

Limited Liability

A novel

by

Jeff Kohll

Published by Jeff Kohll

Smashwords Edition

Copyright Jeff Kohll, 2006

Cover photo by Hugh Gordon.

Licence Notes and Legal Disclaimer:

Thank you for downloading this book. Please remember that it is the copyrighted property of the author, and may not be reproduced, copied or distributed for commercial or non-commercial purposes.

If you enjoyed this book, please encourage your friends to download their own copy.

The author reserves the right to make any changes he deems necessary to future versions of the publication to ensure its accuracy.

For Mom.

Limited Liability

Chapter 1

Jake Ridley lay back in the wheelbarrow, feet up on the handles, and mused. Why the fuck did the Metcalfes, despite buying tons of cheap chocolate selections, invariably leave only those varieties which he too detested? Oh no! He'd guessed right. Another strawberry cream in bad black. Still, waste not want not as his old gran used to say. He ate it anyway, shuddered as the fondant hit his taste buds and tossed the box onto the damply smouldering heap which passed for a bonfire. There was a little clearing in the rhododendrons for burning rubbish, where Jake was wont to skulk. This wasn't entirely sloth, he told himself. He didn't want to blow his cover by appearing too hardworking. As it was, he'd largely cleared up the last gardener's neglect of years within a few leisurely weeks. Admittedly he had the advantage of youth but this was counterbalanced by inexperience. He looked with satisfaction at the callouses on his dirty hands. He was still slim and middlesized but his muscles had taken shape. Time for a skive. The water-filter for the pool could wait half-an-hour or so. Smoke began to drift about him, hiding the pong of his last joint and Jake drifted into a reverie.

There were men's voices nearby. He jerked awake. Metcalfe must have come home early. Jake slithered off the wheelbarrow onto his hands and knees and tried to peer through the thicket. He couldn't see much, just two pairs of trousered legs, blue and grey. But he could hear alright.

'I must show you the pool,' Metcalfe was saying affably. 'It's set in a real little suntrap - last summer was so hot that we didn't have to heat it once, although in the cooler weather of course it is necessary. Costs a bomb, but it's worth every penny. We got so used to our pool in Capetown that we simply had to have one here.'

'Ja, you got a reely beauriful place here, Chris.' (The flat South African accent made Jake's anti-apartheid hackles rise.) 'Here's to double ou eight, hey. Licensed to kill.'

'I don't know what you mean, Jass.' Metcalfe's tone was warningly icy.

'Ag, just a little joke, man,' said the other lamely. 'Forget it. So how's business lately?'

'Oh, can't grumble.The pesticides division is doing well.'

Jake literally had his ear to the ground, blowing on the sulky bonfire to get it to go. A blackbird shot through the bare branches of the hedge yelling an alarm-call. A moment later the reason for Metcalfe's sudden circumspection appeared. Jake saw the pair of slim, stockinged legs and little feet in flat calfskin moccasins scissor up and stop. The missus. He'd had a few fantasies about her. A well-preserved fifty was not to be sneered at. And he'd come upon her singing: 'Young girl, get out of my mind...' and she'd smiled and blushed.

'Ah, Cecily,' Metcalfe's hearty boom. 'You remember Jasper. Jasper Keate, from South Africa.'

'Of course. What an unexpected pleasure. How are you?'

Conventional pleasantries were exchanged and Chris said: 'Come along darling, I was just going to show Jasper the pool.'

The three moved off. Jake thought of following but decided that the conversation was unlikely to yield much more. At least he had the name Jasper Keate and a joke about 008. Licensed to kill. That would seem to tie in with Metcalfe's odious profession.

Jake's interest in Metcalfe had come about through his friend Solomon. Solomon was one of the three people who had regularly come to visit Jake in prison, where he was serving nine months for dealing in cannabis. Solomon it was who had hired him on his release as an amateur detective.

Before the bust Jake had been a Director of Research for VIGIL, a charity dedicated to publicising human rights abuses at home and abroad. He still remembered Solomon's irruption into the office:

'Jesus H. Christ! It's cold as charity out there!' said a cheerful voice in what Jake was to come to know, if never to love, as a Cape Coloured accent. He'd looked up from his file of Colombian atrocities to see a short, stocky young man with yellow-ochre skin, somewhat negroid features and stiff black hair. His grin showed two knocked-out front teeth. Dark eyes flicked restlessly about the drab office.

'Jake Ridler. Mr. Witbooi?' He extended a hand. 'How can we help you?'

'Solomon Witbooi. No relation to the Nama leader of that name killed by the Germans in 1905. Doubleyou is pronounced vee in Afrikaans, vee is pronounced eff as in vee ay enn, fun. The booi part you'll never quite get, it's a bit like a slide on a tabla, but don't let it bother you. Just call me Solomon.'

'Jake.' The hand clasp was firm.

'Any chance of a cup of coffee?' Solomon continued, 'Then I will a tale unfold whose lightest word would harrow up thy soul. My young blood's already frozen.'

'Sure. I think we can run to that.' Jake filled and turned on the kettle and looked out of his dirty window at the traffic below which was busy churning the light January snowfall into a grey slush. The overcast sky promised more of the same. An icy draught slipped its feeler gauge through the gap in the steel window-frame and into the stuffy air of the overheated office. Jake braced himself for another load of the human misery which his job entailed, though his latest client seemed different from the usual run of frightened refugees and exiles. He wasn't used to hearing Shakespeare playfully mauled, for instance, or being pressed into offering coffee. Jake had had to harden his naturally sympathetic nature against hard-luck stories but cheerfulness crashed his defences.

The kettle boiled. Jake tipped a spoonful each of cheap instant coffee into two mugs and poured. He brought them over on a flimsy plastic tray along with a jar of non-dairy creamer and some packets of sugar.

Solomon helped himself to both, pulled a pencil from his pocket and sang as he stirred:

'Ou tant Hettie sy is so dom

Sy roer haar koffie met haar groot toon om.'

They sat. Solomon sent a sardonic eye around the latest series of posters. Spotlights pierced the blackness to pick out destitute children; hands clutching prison bars; machinegunned corpses lying in their own blood. He took a cautious sip of his beverage and shuddered. 'Thanks, Jake. This is, er, lovely and hot.'

'I know. It's filthy stuff, but if you prefer there's some Barleycup.'

'No, no,' (a hasty demurral) 'this is fine. I've heard Barleycup described as a pleasure substitute. I believe there's actually some feeling returning to my fingers. Thank you. So, to business. What do you know about Namibia?'

'Not a great deal, to be honest. I think the last report I covered was about lung-cancer in the uranium mining industry. We have a dossier on disk somewhere, but I'd rather hear it from you.'

'Ja, OK. I assume anything I tell you will be in confidence. It's important that none of this information can be traced back to me.'

'Sure, Solomon. That goes without saying.'

'Well, I'm a Bastard - that's what my people are called - or Baastards or Rehoboth Basters if you're being polite. We are a proud people: being a mixture of Dutchman and Hottentot with a bit of black and Bushman and white again thrown in. Afrikaans speaking. My family lived in a tiny little village in Namibia. Note the poignant past tense. I was actually brought up by my auntie in Capetown, but I always went home to Namibia for the school holidays. There were twenty-three inhabitants in 1986. All of them just happened to be in the schoolroom when there was a terrific explosion and the entire village was wiped out. You remember SWAPO?'

Jake nodded. One time 'terrorists' to legitimate rulers.

'The South African army claimed that a hidden SWAPO ammunition dump had exploded,' Solomon continued, 'but they didn't explain why even SWAPO would store their ammo in the most dangerous and least accessible place they could find. Also, how come everyone in the village spontaneously decided to crowd into the schoolroom on a hot Tuesday afternoon. But they forgot about me. That was their big mistake.'

'I'm very sorry to hear about your tragedy,' Jake condoled. 'What do you think happened?'

'I'll get to that. I had and still have a friend, a white Jewboy (as he likes to call himself) name of Selwyn Katz, who was studying to be a vet, but who had to spend some of his time in the army as part of his National Service. As luck would have it, he found himself in Namibia and heard rumours about an ammo dump explosion nearby. He volunteered for the unit which was in charge of clearing up my home village after the blast. He must have been the one bloke there who'd ever even heard of the place. By the time they got there, the explosion had been over for a fortnight and those bodies that hadn't been eaten by jackals and korie-bustards were so scorched and rotten that all they could do was dig a big hole with a bulldozer and scoop in the remains. But what really interested my old china Selwyn was a dead that he found in the rubble. It was kinked up in the most horrible contortions but it didn't look like it had eaten anything recently, nor was it burnt or wounded. The obvious answer was poison of some sort. Selwyn said nothing to anyone about it but stuck the snake in a freezer. A few days later he was given some overdue leave and he took it back to his father in Johannesburg. Now comes the interesting bit. You see, Selwyn's old man was some sort of forensic scientist, working for the government. He said he'd be happy to ascertain the cause of death. He ran all the usual tests and was surprised that nothing turned up.'

'Ha.' Jake snorted. Here he was on familiar ground. 'The thing about forensics is that you find only what you're looking for. Primo Levi says that antifreeze in wine wasn't picked up at once only because no-one had ever thought of testing for it.'

'Ja. Exactly. Doc Katz was intrigued. The snake's convulsions had been so violent as to crush some of its ribs and he didn't know any poison that would do that. Then he remembered some British research into a nerve gas which had shown such horrific possibilities that all further work on it was supposedly banned; but funnily enough, Doc had already come across the formula when he'd done some tests on termite control. Well, he thought, mayswell check for this stuff and Bingo! So how was it that an internationally banned substance was found in the body of a reptile in the ruins of a little Namibian village?'

'Are you saying the apartheid regime was using poison gas in Namibia?' Jake was quick off the mark.

'Someone was. At a stretch it might have been brought in by Russia or Cuba; but there was something else fishy. Doc Katz rather naively mentioned what he had found to a colleague and within an hour his supervisor, a boneheaded Afrikaaner called van Tonder, had carpeted him (as you Brits say) and reminded him that his contract included a secrecy clause and that any discussion of his findings would result in instant dismissal and the strong likelihood of criminal charges. By the time the old boy got back to his lab, both the snake and his notes had vanished. Selwyn said his father had told him only so much and then clammed up. He kept shtum about the whole business from then on.'

'Hm. That would seem to rule out the other side,' mused Jake. 'I can't see South Africa passing up the propaganda advantages of accusing their enemies of using chemical weapons. 'What do you think really happened?'

'Well, firstly, that story about a munitions dump is absolute kak. I mean, how stupid do you have to be to store valuable stuff in the very place where it is most likely to be discovered and least likely to be quickly getatable? What I think is that the whole village was forced into the schoolroom and deliberately gassed. The explosion was to destroy the evidence. For days after I heard about the massacre the lines "Oh little town of Olieboom how still I see thee lie" kept running through my head, over and over. I can't do much at the Namibian end - I tried to get the investigation reopened, but no one was interested. But I think I may be on to the source of the stuff at this end. Tell me, how safe is this office?'

'Well, I don't think it's bugged, if that's what you mean. We do go over the place with a metal-detector from time to time and we've never found anything yet. And I repeat that anything you tell me will go no further without your explicit sayso. Nevertheless, it would be foolish to assume that the spooks couldn't listen in anytime they wanted. Normally I suggest a walk in the park, but perhaps today is not the day for it, so if you'd prefer not to name names, that would be fine. I believe they can read your hard disk from a mile away these days.'

'Sure can. But it's so much easier to pick up phonecalls, emails, faxes. I'm in computers so I know just how vulnerable the securest systems are. I mean, for Chrissake, a couple of kids hacked into the Pentagon's system the other day. Right into the top secret files. They could have started a nuclear war.'

'Yes,' Jake sighed, 'we live in leaky times. I know for a fact that plenty of people in this country have been illegally bugged. I think probably our best defence these days is that there's such a plethora of information buzzing about that we're lost in the crowd.'

'Mm.' Solomon considered. 'You may be right. It's like those video cameras in shopping malls. They reckon that it takes someone watching the monitors about twenty minutes until mindnumbing boredom sets in and they mentally switch off. Scientists tried patching in footage of muggings and murders, fire and flood and the security team watching didn't bat an eyelid.' Solomon threw back his head and gave a yell of laughter.

Through a clear glass panel they watched the secretary spin round on her chair. Seeing no cause for alarm, she flashed the boys a smile and went resignedly back to her work. Solomon had given her the onceover on the way in. She looked and was Irish, a fine brave lump of a girl. She had the milky freckled skin, green eyes and red hair of the non-Iberian Celt and had in her turn noted the short dark man's cocky swagger. She glumly returned to her emails.

Solomon took the plunge. 'OK Jake,' he commenced, 'I'll chance it. Here goes. As you know, the Swiss banks are supposed to be crammed full of dirty money, but it's difficult to tell because of their policy of strict confidentiality.'

'Yes, we've come across "commercial confidentiality" often enough in our campaigns,' murmured Jake, 'Also handy for hiding the billions stashed away by corrupt politicians and businessmen. But the reason there's no worldwide accountability is that everyone has something to hide.'

'Ah, but I'm the boy who can find it, although I shouldn't be telling you this and will vehemently deny I ever said it. Anyway, there's no proof. The thing is that our firm netted a big contract to reconfigure the database of one of the biggest Swiss banks. There was elaborate data protection software in place and while I could probably have hacked into it in time, I didn't have to - because it turned out that I had written it myself, a couple of years ago. Admittedly under another name. Anyway, I broke and entered and trawled through all eight hundred and forty-three South African accounts. Among the names I recognised was that of a Colonel Petrus Brandt who had been Selwyn's C.O. in Namibia. Nou hier's a snaakse ding, nê? Four weeks to the day after the destruction of Olieboom, Colonel Brandt suddenly receives a cheque for a quarter of a million pounds sterling in what had been, till then, a tiddling account. I had to hack into seven other banks but I eventually traced the loot back to an account in the Cayman Islands in the name of a certain Christopher Metcalfe: the CEO of Proteus Chemicals.'

'You don't say,' Jake drawled. 'Oh yes, we know Proteus of old. They once killed off a thirty-mile stretch of river below one of their factories and were fined six thousand pounds. We'd love to nail them for something. How about going to the police? Or one of those campaigning journalists like Paul Foot?'

'Nah. Listen, Jake. Forget the police. The thing is that I have only suspicions so far. I was rather hoping you could give me a bit of inside gen on chemical weapons: who makes them, who buys them.'

'Well, we're not supposed to give out this sort of information,' Jake shifted uneasily on his rickety chair. 'Bit silly when it's all on the net anyway, but it wouldn't look good if you went off and poisoned half of London using our recipe for Sarin. Got the old VIGIL image to consider, you know. Besides, we actually go to quite a bit of trouble to protect our sources. Still, I'll have a rootle round in our files and let you have what I can. If, as is quite likely, it turns out that we do have a chemical weapons industry in this country, it won't be easy to prove. Not when the government can simply quash any inquiry in the name of national security.'

The intercom buzzed.

'Sorry to interrupt, Jake,' the receptionist's tinny tones, 'but don't forget your meeting in ten minutes.'

'Oh, yeah. Thanks Ruthie.' Jake turned on a weary smile. 'The dear old Finance Committee. Look Solomon, I don't know how much use we can be as an organisation, but I'd be very interested to hear the rest of your story in a less formal setting.' Jake paused then blurted out: 'Mind if I ask where you live?'

'I live in abasement in a basement. It's actually a converted coal-cellar in Muswell Hill. Why?'

'Well, I thought you might like to drop over some evening. I'm just down the road in Crouch End. Give me a couple of days for a bit of research. How about Friday? Come for supper. I can throw a couple of pizzas in the oven.'

'Ja, OK. I'll bring some dop.'

'Dope?' Jake was no more than politely interested.

'No, man.' Solomon guffawed shortly. 'Dop is what we Cape Coloureds call booze. The big vineyards run a dop system for their workers – they're partly paid in cheap wine and produce the alcoholics of tomorrow. What you call dope we call dagga or zoll (which is a pig of another colour). What would be a good time? Eightish?'

'Fine. See you then.'

They shook on it.

Chapter 2

Jake also lived underground. In fact the flat, beneath a crumbling yellowbrick Victorian semi, was warm and cheerful. Solomon chained his bike to the railings of the lightwell. The snow had stopped. It was a crisp clear night, the London stink killed by the cold. Solomon's ears ached beneath the flaps of his tweed deerstalker. He hurried down some stone steps, slippery with rotting plane leaves, checked the name and pulled at an old-fashioned bellpull. He heard the clamour of a distant bell. There followed a pause while Jake walked through from the kitchen and briefly inspected him through a peephole. Keys twirled and bolts were shot back and the stout door with its weathered red paint opened.

'Hi, Solomon. Good to see you. Find the place all right, did you?'

'Easy-peasy. Piece of piss. See already how I adapted to the vernacular have?'

Inside was a dingy ochre hallway containing an oldfashioned woman's bike with a wicker basket and rod-operated brakes. There were also an umbrella-stand and two bags of rubbish, ready to go. Jake elaborately relocked the door then turned and led Solomon into the lounge. It was stiflingly hot after outside, but Solomon thought he could adapt. An overstuffed and expensive-looking three-piece suite was neatly covered in Ikat throws and all three panels of the ceramic gas-fire were glowing merrily. There was incense burning, pellets of frankincense on a little charcoal cake. But beneath the pungent lemony smoke Solomon instantly recognised the smells of hashish and tobacco and smiled. Smells were important. He remembered the smells of Olieboom, the paraffin lamps, Vaseline, diesel for the tractor dripping onto the hot sand. Not to mention mieliemeal and, on Saturday nights, cheap perfume, dagga and aftershave. In England you often got wet dog.

'Chuck your coat there.' Jake indicated an armchair already piled with neatly-folded clothes.

Solomon pulled a bottle of wine from his pocket and thrust it at Jake to hold as he struggled out of his parka, hampered by the two jerseys, thermal vest and tee-shirt. Jake watched with some amusement.

'KWV Roodeberg,' Jake made a stab at it.

'Roodeberg,' corrected Solomon. 'There's more of an ooer in it. Nice wine even if the co-op treats their workers like shit.'

'How are things in South Africa at the moment?'

'Bad, but could be worse. Still plenty of rich whites and poor blacks. In fact, for the majority of people things are materially worse than in the good old days. Crime's up, unemployment, disease. But to be let out of the cage is something, to be a person instead of a thing. Of course it's only into a bigger cage, but at least the rest of mankind's in there with you. Have a Jeremiad. Is it just going to be the two of us, this evening?'

'Well, Ruthie said she might drop by after her movie, but that won't be till much later. Anyway, sit down. Can I get you a drink or are you driving?'

'No, I've got my bike outside.'

'I didn't realise. It might be best to bring it in, you know. We get a lot of theft and vandalism around here.'

'Ag man moenie worry as we say on the Cape Flats. It's only an old Raleigh I picked up for a tenner. It's got a Sturmey-Archer three speed. When I was a kid I would've killed for one but the youth of today wouldn't be seen dead on it.'

'Yes, people have been conned into buying heavy mountain bikes without mudguards and flimsy eighteen speed derailleur gears which are always derailing the chain into the spokes.' Jake obviously felt strongly on the subject. 'I hate poor design. The bloke who invented the CD cover, for instance, should have been shot. Right. Drink. What can I get you?'

'I don't suppose you have a cold beer, by any chance?' Solomon mopped his brow. 'Phew! It's actually hot in here, or as they say, warm. Not that I'm complaining.'

'As a matter of fact I do keep a few beers in the fridge for another South African friend. I thought perhaps we could have the wine over a bit of supper. Do you like pizzas? Are you a vegetarian, by any chance?' Jake was studiedly neutral.

'No bloody fear. When you're hungry you soon learn to eat anything. Pizza sounds not unappealing as dear old John Major might say.' Solomon chuckled. 'When I was growing up I used to run errands for one of the gangsters. Sometimes he bought me a snoek sandwich and an American cream soda and I used to dream that when I was rich I would have it three times a day. But failing those delicacies, pizzas will be great.'

'Right, I'll just whack them on.' Jake vanished into the kitchen and quickly returned with two glasses of beer.

Solomon, who had discarded his grey cableknit sweater to reveal a startling homemade creation in garish red, yellow and brown, took a grateful sluk. The beer was cold, wet and fizzy with all the deep fullblooded flavour of soda-water.

'I was just about to roll a joint,' said Jake matter-of-factly. 'Do you partake?'

Solomon laughed then bent and pulled up his trouser-leg and the tracksuit underneath to extricate a thin paper cylinder from his thermal sock. 'Snap!' he challenged. 'Durban Poison. Maak 'n skyf ek say. An old Cape trick was to line a bottleneck with crushed Mandrax and fill it with Poisons but I think half that stick would do for the two of us. Bad stuff Mandies. Makes you think it'd be a great idea to drive your car on the pavement. I broke an arm when I fell down some stairs while dancing. I was talking to some guy once and I said that taking too many Mandrax fucked up your kidneys and gave you fits. Yes, he said, his grandmother used to take them. What, the old lady took Mandies? No. She took fits. But this is the real thing.'

'Great. Thanks. I've had D.P. before. It's quite something isn't it?'

'Blow your fucking head off, man'

Jake smiled complicitously at his guest and despite being enthusiastically heterosexual he was disquieted at a sudden urge to suck Solomon's cock. Instead he busied himself with Rizlas, a shredded Silk Cut, two sticky seedheads meticulously cleaned of seeds and stalks and a crumble of Lebanese blonde. In less than two minutes he handed Solomon a perfectly conical three-blader and a chromed GI Zippo lighter.

Solomon lit up. He became aware of noises - of Country and Western music drifting in from the kitchen radio, the growl and drone of traffic, the way the flat shuddered as a tube-train rumbled by underfoot.

Jake dropped a few more frankincense nuggets on the charcoal and the fug thickened. Solomon began to relax. England had not so far been a relaxing experience. It was hard to know where you stood with Englishmen. Many were frank racists, many were unconscious racists, many were covert racists. The best one could generally hope for was guilt-ridden liberal racists who overcompensated. But if subtle, the signs were unmistakeable. The way a wary eye was kept on him when wandering around Safeways, the way white mothers shrank a little and shielded their children at his approach. His relations with officialdom had thus far been frigidly polite but he was anxious to avoid any unnecessary entanglements. His work permit was based on a bogus marriage to his flatmate and good friend, Andrea. Bogus because she was a fervent lesbian who had done him a favour and had been genuinely surprised and touched at his present of a package holiday for two to Lesbos. Thank God she'd been sleeping alone when the Immigration Department leaned on the doorbell at four o'clock one morning. At least they'd been under the same roof. Andrea had put on her Lady Muck act. 'If I choose to sleep in my own bed because my husband's snoring keeps me awake, I don't see that it's any of your damned business.'

'No, madam. Of course not madam. I'm sorry we troubled you, but we have our duty to do. There is a big problem with illegal immigration. You'd be surprised how many people try it on. Thank you for your co-operation. And you too, sir.'

Solomon had not told them that on the contrary it was the noises from Andrea's bedroom which often kept him awake. The goons had gone, but they could be back at any time. His unease persisted.

Growing up under Apartheid hadn't helped his latent paranoia. He had been around when the bulldozers moved in and flattened their miserable house in District Six. He remembered a long cold ride in the back of a truck packed with wailing people and the few things they'd been able to save from contemptuous destruction. Then they were simply dumped in the middle of the veld. One tap was provided for thousands of people. The despair, disease and crippling hatred they provided themselves. It had been a long, hard climb out of that. Now he was holding on in Britain by the skin of his teeth. He wanted to kill the coldblooded cunt who had wiped out his family or at least expose and ruin him. He knew that he might turn into a bitter obsessive like that Greek King who had a slave permanently employed to whisper his enemy's name into his ear before each meal. But revenge, say the French, is a dish best eaten cold. Solomon knew that the death or mutilation of a couple of dozen sleazy businessmen would make no difference in the larger scheme of things but it might mean that he could sleep soundly again.

Jake passed back the joint (God was it still going?) and went off to see to things in the kitchen. Solomon had another hit on the soggy roach, by now black with tarry oils. He went up by another stage of detached clarity. Being stoned reminded him of that flautist (a Hungarian was it?) who had disconnected all the bridgework of his flute, opening hundreds of thousands of new possibilities while making the normal notes considerably harder to play. To think that at last you understood - surely the first sign of hallucination. Still, he couldn't deny that many of his best ideas had come to him under the influence.

The chair was comfortable. Solomon was warm and dry enough to relish the cold beer. It had been a pig of a day at work. He was one of the team installing a new computer system for a medical insurance company. Damn thing kept crashing. Turned out that one of the directors had tried to download the entire confidential medical records of a nearby hospital into the memory banks. Solomon had been landed with spelling out the difficulties, both technical and legal, involved. He had not been well received. The merest hint of impropriety on the client's part brought on a spate of pompous bluster and thinly-veiled threats. A phonecall to Solomon's boss, Mr Washburton, had produced the compromise that the memory was to be increased to fifty times the necessary size as the insurers now realised that they had underestimated their perfectly legal requirements. Of course, everyone knew that the first thing Fairbrothers would do was copy their confidential records. After all, where was the profit in insuring the sick or risky? Still, it was work and Solomon needed the money.

'Grub's up,' sang out Jake from the kitchen.

Solomon heaved himself out of his terminally comfy chair and drifted through into the next room which turned out to be an astonishingly tidy little box with fitted sixties units dapper in fresh yellow and green. The lightshade was an inverted blue paper parasol and a flourishing spider-plant caromed in green fireworks down the wall.

Jake turned off the retro art deco bakelite radio, cutting off Capital Gold in mid-advert and plonked down a couple of pizzas on warm brown earthenware plates on the table. There were matching knives and forks, efficient salt and pepper grinders and a cruet set holding what turned out to be extra-virgin olive oil and balsamic vinegar. The table was scrubbed pine.

'I've opened your wine to let it breathe,' said Jake. 'It's still coolish but that's no bad thing. When they said wine should be served at room temperature, they weren't thinking of central heating.' Jake produced a couple of wineglasses and poured a generous splash into each.

