from Sally Mills in the caf, and pounced on it. A few minutes later, walking into the pub, she was still trying to work out if it was one she had need or not.

The pub combined all the traditional English quatities of horse brasses, Formica and surliness. The sound of Michael Jackson in the other bar mingled with the mournful intermittence of the glass-cleaning machine in this one to create an aural ambience which perfectly matched the elderly paintwork in its dinginess.

Dirk bought himself and Kate a drink each, and then joined her at the small corner table she had found away from the fat, T-shirted hostility of the bar.

«I have read it,» she announced, having thumbed her way by now through most of Run Like the Devil. «At least, I started it and read the first couple of chapters. A couple of months ago, in fact. I don't know why I still read his books. It's perfectly clear that his editor doesn't.» She looked up at Dirk. «I wouldn't have thought it was your sort of thing. From what little I know of you.»

«It isn't,» said Dirk. «I, er, picked it up by mistake.»

«'That's what everyone says,» replied Kate. «He used to be quite good,» she added «if you liked that sort of thin. My brother's in publishing in New York, and he says Howard Bell's gone very strange nowadays. I get the feeling that they're all a little afraid of him and he quite likes that. Certainly no one seems to have the guts to tell him he should cut chapters ten to twenty-seven inclusive. And all the stuff about the goat. The theory is that the reason he sells so many millions of copies is that nobody ever does read them. If everyone who bought them actually read them they'd never bother to buy the next one and his career would be over.»

She pushed it away from her.

«Anyway,» she said, «you've very cleverly told me why I went to the Woodshead; you haven't told me why you were going there yourself.»

Dirk shrugged. «To see what it was like,» he said, non-commitally.

«Oh yes? Well, I'll save you the bother. The place is quite horrible.»

«Describe it. In fact start with the airport.»

Kate took a hefty swig at her Bloody Mary and brooded silently for a moment while the vodka marched around inside her.

«You want to hear about the airport as well?» she said at last.

«Yes.»

Kate drained the rest of her drink.

«I'll need another one, then,» she said and pushed the empty glass across at him.

Dirk braved the bug-eyedness of the batman and returned a minute or two later with a refill for Kate.

«OK,» said Kate. «I'll start with the cat.»

«What cat?»

«The cat I needed to ask the next-door neighbour to look after for me.»

«Which next-door neighbour?»

«The one that died.»

«I see,» said Dirk. «Tell you what, why don't I just shut up and let you tell me?»

«Yes,» said Kate, «that would be good.»

Kate recounted the events of the last few days, or at least, those she was conscious for, and then moved on to her impressions of the Woodshead.

Despite the distaste with which she described it, it sounded to Dirt like exactly the sort of place he would love to retire to, if possible tomorrow. It combined a dedication to the inexplicable, which was his own persistent vice (he could only think of it as such, and sometimes would rail against it with the fury of an addict), with a pampered self-indulgence which was a vice to which he would love to be able to aspire if he could ever but afford it.

At last Kate related her disturbing encounter with Mr Odwin and his repellent minion, and it was as a result of this that Dirk remained sunk in a frowning silence for a minute afterwards. A large part of this minute was in fact taken up with an internal struggle about whether or not he was going to cave in and have a cigarette. He had recently foresworn them and the struggle was a regular one and he lost it regularly, often without noticing.

He decided, with triumph, that he would not have one, and then took one out anyway. Fishing out his lighter from the capacious pocket of his coat involved first taking out the envelope he had removed from Geoffrey Aristey's bathroom. He put it on the table next to the book and lit his cigarette.

«The check-in girl at the airport…» he said at last.

«She drove me mad,» said Kate, instantly. «She just went through the motions of doing her job like some kind of blank machine. Wouldn't listen, wouldn't think. I don't know where they find people like that.»

«She used to be my secretary, in fact,» said Dirk. «They don't seem to know where to find her now, either.»

«Oh. I'm sorry,» said Kate immediately, and then reflected for a moment.

«I expect you're going to say that she wasn't like that really» she continued. «Well, that's possible. I expect she was just shielding herself from the frustrations of her job. It must drive you insensible working at an airport. I think I would have sympathised if I hadn't been so goddamn frustrated myself. I'm sorry, I didn't know. So that's what you're trying to find out about.»

Dirk gave a non-committal type of nod. «Amongst other things,» he said. Then he added, «I'm a private detective.»

«Oh?» said Kate in surprise, and then looked puzzled.

«Does that bother you?»

«It's just that I have a friend who plays the double bass.»

«I see,» said Dirk.

«Whenever people meet him and he's struggling around with it, they all say the same thing, and it drives him crazy. They all say, „I bet you wished you played the piccolo.“ Nobody ever works out that that's what everybody else says. I was just trying to work out if there was something that everybody would always say to a private detective, so that I could avoid saying it.»

«No. What happens is that everybody looks very shifty for a moment, and you got that very well.»

«I see.» Kate looked disappointed. «Well, do you have any clues — that is to say, any idea about what's happened to your secretary?»

«No,» said Dirk, «no idea. Just a vague image that I don't know what to make of.» He toyed thoughtfully with his cigarette, and then let his gaze wander over the table again and on to the book.