Solomon felt a sudden upsurge of emotion. This was, he realised, the first time since arriving in Britain that he'd been treated as an equal, the first time he'd felt able to drop his guard. He looked back at his ongoing misery and found that much of the pain was loneliness. Back home in South Africa privacy had been treasured in the endless jostling for scraps which non-white life entailed. Not much had changed for most of the people under ANC rule. The Cape Coloureds were still afflicted by drink, drugs, disease, despair but there was a bitter cheeriness and vitality there that the reserved grey Londoners lacked. Jake's kitchen put him in mind of Auntie Minnie's insistence on the proprieties. She was an English teacher who had impressed upon Solomon the importance of education and had sustained him with money and love. Without her he could well have ended up like too many of his childhood friends: alcoholics, addicts, jailbirds, dead. Hellsteeth man, he hadn't written to her for over a fortnight. Solomon chewed.

'Mm. This pizza's outstanding, Jake.'

'Oh, just an M&S base with a few of my own additions. I must say your wine's rather good too. Have some salad.'

'Ta.'

For a minute they munched in companionable silence.

'I got Ruthie to dig up our files on Namibia,' Jake led, 'but I couldn't find anything specifically about your village. There were a couple of unsubstantiated rumours about chemical weapons but nothing more definite. If you'd like to tell me more about this British businessman, we could perhaps discover something from this end.'

'Ja, OK. As you know, the guy's name is Metcalfe, Christopher Metcalfe. He seems to be involved in a number of companies including chemicals and armaments. You can see the appeal of getting them in bed together.'

'Metcalfe,' Jake mused. 'wasn't there something to do with Napalm?'

'That's the bloke. There was an accident at one of his factories a while back and two men burned to death. A tribunal decided it was their own fault – they were a couple of tramps who had broken into a shed and somehow set off a new napalm delivery system. The sprinklers cut in and saved the building but not before the alleged thieves had been burned to a crisp. The company was slapped on the wrist for some breaches of the safety rules but that was it. Metcalfe was one of the directors at the time.'

'That's right. Proteus Chemicals. Private Eye ran a piece on it.' Jake drummed his fingers on the tabletop. 'As I remember, they never found out who the men were. There was talk of a couple of Irish vagrants who'd vanished from the area. The whole thing fizzled out.'

'Ja. I've read up on it. Look, it may have been a simple accident, but there are a number of questions. How did they penetrate the alarm system? Why didn't the security guard or the watchdogs notice anything? How did they break off the padlock when no tools were found either on them or in the immediate vicinity? Jukkel Stukkel man, I'm beginning to sound like one of those conspiracy theory cranks. But what's this story got in common with the Olieboom tragedy?'

'Well,' Jake considered. 'Chemicals, I suppose. And no witnesses.'

'No witnesses.' Solomon chuckled grimly. 'The security cameras were switched off by person or persons unknown.'

A brass bell mounted on a spiral spring tinkled as a concatenation of slender cables and pulleys conveyed the tug of the bellpull to the kitchen.

'Someone's out front. I'll get it.' Jake was gone, shutting the door behind him. He was some time. The mumble from the hallway rose slowly from pleading to muffled shouting. Solomon was just wondering whether to intervene when a door slammed. Jake came in again, breathing heavily.

'Sorry about that,' he apologised. 'Some damn junkie wanting smack. He must have heard that I sometimes deal a bit of dope to friends but I've always steered well clear of heroin. He wouldn't take no for an answer. Of course I could probably have found him some, but why should I stick my neck out for someone I disliked on sight? Besides, start with junkies and you'll never be free of them.'

'I made the mistake of trying to help one once and he pawned my bagpipe.'

'A begpipe?' Jake did his Edith Evans.

'Ja, my auntie knew a homesick Scot who'd lived near District Six and he got some of us boys together in a pipe band as part of the Coon Carnival. It was great. I actually got quite good on the thing. My Athole Cummers was the talk of the slum.'

'I'll bet it was.' They shared a laugh.

'Ugh, my pizza's gone cold,' remarked Jake. 'I'll just pop it back in the oven. Can I get you another one?'

'No thanks. I've had an elegant sufficiency. Or, as we say in South Africa: Ek het my lekker dik gevreet.'

'Well, I hope you've got room for my notorious banoffee pie. I know dope gives you the munchies.'

'Oh, I daresay I can force down a smidgen. Meanwhile, let me make a three-blader. Back home we use pages from the phonebook stuck together with spit, but when in Rome or even Crouch End...'

Solomon pulled a couple of sticks of DP out of his sock and set to work. Soon a lumpy white cylinder was alight and skeins of smoke like tangled silk drifted across to the extractor fan. Jake was evidently something of a handyman. He had rigged up the Victorian bellpull and had assembled a weights-driven cuckoo-clock with visible works from a kit. The shelves and spice-racks looked homemade and he had stripped and scrubbed the table himself. Furthermore, he was a competent cook if the banoffee pie, smothered in whipped cream was anything to go by. Solomon could cook but DIY baffled him. His clumsiness was proverbial among all who knew him.

Back in the lounge, the conversation rambled and ramified but always returned to the difficulty of pinning anything on the perpetrators of the putative Olieboom atrocity.

'I know it's an obsession,' Solomon allowed. 'I mean there's this Truth and Reconciliation Commission starting up at the moment in South Africa and on the whole I think it's a good idea. Lance the boil and all that. But my problem doesn't figure anywhere in there. Amusing to think how different the response would have been had the people of an English village been poisoned and blown up. Still, all's fair in love and war, eh. Silly to carry on so when thousands are being tortured and slaughtered all over the world as we speak.' And Solomon gave a hurt bark of laughter. 'It's not as if I come from a long line of white knights: a long line of dark nights is more like it.' This time the laugh was amused.

'Well,' Jake shrugged, 'revenge is a human emotion. Christians, for all their talk of turning the other cheek are promised that when they die they'll be able to sit up in heaven gloating over the torments of their enemies in hell - and I've met plenty of bloodthirstiness among the various do-gooders I tend to come across in my work.'

'I'll have you know that I am myself a member of the church of the Plymouth Bretheren and do not approve of people who make fun of religion.' Solomon wore a grave expression which gave way to a broad grin as Jake began flusteredly backtracking.

'Got me, you bastard.' Jake was amused.

'With a capital bee. No, I'm a fervent atheist,' Solomon boasted. 'My auntie used to drag me along to church until I realised it was all sugar on the outside and vinegar on the inside. I can see where my vengeful streak might come from. I just keep seeing everyone I knew herded into the school at gunpoint to be poisoned like rats and my blood boils. At the same time it may not have happened like that at all and almost certainly not as I visualise it.' Solomon's fractured dreams were a series of close-ups. His father cringing as he had so often seen him, trying to turn away the wrath of some overbearing white. 'Ag nee. Assemblief my baas,' or cheerily ducking to avoid the more or less affectionate cuff on the head. His baby sister Sophie clinging wide-eyed to her mother's skirt. Oom Hector, the dashing bachelor uncle whom little Solomon had idolised, was crying brokenly, his best flannel slacks and houndstooth sportsjacket ripped to shreds. The brutal koevoet (a shadowy division of the police) herded everyone into a corner then left, casually tossing in a canister of nerve-gas as they closed the door behind them. Koevoets were paid a bounty or kopgeld for each enemy combatant killed. The resultant screams and convulsions usually jolted Solomon awake and it was often hours before he got to sleep again.

Dope, beer, wine and a surfeit of sugar and starch had relaxed our heroes to such an extent that torpidity was in danger of setting in. Jake put on an LP of Miles Davis: In a Silent Way and Solomon drifted into a meditative langour. The jangling of the bell jerked him alert. Jake went off to see to it and returned with a vigorously glowing Ruthie.

Solomon stood up.

'Hello, Solomon.' Ruthie grasped his hand with a squash-player's grip. She sniffed and raised an eloquent eyebrow. She knew what these naughty boys had been up to.

'How was the movie?' asked Jake. 'What was it you went to see again?'

'The Dead. You know, the story from Dubliners. It was good, but I got nothing like the thrill I had reading it as a well-brought-up seventeen-year-old Protestant maiden in Belfast. Joyce, a blasphemous Catholic, was banned in our house. I thought The Dead was the saddest story I'd ever read.'

'Ah, but full of witty touches too.' Solomon rallied. 'That groove in Gabriel's black hair left by his hat, for instance. Symbolism. The priest's rusty bicycle pump under the apple tree. I love James Joyce even if I came to him arse backwards from Finnegans Wake to Ulysses to Portrait to Dubliners.'

If Ruthie was surprised to hear this literary talk in a thick South African accent, she gave no sign of it. 'I only got halfway through Ulysses,' she confessed, 'and I once looked at a page of Finnegans Wake and couldn't make head nor tail of it.'

'I got into it for a dare. A professor of English bet me twenty rand I couldn't read it cover to cover. His own view was that Joyce had been certifiably insane when he'd written it. I remember sitting in the back of boring politics lectures reading Finnegans Wake and trying not to laugh out loud. It would be a bit much to say I understood it, but I liked the jokes. "Where the bus stops there shop I. Larrons O'Toolers went clittering up and Tombles O'Buckets came clottering down."' Solomon paused, met blank looks, laughed. 'I see I've lost my audience. Never mind, another time.'

'I read Portrait of the Artist at school,' Jake contributed. 'Stirring stuff. I was all set to forge in the smithy of my soul the uncreated conscience of my race and all that but reality intervened. Fancy a joint, Ruthie? Solomon and I were just about to indulge.'

'Not for me, thanks, but I could really do with a glass of water if you have one.'

'Well, I will say you're cheap to keep,' smiled Jake. 'Still or sparkling?'

'Sparkling please.'

'And there's some banoffee pie.'

'Get thee behind me, Satan. Oh well, maybe just the teensiest sliver. The reason I'm thirsty is that Brenda and I have just devoured most of a box of Black Magic sitting in the movie. I must be a sugar junkie. Ugh. I can feel a syrupy sludge oozing through my veins. Oh God, why are we women so frail?' And Ruthie collapsed heavily into an armchair, the picture of ruddy-cheeked good health.

'Women frail?' snorted Solomon. 'Don't make me laugh. You should meet my Aunt Minerva, Minnie to her friends. You mayswell try and stop a charging rhino with a feather-duster as deflect her from something once she's made up her mind. She decided I needed a decent education and moved heaven and earth to see that I got one. If she has a weakness it's only for pumpkin baked with cinnamon and golden syrup. She hates scrawny women. Me too. Let me have about me women who are fat - yon Scrawnyarse has a lean and hungry look. If you put on a few pounds you'd just about make it.'

'I don't think!' flirted Ruthie, angrily telling herself not to be so bloody obvious. 'It sounds like I'd get on famously with your aunt.' She could already see the impossibility of introducing Solomon to her father. 'Anyway,' she leaned conspiratorially closer, 'I manged to get hold of all our info on Namibia. There's a printout in that carrier bag. I haven't had time to read it all, but it's pretty skimpy. Plenty of anecdotal evidence of atrocities but precious little hard fact. By the way, don't tell Jake I've given you this stuff, it's easier if he doesn't officially know anything about it.'

'Well, thanks Ruthie.' Solomon wondered if an affectionate peck on the cheek would be in order but decided against it. Many 'men of colour' had been lynched for less. And feminism seemed to have taken over the racists' resentment on misanthropic grounds. He settled for his warmest smile and stowed the papers under his coat.

The gap in front, thought Ruthie, made him look like a debauched seven-year old between milk and what were laughably called permanent teeth. She didn't know of the Cape Coloured fashion of knocking out the two front teeth of both sexes, jocularly referred to as a 'passion gap.' In Solomon's case it was not a fashion decision, but the result of falling off his bike onto the bars of a wet cattle-grid. His eyes were appealing. Ruthie felt a maternal pang.

'Tell me about Namibia,' she invited, 'I'm afraid I have only the sketchiest knowledge of it.'

'Well, the part I love is the wild. Think semi-desert,' said Solomon. 'Sand and scrub and thorntrees. Animals, reptiles, birds. Rock formations, beautiful stones. Of course there're also fat whites and thin blacks and war and disease. But asked if I'd like to go back to life in a dirt-poor village, getting seasonal work, raising a few scrawny goats and so on, I'd have to say no, althought he happiest times of my life were spent there.'

'I know what you mean,' said Ruthie sincerely. 'Although London can be incredibly lonely. I come from an archetypal working-class protestant community in Belfast. Incredibly supportive and well-meaning but everyone knows all your business. God, was I glad to get out of that. All the stupidity and superstition. I had a Jewish friend back home and someone once asked about his religion."I'm Jewish," said Ralph. "And would that be a Catholic Jew or a Protestant Jew?" The sad thing is that they were dead serious.'

They shared a laugh.

'No-one knew what to make of Jews,' Ruthie shrugged, 'but I've been spat at in the street for talking to a Catholic boy.'

In London, thought Ruthie, the few who cared didn't split hairs. She was Irish, that was bad enough for them. The thick Paddy jokes and assumed IRA sympathies she shrugged off. Even the Protestant Irish she met often took her for one of the enemy, the name McNulty and her bright red hair being typically Catholic. In fact her grandfather had been a Catholic but had converted on marrying a Scotch Presbyterian and it had stuck. Ruthie's cheerful agnosticism sent a shudder through her family. She'd been actually forbidden to talk to cousin Tracy, docilely approaching confirmation, in case her mad, poisonous ideas infected the child. She cut off her reverie.

'"Irrland's split little pea"' contributed Solomon. 'It bemuses the outside world to see two religions of brotherly love belabouring the bejaysus out of each other, but there's no use trying to approach it rationally. The conflict's the thing, not the pretext. I once took the trouble to memorise a gloriously orotund passage out of Gibbon's Decline and Fall. Um, let me see... It went: "The profane of every age have derided the furious contests which the difference of a single diphthong excited between the Homoousians and the Homoiousions. As it frequently happens, that the sounds and characters which approach the nearest to each other, accidentally represent the most opposite ideas, the observation would be itself ridiculous, if it were possible to mark any real and sensible distinction between the doctrine of the Semi-Arians, as they were improperly styled, and that of the Catholics themselves."'

Ruthie clapped gleefully. 'Yes, that's it. Like the big-enders and little-enders in Lilliput. Mind you, as a rugby fan I can see the appeal of aggression, of taking sides. That Catholic boy was a rugger player but his main attraction was that he had been a motorcycle courier in London and I wanted to pick his brains about surviving in the "smoke" - as we racily called it.'

'And?'

'Well he was pretty discouraging. Said it was noisy, filthy, incredibly expensive. Being an Irishman actually called Paddy was a bit of a drag. People were cold, rude, couldn't care less although the London Irish Catholics were OK. Honest to God, he said, you didn't realise how friendly Belfast people were until you'd tried London. All true. But I can't say what a relief it was to be anonymous. Belfast's like living in a goldfish bowl.'

'Ja, Olieboom was like that and even District Six. The police and the church versus everyone else. I must say I enjoy being able to walk around at night with very little fear of being mugged or shot and to think of the possibility of sex without AIDS. But I've found the English hard to get to know. Even understanding the accent took some time. I miss my friends. Sometimes I think I see them in the street or disappearing down the tube. Your heart leaps up then subsides with a hiss like when you nip the tube while fitting a bike tyre with a spoon. Pathetic, isn't it? But it is a relief that accidents of birth matter less here than elsewhere.'

'I like the absence of religion. It's such a treat to lie sinfully late in bed on a Sunday without being bustled off to church. I used to cross the street if I saw a priest approaching. Coming here was like slashing the stays on a whalebone corset. I felt I could breathe again. That's not just a metaphor, by the way. I actually once found a whalebone corset in the back of my grandmother's wardrobe – I can still smell the mothballs – and nothing would do but to try it on. I was a pudgy little twelve-year-old who fancied a wasp waist so I tied the strings to my gran's bedpost and strained away, trying to see myself in the mirror at the same time. Next thing the bed had only collapsed. The whole family burst in and found me trussed up under the heavy old footboard. I never lived it down.'

'I'm sorry I wasn't there to see it,' said Solomon mischievously.

They laughed.

Ruthie thought ruefully that the puppy fat of her adolescence had turned into the what she supposed was the bitch fat of her twenties. She had to admit that even Grandma's corset had not transformed her into a dainty fairy princess. Oh, well. If fat, she was jolly well going to be fit too. Ruthie walked and swam and played squash and was considered a good sport by one and all.

Jake came in with three little cups of espresso. Ruthie turned out to be one of those useful people who can roll an expert joint and let others smoke it. Revived, the conspirators set to work.

Chapter 3

Back in a clearing in the Metcalfes' rhododendrons, Jake's moribund bonfire went out. Toby, the cellmate who had taught him to garden in prison, swore by an old tyre to get a good 'bottom' on a damp fire, but Jake's eco-guilt revolted at the idea. Toby was a head gardener who'd been unable to resist various little peculations to increase his miserly pay. It was the fancy new ride-on lawnmower reported stolen but subsequently found under a pile of sacks in a ruined pigsty which had done for him on this occasion. But Toby knew his plants. Jake was a city boy, born and bred and the miracles of plant life, particularly in the context of jail's brutal misery, were a revelation to him. That the pinch of dust which was lobelia seed could sprout into endless cascades of blue flowers which tumbled from window-boxes and hanging baskets was a trick that only improved with repetition. Jake came to see beauty in bud and flower and seed and leaf, the sweet congruities of form and colour. The fact, say, that leaf colour invariably complemented that of the flower, no matter how outlandish; or that a cutting could strike roots or that dandelion seeds could ride the wind for days before settling and starting a new cycle. Of course he had known all this stuff theoretically but beansprouts were as near as he'd come to horticulture in the past. True, the prison flowerbeds were formal and unimaginative and full of garish floral monstrosites, but Jake loved even the candystriped petunias and giant orange dahlias. It was amusing to see thugs who in the outside world scattered litter like confetti, tiptoeing through the tulips, careful not to scuff the neatly-raked gravel.

Drugs were plentiful and cheap. Jake tried whatever was going, apart from heroin, but was fairly abstemious. Toby managed to brew some parsnip wine in a hollowed-out marrow. He then drank the lot, got beaten up in a fight with a much younger and stronger man and had a ferocious hangover all the next day. He couldn't wait to try it again.

Jake discovered an empathy with plants and as his original ignorance gave way to flashes of comprehension began to dig and sow and propagate with relish. He was determined not to waste his time in prison and signed up for all the limited opportunities on offer. He learned to make dolls' houses in the woodwork class and even made a model of his cell with dummies in the bunks, which, placed against the Judas, fooled the screws and gave him and Toby a respite from Big Brother. Privacy proved addictive. They could have passed the time in sex or filing the bars but neither was that way inclined. The trick worked for almost a fortnight until the guard became suspicious of the sound of talking from a cell where the occupants looked to be fast asleep. Luckily the prison governor was more amused than angry. He kept the model and denied Jake visitors for a month.

Jake had been fairly lucky in his cellmate. There were quite a few headbangers in the prison who would have thought nothing of slitting his gizzard or raping him. Toby was at least harmless but being locked in with him was sometimes like being forced into the low reptilian skull of a bigot. Toby was a racist, a chauvinist, a Tory. He particularly hated 'gippos', 'poofs' and feminists. He also, typically, hated evil drug pushers but eventually made a grudging exception in Jake's case. What really distressed Toby about prison was being cut off from the land. He was, above all, 'a vegeble man'. It ran in the family. 'Moi ol' dad was 'scripted in the war. They set 'im to guard a piece of the Eastbourne to London line. One day the farmer from where 'e worked came to see him and said that he could get 'im zempted as a 'ssential worker, if 'e loiked. ''E said "do so"'.

Jake's father had been an insurance agent cut down at forty-seven by diabetes. His mother would die of a heart attack while he was in jail. He'd been allowed to attend her funeral handcuffed to a sympathetic police constable. He was an only child. 'I hope you've learned your lesson,' Aunt Mildred chid him. The accusation that he'd killed his mother with grief hadn't needed saying. Others were more sympathetic. All, excepting Ruthie, Solomon and a blasé cousin, were embarrassed. There was a little garden around the crematorium, the borders edged with miniature tombstones with names and dates. For sale. Roses, cypress, gloomy evergreens.

But Jake was not about to let being in jail destroy him. He joined the Open University and did courses in librarianship and bookkeeping. He kept up his IT skills too.

Toby, on the other hand, was content to gaze blankly at the telly for hours on end, mostly at children's shows or sport. Jake's occasional choices went straight over Toby's head though both enjoyed what little soft porn there was. Much harder stuff circulated secretly. Jake had had the foresight to swallow some dope tied in condoms before his trial and subsequent incarceration and this prison currency proved invaluable. In porn Jake preferred crude writing to cruder photos as it left more to the imagination. Some of the photos were, once seen, never forgotten. Most of the picture books he passed on to Toby who affected scorned disgust ('E's got 'is tongue roight up 'er arse'ole') but often lay under his blanket with his knees up. Jake was sometimes visited by the fear that without a daily wank his cock might stop working altogether. As it was it was sometimes difficult to interest it. He could sympathise with the paralytic's frustration as no matter how you coaxed or threatened the recalcitrant member it wouldn't stir unless it felt so inclined. Jail was like that too. A reverie of the familiar street outside Sketchley's Dry Cleaner, for instance, was cut short by the wall of his cell.

Drugs were plentiful and cheap. Some of the screws were in on it. Uppers, downers, dope and charlie, smack and crack. But little ecstasy.

Toby, seeking drunken oblivion, had once swallowed a handful of barbiturates and Jake's walking him up and down the cell all night had probably saved his life.

Toby's wife Henrietta ('Hen') visited once a month. It took four hours each way by bus to cover thirty-odd miles. She was living in a caravan on her parents' smallholding as the tied cottage that went with Toby's job had vanished with his dismissal. There were no children. An ectopic pregnancy in their first year of marriage had almost killed Hen and left her sterile. Among the other wives, all dolled up with skimpy clothes, perfume, makeup, Hen looked gauche (or as Toby would have said, 'ockard') in her brown coat, black wellies and beige headscarf. She had a cleaning job at a Happy Eater but the council had ordered her out of the caravan and she didn't know what they'd do when he got out. Her visits left Toby more depressed than usual.

Jake had also realised that there was no going back to the old life. VIGIL had generously offered him a job in its archive department (with a cut in pay) but a spell of reflection and of seeing do-gooders from the other side of the bars, had convinced him that they were whistling in the wind. The fierce personal arguments, dressed up as battles over principle, the endless agonising over priorities, the puny victories now all seemed worthless. An oil company could buy more influence in a minute than they could exert over a lifetime. 'Say not the struggle naught availeth.' He'd recited that poem in Sunday School. It ended: 'Your comrades chase e'en now the fliers, And, but for you, possess the field.' Moral: each little drop of water or little grain of sand really could make a difference. Conversely, defeat could be laid at the traitor's door. Har de bloody har. Heavy, man. Don't lay no guilt trip on me. Some of those old hippies had, thought Jake, a point.

Solomon came to visit every Thursday and usually slipped Jake some money for dope.

Ruthie had loyally offered to smuggle hash by mouth to be passed over in a kiss, but was relieved to find that unnecessary. She had seen quite a bit of Solomon since Jake's disaster. Clive, Jake's bumptious replacement, had reasonably enough argued that their concern should be more oriented to ending present suffering than with exposing past injustices unless such exposure was relevant to current campaigns. As Solomon hadn't wished to provide Clive with more than the brief facts in Jake's file (he wouldn't, he'd said, trust Clive as far as he could throw up) he relied on Ruthie to glean (appropriately) what slender news came up.

When Solomon was in town he and Ruthie played squash once a week and afterwards went to a movie. It infuriated Ruthie that although she was indubitably the better player she just couldn't beat him.

They became good friends but, for a long time, nothing more. This was partly because Solomon had yet another dark secret. This was his fear that he might possibly have been infected with AIDS after a condom had split. Within a year the girl, Oscarina, had dwindled to a skeleton and died, officially, of pneumonia. It had just been one quickie in the bushes after a beach party and Solomon had washed his cock with cane-spirit immediately afterwards. The chances of HIV were small but he was too scared to be tested and had meanwhile in his solitary moments developed a hypochondriacal fret over every little rash and cough. His sex-life since then, despite his bravado, had been confined to Mrs. Fist and her five lovely daughters. Ruthie slipped into her usual role of a pal, a jolly good sport, one of the boys.

Chapter 4

Jake's nine-month sentence neared its end as autumn approached and the prison garden reached its climax. Jake wondered how life kept going when a cabbage, which had taken six months to grow, could be consumed in six minutes. More importantly, what was he to do when he got out?

Toby's brother had a smallholding near Pucklechurch in East Sussex and had grudgingly offered to let him help with the geese and vegetables until something else turned up. Pity the smallholding couldn't support three. But if Jake could put up some money Toby knew of an old orchard going cheap where they could set up a nursery. Jake was tempted. He had actually grown fond of the filthy old cockroach and for the childless Toby, Jake had become something of a son. But Solomon had other plans for Jake. His firm had nearly come to the end of their insurance-company work. He was owed a hefty bonus and a generous redundancy package. How would Jake like a paid holiday as a detective? Sho' 'nuff. Yassa massa. As long as he didn't end up in jail again. Once was more than enough. Thus are made the most important decisions in life.

Jake was due out in November. Solomon rented a terraced once-council house on the outskirts of Uckwash near which the Metcalfes lived and began seeing how to broach their defences. He had to be circumspect: his coffee-coloured face was conspicuous among the variously pallid or rubicund English denizens. There was the odd Jamaican or Indian about but few of obviously mixed race. Of course the English were an ugly mongrel race themselves but Solomon hesitated to call this to their attention as he had a repugnance to being beaten to a pulp. Bland and colourless was the way to go. He called himself an IT consultant, talked vaguely about properties, mentioning among others, Sallowfield, home of Christopher Metcalfe. But mainly he listened, quietly nursing a pint as he did the rounds of the local pubs.

He struck lucky one night in a dingy pub half-full of yokels. One old fellow in a dirty donkey-jacket and tweed cap was grumbling about his lot.

'So 'e says to me, "Look 'ere, Chicken" (coo oi do 'ate it when 'e calls me tha' – woi can't 'e use Len loike everone else?) "Look 'ere Chicken," 'e says, would you moind washing moi car? Wool, oi says to 'im: "Mr. Metcalfe," oi says, "you 'oired me as a gardener no' a car washer – oi wouldn't know where to start." So 'e says: "Ow it's easy. Oi'll show you. I know it's no' par' o' yer usual duties so how does an extra foiver sound?" Wool, Oi done it in the end bu' 'e ort never to've arsked me in the first place.'

'Quoite roight, Len. Puts a man in a ockard position something loike tha' does. Fancy another point?'

'Does a baby,' to quote M. J. Trow, 'say ignominy?'

Solomon, once he'd mentally translated the conversation, smiled. Over the next few days he dropped into the pub at odd times and found Len almost always there. Late one night he watched as the old gardener took a handful of coins from his pocket and blearily began counting. It was obvious that no matter how he arranged the piles of mostly coppers, he was far short of the price of a pint. His drinking mates, sensing the onset of scrounging, made their excuses and left. Apart from the surly bartender and a preoccupied couple in one corner, he and Solomon were alone in the pub.

Solomon edged over. 'Have one on me,' he offered politely. 'I hate to drink alone.'

Len took in the smiling 'darkie' doubtfully. Still, a pint was a pint and it was only ten minutes till last orders. 'Thanks,' he grunted curtly. 'Moin's a snakeboite. Len Chicken.' He proffered a tentative hand.

'Solomon Witbooi.' A quick manly clasp, strong, soft clean to strong, calloused dirty. 'I think I heard someone mention that you're a gardener. Is there much gardening work about?'

'Plenty of work but no' much pay. Oi wouldn't moind packin' it in. Specially now with winter on its way. Get the screws summat cruel oi do.'

Solomon worked out that this was rheumatism. He also found that Len had been raised on a farm and led the talk to farming, contrasting the lush Sussex patchwork of little fields and pastures with the vast sparsely stocked farms of Namibia where one cow to 150 acres was as much grazing as the land could stand. Some years there was no rain at all. This, like most of life, was completely beyound Len's comprehension. He had the usual countryman's prejudices against foreigners and city-dwellers but Solomon had learned to turn up at that stage of the evening when Len ran out of both money and friends and soon they were thick as thieves. Solomon encouraged Len to vent his spleen on his various employers and led the conversation imperceptibly round to the Metcalfes. It turned out that Len only stuck the job out of the goodness of his heart. It involved a long bike-ride uphill (and with his gammy leg he often had to get off and walk), they expected him to do strange, unnatural things like changing the swimming-pool filter, moving furniture, even helping to wash the dog – all unbecoming to his dignity as a gardener. If it wasn't that he needed money to pay off his ol' dad's funeral debts he'd chuck the poxy job in like that. And he snapped his crabbed fingers. Solomon was properly sympathetic then seemed struck by an idea.

'You know, Len, there's a reason why I asked about any gardening work just now. I've got this friend coming to stay with me. He's a hell of a nice guy, but he's just recovering from a nervous breakdown. He's always been a keen gardener and a couple of little jobs would be just the thing to help him recover. Of course I wouldn't want to do you out of a job but if you're really only hanging on at the Metcalfes to pay off your old dad's funeral expenses, I could perhaps help. Lots of these firms, if they think there's no hope of collecting, will sometimes just write off the debt.' Pause for effect. 'Look, I don't suppose you have a receipt or anything on you?'

Len turned out his pockets: a flat tobacco tin full of dogends waiting to be re-rolled; a greasy plastic wallet (empty); the remains of a sandwich (plastic cheese on white); three opened packets of mildewed seeds; a Plain Jane toffee, and the latest final demand from Charwell & Tippett of Uckwash.

Solomon took the filthy redlettered missive and shook the earth, lint and seeds from its folds into an ashtray. It seemed that unless payment was received in full within 28 days of three weeks ago, the matter would be placed in the hands of their solicitors. Solomon read the letter twice then was apparently struck by a happy thought.

'Charwell, Charwell,' he mused. 'I used to work with a guy called Charwell. I know he was from these parts. Look, leave it with me for a couple of days and I'll see if I can't sort something out.'

The next morning Solomon popped into the undertakers' office and paid off Len's debt in full although he thought it best to say nothing about this until the old gardener had had a few days to stew.

On Thursday, the night before payday, he happened to bump into Len at The Cornstook. 'Great news, Len,' he enthused. 'Old Charwell did in fact turn out to be my mate Iggy's dad. He's promised to talk to him about your debt and seems to think there's a good chance it'll be written off. You'll be able to tell Metcalfe to stuff his job. How about a snakebite to celebrate?'

Len concurred.

Saturday found Solomon sitting in a beige Fiesta outside Her Majesty's Prison, Catford. A little door cut into a much bigger one opened and Jake stepped into the weak sunshine. He flinched as a truck roared by and seemed disorientated by the barrierless pavement. Then Solomon dashed over, hugged him warmly and took his modest suitcase. They lit out for the South.

Chapter 5

That night, after an excellent Bobotie cooked by Solomon (who'd been unable to resist the crack that a thing of Bobotie was a joy for ever) they dropped by The Cornstook and found Len alone at a round formica table rolling a cigarette from recycled butts. A glass with half an inch of liquid stood by his elbow.

'Hi, Len.' Solomon greeted the sponge warmly. 'This is Jake, that mate of mine that I told you about.'

'Pleased to meet you.' Jake's no-nonsense handshake was that of a horny-handed son of toil. His fingernails too were reassuringly dirty and broken.

''Ow do?' Len muttered gracelessly. At least this one was white.

'Solomon was saying that you might know of some gardening work,' began Jake but Solomon cut him off.

'Just a sec., Jake. I've got some good news for Len.' He fished in his pocket and pulled out the final demand from Charwell and Tippett. 'Remember I told you that my old pal Iggy was the son of the senior partner. He had a word with him and the upshot is that they've decided to write off the whole amount. Look here.' Solomon pointed to a big CANCELLED which he himself had rubber-stamped across the document. That's it. Nothing to pay. Now, who's for a drink? I'm buying. Fancy a snakebite, Jake?'

'Sure. Whatever that is when it's at home.'

'It's a mixture of beer and cider. Quite palatable and with a kick like a mule. If you don't like it I daresay we'll be able to dispose of it somehow.'

Solomon marched up to the bar. The Cornstook scraped by on a low-income clientele and saw no point in wasting money on furnishings. The floor was worn brown lino and the dartboard was surrounded by half a tyre whose cracked and pitted paint was the yellow of a smoker's teeth. To one side of the bar hung the stuffed head of a deer with a cuphook screwed into its nose. A curtain ring on a string could be swung to try and catch the hook. The air stank of smoke. The bartender eventually deigned to notice Solomon and broke away from another customer's whinging to grudgingly take his order. It was obvious that any friend of Len's was to be tolerated only as long as he kept the ready cash coming. Solomon smiled ingratiatingly and added another passenger to his tumbril. He carried back the drinks only to find Len and Jake warily circling around the subject of gardening expertise.

''Owdjer ge' cootch ou' o' raaspberries 'en?' Len challenged the upstart.

'Well,' Jake thought quickly, 'there's no easy way. You could loosen the roots up with a fork but at the end of the day you just have to pull it out by hand. Trouble is, no matter how careful you are, you've only got to miss one bit and you're buggered.' He remembered one of Toby's rare jokes. 'You know what they say – if a bit of couch has two ends on it it'll grow. See,' Jake laboured the point, 'there's no such thing as a bit of couch without two ends.'

Len saw. Len chuckled. By the third drink his suspicions had subsided. Jake was OK.

Solomon drew the conversation around to the Metcalfes and Len, having talked himself out onto a limb was reluctantly obliged to saw it off. Anyway, Jake was alright. Not like some of those stuck-up bastards... And he seemed to know enough about gardening for there to be no recriminations from the Metcalfes. Course there was something funny about an educated bloke wanting a menial job like that, but outside of gardening (and even in vast tracts of that) most things were a mystery to Len.

And Jake, after months of Toby's company had no trouble with Len's 'hungrngs' (onions), 'paarsmits' and 'marrs' (marrows) whereas much of the conversation left Solomon smiling blankly.

Len was relieved that Solomon had sorted out his debt but naturally despised him for being such a fool as to have done so. But he'd had the bailiffs in before and it had been extremely unpleasant. Course it hadn't actually cost his exotic acquaintance anything and even Len could see that for some unknown reason Solomon wanted his job to go to Jake. He wouldn't have been surprised if Metcalfe himself was behind it. He'd been very sarcastic about progress on the leaf-raking front recently and had actually accused Len of spending hours sitting on his arse smoking – a calumny as insulting as it was true. No, he'd be well rid of all that. By chucking-out time he'd persuaded himself that he'd just been waiting for a chance to give in his notice.

The ferocious hangover of the next day did nothing to soften his feelings of being hard done by and he informed Mrs. Metcalfe with dignity that as of next week he would no longer be responsible for her horticultural requirements. As to a replacement, he knew of someone who might do. Cecily Metcalfe accepted this news with hurtful equanimity and cheerfully gave him a fortnight's pay in lieu of notice. Len took his resentment off to the pub where he gave a boastful account of the proceedings to his not visibly disbelieving friends.

By the time Solomon and Jake popped in later Len was on his own again and ready for another account of his exploits. Solomon kept the drinks coming and Len basked in his admiration. The boys were alright, not toffee-nosed snobs like some he could name. When they got up to go he remembered something and reached under his chair for a sack. ''Ere y'are,' he slurred. 'Lil present for sortin' ou' tha' funeral thing. Couple o' speckable 'ens. Fresh eggs fer your breakfast.' The sack squirmed and a chickeny croodling deplored the state of the world.

'Well, er, thanks Len,' Solomon floundered. 'I mean it's a lovely idea but what'll my landlord say? Not to mention the neighbours. You know how destructive fowls can be in the garden.'

'Take 'em,' growled Len. 'Cu' off one wing so they can't fly away. Worse comes to worse you can always eat the buggers.'

'I could run up a coop,' offered Jake, spotting signs that Len was about to insist and having no taste for the maudlin display of a poor man's wounded dignity as his modest gift was spurned.

'OK. Fine. Thanks, Len.' Solomon sneaked a look in the sack and saw that there were indeed two glazed-looking chickens of a speckled persuasion. At least there was no early-rising cock - and concern for avian welfare made a handy excuse for one for the road. So it was that he and Jake staggered out into the light rain poorer by some three hundred pounds and richer by two chickens.

Their new acquisitions were locked in the pantry with some porridge oats and water.

Jake fell drunk into bed, a free man, leaving the light on for the last time.

Chapter 6

He dreamt he was sleeping through the six o'clock bell and struggled awake with a jerk to find himself in a large, too-soft bed in a stuffy, small and nasty room. That buffalo stampede must be next door going downstairs. Muted daylight came through the rattly sash window along with early-morning street noises although the window was at the back, overlooking the long thin garden. It was heaven. He lay and luxuriated for a few minutes, wondering if his fine mood wasn't the deceptive euphoria that precedes a major hangover. He was out of jail but still had to report to the probation services in Uckwash. He had a job – Solomon had made him secretary of the IT consultancy which he was in the process of setting up. This removed a major source of pressure, helped by being beyond the reach of his many London acquaintances in the drugs trade. On the other hand Solomon, while good fun, was also a crazed obsessive who wanted to use him as a detective. The annoying thing was that Jake knew he'd try his best despite the sickening feeling of being inept and inexperienced. Oh well, if it didn't work out there was this girl he knew whose family ran a tourist lodge in Madagascar.

There was a discreet tap at the door and Solomon entered with a mug of tea. He looked distinctly green around the gills.

'Morning Jake. Sleep OK?'

'Sure. I could have given lessons to a log. How's the weather?'

'Foul and filthy. Bits and bobs of mist and murk. Spits and spots of rain. Hendiadys for Africa. Precipitation within sight. Perfect for undercover or even underduvet work. Could you face breakfast jisnow, meaning shortly? There's muesli and coco pops but I might go for the full English if my stomach will stand it. Brendan Behan swore by fried liver and onions after a heavy night, but I think that's a bridge too far. So, what did you think of Len, then?'

'A scholar and a gentleman – at least compared to some of the types in Catford nick.' Jake spoke with heartfelt sincerity. 'Christ, I can't tell you what a relief it is to wake up in a warm bed in a room of your own. By the way, last night's little celebration notwithstanding, I'm off the dope and I'd appreciate it if you kept it well away from me. I know I'm just paranoid but my probation officer could drop by at any time and I'm very not keen ever to go back to jail again.'

'Discretion is my middle name,' Solomon assured him. 'Right between Raving and Lunatic. Nee. Moenie worry. The whole setup here is entirely kosher. I'm just the kind of thrusting IT entrepreneur the government wants to encourage. Your wages are in fact being paid by the state and part of your job will be to sort out just what we're entitled to in the way of grants and subsidies. We'll have you rehabilitated in no time.'

'Thanks. You know, talking of rehabilitation, the interesting thing about my fellow inmates was that every single one of them had something they were good at and it was all being thrown away.' Jake took a sip of tea and was touched that Solomon had remembered just how he liked it: strong with little milk and no sugar. 'Ah. This is a lifesaver. Listen, I'm up for the full English. But I'll make it.'

'No you won't. You go and take a shower. Give me twenty minutes.'

The morning passed in a swoon of leisure.

In the afternoon, the sun came out and Jake took a bike-ride to the Metcalfes' house, Sallowfield. The lady of the house was in and Jake said that an old chap he'd met in the pub had indicated that there might be a vacancy for a part-time gardener. Cecily, as she asked him to call her, was so thrilled at finding an anti-Len that she hired him on the spot without bothering about references. Jake gave her the spiel about the nervous breakdown and the soothing effects of being in touch with Mother Nature and said he'd be along next Monday morning, weather permitting.

Phase one accomplished. Phase two, actually finding a chink in Christopher Metcalfe's armour was more problematical. Jake had had a couple of talks with the man which had been confined to gardening and the sort of polite interest in what Metcalfe did which told him no more than they already knew. Weeks went by with nothing to show for it but an old cheque book which Metcalfe had thrown into the bonfire box. The only entry of interest was a stub enigmatically marked: T £2000. The date was the day after the tramps had been incinerated. Ruthie was still in touch with Jake and eager to help Solomon so she was pointed at VIGIL's extensive library of clippings and told to dig. Many barren days later, she had come up with only one T associated with the affair. Alfred Toplady had been head of security at Proteus Chemicals but was on leave at the time of the tragedy. Ruthie found a number for an A. Toplady in Chingford. Posing as a journalist she rang up and found that he was indeed the Toplady in question but she was unable to speak to him as he had suffered a fatal heart attack two years ago. He'd gone off on his nightshift as usual, his widow said, and had been found dead at his desk in the morning. Proteus chemicals had been very good to her about it. She wouldn't hear a word against them.

'I didn't press her on the business with the tramps because I didn't want to alarm her, but he must have died about a fortnight later.'

It was after Sunday lunch. Ruthie had come down for the day. The boys got on well on the whole but it was good to have a female about the place and to feel a slight sexual crackle in the air. Also, Jake was still grieving for his mother and Ruthie was a bottomless well of sympathy. He was feeling less and less like a detective although Metcalfe seemed likely to be involved in various revolting crimes. The trouble was that he was quite a likeable bloke: courteously affable, a doting father and loving husband. He kept in shape and had the washed-out blue eyes and swept-back hair of a Viking. He'd even given Jake a rise in pay from contemptible to merely risible. The older daughter Philippa (called Pookie) was off at college and the younger, Sarah (called Sukie) was busy with A levels. According to Len she sometimes sunbathed topless in the summer, but the weather had witheld confirmation of this goatish fact. The house was a large Victorian redbrick which Cecily more or less ran on her own. It had a comprehensive burglar alarm and Jake on one of his rare visits inside noticed the control-panel in the hallway. One stroke of luck was that he'd been in earshot when Sukie had set it off accidentally and had yelled out to Cecily for the combination to shut it off. 1968. Jake had no trouble remembering that, it was the year of his birth. The place was further protected by security lights and an Old English sheepdog called Rufus whose value lay in the racket he made in showing visitors how delighted he was to see them. Jake had made the mistake of throwing a couple of sticks for him and now whenever Rufus saw him he would caper around barking excitedly until sent hurtling off into the distance to retrieve whatever Jake cared to throw. It made Jake uneasy to see the fringe that hung over Rufus's eyes but it didn't seem to worry the dog at all. Jake felt the same about those oriental lovelies with a black fall of hair over one eye. Would have driven him round the fucking bend.

Solomon cautioned patience. For the first few weeks Jake had just to keep his eyes and ears open while he and Ruthie sniffed along cold computer and media trails. Jake gradually got into the habit of repeating his encounters with one or other of the Metcalfes and Solomon took notes of everything, from snippets of gossip to interesting turns of phrase. Eight weeks passed and Jake's fear of imminent rearrest ebbed. He now enjoyed the odd discreet joint again and when Solomon had asked about burglar alarms and things and how one might get into the place, Jake found himself taking an impression of the key to the French doors in Blu-tak and then in spending the best part of two full days filing a copy out of the leaf of an old brass hinge. Routing out the grooves with a ground-down masonry nail was the worst bit. When it was done, Jake hid it in a hollow under an old oak in the churchyard.

When Solomon proposed to go down one evening by himself and have a discreet nose around Jake insisted that he was coming along. In any case if, as was only too likely, Solomon was caught, he would be for the high jump too. His best chance of staying out of jail was to lend the little he had learnt there to their cause.

It was another fortnight before they had a chance. Cecily had mentioned that she, Chris and Sukie were all going to a new production of Bluebeard's Castle mounted by a little opera company of which they were patrons. It was Jake's afternoon there and at last he'd found a use for the dead halogen bulb which he'd obsessively rescued from the rubbish - disabling the front security light. Before he went he gave Rufus a piece of liver in which had been inserted a jelly cube stuffed with a couple of Mogadons. One snap and it was gone.

Eight o'clock on a drizzly winter evening found Jake and Solomon walking quietly down the half mile of rural road which led to Sallowfield. Approaching traffic led to hiding behind trees or hedges and once crouching in a slimy ditch. They were wearing wellies but had also brought trainers, stocking masks and surgical gloves in case a bit of breaking and entering was called for. Jake had retrieved his key and now held it dangling on a bit of string, ready to be hurled into the middle distance at a moment's notice.

Solomon had brought along a machine the size of a large paperback which was capable of wolfing down the hard disk of any computer he might encounter. It seemed a long way in the dark but at last they reached the gate. The house itself stood at the foot of a steep slope below a stand of copper beeches. Jake led the way through the leaf-carpeted woods, thankful that there was no sign of Rufus. But why was Metcalfe's car in the drive? Surely he would have driven them all to the station unless they had gone in Cecily's ragtop. No. A couple of lights were on and the faint sounds of a TV or radio could be heard through the double glazing.

'I thought they were out,' Solomon whispered redundantly.

'Must've changed their minds.' Jake's laconicism hid his huge relief. At least there was no question of their breaking in now. Perhaps they could just go home. But Solomon was already edging up to the house. A gap in the lounge curtains threw a yellowish glow over the dead papery heads of the hydrangeas. Solomon kneeled in Jake's freshly-raked flowerbed and slowly raised his head above the sill. A moment's silence then he smothered a snort of laughter and beckoned for Jake to join him. Christopher Metcalfe lay naked on a zebraskin rug in front of a fierce log fire, rigid cock in hand. It seemed safe to assume he was home alone unless his family life was far less conventional than Jake had assumed. He was watching TV but they couldn't see what until Jake thought of the oval mirror on the opposite wall and caught part of a reflection. Expecting the usual porn he was, let us say, surprised to see the close-up strangulation of a child taking place. An uprush of horror was succeeded by the thought of what a good poster for VIGIL the scene would make. He turned Solomon's head so that he could see too. The camera pulled back to show what might have been a South American policeman standing behind the thin dirty boy and pulling on the ends of a wire garrotte. Back on the zebra-skin Chris was getting into the spirit of things by tightening a red bit of cord round cock and balls and carrying on wanking. The boy took a long time to die. His eyes bulged, his nose bled, his tongue lolled. Jake could feel Solomon quivering with emotion. At last the torture ended and the boy was thrown down on the pavement, apparently dead. Simultaneously, Chris released his cord and with a final stroke a couple of gouts of spunk shot up onto his stomach. After a moment he reached for a Kleenex and fastidiously mopped up. The video ended and the grey wash of blank tape flickered briefly before turning to the black and white of what looked like CCTV footage. Interior. A tiled room. Two bearded men with heavy coats and bobble hats shuffled into shot and looked about them uneasily. There were a couple of bottles on a concrete plinth. One bloke took a swig, wiped the bottle and passed it over. Chris pressed the zapper, returning him to Saturday-night TV which he killed in its turn. He then dressed himself in white Jockey shorts and tee-shirt, stone Chinos and an oatmeal cableknit sweater and slipped his feet into a pair of navy-blue ropesoled deck shoes. They saw him, in the mirror, eject the video and wander out of view. He reappeared without it and opened the diningroom door. Rufus bounded in to an irritated 'tsk' from Jake. The rain came on again and the clematis-choked gutter which Jake had yet to clear took no more than half a minute to fill up and overflow onto our heroes. At the same moment, Rufus's deep bark erupted just by their heads.

'Rufus!' Metcalfe overrode the hound. 'What is it you silly sausage? Foxes again? You know I can't let you out. You'd get all covered in mud and then what would your mummy say? Come on, calm down, old chap.'

'Come, Tonto,' sidemouthed Solomon. 'Our work here is done.'

'OK Kemo Sabay.' Jake followed from the front. They reformed at the top of the drive when Solomon bumped into his friend in the dark. They squelched up the road in the now-driving rain. Solomon had cunningly bought two identical pairs of wellies in the hope that if it ever came to footprints they might be taken to belong to only one person. The downside was that neither pair quite fitted – Jake's boots were too tight and Solomon's too loose. Anyway, this downpour would wash any potential evidence away. What worried Jake was why the Mogadon hadn't worked on Rufus. In fact the Old English sheepdog had calmed down before they were halfway up the drive. With a heavy sigh he'd headed for his basket under the sink in the laundry and was now in a deep sleep not unadjacent to a coma. Timing is all.

The boys trudged on in silence. If they shared a revulsion at Chris's tastes, they also shared a feeling of having besmirched themselves by watching him. Solomon broke the silence: 'We must get hold of that video. What a pity we didn't see where he hid it.'

'Well it's got to be in that corner somewhere because he wasn't holding it when he let dear old Rufus in. Sorry about that, by the way. I don't know why those tablets didn't work unless he sicked them up after I'd gone. Maybe the delivery system needs refinement.'

'Maak nie saak nie,' as we say back home. San fairyann in French. We've found out enough to be going on with. Do they ever let you into the lounge?'

'I sometimes bring in a basket of logs. But I've never been alone in there. Cecily's usually about. Or Sukie. Sulky more like. But why do we want the vid? I mean so Chris gets off on snuff movies but that doesn't necessarily tie him in on Namibia. Are you planning to blackmail him or what?'

'I'm not interested in his snuff movies,' said Solomon tartly, 'apart from thinking how easy it would be to fake one. The joke is that the real thing's probably far cheaper. No, what I really want to know is what's on that clip he switched off. It looks like CCTV footage to me. Where do you think they were?'

'Could have been some sort of medical facility. Tiled walls. The set for a Beckett play perhaps. Makes my old cell look quite cosy by comparison.'

'Exactly. One little window, high up in the wall. And that sort of concrete altar in the middle of the floor. Of course it may be that the other wall has french doors leading out onto a palm-fringed beach but I somehow doubt it. I bet it's a lot nearer these islands. I don't want to prejudice you. What do you think was going on there?'

Jake thought back to the few moments of grainy footage. That shuffling walk rang a bell. Illfitting shoes or no laces. They could have been tramps. Or mental patients. 'Hm,' Jake ventured, 'a lab or a test chamber of some sort. Would you be thinking Napalm?'

'Perhaps.'

'And those two might have been the tramps who were burnt to a crisp.'

'Could well be. Now do you concede the desirability of getting our hands on that video?'

'Of course.' Jake was contemptuous. 'The mere fact that they lied about the CCTV being out of order is suspicious. And why was that booze laid out for them if not as bait in a trap?'

'And why,' Solomon broke in eagerly, 'was it on a compilation of snuff movies? If we could find out who those two guys were it might help.'

'Sorry to be a wet blanket,' said Jake as a rivulet poured off his anorak and found its way into his left welly, 'but even if we could get Metcalfe convicted of a double murder, how would that connect him with chemical weapons in Namibia?'

'You're right,' confessed Solomon. 'But I hope it will lead onto other things. At any rate it establishes his character. A bloke who enjoys wanking over a child being strangled would really get off on gassing a village.' Solomon snorted. 'Be sweet if Olieboom figured on this video of his favourite things. I guess we'll just have to break in and take it. If you find the video I can download whatever's on their various computers. We'd copy the video and put it back. They'd never even know we'd been there. Of course if you'd rather not be involved just say so and I'll find another way. Naturally that would involve killing you for my own protection.'

'Nah. We've been through that. If Metcalfe really is your mass-murderer, I'd like to be involved in nailing him. That was the really dispiriting thing about VIGIL – knowing there were all these villains out there and watching them slip through your fingers. No, count me in. It's funny that even though I know he's a sick pervert, I still quite like Metcalfe. Or at any rate one side of him. Apparently it's quite common for little kids to think they have two mothers – a nice one who feeds and cuddles them and a horrible one who shouts and smacks them when they're naughty. Anyway, I can cut back the clematis next time and I'll look throught the window for hiding-places. He likes woodwork, our Chris, and he's got some great lathes and routers and saws. God, I'm soaked. I'd give anything to see our little beige Fiesta. We had a Brummie in our office once. Nice woman, but a few sandwiches short of a picnic. She once said that after "Soondie loonch" she liked nothing more than to lie down and have a little fiesta. The whole office packed up laughing but no-one would tell her why - she never got it.'

They walked through the deserted churchyard and Jake deposited the key he'd made under the old oak. Ten minutes later they were warm and dry.

'I've got nowhere with this Jasper Keate character,' Solomon admitted. 'He doesn't seem to be on the boards of any big companies and I haven't been able to trace his bank accounts. That may mean he's just small fry or it may mean he's got some heavyweight protection. Did you know that during the last war Japanese scientists conducted biological weapons tests on the Chinese. They infected them and then cut them open while they were still alive. After the war the Yanks executed some of the rank and file but the scientists were given an amnesty as their work was too valuable to waste.'

'Oh good,' Jake waxed sarcastic. 'I'm so looking forward to tangling with our secret services or the CIA or Mossad. But seriously,' seriously, 'I want to help, but wouldn't it be better to just hand over what you've got to the police. I mean, it's costing you a fortune and I really don't think I'm cut out to be a detective. When that dog barked in my ear I nearly had a heart attack. Look, I'm very grateful for the job and all, but I'm rapidly coming round to the opinion that living well is the best revenge. I've always fancied Madagascar myself ever since I saw those pictures of chamaeleons and lemurs in the National Geographic as a kid. Think about it.'

Solomon stared at the fire in the little grate. He'd quite enjoyed the last couple of months. Uckwash was a dump. The people were standoffish if not actually hostile, but it was quiet and the surrounding manicured countryside was very pretty when the sun shone. Above all, he'd found a good friend and an able secretary in Jake. Seen from the chubby prosperity of Sussex the fate of a dusty village in a dirty war could easily seem trivial. It was costing a lot and progress had been slow but he couldn't let go. Rain strafed the window and the draughty sash rattled. He cleared the lump from his throat. 'Look, Jake,' he began, 'let's give it a few more weeks then if we're making no headway we'll reconsider. And don't worry about money. I'm expecting a fat royalty cheque soon for some animation software I helped develop and as you know, there's my retainer as a consultant and whatever freelance work I can pick up. We'll split the profits down the middle. Look, say another month? There's no pressure to say yes. I know I've no right to ask you to stick your neck out for me. As for your detective skills, I think you underrate yourself. We'll keep the derring-do to a minimum. What I want you to do is to get to know any little family secrets. Besides, you keep going on about the English spring. As I say, give it a month.'

'Well, alright. But I'm not looking forward to being pleasant to Metcalfe. What a cunt. There are some images that stick in the mind. Oh well. I'm going to make some cocoa. Fancy a cup?'

And so to bed and to the land of fractured dreams. Nagmerrie, Solomon had wasted on Jake, wasn't as merry as all that.

Chapter 7

When Jake in fact bumped into Metcalfe a few days later it was surprising how easily he slipped into their former politely cautious relationship. They talked cars or sport. After the first cut of the season Metcalfe had complimented Jake on the neat stripes of his lawnmowing, which about covered his interest in horticulture. The head of the family wasn't there much so most of his contact was in gardening chats with Cecily. She loved flowers but was luckily ignorant of their cultivation so Jake's occasional blunders weren't often noticed. The garden had in any case been designed for low maintenance and featured mainly shrubs and perennials. Azaleas, camellias, rhododendrons. Jake passed many peaceful hours (and quite a few panicky minutes) with an old gardening book by Farthing which he'd found in an Oxfam shop. Farthing maintained that no lawn cut by mowing-machine could compare to one cut by a skilful wielder of the scythe. Jake had swung a lightweight Turkish scythe against a stout clump of pampas grass and it had bounced off. Rumour had it that the dead growth was stifling the plant and should be periodically burned off. So one dry winter's afternoon Jake touched the tender little flame from his Zippo to the dry razoredged tip of a parchment-coloured leaf. Three seconds later it was as if he'd snatched the rods from a nuclear reactor as the grass exploded in flame.

Jake chucked on the bucket of water he'd brought to soak some potentilla roots before planting but it was spitting on a herring when the sea's dried up. The roaring monster spat charcoal quills at him and drove him back with its fierce heat.

'Jake!' Cecily had arrived on the scene. 'What on earth are you doing?'

'Oh, don't worry.'

The fire had spread to the wall of rhododendron behind it. The leathery dark-green leaves blistered and burst then burned with an unpleasant tang. There was a cheery crackle of twigs.

'You're supposed to burn them now and then.' Jake feigned competence. 'Gets rid of all the dead growth. Grassland thrives after a fire and you have to hold heather seeds in a sieve over a fire until they pop to get them to germinate.'

'But what about my rhododendron? I'm very fond of this hedge.'

'That's also a member of the heather family, funnily enough,' Jake soothed her. 'It'll grow back in no time. I must admit I didn't expect the fire to be quite so vigorous. I could get the hose but it seems to be dying back now. Oh well, at least the ash is full of phosphates. That pampas grass will come back lovely and green.'

'Hm. I certainly hope so. Look, please don't do anything like this without asking me first.'

'Of course. I'm sorry Mrs. Metcalfe.'

'I told you to call me Cecily.' She smiled and held out her hands to the fire. 'Mind you, I must admit it gives out a lovely heat. Anyway, there's a cup of tea waiting for you in the shed.'

'Lovely. Thanks, Cecily. But I'd better wait here a while until I'm sure it's safe. Anyway I quite like my tea cold.'

Cecily went.

'Phew,' thought Jake, 'some strange undercurrents there, for sure.' Could he bed her? Would she be amused, flattered or insulted? She had help three mornings a week but it was still a fulltime job running the house. Sukie never lifted a finger. It was plain that Cecily liked having someone intelligent to talk to although he was sure she'd never been less than ladylike to Len. She sometimes played her Bosendorfer grand, rippling off some creditable Schumann and Chopin and she talked matter-of-factly of the Maltings, Snape and watching the tennis at Wimbledon although golf was her real passion. The stack of CDs in the boot of Metcalfe's car showed a less demanding musical taste. He liked gutsy vocalists like Frank Sinatra, Tom Jones, Shirley Bassey. There was also a disc of brass bands playing Beatles arrangements as well as a couple of remnants of his youth: Bridge Over Troubled Water and, oddly, Weasels Ripped My Flesh.

Chris Metcalfe worked hard. He had to set off at six in the morning to be at his desk by nine and he sometimes didn't get home till ten at night. Still, he stoutly swore that he would never live anywhere but in the country.

Time passed. To Jake's enormous relief fresh green spears appeared through the spiky black crown which had been the Pampas grass. Solomon's month came and went and there seemed no reason for Jake to move on. By April the pampas grass was flourishing and the rhododendron hedge behind it was green again. The dark red flowerheads stood out as if the plant had sweated footballs of blood.

After the last spying expedition, Jake had spent an entire afternoon clearing clematis from the gutters and tying it in around the windows. He'd inspected every inch of the lounge for possible hidingplaces but the video cabinet in the far corner from their vantage-point was the obvious candidate. It was a handsome piece, possibly mahogany, but to Jake's knowing eye, homemade. And, he had to admit, well done. He envied Metcalfe his lathe and router. The cabinet was topped by a broken pediment cupping a sphere, which neatly filled the alcove's little arch. Plenty of scope for secret compartments there. Or behind the seven shelves of videos. Or as a false bottom in the drawer below. Of course Metcalfe may simply have put down the video and hidden it somewhere else later. Or he may brazenly have put it among the others with a label so naff that no-one would ever be tempted to view it. To look through each of the couple of hundred videos there would take a lifetime.

He remembered being bust and the incongruous feeling of pity for the bored policewoman searching through his many books page by page. Looking for LSD, he'd supposed. Microdots or blotting-paper. As it happened he'd had only hash in the house that day. He remembered a previous occasion when the police had called – how he'd plunged his scales into the washing-up water as they came through the door. He'd just weighed out the last of his dope for a customer and was clean. They never found the scales. Ow! An uninvited rose slipped a thorn straight through his rough leather gloves. A snick of the secateurs and a twist of twine...

'Jake.'

He started. 'Sorry uh Cecily. I was miles away.'

A complicitous smile. She too had her dreamy moments.

'I'm taking Sarah into Brighton to buy some some shoes,' she told him. 'I may not be back before you go so I've left your money in the garage. Gosh, that rose looks a lot better. It's covered with yellow flowers all summer and they have a heavenly scent.'

She smelt pretty good herself, thought Jake. Something fresh, lemony, sweet. Freesias. Would she welcome his rough dirty hands on her soft, scented skin, the scrape of his bristles on her powdered cheek. He imagined her still-trim body under all that tweed and cashmere and silk. The taste of moist pussy, face buried in her springy blonde tuft. She was talking. Lady Luvverly's Chatter.

He answered, she smiled and clicked away, scarcely twitching her stiff English hips.

Damn! With her and Sukie out of the way he felt obliged to at least try and break in but a perfunctory examination showed the French doors unusually bolted as well as locked. Phew.

Solomon was up in London putting in a few days with his neverloving wife. He had also, finally, plucked up the courage to be tested for HIV after nearly persuading himself that his sight was failing, but the return of spring made him concede that it had probably been only the feeble winter light.

Ruthie had come over to go through some new information she'd turned up. Andrea's attitude struck her as funny. She seemed fond of Solomon but never displayed the slightest hint of jealousy when he played squash with herself or took her to a movie or the occasional meal. She didn't know whether to feel flattered at being trusted or insulted as a fat and ugly Celt who represented no threat. And Andrea, though perfectly friendly, never seemed to touch, still less kiss, her husband. Another factor was Andrea's cousin Sandie who was staying with them; and who was given to not very covertly glaring at both Ruthie and Solomon and simpering at Andrea. And still Ruthie didn't guess.

At last Solomon told her: 'Andy and Sandie are how you say partners. My marriage is a sham – Andy just did me a favour as a friend. Not a word of this to anyone, of course.'

Ruthie laughed with relief, especially when it turned out that Sandie's animus was based on a fear that Ruthie would tempt Andrea away. Solomon she merely hated as a man. But then why, Ruthie asked herself, was Solomon so studiously platonic? Could he have sworn an oath of celibacy until the massacre at Olieboom was avenged? Did he want to save himself for a Coloured bride? Maybe he just didn't fancy her. But they had fun, didn't they? Unless he was merely using her to get at the meagre information she could glean. Oh well, as Kingsley Amis had remarked of the Welsh, if you're to be cheated anyway, much better to be cheated cheerfully. She fingered the bar in her pocket. Snickers. Nicked from the Snicker-Snack company in Schultz's Peanuts. She could remember when they'd been called Marathons. At least chocolate was always there for you.

A phone call from the surgery found Solomon walking down to find out the results of his HIV test. He took his time, considering his possible life as a pariah squared. He'd have to stay in Britain for life-prolonging drugs on the NHS: to return to South Africa would mean a choice of penury or a miserably inexorable death. He had passed the surgery door three times. On this cool April morning he was beginning to sweat. He sometimes woke at night to find his pillow drenched. The Man with Night Sweats, mown down by Thommy Gunn. This pale jeu d'esprit restored his spirits. He took a deep breath and went in. Three quarters of an hour and two caravanning magazines later he saw the doctor. A locum. The guy he'd seen last time was away. The name sellotaped to the door said: Dr. Morris Katz. A black cat had crossed his path on the way but Solomon, despising superstition, forgot if that was supposed to be good or bad luck. The doctor shook hands, smiled and said: 'Yis. And what can we do for you today Mr. Witbooi?'

Well, well. A Joburg Jew. Solomon was surprised at how affecting it was to have one's name properly pronounced.

'I've come to hear the results of my HIV test.'

'Oh. Right.' The doctor composed his face in case the news was bad. He'd had lots of practice with the black patients at Baragwanath, back home. He leafed through Solomon's scanty file, found the report and spent a long twenty seconds reading it, emitting the occasional satisfied grunt. He looked up and smiled again. 'Good news. It's negative. There's no sign of infection. Um,' Dr. Katz was studiedly neutral, 'I don't know if you indulge in a high-risk lifestyle but condoms are a good idea. I can give you some leaflets if you want.'

'No thanks. When you say high-risk I suppose you mean either gay, a junkie, or sexually promiscuous. I'd say I'm in more of a no-risk group at the moment but thanks anyway. Who'd have thought negative could be such a lovely word, hey? No, I'm all for stable relationships but I just haven't found the right horse.'

The doctor smiled wintrily and began straightening Solomon's file.

'Is there anything else, Mr. Witbooi?'

'No thanks. All those AIDS symptoms I was worried about ten minutes ago seem to have suddenly vanished. But I wonder if I could ask you a personal question?'

A quick glance at the watch. 'Yes,' a little warily, 'what is it?'

'I know Katz is a common Jewish name but when I heard the dear old Joburg accent it occurred to me that you might be related to an old friend of mine, Selwyn Katz. Last I heard of him he was working as a vet in Benoni.'

'Selwyn. Yis, he's a second cousin of mine as a matter of fact.' The professional mask had slipped – they were just a couple of expats six thousand miles from home. 'You're a Capetonian of course. How did you come to know Sel?'

'He did part of his training in Stellenbosch and we met at the local computer club. We had some great times together. Remember me to him. Solomon Witbooi.'

'I can do better than that. He's back and forth to Europe quite a bit lately. He said something about coming over to the UK for some bull's semen for a cattle-breeder in the Free State. He said he'd get in touch.'

'Great stuff.' Solomon handed over his card. 'My number's on that. Thanks. And thanks for the other good news.'

They shook again, cordially this time. Solomon floated out onto the street and into a delightfully flirty little shower. No HIV! He was aware of how heavily the fear had weighed on him only now that it had gone. To think of all the girls he could have been screwing (er, who?). He had become quite obsessive about not, for instance, leaving an infective droplet on the toilet seat or getting scratched by a cat during a playful tussle in case the creature later sank its claws into a child. He'd even become a reluctant kisser as some studies claimed that AIDS could be passed on in the saliva. On the flight over from South Africa he'd heard a white man say that while AIDS was a terrible thing, at least it was cutting overpopulation and unemployment. Such a pity Andrea was a lesbian. And that he and Ruthie were just good friends. Talking of good friends, it would be great to see Selwyn again.

The shower passed. The new leaves glistened in the sun. The upside-down worlds in the pendent droplets on a privet hedge were freshly charming. A tabby cat watched a bird at a feeder from a sunny windowsill. He'd never thought that the narrow little London gardens with their choreographed strips of flowerbed, crocus and tulip could be so attractive. And Jake had opened his eyes to the beauty of the countryside around Uckwash, the jewelled delicacy of British wildflowers compared to South Africa's swaggering blooms. Solomon had told Jake the little he knew about the Cape fynbos, the world's biggest diversity of wild flowers. Of course it was now threatened by 'development'. He had to admit that he actively disliked the national flower, the protea, with its fleshy hair-fringed petals tinged with pink. What Nietzsche said about strange freaks and monsters hatched by the fierce southern sun was, thought Solomon, right on the button. Brazen flowers mocked and flirted. Thorns and poisons abounded. South African birds were harsh and raucous and extravagantly beautiful. British birds were more soberly dapper with melodious, liquid songs. Almost worth suffering through a dismal winter for. And English nature was by no means all peace and love. He well remembered taking off his shirt on the first really hot summer's day of his first year of exile and of lying back contentedly on a lush green bank of nettles. Len had told of destroying a nest of eleven adders he'd found under an old door in the corner of the farmyard. Solomon saw again the photograph in Arthur Mee's Children's Encyclopaedia which Auntie Minnie had got for him at a church bazaar. The viper, with its zigzag stripe and wicked wedgeshaped head. On a walk throught the woods, Jake had idly thrust a stick into a hole in the ground and discovered a wasp's nest. Who'd have thought the laconic old fellow capable of such a turn of speed?

Jake's resolution to eschew drugs had lasted all of three days. Solomon offered to assume the sole responsibility if they were caught - as what would probably mean a fine to him could conceivably throw Jake back in jail. But one thing that Jake did stick to was that dealing was out. He made no effort to contact former business associates and the couple of friends who'd made discreet enquiries had been left in no doubt as to Jake's reformation. But the boys were careful. They smoked only in Solomon's bedroom, where the mixture of skunk and peppermint tea which Solomon favoured, mingled with incense to give what Jake described as the smell of feathers burning in a brothel. The whiff which sometimes reached the street raised the odd knowing eyebrow but people minded their own business. The boys also took care not to get involved in the local drug scene. When Solomon was in London he usually took a trip down to Brixton to see his Rasta friend Ephraim and top up his supply but most of his time was taken up with work. Segue Animations was grinding through the contractual minutiae of being licensed to a major movie company and although Solomon had at last achieved his longheld ambition to become a sleeping partner, it was a hollow victory. He'd also been retained as a programming consultant which meant endless hours ironing out wrinkles and programming in needless features capriciously demanded by his moronic clients. The worst of it was that he could often have slotted in standard subroutines but he was only really happy with his own elegant and original solutions. Still, it meant that he could afford to indulge his dreams of vengeance, pay an amateur detective and keep up two admittedly modest establishments. On top of which his sex-life continued nonexistent. He'd told Ruthie of his negative HIV test but she had fallen neither into neither his arms nor his bed. She had reluctantly come to the conclusion that Solomon was gay, or at best bisexual. Besides they were such good friends that it seemed crazy to rock the boat. So Solomon walked the streets sickened by the proximity of thousands of bush-badged cunts under flimsy cover. Daa dada dum dum dum dada da in an English cunt rega-arding?
Chapter 8

'Ah Jake. There you are.'

The gardener switched off the electric hedgecutter with relief. It was hell munching through the sappy Leylandii growth.

'Afternoon, Mr. Metcalfe. Isn't it a lovely day?'

'Glorious. Look, I know you're busy,' Metcalfe sounded a little apprehensive, 'but is there any chance you could give my car a quick wash. It's just that we're off to Scotland tomorrow to get in a few days' golf.'

'Sure. Can I just finish this side up to the corner?'

'Of course. There's no hurry. I must say it's lovely and peaceful out here.'

'A lot of people make the mistake of thinking that gardening's a peaceful occupation.' Jake gave a wryly tolerant smile, 'but there's at least as much death and destruction involved as there is nurturing. Take your eye off the ball for a minute and you're up to your neck in brambles.'

'Yes, I suppose that's so. I've never looked at it like that.' Metcalfe shrugged. 'To tell the truth as long as it looks good, that's all I care about and I must say you've made an excellent job of it.'

'Thanks. I enjoy it.'

Metcalfe thought with distaste of Len Chicken, with his surly excuses and that repulsive smell made up of sweat, cheap tobacco and the horse liniment which Len smeared on his legs for rheumatism. Why, he wondered idly, had Jake taken to such a lowly occupation? Nice little hobby, or what? OK he was a typical hippie but at least he worked hard. Metcalfe was relaxed about drugs. He'd tried amphetamines and he knew full well why some of his business colleagues came back bright-eyed and snuffly from the toilets. But long liquid business lunches had gone out of fashion and there was increasing antagonism to smoking. He'd already changed his share portfolio from tobacco to pharmaceuticals.

'Right then.' Back to business. 'I'll leave all the gubbins by the car and I'll see you later.'

As Metcalfe strode off he took a dictaphone-thingy from his pocket and spoke into it briefly. All Jake heard was the word 'Proteus' and he knew that already. He pulled the trigger and the clipper chattered into its dance of death.

Metcalfe had left out a bucket, a chamois leather and various chemicals. Jake set to with what Solomon called a wont and half an hour later he was just buffing up a gloss on the bodywork when the boss reappeared.

'Ah,' he said regretfully. 'You're finished already. I forgot to give you this alloy-wheel cleaner to try. It's a new thing we're going to bring out.'

'I'll try it,' obliged Jake. 'I only gave the wheels a quick once-over anyway.' He took the aerosol can which had WX41A stencilled on it and shook it briefly. Inside the cap was a label for Keate Aerosols Ltd. Jake hid his satisfaction at another possible link and began the business of squirting foam into the intricate crannies of the wheels. More bad design, he thought. Alloys were a con. The average driver noticed no difference in handling and they were hell to clean compared to a smooth chrome hubcap. And if reducing unsprung weight was the goal, why not inboard discs like the Citroen DS? That said, this stuff seemed quite effective. Metcalfe himself had a go after hanging his coat on a nearby pergola.

'Chri-is! Oh, there you are darling. Call for you. I think it's Reggie.'

'Righto. I'm coming.'

He went. Jake fettled a moment longer then glanced around him. No-one. He picked up Metcalfe's jacket and took it into the garage. He would claim that he hadn't wanted to risk splashing it when he rinsed off the alloys, if challenged. An oblong bulge in the righthand pocket turned out to be the dictaphone. Jake saw with some annoyance that it was a nonstandard tape. Damn. He'd just have to listen to it now. With an ear to the snick of a catch or the crunch of gravel he rewound its shrieking length. PLAY was followed by a hiss and then a loud squawk. OFF. Thank Christ. Jake waited and heard nothing. When his heart stopped racing he turned the volume control to 1 and tried again. A tinny simulacrum of Metcalfe's voice said: 'Tee off at nine sharp.' Bleep. 'Remember dentist two thirty Wednesday.' Bleep. 'Phone Jass about Carly.' Bleep. 'Dryclean suit for Max's wedding.' The only faintly intriguing things were the remark about Jass and something about protecting the Proteus trademark in Indonesia. That was it. Jake reran the tape to the end of its last message, wiped it for prints and put it back where he'd found it.

A quick rummage through the other pockets revealed only a penknife and a business card from a Thai restaurant with the name Nick and a phone number. Jake spent a minute memorising the number. He liked mnemonics. Four five add one two four... Nick. The Golden Circle. He wiped and replaced the card and hung up the coat on a nail. He'd got away with it. Jake reconnected the hose, which he'd already used and put away again, and sauntered out into the bright afternoon.

Solomon was in the house when Jake got back and was interested to hear Jake's paltry haul. 'Carly doesn't ring a bell,' he bit his lip, 'but if Jass isn't an affectionate contraction of Jasper, I'll eat my hat.'

'Jasper Keate as in Keate Aerosols?'

'You got it. There might be nothing in it but a simple commercial link-up - but the fact of Keate's being a South African and involved in aerosols makes me wonder. The big problem with chemical weapons has always been the delivery system.'

'I know what you mean. That Aum Shinriko attack on the underground in Japan relied on Sarin gas seeping out of punctured plastic bags. They could have killed thousands if they hadn't been so inept. What if they'd packaged it like air freshener?'

'Or sprayed it into the air-conditioning system of a sealed building, or a plane. The old problem of the wind changing and blowing mustard gas back at your own side would be solved.' Solomon chuckled. 'I remember once forcing open a window in an airconditioned hotel and sending the whole system into spastic shock. Talking of which, I could do with some fresh air.'

They went out into the garden to ponder their next move. A cracked concrete path bisected a strip of muddy grass and allowed access to the washing-line. In one corner a little flowering cherry had dropped its petals which lay in soggy drifts, like used Kleenex. Jake had built the chickens a run which they had immediately denuded of all vegetation but they had both commenced to lay. Solomon dredged up some childhood memories of fowl husbandry and gave them some straw to scratch in and a cabbage-stalk tied to the wire to peck at which kept them amused for hours. The gardens of their little terrace backed onto some scrubby waste ground bordered by the road to a nearby industrial estate. The brambles and bushes were full of rubbish – carrier bags, building rubble, broken glass and the occasional condom but Jake preferred the profusion of wild flowers to the neatly regimented gardens flanking the street. Their own garden consisted of a narrow border along each fence with a sad collection of shrubs and perennials which Jake hadn't the heart to do more than keep tidy. One set of neighbours was a retired working-class couple who kept a vegetable patch which yielded a succession of crops all year. Kale, parsnips and leeks in winter and salads, peas and beans, cabbage and swedes in summer and autumn. Jake sometimes swapped half a dozen eggs for a carrier-bag full of leaf-beet or a huge bunch of radishes. The Stockers were OK. The other side was a motorbike mechanic who sometimes brought his work home with him but given Jake's love of machines and Solomon's taste for speed, their limited contacts were amicable enough.

Coronation Terrace had been part of a council-house estate but most of the occupants had excercised their 'right to buy' during the Thatcher years without elevating the general tone. It was still a rough area. A family in the next block were in and out of jail for theft and there were plenty of drugs about. The local school was forever being broken into or set on fire. Cars ranged from the most decrepit of bangers to BMWs and the occasional Porsche. There was enough racism, violence, extremes of poverty and wealth for Solomon to feel quite at home. Of course the Brits had not the faintest idea of real poverty – even the relatively few homeless were provided with food and shelter and it was always possible to eat well from dustbins. What he missed was the loud cheerfulness of many Cape Coloureds in the face of long odds on prosperity. The Sussex folk, by and large, were a miserable bunch.

'Nice day,' he'd heard one female shopper remark.

'We shall pay for it,' her friend replied.

Chapter 9

The Metcalfes went off to their golf tournament in Scotland, Sarah's school choir was singing in Bremen and Rufus had gone into kennels for his spring grooming session. Everything was set fair for the team's second attempt at burglary. It was sensible to assume that the police had been asked to keep an eye on the place and Jake had made an alarm for the top of the drive from a television zapper and a photoelectric cell. But there was a change of plan.

Ruthie had arrived unexpectedly on the Saturday afternoon with exciting news. It seemed that Solomon's old pal Selwyn was in town. He'd left a message with Andrea to the effect that his father, Doc, had recently died and Selwyn had found something very interesting in his papers.

'What sort of thing?' asked Solomon.

'He didn't say. But I managed to phone him and it seems he'll be in Eastbourne tomorrow. I invited him for lunch – hope you don't mind.'

'Of course not. Good idea, as long as we're not in chookie.'

Ruthie's hand flew to her mouth in alarm.

'Why do you say that? You're not joking, are you? What have you been up to now?'

The conspirators exchanged a glance. Jake nodded. She could be useful if they needed an alibi. Solomon took a moment to consider the implications, then spoke:

'Well, Ruthie, me and my old china Jake are going to engage in some illegal activity tonight but if you'd rather not know what I'll ho wa ha.' He held his tongue.

'Illegal?' queried Ruthie tartly. 'What, you mean worse than selling dope or hacking into banks? Of course I want to know. I'm already into your skulduggery up to the neck.'

'It's nothing to do with drugs,' Solomon reassured her. 'More like a bit of light burglary with hacking on the side.'

'I prefer to think of it as gathering evidence in a good cause.' Jake took the moral high ground. 'Basically we want to borrow a videotape and scan a few hard disks. The house is deserted, the dog's in kennels, I know how to disable the burglar alarm, I have a key and I'm scared shitless.'

'This wouldn't be your man Metcalfe, would it?' Ruthie was quick off the mark. 'It sounds grand fun. I could do with a bit of the old craic. I'm coming too.' She fixed her clear green eyes so implacably on Solomon's muddy brown that he had to smile.

'No you're not. We may need you to provide an alibi for us. Swear we were playing Cluedo in front of the fire until three in the morning. Or at worst fix up a lawyer and bail.'

'If you think I'm going to sit here chewing my nails while they haul you off in what the ignorant call a Paddy wagon, you're sadly mistaken. We won't get caught. I only hope it's not a wild-goose chase. Don't forget I've spent a year of my rapidly-dwindling life researching every aspect of this reptile Metcalfe's business dealings and while there's been plenty of distasteful stuff I haven't found anything actually illegal. Sadly, selling arms to murderers doesn't actually make him a murderer.'

'But deliberately spraying a couple of tramps with napalm might.' Solomon told Ruthie the story of their previous attempt including the snuff movie, the Arab strap and the tantalising few seconds of blurry security camera footage. By the time he'd finished her nostrils had flared and her substantial chest was heaving with indignation.

'Of course,' Jake felt constrained to point out, 'possession of a nauseating video doesn't necessarily make him a murderer either. There could be some simple explanation. I must admit that the guy doesn't strike me as an evil mastermind but then Fred West's neighbours found him charming and affable.'

There was a moment's sober silence.

'Oh, by the way, Solomon,' Ruthie remembered, 'I phoned Keate Aerosols and said I was temping for a firm of lawyers and had found a post-it stuck to the desk diary with a note saying: "Phone Jasper about Carly" and their number. The switchboard eventually put me onto this guy with a strong South African accent and I said I was sorry to bother him about Carly but no-one at my end seemed to know anything and I thought I'd better check. And he said: "Ja, Carly, what about it? Who are you again?". I went into my spiel but all the time I was wondering why he'd said "it" instead of "her". It was like Carly was a thing rather than a person. He sounded pretty suspicious at first but I think I convinced him that I knew nothing and was just some airheaded bimbo who'd got her signals crossed. But I definitely touched a nerve there.' Ruthie looked into her own head and came up with: 'He said Cully rather than Carly'

'Hm. Good work Ruthie.' Solomon patted her shoulder. 'Could be an acronym. I've looked on the net but there's nothing. How about um Corporate Assassins, say, Routinely Liquidate Yokels?'

'Very funny, I don't think. Anyway,' Ruthie briskly dusted her hands, 'I'm coming along. I'm not cut out for the role of the little woman sitting at home frantic with worry while the boys have all the fun.'

'You forget,' Solomon was maddeningly patient, 'that we may need you for an alibi. What good would it do to have all three of us banged up? Not to mention your abject fear of moths.'

'You swine,' grinned Ruthie. 'That's hitting below the belt. I can control myself. I don't always scream. It's just that they're so fluttery. Ugh!'

A compromise was reached. Ruthie was to be allowed to come along as a lookout, being stationed at the top of the drive with one mobile phone while Solomon hung on to its twin. Silently vibrating call signals were programmed in and tested.

After lunch Jake set off to check that the coast was clear and to disable the floodlights. Solomon discussed the plan with Ruthie in obsessive detail, despite being mockingly aware of how in these situations he invariably tossed his elaborate preparations out of the window and winged it. But what he had got from Jake was a list of the Metcalfes' family names as well as nicknames (Pookie, Sukie) and maiden names. Cecily had been a Louch. Chris's middle name was Eugene. Football clubs, favourite music, drinks. Solomon knew that people's computer passwords tended to be such easily-remembered favourite things. He had a list of twenty-three possibilities but would be bringing along a code-cracking program just in case.

The afternoon dragged. Ruthie made tea and brought out the soda-bread and plum jam which her mother had sent via a cousin passing through.

'Are you and Jake happy together then?' she asked lightly.

Solomon looked startled, then amused. He gave a yell of laughter. 'Is that what you think,' he got out between the chuckles, 'that we're an item? Ag sies, man. No no we're just good friends. Where did you grab that notion?'

'Well,' Ruthie was flustered, 'I just sort of assumed that since Andrea was a lesbian and you never mentioned having girlfriends and you were tested for HIV. You know how easy it is to pick up things to support a belief. And then Jake's always seemed unnaturally neat and tidy for a man. A good cook, too. That's unusual, or at least unlike my brothers. Whew. Well, that's out of the way. So, all good friends again.'

'And jolly good company. The worshipful company of burgling detectives.' Solomon broke off as a key snicked in the latch and Jake appeared in the kitchen doorway. 'Mission accomplished,' he said. 'I had a story ready about having lost my Swiss army knife in the guttering if anyone happened by and found me up a ladder, but no-one came. Do I recognise your Mum's soda-bread there, Ruthie. I don't know how she does it. It's so moist and delicious. Mine always comes out dry and tasting of Eno's.'

'Proof positive,' murmured Solomon, rolling his eyes madly. Ruthie smiled and blushed.

Jake fell in with the banter. 'Discussing me the minute my back's turned eh? Come on then, out with it.'

'Ruthie here's been labouring under the delusion that you and I are lovers, like those Scotch lads of my youth, Ben Doon and Phil Macavity.'

'Really? Any relation to Patrick Fitzalan and Alan Fitzpatrick? Well, no offence Solomon but you've never attracted me in that way.' This was almost true. 'In fact I've never understood what a woman can see in any man. To me they're pretty much universally repulsive.'

'Oh, I wouldn't go quite so far,' teased Ruthie. 'One or two are quite acceptable. Besides looks aren't that important in a man. Not like for us women. Why couldn't I have been born in an age when fat was fashionable?'

'You're not fat,' Solomon gallantly scoffed. 'Just nicely covered. Very nicely, if you're fishing for compliments. You women don't realise your power to drive us mad, walking about stark naked under your clothes like that. But enough. For the moment you can unsex yourself à la Lady Macbeth. We've got work to do.

Chapter 10

The night was clear and cold. A sliver of moon gave a surprisingly good light. The Fiesta was left behind the little knapped-flint Norman church of St. Peter in Chains, out of sight of the road. There followed half-an-hour's walk through the slippery yellow clay of a mature wood surrounded by the smooth, soaring trunks of beech, the capriciously kinked oak branches and the clustered poles of coppiced chestnut. Few people walked the wood at any time but there were a couple of bridleways and a somewhat overgrown footpath connecting two dormitory villages. They startled a huge owl (and it them) which floated off down a tunnel through the rhododendrons on eerily silent wings. They walked on in squelchy silence lest a rabbit-poacher was out at two o'clock of a Sunday morning checking his snares. Unlikely. Len had told the boys that the best time was just before the dawn.

The Metcalfes' garden backed onto the wood. At the gate the gang abandoned their clay-beslubbered wellies and put on new trainers. The security lights stayed dead and the house seemed dark and deserted but Jake looked in the garage to check that the Lexus had gone and that only Cecily's little Peugeot convertible was there. Ruthie carried on up the drive to the road. She found a spot behind an old yew from which she could keep an eye out unseen and settled nervously to wait. Her finger stroked the keypad of her mobile. One press on MEM 1 would alert Solomon. Jake, putting his prison training to use, had insisted that the first thing was to open all the doors as possible escape routes. At the first hint of discovery, they would flee to the woods. Ruthie listened hard. There was a faint rumble of traffic from the Eastbourne road and something was rustling in the dry leaves of the beech hedge but that was all. She had heard no breaking glass so presumably Jake's key had fitted and he had been able to quell the alarm. Unless, Oh God! it was connected directly to the police-station and Her Majesty's finest were already bearing down on them. Her excuse for hanging around the scene of the crime – that she'd been dumped there by an irate boyfriend for refusing to have sex with him - seemed ludicrous in the face of her muddy doubled tracksuit. Headlights. Ruthie held her breath as they swept up and past. She visualised physically unknotting her intestines and sucked on a peardrop. They took about four minutes, she knew, to dissolve completely. Her tongue explored the sharp edge of an exposed bubble. About two minutes. Could she resist the urge to crunch? The night wore on, slow as a glacier.

Jake had in fact not yet got in. Someone had carelessly left the key in the lock on the other side and it had taken some delicate jiggling with the tweezers from his Swiss Army knife to align the flange and slot. A brisk jab with the screwdriver and the key fell with an uncalled-for clatter on the Quarry-tiled sill. The trepid heroes waited until sure there was no response and Jake got out his homemade key. With a minimum of coaxing the wards lifted and the bolt slid back. Now for it. He dashed for the alarm while Solomon made for the stairs. Jake had a moment of panic that an intervening door had been locked, but he was just pushing where he should have pulled. Never had a twenty-second delay seemed so short. He punched in the code and the baleful little red eye resumed its standby blink. The Yale locks on the back and front door gave no trouble and soon they were open. There was always the suspense of not knowing what an opened door might reveal, but this time there was only clear moonlit air. Jake, in his balaclava and strapped-on unlit headlight looked out on semi-rural peace for a moment then took a deep breath and set to work.

Jake had once carried a Monstera up to Metcalfe's study and his description led Solomon straight to the computer on the desk. It was, he saw with pleasure, a top-of-the range model with bells and whistles. Neeow. Groink groink. Groink. The opening screen came up. Bugger, he needed a password. He feverishly tried this and that in the confident touch-typing which Auntie Minnie had insisted he learn, clicking along to Sousa marches on the old radiogram. Just as well it wasn't programmed to seize up after three goes.

Jake had meanwhile crossed the lounge, barking his shin on the sharp steel corner of the coffee-table. The curtains were drawn. He thought he could chance his miner's headlight and headed straight for the video cabinet. The drawer underneath contained nothing but some old magazines and a box of golfballs and tees. Perhaps he'd simply hidden the video behind the carved pediment. Jake's latex-clad fingers felt gently along. Ah. A piece of wood, perhaps? Snap! Jake snatched back his hand with the mousetrap still attached. Country life. Dontcha just love it? Well, that was a black nail for sure. Teach him to be lazy. He lugged over a chair and climbed up for a closer look but there was nothing on top but dust. However, the ornamentation in front showed promise, especially a central sphere on a spindle which had a micron or so of play. Jake pulled. No. Twisted. No. Twisted the other way. Hm. Springloaded. Twist and push. No. Twist and pull. At last. A panel above the top shelf of videos fell open revealing a shallow cubbyhole in which lay two videos jauntily labelled Corporate Accounting Procedures parts 1 and 2 but Jake took that with a grain of salt. He slipped a video into each anorak pocket and closed up the cache, noting with interest the doublejointed concealed hinges and the moulding which hid the gap round the edge. Done. Out. With luck they'd have the videos copied and returned by tomorrow. He quickly scanned the open shelves for anything of interest but they seemed to be mainly movies apart from a shelf of a dozen documentaries including one on Namibia. He noted the name and hurried off to see how Solomon was getting on. Badly, it seemed. He'd tried all Jake's suggestions and was getting ready to admit defeat and unleash his random password generator which would undoubtedly work but might take hours. He could just steal the hard disk but that would certainly put the wind up Metcalfe. Besides he couldn't really fiddle with tiny screws with his clumsy fingers further hampered by latex gloves. A faint creak from the carpeted stairs could only be Jake; and seconds later their light-beams fenced playfully about the room.

'Any luck?' asked Solomon.

'I found a couple of tapes that should be of interest. And you?'

'Nothing yet. I can't get in. Have you had any more ideas about possible passwords?' Solomon proffered the list.

Jake eyed it without enthusiasm. 'Hey, wait a minute,' he observed, 'I said Chelsea but I think he's actually a Gunners fan, you know, Arsenal.'

'Horribly appropriate.' Solomon shrugged and tapped in the letters and a look of surprise followed by a broad grin were obscured by the balaclava. 'Bingo. Jake, you're a genius. Though only a moron could confuse Chelsea and Arsenal.' A string of noughts and ones hurtled through the wires connecting the two computers. Lights flashed, drives stuttered and grunted and the phone in Solomon's pocket suddenly goosed his leg.

He snatched it out.

'What?'

'I don't want to worry you but I think there's a police car coming down the road. They don't seem in any particular hurry but I think you'd better get out of there.'

'OK. we're nearly finished. Keep out of sight.' He wedged the phone between neck and shoulder and told Jake: 'Ru, er, contact. Says there's a police car approaching. It's probably nothing but why don't you get out of here and I'll follow in a minute. Lock the front door.'

Jake flew. His heart was pounding but his thoughts had never been clearer or his senses sharper. He closed the front door and locked the French windows leaving the key in the lock.

'Oh my God Solomon, they're slowing down.' Ruthie felt an incipient trickle and clamped her legs together. 'They're turning in. Get out now!'

'On my way.' Solomon ripped out cables and ran. He remembered to click-lock the back door and headed for the woods. Gravel crunched in the drive. Solomon didn't want to cross the moonlit lawn so he dived into the bell-tent cover of a portly rhododendron in full bloom.

Car doors slammed. Footsteps. A rattled door-handle. Two policemen, fat and thin, sauntered into view and began circling the house widdershins. Solomon was more relieved than words could say that they hadn't brought a dog. He waited for them to complete their perfunctory inspection and go, but they returned to the French windows. What had they seen? A dizzy spell swept over him and he squatted on his haunches, twining his limbs through the dusty branches. He watched in amazement as one copper ( a certain Constable Yapp) took out his truncheon and coolly poked it through the glass while his pal kept lookout. Then they were in. It took Solomon a moment to realise what was happening and then a flood of (silent) hilarity rose in him. They must have been relieved that the alarm was off although as police they presumably knew the code. Nietzsche hit the nail on the head when he said that we're prouder of our luck than of our achievements.

Light penetrated chinks in the curtains and sounds of violence to furniture ensued.

Solomon touched two buttons and Ruthie's apprehensive voice was in his ear.

'Yes?'

'Hi. It's me. No names. We're out but guess what? The cops are doing over the place themselves. How many were there?'

'Just the two.'

'Excellent. All accounted for. Bit of a turnup for the books, eh?'

'Indeed. If I weren't a white-haired mass of jelly I'd probably find it funny. Can we go home now?'

'Sure. Do you want us to bring the car round for you or can you make it safely past the house?'

'I'll make a run for it – I can't stay here a second longer.'

'Good girl. I'm in the middle of a big creamy-flowered bush on the back lawn and our significant other was last seen heading for the tall timber. The upstairs lights have just come on. Now or never.'

Half a minute later Solomon saw a crouched figure speeding through the broken shadow of the hedge and sprinted across the lawn to join her. Neither hue nor cry followed them. Panting, they burst through the open gate and into the gloomy woods beyond. They stopped to let their eyes adjust to the dimness.

'Took your time getting here, I must say.' Jake did Ena Sharples. 'Oo's fer a claggy welly then?'

Relieved hugs all round, wellies on and kit stowed.

The joke of the burgling police was too good to suppress and the steady squelching was broken by snorts and giggles. They walked taller by the step as the sticky clay built up under their bootsoles.

'I suppose it would be frightfully juvenile,' mused Solomon.

'What would?' asked Ruthie edgily. 'I'm not up to any more adventures tonight.'

'Oh, there'd be practically no danger. I'm just wondering whether we should should throw a little scare into our two upright custodians of law and order. Wouldn't it be amusing if the nextdoor neighbours phoned the police to report that they'd seen lights on and they knew the Metcalfes were away for the weekend?'

Ruthie chortled as the idea grew on her. 'Oh yes. Let me do it. Pretty please.'

'No, that thick brogue of yours is too easy to recognise. I doubt if Ulster Irish is flavour of the month down the cop shop.'

'Waal, ah kin dew Amurrcan. Ah wouldn't mayory yew Rhett Butler ef'n y'all wuz the layest mayen in shoe leathah.'

'Mother of God. No, I'll do it,' said Jake firmly. 'They would wonder what a hillbilly was doing in deepest Sussex. And Solomon's even worse. What car were they driving, Ruthie?'

'It was more of a van, a white van. Just don't ask me the make: I'm completely car-blind.'

'That'll do.' Jake took Solomon's proffered phone and dialled 999. 'Hello.' His accent climbed a notch. 'Could I have the police please? Police? I'd like to report some suspicious behaviour at the house next door. It may be nothing, but I'm sure I heard breaking glass and I can see the corner of a white van parked in the drive. The Metcalfes have never owned such a vehicle and they're supposed to be away for the weekend. The house is called Sallowfield, halfway down Frog Lane. My name? Waddington. Colonel Sylvester Waddington. We're nextdoor at Green Acres. Not at all. Hope it's not a wild goose chase. Goodbye.'

'Feeeeooo,' whistled Solomon. 'Bombs away.'

'They must have reached terminal velocity by now,' commented Jake as the silence stretched out uncomfortably but suddenly doors slammed, the engine raced as gravel scattered and the van tore up the drive.

The conspirators leant together and shook with muffled laughter as the tension of the last few hours was released. They walked on, light at heart.

'We'd better ditch the phones.' Solomon brought them down to earth.

'OK,' said Jake agreeably. 'Here's a ditch.'

Jake took the two instruments and inserted them into the soft yellow clay bank of what was more a stream than a ditch. Push, pinch, dabble and they were gone. Jake had bought them for cash at a car-boot sale in Crowborough, giving his name as J. Archer. The break in was lucky in another way. It could be safely assumed that the thieves had disabled the lights and alarm and they would naturally be blamed for the theft of the videos too. If the video was what they thought, Metcalfe would be perturbed but he was unlikely to raise a fuss. His hope would be that the putative yobs who'd stolen it wouldn't recognise its significance although he'd have a bad few weeks waiting for a blackmailer's call. Good. Let him sweat. He wouldn't suspect that anyone had copied his hard disk unless the police had nicked his whole computer. Whether there was anything worth stealing from it was another matter.

Solomon stumbled as the ball of clay which had built up under his right heel broke off. Ruthie caught his arm and they walked on briskly, linked. Ruthie hoped that her thighs wouldn't chafe, wet as they were with the squirt which had spurted as the police turned into the drive. She'd have to make her anorak into a pad to sit on. Hoped she didn't stink.

The car was still there behind the church. Ruthie insisted on sitting in the back with yesterday's Guardian. It was five in the morning when they at last found a nearby parking-spot and quietly sneaked into the house.

Ruthie said frankly that she'd wet herself with terror and needed a shower. Pleasing images arose in Solomon's mind. Drinking champagne from a lady's slipper. Where on Earth, he ironically wondered, had that come from? Ruthie discreetly disposed of the particularly limp yellow Guardian and her stained panties and both tracksuit bottoms went into the washing machine. Twenty minutes later she was clean and dry in a quilted mauve dressing-gown she'd brought along, a present from what one must charitably assume was a colour-blind aunt. Jake brought in a tray of mugs of cocoa and toasted muffins with gooseberry jam. 'God I'm knackered,' he yawned. 'This last caper took so many years off my life I'm surprised I'm not already dead. The sooner I get back to my nice quiet cell, the better. Hm. Maybe not. But I think we should get some shuteye before we see what we've got. I couldn't stand a disappointment right now.'

'Ag kak, man. You just want me to say how brilliant you are and what fun it's all been. OK, well done one and all, particularly our little lookout. But you're right.' Solomon hissed like the airbrakes which have just halted a juggernaut. 'It would be silly to decide anything right now. I'll make up the divan in the lounge for you, Ruthie, although of course,' lightly, 'you're welcome to share with me?'

Ruthie looked at him levelly for a moment. Short. Warm brown eyes. Coffee-coloured skin. Gappy Mad Magazine smile. Krilly (as he habitually called it) hair. 'Do you mean that?'

Solomon, after being taken aback at first, met Ruthie's eye and found that he did.

They took their cocoa up to bed and set about accomodating their hormones.

Chapter 11

It had gone eleven when Jake tapped on the door, interrupting Solomon's post-coital snooze. Ruthie had got up and washed and come back and was lying awake trying not to move.

The room stank of sex and Jake felt a wave of envy although Ruthie really wasn't his type. Jake went for small dark women. His last squeeze had been Leila, a sexy Iranian who'd gone back to Iran to teach and had been horribly killed in a car crash. He'd had a bad night, dreaming that he'd awoken from a dream of being chased by bloodhounds to find himself back in his cell. He knew he was still dreaming but had been no more able to pull himself out of it than to breathe underwater. He finally woke at eight, quietened the jangles and drifted off again.

'Tea,' he croaked. A weak black for Ruthie and a strong white with three sugars for Solomon.

'Jake, you're an angel,' smiled Ruthie. 'I'll do us a traditional Ulster fry in a bit.' She sat up, fairly decent in an old white cotton nightie and took her tea.

Solomon's stocky torso struggled up. 'For this relief, much thanks. Hamlet at his most sarcastic, but I mean it.' He took a long, grateful sluk. 'Well, I think we can call last night's operation a success, if not quite how we'd envisaged it. I'll never forget the sound of those cops getting the hell out of there. Of course they panicked – they could simply have toughed it out and claimed they'd disturbed some other burglars – but maybe their van was already full of loot, which might prove a bit awkward, to say the least. I wonder what the neighbours made of Colonel Sylvester Waddington? Anyway, now the real work begins.'

'After breakfast,' said Ruthie intransigently. 'Jake can make the porridge, you make tea and toast and I'll do the heart attack bit. Just give me ten minutes.

An hour later, three happily bloated friends sat down to view the spoils of their theft. Jake had drawn the skimpy pink curtains and Solomon had slotted in one of the videos, rewound it and pressed PLAY. He sat next to Ruthie on the lumpy couch, not touching. This was business. The first thing on screen was the torture and eventual murder of the child. Jake and Solomon had missed the first quarter of an hour, which was confined to beating, kicking, whipping and playing with matches. They had also missed the sound effects. Screams, grunts and muttered curses in what might have been Spanish or Portuguese. There was a booming echo which suggested a deserted warehouse. At VIGIL Jake and Ruthie had heard of many similar atrocities and considered themselves pretty much unshockable, but this personalisation was hard to take. Ruthie's face had gone chalky but for two burning patches on her cheeks. Tears brimmed in her eyes and she had to bite her tongue to stifle her sobs.

'Fucking bastard,' Jake let slip. 'Erm, present company excepted, of course.'

Solomon smiled and broke the tension. The film was nearing its end. The only surprise left was the thump of the dead child's head on the concrete which reminded Solomon of knocking on a watermelon to test its ripeness. He shakily pressed STOP. 'Well, it's understandable that a chap might like to wank over that,' he grated. 'If it's faked, it's bloody convincing. But it doesn't seem to have any relevance to Olieboom.'

'Maybe Metcalfe's involved in making or selling this stuff,' shrugged Jake, 'or maybe he just likes downloading snuff movies off the net. Pity the sound's so poor. My guess is that it's probably a Brazilian cop killing a street kid in Rio.'

'We could pass it on to VIGIL,' suggested Ruthie in a small, dead voice. 'They might even be able to identify the killer, although I suppose if it's more than a couple of years old Clive couldn't be arsed.'

'No, we couldn't expect them to do anything unless we told them where we'd got it. Which would drop us in the shit. And then Metcalfe would inevitably do his best to muddy the waters.' Solomon put his feet up on the coffee-table. 'We don't want him to know anything. We want him to sweat.'

The doorbell rang and everybody jumped. Solomon ejected the video and put it in the middle of a shelf full of its chums. His computer was running next door. He made a dash for it and stood with poised finger, ready to delete the lot.

There was relieved laughter from the hallway and a second later Solomon's friend Selwyn was ushered in.

'Howzit, Sol?'

'Katz! My main man. Good to see you.' Solomon clapped an arm around his friend's shoulder. Selwyn was tall and thin and parrot-faced. He wore Levis, a blue checked shirt and a pigskin jacket which wouldn't have been out of place in Naboomspruit. He was shod in trainers of garish shreds and patches. His dark green shades faded to glass-clear in the murk to reveal frank brown eyes which engaged with Jake and Ruthie as names were said.

'So what are you guys up to here?' he asked. 'Having a seance?'

'You could say that.' Solomon nodded. 'Let's see if the dead will speak. But I must warn you it's unlikely to be pleasant watching. I won't say more now. I don't want to prejudice you.'

The VCR whirred and came to monochrome life. After a moment the visual noise cleared and a fixed camera looked down on a cell-like room with a raised plinth in its centre, holding five bottles. There was a metallic clang as a door opened and two derelicts shuffled in. Seen foursquare rather than as a partial reflection through a rain-streaked window it was at once obvious that the two men were tramps. A voice off said in a strong South African accent: 'That's the booze over there if you gents want it. Left over from a director's meeting. The doc says I can't drink anymore so if you want it take it. Shame to waste it hey?'

'Tank you Sor,' said the foremost tramp. 'May God and all de glorious legions of saints preserve and keep you.'

'Yeh, ta,' said his taciturn mate.

They made for the bounty and each grabbed a bottle. This was where Metcalfe had stopped the tape. The voice continued:

'Ja, OK, listen. I got to do my rounds. Youse ouks stay here. I'll be back now-now.'

The door clanged again as the tramps sat on the plinth getting it down them. A noise, which might have been the chugging of a compressor, made them look up in fuddled alarm. There was a rising whine.

'Hoi, what the fuck?'

The cockney smelt a rat. He scrambled down and vanished offscreen. A rattling sound was heard and a frightened voice said: 'The fucking door's locked, Eamon!'

What 'Eamon' would have replied was moot as just then there was a phut and he was hit in the chest by a gob of something which immediately burst into flame. He flailed at it with his hands but only tranferred the fire. He screamed and began to run round the room, being mercilessly tracked by something which aimed glop after glop at him. The other tramp was back in shot, rolling frantically on the floor to try and douse the flames on his own body, but only painting a stripe of fire. The room began to fill with smoke as he too was targeted by blast after blast of burning goo. It took less than a minute for the men to die but the camera kept rolling until the last flames flickered and all that could be seen was two charred lumps with the odd white flash of tooth or calcined bone. The sprinklers came on and the clip ended.

Solomon switched off and the four sat in silence. Solomon's hand hurt where Ruthie had squeezed it. Selwyn shook his head.

'If that chamber turns out to be the one at Proteus Chemicals,' averred Jake, 'it could finish Metcalfe.'

'No, wag 'n bietjie. Hang on a sec.' Solomon held up a placatory palm. 'Let's see what a less biased eye makes of it. What did you think, Selwyn?'

The vet took a deep breath. 'It's the most horrible thing I've ever seen,' he said soberly.

'You reckon it was for real?'

'Jesus, yes. I'd need a helluva lot of convincing that it wasn't coldblooded murder.'

'The Irish feller, Eamon, sounded like he was from Limerick,' volunteered Ruthie.

'And the other guy was a cockney,' asserted Jake. 'But the guard sounded familiar. One of your worthy compatriots, Solomon, if I'm not mistaken. Ha. A pound to a penny that it was Metcalfe's pal Jasper Keate.'

'Yes, you're right.' Ruthie leapt up in her excitement. 'He does sound just like the man I spoke to on the phone. Of course,' mischievously, 'it could just be that all South Africans sound the same.'

'Women,' Solomon snorted derisively. 'Give them eight inches and they take a mile.'

'Ha! Five and a half tops,' retorted Ruthie and stuck out her tongue at him. 'Anyway I'm parched. Who's for a nice cup of tea and some barmbrack?'

Solomon opened the curtains and bright spring sunlight fell on the dingy room. The horror of what they had just seen clung on in the corners of his mind like wet cobwebs but the thrill of the chase was stronger. Selwyn was still visibly shocked as Solomon patiently filled in Metcalfe's background and how Jake and Ruthie had become involved. True, there was no direct link to Olieboom but if NACT had been used, Metcalfe had probably made it.

'Hey, listen,' Selwyn pulled himself together, 'that's one of the reasons I came over to see you. You know my Dad died last year? Of course, you emailed me.'

'Ja, it was sad. I really liked old Doc.'

'He liked you too. He always asked after my meshuggene friend Solomon.'

'What did he die of again?'

'Heart. He'd had a quintuple bypass but a clot got him in the end. It was at friday-night seder. He just keeled over into the chopped liver. It was a family do so Cousin Morrie was there and we took turns at mouth-to-mouth and heart massage but it was no good. By the time the defibrillator arrived it was too late. Anyway,' Selwyn smiled bravely. 'These things happen. Any vet spends a lot of time breaking bad news to distraught pet owners. I know all the cliches. They're all true. But I still sometimes reach for the phone to ask him something and then I remember.'

'You can feel for people who've had limbs amputated but which still itch.' Solomon squeezed his friend's shoulder in solidarity.

'Anyhow,' Selwyn resumed, 'after the funeral I was helping my mother tidy up and I found a drawerful of diaries going back to the forties. It was all work-related. He didn't even write down his marriage or the births of his children. But he had summaries of all the research he'd done and he'd stuck in clippings of stuff that interested him. It wasn't till a while later that I got around to wondering whether he'd said anything about your . I found the diary for '86 and sure enough, there it was. Nothing about a as such but he said he'd detected after-traces in a sample, not inconsistent with NACT. There was also a note to the effect, um ja, the gist of it was that GB had been exceptionally unpleasant – GB, van Tonder's initials, were said by the staff to stand for Groot Bek or Big Mouth as you in the civilised world might say – but my Dad also said: "Top Secret folder marked Operation Kali."'

'Carly?' chorused Solomon and Ruthie.

'Ooh, the crowd is with me tonight,' Selwyn mugged à la Goon Show, 'but seriously, folks, I think we're talking about two different things. Not Carrly. No r. This was k. a. l. i. You know, like the Indian goddess.'

'Damn,' said Solomon, 'I like the way Ruthie rolls her ars. Kali, as in "All creation is the sport of my mad mother Kali?" Epigraph to a play by Ann Jellicoe. I've always thought of her as more of a destroyer, really. What else did he say about it?'

'Nothing, I'm afraid. Except there was an asterisk next to NACT and at the foot of the page it said Proteus 30.83'

'Bingo,' said Jake quietly. 'If Metcalfe didn't make the stuff used at Olieboom I'll eat my hat.'

'We still have to prove it, but I wouldn't be surprised.' Solomon paused. 'And we haven't seen the rest of this video. And there's another one too. Not to mention the hard disk. But, as my consort has pointed out, it's a lovely day. and a Sunday to boot. Why don't we, as the English so quaintly put it, go up on the downs?'

'Good idea,' quoth Ruthie. 'I'll bung in the dinner on a very low oven and it'll be ready when we get back. Oh.' A thought struck her, 'do you eat pork, Selwyn?'

'Or there are some lamb necks to casserole,' suggested Jake.

'No, pork'll be fine. My only dietary injunction is that under no circumstances will I drink kosher wine. Nou ja, waar's 'ie dagga, kaffer?'

The South Africans shared a laugh.

'Our little joke,' Solomon playfully gave his friend a Chinese bangle. 'You tell it, Katz.

'Ow. Ag, OK. It goes back to when I was in the army. I was hitching back to Pretoria one time and I got a lift with an off-duty policeman. We're driving along and he suddenly says: "Hey, man, do you fancy some boom?' that is, cannabis. Well, I let on I'm not like wholly opposed to the idea but unfortunately I don't have any on me. Just then we see one of those stalls selling carvings so we pull off the road. Now the point is this: for us white liberals, scoring is always quite a business. We try and keep race out it and appeal to the black supplier man to man. Bend over backwards to be agreeable. Even then we'd sometimes screw up. But this guy leaps out of the car and shouts: "Waar's 'ie dagga, kaffer?" – Where's the cannabis, kaffir- and two minutes later we're lighting up our first skyf. Comes to something when an Afrikaner fascist is more hospitable than an old friend.'

Solomon laughed. 'You've got the cheek of a white man.' He mock-sorrowfully shook his head. 'Well, anyone who cares to join me in my bedroom to admire the view, is welcome.'

The boys traipsed up the rickety stairs while Ruthie went off to the kitchen.

Chapter 12

Walking the chalk downs above Lewes soothed Solomon's fret. For the first time since arriving in Britain, he felt he could breathe. He was suddenly aware of how cramped London life could be with everything in your face and no vast horizons. Of course listening to larks in the warm spring sunshine with the neat little fields and more distant villages and towns could not compare to Namibia's fierce beauty but it was greenly sweet. Honey flowed in his veins and his crotch treasured the memory of her moist mat. Ruthie, flushed and vigorous, was in her element. He gave her a proprietorial squeeze and she kissed the top of his head. She still couldn't believe her luck but wanted to retain her self-respect if Solomon came to his senses and rejected her. She trod a fine line between pleasure and pain. He thought with pleasure of the satiny skin behind her knees but it wasn't long before his obsession resurfaced. There was relief that Jake wouldn't now have to smuggle back the videos and the sabotage of the security lights would also be put down to the 'burglars.' On the other hand, for sure they'd change the code for the alarm.

'I wonder what Metcalfe'll do when he finds his videos gone?' Solomon smiled grimly. 'I'd love to be a fly on the wall. Do you think they'll cut short their holiday?'

'Not if they think it's just a burglary,' opined Jake. 'We could probably tap his phone. Two wires. I could stick an automatic recorder up in a tree where the line runs.'

'That's a thought. But we'd have to be very careful. We need a catalyst to get things going. Blackmail, or some sort of sting operation might do the trick. But first let's see what we've got.'

Jake passed a joint. They were on a chalky outcrop in a sea of sheep-cropped grass. Solomon took a drag.

'What are those little birds dourangone up there?' Selwyn strained to see.

'Skylarks.' Jake was their wildlife expert. 'They used to be everywhere but their numbers have been going down catastrophically of late. Pesticides probably have something to do with it.'

'Ja, it's the same everywhere. But I must say your English songbirds are a treat. Much as I love hadedas and louries no-one could call them tuneful. But there was this blackbird (at least it was black and it was a bird) singing in a tree just outside my hotel window. I sat and listened to it for ages until a damn cat chased it away.'

They lapsed into silence listening to the polyphonic stream of song. Concentrating on a single line's trills, swoops and chirps it was evident that there was some sort of theme and variation, inevitable but unpredictable. Selwyn had struggled with the flute for some years and was intensely envious of the birds' cool and effortless articulation. Ruthie lay on her back and let her spirit soar. Jake wondered idly why tormentil, one of the rose family, had only four petals and Solomon, clearing a space among the sheep droppings, lay down by Ruthie and imagined the peace of his bones melding with the chalk to become part of the turning world.

Jake and Selwyn, what Doc Katz might have called a couple of nature-bochers, sat nearby, talking about kestrels, wild flowers, cows, sheep and the folly of a government which could give farmers grants both to grub up and to plant hedgerows. They had changed continents and Selwyn was telling Jake that the Indri had been named by mistake, being the Malagasy for: 'Lo, behold!' when he theatrically slapped his forehead and cried: 'Duodecimals!'

'Not for me thanks,' responded Jake drily, 'I'm trying to give them up.'

'No, really. It was one of the old man's hobby-horses. Hey, Sol! Wake up.'

Solomon rolled over onto one elbow.

'I've just thought of something in the old man's diaries,' continued Selwyn. 'They're full of reference numbers – scattered about like confetti – but they don't seem to tally with page-numbers or dates or anything else. So I wonder if it's some sort of code? Did he ever unleash his duodecimal obsession on you?'

'I'm afraid I was denied that pleasure..'

'You're lucky. As kids we got it on a fairly regular basis. At one stage he was even president of the Society for Rational Systems, a handful of cranks which started up when South Africa dropped pounds, shillings and pence in favour of a decimal system. But they wanted duodecimals: twelve pennies to a shilling, twelve shillings to a pound and so on. The reason was that twelve was divisible by two, three, four and six whereas poor old ten was stuck with two and five. Also there were already twelve inches to the foot, twelve months in the year, twelve-tone music and so on. He used to drive us mad converting everything to base twelve just to show how easy it was. I wouldn't be surprised if his diary was full of them. It was just the sort of thing he'd do.'

'Ja,' Solomon smiled in affectionate remembrance, 'I do remember his saying that people were just like fractions: proper, improper and vulgar. But I bet you're onto something. I wish you'd brought the diaries with you.'

'Ag ja I could kick myself. I'll send them on to you as soon as I get back to Joeys.'

'Thanks, I'd really appreciate it. Don't post them though. I'll pay to have them sent by courier. And of course you'll have them back when I'm finished with them.'

'No hurry. I'd like them back eventually, not only for the sentimental value but because there are some good scientific ideas there.'

A little wind came up. Cloud-shadows skimmed the landscape like manta rays along the ocean floor. The fluffy clumps of cottonwool showed their black hearts. They made it back to the car as the first bullets of hail rattled down.

Chapter 13

The slowcooked shoulder of pork just needed twenty minutes on full blast to crisp up the crackling and brown the potatoes, time enough to cook a cabbage and make gravy. Selwyn summoned up his dissecting skills and carved the melting meat. Jake had made a gooseberry fool for afters, which was eagerly devoured.

The evening passed in a haze of surfeit. Solomon would not allow any mention of Olieboom or their recent nefariousness and spent most of the time catching up on Selwyn's news. He drove Selwyn and Ruthie up to the station for the last London train, parted with a firm hug and a long, soulful kiss respectively and returned to find that Jake had washed up and gone to bed.

Monday morning nine o'clock found them watching videos. They skipped the child-throttling but watched the burning tramps again. The rest of the video consisted of three separate clips of a gang-rape, a hanging and a prolonged torture, but to Solomon's disappointment there was nothing remotely relevant to Olieboom. It had all the hallmarks of stuff simply downloaded from the net. Jake had even seen the footage of a man's fingers being smashed with a hammer before, at an aid agencies conference. Allegedly a record of Indonesian atrocities in Sri Lanka. The other video was even more useless, being, as its label suggested, part of an accountancy course for morons.

Solomon went off to trawl Metcalfe's hard disk while Jake turned his mind to the napalm test chamber. After the 'accident' the test chamber at Proteus had been demolished but presumably plans must exist some where. The first problem was one of scale. He went through the grainy video again, frequently pausing the picture, until it grew too smoky to see much. The whole room would need to be fireproof and easily cleaned. Peering at the floor, he made out a grid of black grouting between dark tiles. One of the tramps' shoes fell neatly across two tiles. Call that a foot. Six-inch quarry-tiles? And the wall-tiles a bit bigger. He got out his ruler, made a couple of sketches and went off humming.

Solomon came down bleary-eyed after three hours of crawling through the Metcalfes' domestic economy, aka bills. Dear old Chris had been extraordinarily assiduous – everything was scrupulously documented and all as seemingly innocent as could be. There was little or nothing personal but Solomon hadn't yet been able to access his emails. So it was a disgruntled nemesis who came down to find a roofless cardboard model of the test-chamber on the kitchen table. There was a plinth in the middle and everything was neatly labelled. Three of the walls had a narrow strip window at the top. Two bits of biro stood in for the napalm guns and a rubber for the camera.

'Jislaaik,' Solomon's eyebrows shot up. Jake, my boy, this is very impressive. How much is guesswork?'

'Not too much. I reckoned the plinth would be in the middle of the floor and I worked out sizes assuming six-inch floor-tiles. Even if I'm a bit out, the relative dimensions should be right. Any luck with the hard disk?'

'Except for an exorbitant oil bill and the fact that he paid cash for twenty shirts at £150 a throw, there's nothing of interest. Where can we get details of what facilities there were at Proteus?'

'Well, the council might have plans, or the architect. Or one of us, say you, could get a job at the factory. Maybe they need an IT adviser or a security guard.'

'No, I couldn't afford any checks into my background. A hint of Namibia might put the cat among the pigeons. I'm afraid we just have to plug on.'

And plug they did. Jake turned up for his Tuesday stint at the Metcalfes' with some apprehension. He had the distinct feeling he'd dropped something incriminating and the police were waiting behind the hedge. He passed through the clipped yew arch onto the lawn. Rufus, dazzlingly clean and brushed, rushed up with a bark of welcome and dropped a bald and slobbery tennis-ball at his feet. Jake wiped it on the grass with his foot and hurled it as far as he could. Rufus hurtled purblindly off in something like the right direction.

'Well, that's a forty-pound haircut down the drain.' The mistress of the house surprised him. 'Hello, Jake. Have a good weekend?'

'Yes thanks Cecily. How did the tournament go?'

'Well, thank you. And of course Scotland is always beautiful. A little spoilt by the fact that they phoned us at three in the morning to tell us that we'd been burgled.'

'Tsk. Oh no!' The youngsters of today. 'Did they get much?'

'No, hardly anything. Some jewellery, our new television and an excercise bike seems to be the lot. They must have been frightened off. The police got a tip-off, but they arrived too late.'

'Do they have any idea who might have done it?' Jake licked his dry lips.

'Well they assured us they'd go through the usual suspects, but I got the feeling that catching a couple of thieving yobboes wasn't their top priority. Honestly, what we pay taxes for I don't know.'

'So did you come back?' Jake asked sympathetically.

'Certainly not.' Cecily rose to magnificence. 'As Chris said, all we could do back home was get in our little man to put in new locks and we could do that just as well from Scotland. Besides, we were through to the finals and I jolly well wasn't about to pull out. We get few enough chances to play as a couple.'

'I suppose so. How did you do in the end?'

'Fifth. Out of a field of twenty couples.'

'Well done.'

'Thank you Jake. Yes, we were well pleased. There were a few county champions among the winners. But I'm sure we would have done even better without all the worry about the house. I can't tell you how relieved I was to get back and find the damage so slight.' Her troubled blue eyes flickered uneasily over his face. 'But the horrible thing isn't the stuff they took, but the feeling of violation. The sudden realisation that there's nothing but a thin pane of glass between you and a hostile world. And I want to wash everything in the house that might have been touched. On the other hand I should hate to live in a fortress like we had in South Africa.' Cecily shook her head, impatiently dislodging a fly. 'Anyway, to revert to a more pleasant topic, what have you got planned for today?'

The image of Cecily thrashing underneath him in ecstasy flooded his mind. He'd probably find out more in ten minutes of pillow talk than in ten years of detecting. It was almost his duty. The trouble was that you never knew with women. The most blatant come-ons were tearfully denied as misinterpreted friendliness. Were flat brown calfskin loafers what Germaine Greer called fuck-me shoes? Perhaps not.

'Er, I thought I'd have a go at weeding the rockery before that creeping buttercup takes over.'

'Yes, good. It was beginning to look in need of attention. I'll leave you to get on with it then. Oh, Rufus! Look at you, you horror!'

She bent to detach a long bramble which had got tied up in his fur and gave Jake a view of round buttocks moulded by her tight skirt.

'Stand still, you silly animal. Ouch!' She sucked a stabbed finger. Jake clamped Rufus's head between his legs and held him still while Cecily gingerly teased out the snags.

'Thanks, Jake. I'd better get this one inside to keep him out of trouble.'

She marched away pulling the chastened dog while Jake dragged the equally reluctant bramble off to the soggy bonfire.

So. If they'd only returned the day before, 'Chris' might not yet have noticed his missing treasures. Jake went off to the rockery to sit, weed and think, patiently uprooting buttercups with a pronged tool of his own invention, separating grass from clove-scented pinks and untwining convolvulus from campanula. By the end of the afternoon he had a sore arse and a wheelbarrow full of weeds but had learned nothing more about Metcalfe. He was just mounting his bike when the boss rolled up in his Lexus. A window slid silently down.

'Ah, Jake. I'm pleased I caught you. Have you got a moment?'

'Hello Mr. Metcalfe. Sure, I'm in no hurry. Lovely day.'

'Yes. I won't keep you long.' Metcalfe appeared his normal, affable self. 'I suppose my wife told you we'd had a break-in?'

'She did, as a matter of fact. Nasty business.'

'I'm inclined to think it was somebody local, but I don't expect the police will do more than go through the motions.' Metcalfe sucked in his cheeks and made thinking noises, then resumed: 'I was wondering if you'd do me a favour, Jake? Would you mind letting me know of any rumours you might hear around the village or down at the pub. The chap at the police station as good as told me that they have their hands full with that missing schoolgirl. He asked who knew we'd been away, but it was no secret. The golf-club knew and the newsagent and the milkman and the kennels. Not to mention an article in last week's Courier. The garage. You, of course. I didn't mention your name, by the way. I assumed you wouldn't want to be bothered.'

A false note. And was that a hint of a threat? He knew, the videos were gone, all right. Else why bother to find burglars who had taken nothing which insurance couldn't replace? Something had stung him.

Jake shrugged. 'I wouldn't mind; but I don't remember telling anyone about your trip, so I wouldn't be much use. As for keeping my ears open, sure, I'll be glad to.'

'Fine.' Metcalfe stopped drumming his fingers on the wheel and reached into his jacket pocket for a card which he thrust at Jake. 'Look,' he said, 'there's my personal mobile number. It might be best to contact me direct. I think Cecily's more upset than she lets on. It might be best to say nothing of this to her.'

'I understand, Mr. Metcalfe. Is there anything else you'd like me to do?' The leg swung over the bike militated somewhat against expressions of willingness.

'No. No thanks. Look,' Metcalfe essayed insouciance, 'it's no big deal. It's not revenge. I don't even want the stuff back. It's more like an itch I can't reach – I just want to know who did it. Oh well, mustn't keep you, I expect you'll want to be off home. I'll see you another time.' A curt wave, a rising window and the car slid into the garage.

Jake trod on the pedals. A little gravel skittered from his back wheel and he moved. Ease off. Clickclick. He epicycled up the drive in low. An old Dylan song superimposed itself on the rhythm... 'And you know something is happening, but you don't know what it is – do you,' pedal pedal, 'Mr. Jones?' True. No more did he himself. But perhaps the logjam had been broken. Metcalfe was undeniably worried. He was also, at the least, implicated in many murders abroad and at least two back here in Blighty. Jake pedaled thoughtfully home.

Chapter 14

Days passed. Selwyn was back in Johannesburg. An email said: Hi Solomon,

Thanx fr everything. Duodecimals rule, OK? I've been asking around among my old army buddies and someone's brother said he'd once known a Jasper Keate in the good old days. He was something to do with koevoet. I'm sure you remember them. Police offshoot, well-known for civilian atrocities and extreme brutality, especially in Angola. Hunted Ovambos for kopgeld (bounty money to you Brits). They had a merry teeshirt saying: "Our Business is Killing – and Business is Good."

The diaries will be winging their way north as soon as I find someone reliable to take them over.

Regards to Ruthie and Jake.

Jou ou maat,

Selwyn.

'Cous cous, so good they named it twice,' quipped Solomon as Jake brought in a tagine of lamb. He'd just come down from another mammoth session with Metcalfe's hard disk. But he had found one item of possible interest. An advertisement for industrial magnets had been scanned in from a trade journal, rather tactlessly flanked by an article warning of the potentially disruptive effects of strong magnetic fields on electronic equipment including computers, mobile phones, navigation equipment, pacemakers and hearing aids. The word "pacemakers" had been lightly underlined in pencil. Not to mention unfounded but persistent rumours of higher than normal cancer rates among exposed workers. The answer seemed to be more of both magnetic shielding and legal disclaimers. Solomon passed over printouts of Selwyn's email and of the page from Electromagnet and Relay Monitor. Jake read through them slowly.

'Suggestive that "pacemakers" was underlined,' said Jake. 'Refresh my memory. Didn't the head of security at Proteus die of a heart attack shortly after the tramps were fried? What was his name?'

'Something funny. Oh ja, Toplady, wasn't it? Alfred Toplady. Convenient that he happened to die just as the inquest was getting under way.'

'I don't know if he even had a pacemaker, but it would be an almost foolproof way to kill someone, especially if the pacemaker was only temporarily stopped and was ticking away again as the corpse cooled. You'd have to be pretty sick for it to work, but I gather Toplady was that. You wouldn't even have to stop the pacemaker,' considered Jake, 'just changing the frequency could do it. Speed up the tempo until a vein bursts or something.'

Solomon laughed. 'I can see it as one of those old black and white melodramas. Alf Toplady (an old rogue with a heart of gold) is sitting in his office straining a cup of tea through his walrus moustache. The camera pans round to a crate in the corner of the office just behind the old boy's chair. A hand sneaks out from behind a curtain and flicks a switch. The crate emits a low, threatening hum and pulses of weird energy. For a moment Alf continues to sip his tea, then surprise, astonishment, fear cross his face. He starts to his feet, clutches his chest and elaborately keels over. Villain sticks out his head and leers. The End.'

'It could work,' persisted Jake, 'but proving it would be the bugger.'

'True. Perhaps we should go back to eighty-six again and try and connect up from that end.'

'Eighty-six,' Jake rapidly calculated, 'I was eighteen then, doing Sociology One at uni. The year Chernobyl blew up.'

'We heard of it back in sunny South Africa but as it was your hemisphere we didn't really bother. We had troubles of our own. Olieboom was on May the first – the very day that one and a half million blacks went on strike. The papers wouldn't have made much out of the accidental self-immolation of a handful of Basters at the best of times. As it was, they didn't even get to hear of it until six months later, when it was smuggled out in a pile of operational reports.'

'How did you come to find out, then?'

'An old Leb who was generally known as Joe Paraffin,' (Solomon pronounced it 'parafeen,' in the South African way) 'used to come round selling what a less delicate age called kaffir truck: tin boxes, blankets, vaseline. He was on his way to Olieboom when he was stopped by a roadblock. He got chatting to the soldiers and was told there'd been an accidental explosion a fortnight ago and everyone was dead. Joe had known me since birth and had once met my Auntie Minnie when she came to take me back to Capetown. All he knew was that her name was Hendrikse and that she was a teacher. He phoned round all the schools until he found her.' Solomon chuckled and shook his head admiringly. 'He told her that there had been a terrible accident and that no-one had escaped alive. She didn't say a word to anyone and just carried on with the rest of her classes. She told me as soon as she got home and then we cried. Afterwards we listened to the news on the radio, I remember. That was the day South African forces struck at the capitals of Botswana, Zambia and Zimbabwe. Not a word about Olieboom. It was a busy year. It never even occurred to me that what had happened was anything but a horrible accident until I got Selwyn's letter about the house-snake.'

'But you could have gone to someone with your suspicions,' protested Jake, 'the police, say, or a journalist or a lawyer.'

Solomon regarded him steadily for a moment. 'You Brits are fucking incredible,' he marvelled. 'You don't have the foggiest notion of what South Africa was really like. Who was it said that being poor's no crime: but it might as well be? That's what being non-white in apartheid South Africa was like in, if I can inject a little levity, spades. PW Botha wasn't called the Great Crocodile for his cheery grin. The government was fighting communism on all fronts. The natives were restless. Olieboom was within a battle zone. Doc Katz was too frightened to talk and we had no money for lawyers. Also I had only to open my mouth to be chucked off my course - and Auntie Minnie could lose her job, if not worse. So tar-baby ain't sayin' nuthin, en Brer Fox he lay low. It's been a long road, but I think we're near the end. Time to put the screws on Metcalfe. Let's let him stew for a few days and then perhaps we might invite him to a private viewing of a video which he'd be reluctant to see in police hands. Meanwhile I'll carry on trawling through his hard disk and you can get intimate with the delectable Cecily.'

'How do you suggest? Offer her a lift on the crossbar of my bike? Oh no. I haven't got one. Besides, she seems quite happily married. It's sickening the way she keeps quoting "Chris".'

'Do you think she'd be horrified at her hubby's hobbies?'

'Who knows? Perhaps she shares them. It always amazes me how one minute women can be thrashing around on the bed like nymphomaniacs and the next butter wouldn't melt in their, er, mouths. But I can certainly sound her out as to whether anything's worrying him.' Jake hesitated, then continued primly: 'The thing is, I can't afford to be involved in anything which smells of blackmail. With my record, that could mean ten years in jail. And the judge would be quite likely to disallow illegally procured evidence. Not to mention double jeopardy. No, I'm happy to help you get evidence, but what you do with it is your business.'

The phone rang. Jake picked it up. 'Sol Solutions.'

'Hi, Jake. It's Ruthie. I've been going through the companies register for eighty-six and it might interest you to know that both Jasper Keate and Christopher Metcalfe were on the board of a shortlived company called Pestridd out in South Africa. There was also an ex defense minister, Ambrose, later Sir Ambrose Mortimer.'

'Indeed. You'd better tell Solomon the details.'

'Sure,' said Ruthie jauntily. Sweaty palms didn't show over the phone.

Solomon also felt a flutter of excitement. She hadn't forgotten him or run off with someone else since yesterday. Also it sounded like she had interesting news.

'Ruthie. And how's my little sugarplum?'

'Grand thanks.' The tinny voice in Solomon's ear sounded far more Ulster Irish than he'd noticed. She told him what she'd found out and the fact that he'd been talking of eighty-six only moments before to Jake seemed touching proof that their minds ran in tandem.

'Pestridd, eh?' His own accent blatted in his selfconscious ear. 'I wonder if they were interested in a certain nerve-gas. This Mortimer, is he still alive?'

'I guess so. He's probably in Who's Who.'

'OK. Listen, let's keep names out of it. I have to be up in London on Thursday. How about a business supper? Bring your calculator.'

'Well, I was going line-dancing with Clive but an evening of double-entry sounds far more enticing. Alright, you smooth-talking swine, I'll come - but only if you promise to shag me senseless afterwards.'

Ruthie bit her lip. Had she gone too far. Would he see her as the fat slag she was? No, he was laughing.

'Done, my pretty leprechaun. See you at Nick the Greek's at eight. Bye, love.'

'Byee.'

Love. He hadn't gone as far as an outright declaration but it certainly wasn't the patronising 'luv' of the average Londoner. She went off to consult the office Who's Who with a gleeful heart.

Solomon went back to Metcalfe's files and Jake replied to some of the more urgent business emails as well as sorting out the gas bill and TV licence. It was surprising how stuff piled up. Much of his time went on sorting out VAT and the endless paperwork which running even the smallest business entailed. His probation officer, a certain Rachel Horder, was proud of his progress. Made a change from the Jago boys round the corner, who were never out of trouble. She was pretty sure Jake hadn't gone back to dealing drugs – there had been no new ripples in Uckwash's little pond. She casually brought up Jake's name now and then in druggie circles but had seen no flicker of recognition. The Shamirs at the corner shop thought him a nice polite boy, never any trouble. In fact he was one of the few customers who had taken the trouble to learn their names and he always asked after the family.

Chapter 15

Jake had just put on the kettle when a tinny ping pong announced a caller.

'Parcel for a Mister er Witbwa is it?' asked the TNT delivery man.

'Near enough.' Jake signed for the shoebox-sized parcel from South Africa. The contents were listed as 'Written material of no commercial value.' There was nothing to pay.

'Solomon,' Jake yelled up the stairs, 'I think those diaries have arrived.'

Solomon slid down the banisters, skidded on the hall rug and crashed into Jake's bike. There'd be a nasty bruise where the handlebars had dinged his thigh and his new jeans were smeared with grease from the chain. The bike was undamaged.

'Anything to amuse us.' Jake smiled drily and offered a hand.

Solomon heaved himself to his feet and limped and groaned his way to the kitchen. The parcel, when opened, turned out to contain not only Doc's relevant diaries but a letter from Selwyn and the magnificent skin of a gaboon viper. 'This snake,' Selwyn wrote, 'was run over by a tractor and the front wheel tossed it into the driver's lap. I was visiting a farm in Natal-Kwazulu and I saw this guy dive out of the tractor with a jump James Bond would have been proud of. He broke his arm. The tractor still had the hand-throttle full on and it mashed down a row of banana trees until it finally fell into a donga where it lay on its side, still running. None of the staff would go near it because the snake was lying there. It was obviously dead and they were only too happy for me to have it. Hope you like it – it's one of the biggest ever seen in that part of the world.'

Stretched out on the wall it was nearly two metres long and the beautiful geometry of purple, buff and brown lit up the dingy room and gave city boy Solomon a sudden longing for empty African wilderness.

Selwyn had sent thirty-eight pocket diaries, arranged in chronological order. He'd stuck in a bookmark or two and added the playful assertion that he was sure his friend the mathematical genius would have no difficulty with duodecimal conversions. This was a sideswipe at Solomon's abysmal arithmetic. With a sigh he got out his calculator and began. He typed in the first asterisked number he came to, divided it by twelve and moved the point. Two hundred and twelve. Page two hundred and twelve held nothing (to Solomon's eye) of the slightest relevance. Maybe the date. Could be either the second of December or the twenty-first of Feb. Or February nineteen twelve; in which case he was fucked. A few more trials established that it had to be day, then month. References to other diaries added two more coded digits for the year. He opened the diary for nineteen eighty-six at Selwyn's bookmark.

There it was, in Doc's copperplate hand: 'Postmortem analysis of specimen from Namibia confirmed traces of the end-products of NACT. Told Kobus. 3 mins later I was in GB's office. Exceptionally unpleasant. Threatened criminal charges if I so much as mentioned it to anyone ever again.' It was good to see it in writing at last. Solomon felt grimly vindicated. The asterisk at the foot of the page gave three thousand, one hundred and fifty. Solomon pressed keys and found the third of July, nineteen eighty.

He found the relevant diary and relevant page. A Rizla paper fluttered out with the message: 'So you got lucky Witbooi. Good hunting.'

The entry for that day ran: 'NACT insecticide. Extremely effective. Phosphorylating agents approx twenty times as potent as hitherto. To be used only under strictest supervision. Mnfr. Pestridd Chem. Co.' Another number took him on two months to another entry saying that NACT had been banned in the UK. With the next number, the trail shot off in a new direction altogether claiming that the delivery book had vanished and that an unspecified fifty sixths of a litre (give it a rest Doc) was unaccounted for. Two further numbers led nowhere. Solomon thought of the assertion that any two people in the world could be connected by six interlocking circles of friends. The only thing was to find the right path through the proliferation of contacts. Nope. It was Gordian knot time. He began to plot.

Chapter 16

Tantera ta ta, tantera ta ta... The synthesised Ride of the Valkyries was pinched off as Chris Metcalfe snatched his mobile from its holder. Six thirty in the evening found him stuck in a traffic jam near Crowborough. 'Metcalfe,' he curtly told his caller.

'Mr. Metcalfe, it's Jake. Is this a convenient time for you?'

'Yes, fine. We're gridlocked at the moment. What is it?'

'Well, I don't know if it's anything important, but you did ask me to let you know if I heard anything about the break-in while you were away.'

'Yes.' Metcalfe cleared his throat and tried again in something like his usual unctuous baritone: 'What is it?'

'I don't know if you know the Jago boys. They're a bad lot, always in some sort of trouble. I tend to steer clear of them but the middle boy's mad on motorbikes and we've got a mechanic next door. Yesterday I was out in the garden and I happened to overhear Lee Jago talking about buying a Ducati for five grand. Well, I wondered where he'd got the money but thought no more of it.' So far, so true. Now for the lies. 'Then I remembered that I'd seen him the night before at Uckfield station. I'd gone down to pick up a friend and I saw young Lee in his red and black leathers hanging around by the loos. Then the London train pulled in and one of the passengers looked around and then walked over and talked to him. There was something familiar about him. There's a South African friend of yours that I've seen once or twice at your house. This chap was the same build and he was wearing the same sort of bush hat with a leopardskin band.'

'You mean Jasper, Jasper Keate?'

'I don't know his name,' Jake lied, 'and the light wasn't very good - but it could well have been him. It just struck me as odd that a respectable businessman should have anything to do with a minor villain like Lee.'

'Hm.' Metcalfe lapsed into a ruminative silence then said: 'Well, as you say, Jake, there's probably nothing in it, but I'd like to discuss this further with you. Are you coming tomorrow?'

'Weather permitting.'

'Of course. I'll hope to see you then. And Jake – there's no need to mention this to anyone. We don't want to go off half-cocked with a lot of unsubstantiated rumours. Mum's the word.'

'Of course, Mr. Metcalfe. See you tomorrow.'

Jake hung up. 'Hook, line and sinker,' he told Solomon, smiling broadly. 'We've got him.'

A peremptory toot advised Metcalfe that the traffic had begun to move and he drove absently on. Jasper, of course, knew all about the tramps. He was in it up to his neck. Publicity would be suicidal. The other snuff movies then? How had Jasper known about those? They'd come off the internet for Metcalfe's own delectation. He'd discreetly put a lot of money into a legal porn company and would have been embarrassed to have his name connected with Sex Excess but that would be a picnic compared to being exposed as a sadistic pervert and murderer. Was this to be simple blackmail? He had to know. He'd invite Jasper and whatshername Charleen down for the weekend. No, it was all nonsense. He'd mislaid the videos himself or Cecily had chucked them out. So we whistle in the dark while the worm of doubt gnaws.

Chapter 17

'So far, so good.' Solomon gleefully rubbed his hands as Jake recounted his phonecall. 'Where there is peace let us bring discord. Perhaps it's time to shoehorn Olieboom into the equation. The question is how?'

'Maybe we could dig up a "survivor" who claims to have seen what happened and get Metcalfe to strike a deal.'

'Hm. Nah. You'd need too much detail to be convincing. There's an old Russian saying: "He lies like an eyewitness." I know a guy who could cobble together a pretty convincing video for fifty grand but a. we haven't got fifty grand and b. it would fool only those who weren't there.'

'And c, maybe neither Metcalfe nor Keate had anything to do with it,' Jake unhelpfully pointed out.

Solomon sighed. 'True. In a way I almost hope it wasn't them. They seem such a shabby pair. On the other hand I think of what they've done and my blood boils.'

'A warm heart's all very well, but I think we need a cool head here. Ahem.' Jake lifted a challenging eyebrow. 'What I think is that this is primarily a business transaction. Who's selling? Who's buying? What are they buying? Where's the profit? I mean, you need a fair incentive to wipe out a village. So. It could have been a scientific test or some sort of accident after all but to me it has the feel of a sales demo. I was involved with one or two of those at VIGIL. Where there's a lot of money involved, organisations don't buy blind. You could ask Ruthie to sniff around. She's got loads of contacts in the murky world of dissidents, from Palestinians and Nazis to the IRA.'

'I think it's more likely to be a South African Government involvement, but through some splinter group or other. I doubt if Ruthie would get anywhere. I've been trawling the net for years with nothing but some unexplained money exchanges to show for it. Time for a frontal assault.' Solomon's reluctance to engage with unworthy enemies had gone. 'Try and find out what Metcalfe knows about Keate. They're sure to meet soon – I want to know when and where. Meanwhile I'll compose an email. I think I'd better be a freelance journalist who's following up a story. Mayswell be Sith Efrican in case he wants to talk. What's a good name?'

'Oh I don't know. How about Basil?'

'Kingly. I like it. Remember Basil D'Oliviera, star of the South African musical "Voetsak Dolly"?'

'Brush, I was thinking. But Basil has a respectable ring to it.'

'OK, I'll be Basil van der Westhuizen. That sounds like an Anglicised Afrikaner liberal. Let's see.'

Solomon fired up his laptop and began tapping. Two hours and many revisions later, he had produced the following:

Dear Mr. Metcalfe,

My name is Basil van der Westhuizen. I am a freelance journalist specialising in the field of wartime atrocities in Africa. Some papers belonging to the late Petrus Brandt (who was a Colonel in the South African Army) have recently come into my possession, including a letter written to his brother, which was never sent. This includes the sentence (my translation from Afrikaans):

"Remember Olieboom in '86? Contact Christopher Metcalfe about NACT."

The only reference to Olieboom that I can find, says that a Namibian village of this name was totally obliterated in the year in question as the result of the accidental detonation of a SWAPO weapons dump. However, I have a source who challenges that explanation and asserts that the inhabitants of the village were in fact gassed and that the subsequent explosion served to cover up a war crime. I must stress that this is an as yet unproven allegation and that I have no axe to grind. Nevertheless I feel it my duty to follow up any such leads. I need hardly stress that protection of sources is paramount and that any information you might volunteer would not be released without your explicit sayso.

I would like to ask:

1) Do you have any information concerning the alleged atrocity at Olieboom?

2) What is NACT?

3) Why did the late Colonel Brandt cash a cheque in 1986 for £250,000 drawn on your account in the Cayman Islands?

Any light which you could shed on these matters would be much appreciated.

Thank you,

Basil van der Westhuizen.

Solomon copied this missive onto a floppy and scrubbed it from his own computer. Back in London the next day, he sent it from an internet cafe in Canary Wharf.

That evening, Chris went up to his study to access his personal emails. Jasper and Charleen had responded eagerly to an invitation to stay the weekend. Cecily had taken some adroit handling but had in the end accepted their imposition. Charleen was a tedious social climber and Jasper was a boor but there were old and ongoing business links and they had been extremely hospitable back in South Africa. Who else? Cecily supposed they could have the Richardsons over – a pair of prize whingers from 'what is now Zimbabwe' of the type known to jaundiced South Africans as 'whenwes'. 'When we were up at Troutbeck in Inyanga...' 'When we had a proper police force...' 'When we were able to entertain three nights a week...' and so on and on. But even the Richardsons had changed. Criticism of Mugabe was now because he was a mad despot rather than merely because he was black.

Jasper, on the other hand, had once told Chris that there were only two types of kaffer. Kaffers and fucking kaffers. This bon mot had been received with a frigidity which showed even Jasper that yet another line had been crossed. Once again he was a humiliated child with crappy pants. Now Chris was inviting him down for the weekend. Chris was up to something. Jasper smelt money.

Chris hesitated before opening his other email. His usual practice was to delete anything from strangers but the subject of this email was: Olieboom. He hoped there were no viruses attached and bravely clicked on the appropriate option. He read Solomon's message with shocked disbelief and began frantically working on denials.

Chapter 18

Jake left his bike by the Metcalfes' back door and went off to the shed for a lawnmower. Today felt like a wheely day – the slithery Flymo could wait till he did the banks. As he used his own key on the lock 'Chris' appeared, rather too casually, from the dark tunnel between the yews.

'Jake. Ah.' What an unexpected pleasure. 'I'm glad I bumped into you.'

'Afternoon, Mr. Metcalfe, I was just going to get in a bit of mowing before the rain. But if there's anything urgent I can do that first.'

'Um, no. It's not about the garden. I'm sure you have a much better idea of what needs doing than I do.' Chris's smile came and went again. 'No, it's about that break-in again. Sorry to harp on about it but I wondered if you'd heard any more?'

Jake, heart pounding, regretfully shook his head. 'No, I'm afraid not'

'I see. And how sure are you that the chap you saw at the station was Mr. Keate?' Beneath the affability, anxiety lurked.

'Well,' Jake faked a wrestle with his conscience, 'I couldn't honestly swear to it in court, Mr. Metcalfe. I'd have to see him again to be sure. But the other guy was definitely Lee Jago.'

Chris gave that some thought.

'Now I don't want to interfere with your plans for the weekend, Jake, but it so happens that the Keates are coming here and I wondered if you could see your way clear to popping in sometime on, say Saturday afternoon, to refresh your memory?'

'Sure.' Jake shrugged. Anything to oblige. 'I actually pass here on Saturday.' Jake was struck by a thought. 'Actually, I was going to ask for Monday off anyway – an old girlfriend's getting married in Battle – so what if I just come over and do my usual three hours? Or if I'd be in the way, I could pop in on my way over to East Hoathly.'

'No, I think the usual stint sounds better. In fact, perhaps... Do you know anything about barbecues?'

'Yes. A little.' This was an underestimate after life with Solomon. The Bastard was never happier than when carcinogenically blackening meat over a fire. He even carried with him a perforated collapsible bucket, a South African invention called the Swanie Braai, whose only fuel was crumpled newspaper fed by dripping fat. The fridge was always stocked with boerewors from Crouch End and local lamb chops. The prevailing wind luckily blew the smoke away from the houses and the neighbours were appeased by the odd bit of meat. Sallowfield, on the other hand, was sufficiently removed from the neighbours for smoke to be an inconsiderable nuisance. And the Metcalfes' gas barbecue was a vast thing, all black stove enamel and shiny chrome. It came with a battery-powered rotisserie, a warming-drawer and four independent burners. There was also a light, so you could cook in the dark. But a timer was really a bit much...

'Good.' Chris broke into Jake's reverie. 'That's more than I know. Look, forget the garden on Saturday. You'd be doing me the most tremendous favour if you looked after the cooking and just generally lent a hand. Of course I'd be happy to pay for the inconvenience. How does fifty quid sound?'

'Well, there's no need; but fine. When do you want me?'

'I dunno. Say five till eight.' Chris teetered on the brink, then plunged. 'Look, Jake, this is the situation. Jasper Keate is an old, er, business associate of mine. I mean, I've nothing against the chap, but we're not exactly bosom pals. I know that if it was a case of business or friendship he wouldn't hesitate to throw me to the wolves.'

'And you him,' thought Jake, wearing what he hoped was an earnestly puzzled frown.

'So I want you to be on the qui vive for anything suspicious. It might be useful to have a witness if anything, say, threatening is said. Of course if you decide that he wasn't the man you saw at the station, that will clear the whole thing up.' Chris brushed away a fly. 'I suppose the whole thing's just a mare's nest. It's probably just some local yobboes who were scared off by the police.' But even this happy thought didn't erase the crease in Chris's forehead. 'I'll have to check that it's OK with Cec... with my wife but I'm sure there'll be no problem. She's always going on about what she calls my burnt offerings.'

'What's your speciality – tramps fried in Napalm?' Jake didn't say. What he did say was to repeat a dictum of Solomon's: 'The secret of a good barbecue is water. It's the burning fat that scorches the meat. The best thing is one of those sprays for houseplants. Puts out the flames without covering everything in ash.' Jake saw that he'd lost his audience. 'Of course you have to be careful that it hasn't been used for pesticides or anything,' he added lightly. That got him.

Chris's startled eye took in Jake's guileless smile and slowly relaxed. Since the email about Olieboom, talk of poisons touched a nerve. He'd replied stiffly to Basil van der Westhuizen that he knew nothing about any atrocity at Olieboom and had indeed never so much as heard of the place.

'I would consider any attempt to connect myself or my company with this alleged atrocity as libellous,' Chris had continued, 'and would have no hesitation in so instructing my solicitors. For the record, my company stopped all manufacture of NACT (which is not, as you seem to suppose, a chemical formula, but an acronym for Neurotoxic Aerosol Control of Termites) in 1978 and existing stocks were destroyed in the presence of a government inspector.

As for my entirely legal business dealings with the late Colonel Brandt, they are subject to commercial confidentiality. You can hardly expect me to comment on unsubstantiated rumours in a letter which was never sent.

I understand that as a journalist you are obliged to follow up leads, but I have no doubt that this will prove to be at best a deluded conspiracy theory or at worst a deliberate attempt to perpetrate a fraud. I have nothing to hide and am sure that any investigation would exonerate me completely.

If you have any further queries, do not hesitate to contact me.

Yours sincerely,

Christopher Metcalfe.'

Since opening the fateful email, this reply had taken Chris hours to compose. He would normally have discussed the matter with Cecily but there were features of the case which made this inadvisable. Anyway she was out at some village do. He had hoped it would all blow over quietly, but with first the theft of the video and now this, it began to seem he was being targeted. Still, they could trace nothing back to him. The government inspector, a certain Ambrose Mortimer, had certified the 'total destruction' of the deadly chemicals knowing full well of the hidden reserves. Seven years later Chris and an unwitting Toplady had loaded up a lorry themselves and driven it down to Cornwall to be transferred to a trawler as part of a load of industrial detergent. Chris burnt the lorry's fake logbook and when the vehicle reappeared at the hire shop, two hundred miles away, it had its original numberplates back on.

But how much had that fool Brandt let slip? How had van der Westhuizen traced his secret account? Or for that matter his personal email address? Chris picked at his Roast Beef and Yorkshire Pudding TV Dinner and brooded. One safeguard was that the MOD had covertly authorised work on NACT long after its supposed ban. But they would be exceeding loth to come to his rescue. Besides Ambrose had assured him that the file had been destroyed. Ambrose, now Sir Ambrose, there was a thought. Good old Ambo was one of the select few who knew Chris's email address. Had the devious swine given it to van der Westhuizen, and if so, why? Chris cut a square of soggy cardboard, sank it in wrinkled goo, transferred it to his mouth and chewed. Washed down with lukewarm instant coffee. A shudder of cold dread ran up his spine, but he couldn't do nothing. He read through his missive once more and clicked on Send.

Chapter 19

Ruthie and Solomon came down together on the Friday evening. Over supper, Chris's email was read and discussed.

'He's confused,' commented Ruthie. 'Can't decide whether to bark or wag his tail. I mean, one minute he's threatening this Basil with libel and the next he's wishing him luck and no hard feelings.'

'As the actress sadly remarked to the bishop,' smirked Solomon.

Jake, deadpan, took a cigarette pack from his pocket and balanced it on the table. He squeezed the side. There was a tiny rising whirr, a click and the thing spoke.

'Oak-smoked bacon is lekker hey,' said a caricature of Solomon's thick accent, 'specially with these homegrown eggs.'

'Honest to God, I wish we had some black pudding,' sighed Ruthie, 'that's grand with apples.'

'Or kedgeree, that's...'

Jake stopped the tape and faced down the mixed indignation and amusement of his friends. 'Of course the fidelity's lousy through this little speaker,' apologised Jake smugly, 'but on a proper deck it sounds ace. It has a range of about eight metres.'

'What if someone asks for a fag?' demanded Ruthie.

Jake beamed and tapped the pack on his hand. Two cigarettes poked their heads through a hole in the corner.

'Did they throw in the fags for our money? How much was it anyway?'

'Corst me a bleedin' monkey, dinnit mate?' Jake took off his titfer. 'And no, I had to buy my own fags and batteries too. Got it off this Russian guy so I suppose it's old KGB stock. Built like a fucking tank. Each tape lasts two hours. I'll try and leave it near where the menfolk are talking. There's a bin next to the pool. That might do it.'

'How would it be,' wondered Solomon, 'if Basil van der Westhuizen were to drop in on their little party?'

'That would blow my cover in ten minutes,' said Jake. 'How many persons of colour do you think there are in a place like this? My boss for one. Suppose Solomon Witbooi and our friend Baz turn out to be one and the same? No, let me pick up what I can. Metcalfe's sure to get Keate on one side at some stage and I'll be very surprised if something about Olieboom or snuff movies doesn't crop up.'

'Ja, I suppose so. If necessary my alter ego could always phone one or even both of them and give a little nudge.'

'Yes and who do you think would be suspect number one if you just happened to phone them when they just happened to be together?' asked Jake hotly. 'Muggins, that's who. I'm not up to the third degree. You know me. At the first hint of pain I'd squeal.'

'Stuff and nonsense,' said Ruthie briskly. 'You just want to be sure we recognise your heroic character. OK.' Wearily. 'Jake Ridley, you are an officially certified hero. Happy?' A smile soothed the sting.

'Besides,' Solomon nobly lifted his chin and shut his eyes, 'you'll be wearing the bulletproof vest of Truth and carrying the submachine gun of a Clear Conscience. If that doesn't work you can tell them that all my findings will be published in the event of my death.'

'And in the event of my death?'

'The life-insurance coughs up.' Solomon burst into Griptype-type song: 'April in Paree...'

'I suppose if the tape-recorder's discovered I could claim that Metcalfe had asked me about being a possible witness,' Jake conceded glumly. 'I'd say I was just looking after his interests – and my own of course.'

'Good man. Ruthie and I will be picnicking in the woods. If you need us, send smoke signals.'

'No, I'll just scream. All I can say is that if I happen to wander down to the bottom gate for some reason, you'd better bloody be there. Such fun. I can hardly wait.'

Chapter 20

Saturday started showery but soon brightened to a lovely June day. The conspirators spent the afternoon walking on the downs discussing tactics. Five o'clock sharp found Jake climbing off his bicycle at the Metcalfes' back door while Solomon and Ruthie completed the pincer movement and found a spot on a huge bank of moss from which they could keep a discreet eye on the pool. A carrier bag stuffed in a hollow log caught Solomon's eye and revealed a stash of pornographic magazines. From the mould marks, Solomon deduced that they'd found Len's favourite wanking spot. He'd mentioned that the younger daughter sometimes sunbathed topless and when Solomon lay back on the moss he could see that a hole had once been cut in a thin bit of hedge.

Jake found the house deserted and both cars gone. He wheeled his bike out of sight and wandered down to the pool cottage where he set about laying out deckchairs. Hm. Better check that that recliner was safe. Jake lay back and rested. A bluejay fluttered out of the woods and landed on the cottage roof. Jake couldn't help noticing that a sturdy shoot of variegated hedera had forced itself under a tile. Damn. He tried to relax but the wilful plant nagged like a sore tooth. No good. He got up and clambered onto the table and tugged vigorously. Not a chance. If he left it sure as eggs it would crack the tile. He'd have to get at it from the inside. He fetched a ladder and his own secateurs and managed to scramble through the small trapdoor in the ceiling. He wriggled through the hot, dusty zigzags of prefab roof-truss towards the dazzling chink where the ivy had shouldered its way in. A couple of judicious snips and a shove and the intruder was held at bay. Jake had half turned to go when he heard voices.

'It looks like we're the first back.' Christopher Metcalfe's suave tones. 'Fancy a beer while we wait for the ladies to turn up?'

'Hey, I wouldn't say no.'

Jake activated the recorder.

'Grolsch OK, or would you prefer Amstel?'

'No, Grolsch would be fine. Er, most acceptable.'

Chris smiled sourly. Charleen had obviously been working on Jasper's social graces. He got out glasses and poured. Jake heard the pop, clink, gurgle and hiss of foam that was the music of beer and tasted the Sahara of his throat. Crouched in an angle on a skinny joist he felt incipient cramp but dared not move in case he was heard.

'Ah, that looks good, Chris. Cheers.'

'Cheers.'

'So Chris, man, how's it going? Any big deals in the pipeline?'

'Well, nothing spectacular but we have some interesting projects in development. We did get that big MOD contract for disinfectant and a little bird tells me we'll probably get the specialist paints contract too. The problem is the high pound's damaging exports.'

'Don't tell me.'

'Quite. Still, I daresay we'll ride it out. As it is, there are plans to move some of our production to Malaysia. How are things at Keate Aerosols?'

'Ag, we stagger along fom day to day. The big problem is we're undercapitalised but as it is, if I got a good offer to take it off my hands, 'strue's njannies you'd see me on the next plane back to Capetown. That's the one time a strong pound's good – when it buys you ten times as many rands. But if I got to be in the UK,' Jasper added gauchely, 'this place is as good as it gets. Relaxing round the pool with old friends is just what the doctor ordered. You know, I hope you don't mind me saying this Chris, but Charlsie reckons you're looking a bit rundown yourself. How's your health?'

'Oh, fine. It's just that I haven't been sleeping especially well of late. I must confess, that I didn't invite you up this weekend purely for the pleasure of your company, pleasant though that is. There're a couple of things we need to discuss. Let's go back a few years. Do you remember that tape of the target-seeking test with the napalm?'

'Ja-a,' Jasper admitted cautiously. 'What about it?'

'Well, you know I had the only copy but while we were away in Scotland, someone broke into the house and stole it. Nothing else worth a damn was taken and it was hidden in a secret compartment in my video cabinet.'

'Yissus. Vok. Are you sure you didn't just put it somewhere else? Maybe the missus took it. I remember Charleen threw out a whole lot of my poes-books one time.'

'No. I've been through the place with a fine-tooth comb. And Cecily would never do anything like that without telling me. It's gone. Someone knew it was there and took it. The question is: why?'

'Search me. Dunno why you hung onto it anyway.'

'Because it proves the delivery system works. But I've always been very careful who I show it to.'

'Ag, it's sommer a faked snuff movie if anyone asks.'

'What about if they identify your voice on it? There's some new computer program that claims ninety-six percent accuracy. And you made the tracking system – we only supplied the chemicals.'

'So what are you saying?' Jasper's heavy tone got nasty. 'Sounds like you threatening me, boykie.'

'No, no. Not at all.' Chris spread balm. 'I was just pointing out that the situation could become very tricky for both of us. I mean it would be stupid for either one of us to threaten the other, given our past dealings. That's another thing. Have you ever heard of a journalist called Basil van der Westhuizen?'

'What's he? A South African. Sounds sort of familiar but I dunno from where. Why?'

'He claims to have some papers from the late Colonel Petrus Brandt – in particular a letter to his brother which mentions me in connection with what happened at Olieboom.'

'Olieboom?' If Jasper was baffled, his voice didn't show it. 'Is that why you phoned me the other day about Kali? I thought that was just about some bonds maturing. Hey, someone else phoned me about that. Some chick said she'd got a message from somewhere or something. And now Colonel Brandt.' Jasper's eyes narrowed. 'Hey, wait a minute. That's kak. Petrus Brandt dint have no brother.'

'Are you sure?'

'Hell ja. He only had six sisters. Made him very popular with the other ouks until he handed round some pictures. Mind you I wouldn't have kicked any of them out of bed.'

'Indeed. So either this van der Westhuizen is a fraud or someone else is stringing him a line in pusuance of another agenda. He claims to have a witness to what went on at Olieboom. It looks like – what on earth?'

In the loft, Jake's knee had suddenly kinked. He grabbed at a crosspiece which proved, with deplorable workmanship, to be merely tacked on. He toppled over and crashed through the plasterboard, grazing his stomach and one arm as he fell and landing half on a thin lounger cushion and half on the quarry-tiled floor, missing Jasper Keate by inches. He groaned and gave a convincing impression of being half-dazed.

'Jake!' Chris was the first to recover speech. 'What the devil are you playing at?'

Jake blinked. 'Uh. Mr. Metcalfe. What happened?' His face slowly cleared and he uttered a nervous cackle. 'Oh, yes. I'm sorry to laugh like that but I've just realised what must've happened. I went up in the loft to cut off some ivy that was forcing it's way in and it was so warm up there that I closed my eyes for a minute. I must've fallen asleep. Sorry about the ceiling. I'll fix it in my own time. Luckily stippled Artex is easy to match. Woah.' Jake clambered ruefully to his feet.

'So who's this then,' demanded Jasper uglily.

'It's only our gardener, Jake. 'He's come to help with the barbecue. You're not the brightest penny in the fountain, are you Jake?' Chris spoke with exasperated affection. He turned and flashed the gardener a conspiratorial wink.

'No, Mr. Metcalfe, ' Jake mumbled dully. 'I'm sorry. It won't happen again. It's just that I tied on a few with me mates like. Made a bit of a night of it. Only got to bed at four this morning.'

'Well that'll teach you to sleep on the job.'

'Honestly, Mr. Metcalfe. It's the first time. And like I said – one minute I was cutting back the ivy and thinking how warm it was and the next thing I knew, I was lying on the floor here in a pile of dust.' Jake sadly shook his head at the vagaries of fate.

'You're lucky you weren't hurt,' said Chris blandly. 'Tidy up this mess, there's a good chap.'

'I'll get the wheelbarrow and the dustpan and the brush,' Jake numbered these articles on his fingers, hamming up the idiocy.

'Hey these your smokes?' Jasper was easily distracted. He picked up a packet lying in the cobwebs and pink plaster dust. Jake's heart dived for the cover of his stomach. 'OK if I nick one?' Jasper hefted the pack, looking puzzled. 'What's in here? Fuckin' heavy for a pack of twenty'

'Oh, my little secret.' Jake took the pack from Jasper's unresisting fingers and tapped out a cigarette which Jasper absently took. 'I keep a little bag of fish, blood and bone in there in case any of the plants needs like a little tonic,' he explained patiently. He'd found that ten minutes of earnest garden talk was as much as most people could take. 'You start with dung,' he droned on, 'and a handful of fish, blood and bone. Bit of lime for such as wants it. Clay's a rich soil but a bit of a bugger to work.' Jake held out his lighter and Jasper, after inspecting the filter for cleanliness, drew greedily on the flame. A shaft of smoke jetted from his mouth, followed by a smothered cough. He supposed he'd better go outside so's he didn't stink of smoke, and went to pace by the pool looking worried.

Chris looked the question of Jasper's identity at Jake who nodded that yes, it was the same man. 'I'll just go and get some things to tidy up, then,' he continued slow and loud. 'I can come in and do the ceiling on Wednesday.'

'We'll discuss that later,' said Metcalfe dismissively as he carried the beers out to the pool.

Jake strode purposefully away, slowing to a limping trudge as soon as he was out of sight. He tried the tape but it had died in the fall. He buried it under a pile of leafmould, noting with interest that though the centre of a holly leaf had rotted to crumbly brown lace, the perimeter spines were as sharp as ever.

Broom, shovel, barrow, dustpan and brush. He headed back as quietly as the squeaks and rattles allowed. The two men were now on the far side of the pool looking at the new fountain – a plain slab of black marble sporting a bronze sun with a laughing face from whose mouth water poured.

Chris held his hand under the flow. 'Fancy a dip, Jas? Feel that. We've had the boiler on all day.'

Jasper felt. If not exactly warm, the water verged on tepid. He finished the cigarette to the last puff and threw the stub over the hedge. Ja. A swim sounded good. And clean clothes. But why was Chris trying to scare him with fairy stories and what was all that with that guy falling through the ceiling? Jasper was uneasy, if not yet scared.

Walking up to the house he met Cecily and Charleen, who had spent the afternoon in the shops of East Grinstead. Cecily was carrying a jug of Pimms and Charleen a tray of glasses.

'Jasper! Good heavens, look at you!' Charleen was shocked. 'What have you been doing? Rolling down a minedump or something?'

Jasper briefly told them of Jake's accident and his own close shave. Cecily, having ensured that Jasper was unhurt, transferred her concern to Jake. Charleen, to her spouse's chagrin, having spent all day cramped in false gentility like her feet in the too-tight nubuck shoes she'd insisted on buying, suddenly burst out laughing.

At last she relented and led her morose and irritated husband off to find him some clean clothes. Twice she collapsed onto him when a fit of giggles overcame her. Jasper glumly supposed that there was no hope of talking Chris into a wife-swap. Jesus, he'd give that snooty bitch a fucking she'd never forget.

Charleen insisted that he undress in the garage and scoot up to the shower wrapped in a towel. 'Hello, Jas,' said the elder daughter sweetly as he sidled past the open door of her room.

'Excuse me,' he muttered - and fled

Chapter 21

The Richardsons came at six, along with their son Wilfred and his girlfriend, Rachel Horder, whom Jake knew in her capacity as probation officer. 'Hello, Jake,' she merrily cued him. 'Remember me, Rachel?'

'Yes of course. Sorry, I was miles away.'

'I know Jake from the newsagents in Uckwash,' she lied fluently to the company at large. 'We met over their last copy of the Guardian. Jake had actually picked it up but when he saw I was disappointed he very gallantly offered it to me. We got talking and it turned out that we were interested in different sections so we each paid half, took it outside and tore it to bits.'

'I got sports, TV, the crossword and obituaries,' said Jake entering into the spirit of the thing, 'while Rachel got Social Work, Business and news.'

Wilfred seemed to be champing at the bit so Rachel teased him a bit longer, then said: 'We'll talk later Jake. Wilfred, dear, you haven't introduced me to our hosts.' Rachel smiled mischievously as she was drawn away. Another undercurrent. Now all it needed was for Cecily or Jasper to recruit him as a spy to really make his day.

The barbecue sat in a brickwork niche at one end of the pool. The guests clustered round an umbrellaed table at the other. They sat in the late sunshine drinking beer and Pimms and wine and nibbling nuts and cubes of spiked melon.

Solomon and Ruthie lay flank to flank on the moss, his arm almost around her shoulders. They were about fifteen feet from the group, too far to hear more than the odd shriek of laughter above the general chatter. The women had gravitated to one end of the table and the men to the other although, thought Solomon, at least they hadn't separated completely, as at a South African braai.

Sukie and Pookie drifted along later with a couple of boyfriends, one darkhaired, one strawy. They quickly stripped to bathers, grabbed drinks and lay back on sunloungers in the pleasant afternoon heat.

Chris was the only one who actually swam although Sukie sat on the side and dangled a shapely leg in the water. Chris did his usual surging six lengths then heaved himself out and stood with water streaming off the grey hairs of his chest, down his flat stomach, over his black trunks (with a discreet gold border) and down. With a towel slung over his shoulder, he strode off to get changed. Charleen and Marjorie looked after him for a moment and then back at their own spouses who sat drinking beer and talking rugby. An unhappy glance flashed between them. Beat.

'Terrible what's going in Zim now hey?' Charleen sadly shook her head.

'My dear, you simply can't conceive of how awful things have become. Thank heavens Gavin managed to move some of our assets over here - and that cost a pretty penny I can tell you - and over the years he kept up his National Insurance at home. But most of our money's still tied up in Zim. Of course Mugabe and his gang have got literally billions stashed away in Swiss banks. Stolen from the white business community and from his own people.'

'Tsk. Ag shame. My sister and them used to live by Bulawayo. They had a reely lovely place there in the Matopos. We used to visit every couple of years but then her oldest boy was killed in an attack on a farm where he was working and she told her husband that was it – they were getting out. They living in Benoni now but they having a hard time. It breaks my heart to see them. She says to me: "Charlsie, this isn't living you know. This is existing."'

'It's very sad.' Marjorie sniffed. 'But I could tell you a thousand stories worse than that. Of course we're among the lucky ones, but coming home to England has been jolly difficult. Many things have changed and the cost of living is incredible. Thank God we have our health.'

'Ja,' Charleen was not about to be out-horrored, 'my sister that I was telling you about's husband lost one leg to diabetes so she's working as a bookkeeper in a furniture factory. They sold their house to one of these so-called educated blacks who had a degree from the London School of Economics and the first thing he does is plough up her front lawn to plant vegetables. That lawn was her pride and joy, but what can you do?'

'That's nothing.' And Marjorie unleashed her litany of moans. Getting up at four in the morning to queue for petrol. The almost total collapse of the public services. The dreariness of a life without little things like Marmite and Bird's custard. Not to mention the murders, the siezed farms, the stupidities of Affirmative Action. 'It's not that I'm a racist – I'm not. But people have to be competent. A friend of mine works in a bank and the general attitude drives her mad. At the end of the day the books have to balance – if you're a cent out you have to stay until you've found it, that's all there is to it. But she just can't get it into their thick heads. The result is that poor old Portia is often there till nine or ten at night trying to find her staff's mistakes.'

'I wish she'd come and work in our bank.' Cecily arrived with a tray of canapes. 'They made the most godawful mess of our direct debits. I hope you don't work for them, Rachel.'

'No,' Rachel rode to the rescue. 'I'm a probation officer.'

'A born do-gooder, our Rachel,' boomed Wilfred, putting a possessive arm around her shoulder. 'Ten to one that gardener bloke's one of your lost sheep.'

'Oh for goodness sake, Wilfred!' Rachel angrily shrugged off his arm, 'spare me your jealous fantasies. Jake is a casual acquaintance, that's all. We met in the newsagents. At least I can have an intelligent conversation with him without getting your hidebound Tory line all the time. As for my clients, I've already told you that I never discuss my work. I happen to believe that client confidentiality is non-negotiable. I mean would your customers like their financial details published? OK, nuff said. Be a darling and fetch me another beer.'

Wilfred, routed, complied.

Chris came up to announce the first instalment of meat and heard Wilfred's clumsy thrust. He looked speculatively at Jake. It was certainly possible that Wilfred had hit on it. There was something most peculiar going on.

Jasper was also on edge. Chris's threat to tie him in with the tramps didn't make sense. Any attempt to frame him would involve them both. The same applied to Olieboom. No-one was going to stick his neck out, neither the customer nor one of the koevoet boys. Unless someone had got religion or something stupid. As far as Jasper knew, the NACT was still in South Africa having been purchased by one Frikkie Venter, the leader of a rabid right-wing Afrikaner splinter group whose rhetoric made Eugene Terreblanche seem the voice of sweet reason. In fact Frikkie hadn't been about to let his bunch of clumsy psychopaths play with such devastating weapons. He had persuaded Chris that he was acting as an agent for the South African government and the poison had indeed passed through ministerial hands before being sold on to a Nicaraguan group illegally funded by the US. It had never been used and had eventually found its way to a chemical weapons facility in the blue ridge mountains of Virginia on the Trail of the Lonesome Pine.

Maybe Chris wanted to unload another consignment of the stuff, thought Jas, and was warning him to keep his mouth shut. Or perhaps he was sounding him out to help. Good God, did he suspect him of moral qualms or what? Surely Chris knew his ou chommie Jasper better than that.

He picked up a plate and went to get his share of the meat.

Jake diligently tended the barbecue and despite his grazes and bruises threw sticks for Rufus to keep him well away from Solomon and Ruthie. At last the sausages, kebabs and chops were done. Cecily insisted he join the party and proposed a toast to: 'Our first-class chef and the best gardener we've ever had, Jake.' There was a spattering of applause and Jake briefly mingled. The Richardsons were politely condescending, the Keates looked through him, Sukie and Pookie (or Sulky and Pukey as he inwardly called them) muttered brief hellos and at once turned back to their own little group.

Jake found himself alone with Rachel. 'I see you're a man of many talents, Jake,' she said mischievously. 'I had no idea about the gardening.'

'Well, it's something I picked up in Catford nick,' murmured Jake after a quick glance around. 'I like to keep my hand in.'

'Don't worry, your secret's safe with me. But I wonder if I could pick your brains? I have an old passionflower vine growing over the porch and there are always loads of flowers but no fruit. What can I do?'

'It might need another plant to pollinate it but you could try dusting the pollen from flower to flower. You could use a bit of cottonwool but Toby, the old lag who taught me whatever I know, always used to swear by a rabbit's foot.'

Rachel gave a peal of laughter which tapered off into giggles as she caught sight of Wilfred's scowl. 'You know,' she confided, 'all my middleclass friends think I'm quite saintly to work with criminals as a probation officer, but the truth is I love it. There's plenty of tragedy and frustration and disappointment but you get to meet such interesting people. Wilfred's an old sweetie really, but he could bore for England. Anyway, I'd better circulate. Take care.' And she sauntered away to rejoin her simmering escort.

Jake went back to tidying up. He scrubbed the grill with a bit of scrunched-up foil, disconnected the gas-bottle and closed the lid. A cloud came over the sun and the temperature dropped like a stone. Fat drops of rain began to fall. There were a couple of dainty feminine squeals and Cecily said: 'Come on people, let's go up to the house for coffee and dessert. Sukie, Pookie, be darlings and lend a hand.'

The women picked up plates and bottles while the men hovered ineffectually until loaded up and pointed in the right direction. Chris and Jasper helped Jake move the furniture under shelter while Rufus ran round barking and getting underfoot. Jake threw a pinecone as far as he could and Rufus bounded off in purblind pursuit. He barged through the shrubbery whining and sniffing before giving a triumphant bark as he snowploughed through a pile of dead leaves. He siezed his quarry and gave it a quick shake and mauling before trotting proudly back and dropping a slimy object at Jake's feet.

'What have you found now, you daft hound?' Chris asserted ownership of the dog and turned the unsavoury object over with his foot.

'My fags.' Jake started for the packet but too late. Through a hole in the side, a red plastic button glared against a gunmetal case.

There was a moment of shock while excuses whirred like flushed grouse through Jake's mind. Never seen it before? No. A walkman to pass the time? Not a chance. Metcalfe hired me to spy on Keate? Keate, to spy on Metcalfe? Off the whole lot flew leaving a void.

Chris recovered first and pounced. A couple of rips exposed what was unmistakeably a miniature tape-recorder.

'Well, well, Jake. What do we have here?'

'It's a vokken tape-recorder,' said Keate with a genius for stating the obvious. He clutched a fistful of Jake's shirt and thumped him in the chest. 'You! What the fuck's going on here?' Thump. Thump.

'I'll have to tell him, Mr. Metcalfe.' Jake faced Keate. 'Take your hands off me,' he said with icy assurance, 'and I'll explain it all. Thank you. The truth is that Mr. Metcalfe suspects you of being involved in the theft of some video or other from his house.'

Jasper turned his fury on Chris. 'Me. You suspect me, you slab of shit. Till you said I din't even know that fucking video was still around.'

'It's no good, Jasper. Jake saw you talking to Lee Jago at Uckfield station.'

Keate's eyes narrowed. 'Now I know you talking kak. I never been to Uckfield station in my life and I never even heard of this Lee whatsit.'

'What about the five thousand pounds you gave him?'

'I gave some ouk five grand for that old video? Jesus, Chris you need your fucking head read.' Jasper gave a short, unlovely laugh. 'I can think of plenty better things to do with five grand. When was I supposed to have done all this anyway?'

'Last Sunday night.' But Chris's plerophory seemed to falter.

'It might have been someone else,' Jake conceded readily. 'The light was bad and they were about fifty feet away. But one chap was wearing a hat like Mr. Keate's with a leopardskin band.'

'Mine's not leopard,' said Jasper contemptuously. 'It's cheetah. And last Sunday I was in St. Alban's with my brother's family. Ask Charleen, she'll tell you.' The pained honesty on his thin sunburnt face shifted back to suspicion. 'But that doesn't explain why this poeslap was spying on me. I don't like having my private conversations taped, Chris. I dunno what you think you doing but if you fuck with me I promise you'll regret it.'

'Wait a sec.' Chris held up a placatory palm. 'It seems I owe you an apology, Jas. I promise you I had no idea what Jake was up to. I'd be as interested as you to hear what's on that tape. Well, Jake?'

'Alright, Mr. Metcalfe. I really did go up in the loft to cut back that ivy but I wasn't asleep. After what you said about possibly being a witness I thought you'd appreciate a record of your talk. Besides, my memory's so lousy that I had to think of my own protection. But those few minutes were all I got. When I fell through the ceiling, the machine broke.'

'I see. And what did you make of what was said?'

Jake met Chris's eye. 'I couldn't make head nor tail of it, to tell the truth. There was something about a video of some kind of test but what and when I have no idea.' Jake's expression was almost wholly lacking in gorm.

Chris pushed various buttons but it was obvious the recorder was dead. He ejected the little cassette. 'I think we have an old telephone-answering machine that takes this size. I'll try it in a moment. But I got Jake along here primarily to see if you were the man at the station – and now he tells me that he doesn't know.'

Jake looked again at Keate's hawklike nose and simian mouth. Slicked-back black hair. A long vertical crease in each cheek hinted at the skull beneath. He shook his head as if to clear it of doubts. 'No, I'm sorry to mess you around like this Mr. Metcalfe, but it might have been someone else. In fact now that I come to look at him again I'd have to say it probably wasn't Mr. Keate after all.'

'I should blerrie well think so.' Keate was disgusted. 'Yissus man Chris. You've known me long enough to know better.'

'Yes, you're right. I must admit that I couldn't think of any reason why you'd want it. But someone stole it. Accepting it wasn't you, who was it? And did whatever Jake saw have anything to do with our problem?'

'It's not my problem,' said Keate sullenly

'Oh yes it is.' There was a finality under Metcalfe's words which evoked cold emptiness. Jake shuddered and saw again the dead eyes of the thug who'd casually slashed his leg with a sharpened spoon as a crash course in prison respect. He'd underestimated Metcalfe. Jasper was also cowed, but before he could respond, Cecily's voice fluted on stage left.

'Chri-is!' The lady herself appeared. 'What are you chaps up to? Naturally, no sooner do we go in than the rain stops. Absolutely typical. Anyway, come on, darling. We need you to flambé the cherry tart.'

'Righty-ho. I'll be up in a minute. Why don't you and Jas go on ahead and I'll settle up with Jake?'

'Yes, alright,' said Cecily tonelessly. 'Thank you again for all your hard work, Jake. The barbecue was delicious. I'm afraid Chris has never quite got to grips with al fresco cookery. You're more than welcome to pop up to the house for some food and drink.'

'Thanks, but I think I'd better get going while the rain holds off.'

'Of course. You're on your bike. Well, see you Thursday.'

'Good. And thanks again.'

Chris coughed and Cecily led off a suspicious-looking Jasper Keate by a light touch on the arm. He looked back once or twice but by the time they reached the lawn he was telling an ostensibly-fascinated Cecily all about the vicissitudes of the aerosol business. As soon as they were out of range Chris turned blandly on Jake. 'Don't think you're going anywhere just yet,' he told his hapless gardener. 'I take it you're sure it was Keate at the station?'

'Positive.' If that was what Chris wanted to believe, who was Jake to say him nay?

'Rachel's a nice girl, or rather woman.' Metcalfe tried a new tack. 'How did you say you came to know her?'

'We met in the paper-shop.'

'She's a probation officer, you know?'

'So she told me.'

'She was rather sharp with poor old Wilfred when he made a feeble joke about your being one of her clients. A bit sharper than circumstances warranted, I thought. I wouldn't be surprised if he was onto something there and you had in fact been in jail. I could easily find out. In my business we have to vet all sorts of people. I could make things very unpleasant for you Jake - don't for a moment think I couldn't - but I would much rather have you on my side.'

'I am on your side, Mr. Metcalfe. But I'd like to know what I'm getting myself into. Why all this fuss about a video?'

'There's some shall we say sensitive material on it. Something Mr. Keate would very much like to have. I may tell you more when I've heard your tape. I'll be back as soon as possible. You wait right here.'

Metcalfe went. The sun-trap around the pool was now in deep shade. The last of a watery sun shone feebly in the grey sky. Jake sat at the table and found he was obsessively rubbing the back of his hand over his forehead and was unable to stop.

'So.'

Jake jumped as Solomon came up behind him.

'Hoe gaan dit met die detecting? It was all I could do to hold Ruthie back when you fell through the ceiling. Anything to make us laugh, hey?'

'Ignore him, Jake.' Ruthie's crossness turned to concern. 'Are you OK in yourself?'

'Physically I've been better but mentally I'm absolutely terrified. Metcalfe still thinks Keate has his video, but it sounds like he has an alibi. If he checks up I'm sunk. He's already guessed I've been inside and I'm sure he could drop me in it like that,' Jake snapped his fingers, 'if he wanted.'

'Well I'm willing to say that it was me who stole the video and forced you to lie if necessary.'

'Thanks. I may yet take you up on that. By the way, more bad news.' Jake grimaced. 'Metcalfe mentioned van der Westhuizen and the letter to his brother.'

'What about it?'

'Turns out Keate had been in the army with Brandt and knew for a fact that he had no brother – only half a dozen sisters.'

Solomon tapped his teeth with a fingernail. 'I suppose we could claim it was some other sort of brother.'

'What, like a Christian Brother, or a monk?' Ruthie enquired pertly.

'I was thinking more of a member of the Broederbond or the masons,' smiled Solomon. 'But we're getting on. We've established a link between Jasper Keate and Colonel Petrus Brandt. I'll get Selwyn to chase it up at his end. Did they say anything about Olieboom?'

'They'd only just mentioned it when I dropped in on them.' Jake groaned. 'We should sue whoever made that truss. The crosspiece just came away in my hand.'

'Sure.' Solomon smiled his most infuriating smile. 'And you have the cheek to call me clumsy. His tone sharpened. 'You say they mentioned Olieboom. Can you remember exactly what was said?'

'Uh. I'll try. Metcalfe said that van der Westhuizen claimed to have a witness to what had really happened at Olieboom. Keate seemed surprised that the subject had come up but he certainly knew what Metcalfe was talking about.'

'Are those the exact words he used? "...what had really happened..."?' demanded Solomon. 'He wasn't just quoting from my email?'

'I'm not sure about the "really". I could tell you exactly, since I recorded it all, but Metcalfe has the tape.'

'Shit. How did that happen?'

Jake told them the sad tale. 'He's probably listening to it right now,' he sighed. 'Luckily there's only himself and Keate on it and he did ask me to listen in, but it seems a bit much to have your gardener bugging you. And if Keate convinces him that he really does have an alibi and isn't to blame, we're fucked.'

The dense shadow of the yew hedge had reached the Yorkshire stone flags. The three retreated to the residual warmth of the barbecue, where they could keep an eye on all the approaches, and talked tactics. Twilight deepened and the bats came out. Jake was stiffening up from his bruises. 'He smote them hip and thigh' drifted into his head in the voice of his old Sunday School teacher. He'd thought it a bit feeble then, compared to say a crisp uppercut, but now he wasn't so sure.

Up at the house, a door slammed.

'Someone's coming,' Ruthie warned.

Solomon got up. 'Stick to the script if poss,' he advised Jake, 'but if all else fails, tell the truth. Tug your earlobe if he tries anything nasty. We'll be nearby.'

He dived behind the oil-butt where Ruthie already crouched just as Metcalfe hurried into view.

'Ah, Jake. There you are. Sorry I took so long, but I couldn't find the machine.' Metcalfe sounded as smooth as ever. 'You were right. There's nothing on that tape except for a few minutes' talk between Mr. Keate and myself. As to the video, I daresay you've guessed that there's more to it than just a simple theft?'

Jake nodded.

'Well, the truth is that that video contains sensitive commercial information which could be worth a lot of money to our competitors. But now that I know who has it, I can deal with the matter. Look, here's the fifty I promised you and another twenty-five to keep your mouth shut. Thank you. I may want you again, but you needn't concern yourself any further with this matter.'

'Fine. Thanks for the money, Mr. Metcalfe,' Jake grovelled. Then, whether it was showing off in front of his friends or just a perverse imp, he said: 'Consider it forgotten. I've never even heard of Napalm or what was it, gobbledegook?'

'You know, Jake, I put my wife onto Rachel. Cecily said that you'd told her all about your criminal past but that she thought you deserved a second chance. She mentioned drugs, which was a lucky guess and Rachel said that it was only cannabis and she was happy to confirm that you'd since stayed out of trouble.' A meaningful pause, picked up from the movies. 'Let's just keep it that way shall we?'

'Oh, absolutely, Mr. Metcalfe,' Jake waxed fervent.

'You know, Jake, I can't help wondering where you picked up that little recorder. It's quite a sophisticated bit of kit. I doubt you could afford it on a gardener's wages. Or a secretary's come to that.'

Jake gave a light laugh. 'I used to work for an ad agency before the stress got too much. It was a present from a grateful client.'

'Uh huh. You see, something funny's going on. I get the feeling I'm being stalked and I have a pretty good idea who's behind it. Keate is just a cog. He's short of money so he's trying to sell information. You may even be working for one of my rivals yourself – no, don't bother to deny it. But if that is the case, you could perhaps find it more profitable to work for me.'

'Look, Mr. Metcalfe,' Jake was pained but patient, 'you asked me to see if I could find out anything about the burglary at your house. I noticed that Lee Jago suddenly seemed to have lots of cash after I'd seen him talking to Mr. Keate on Uckwash station. That's all. I'm not working for one of your competitors and I'm completely in the dark about the whole thing. I just thought I was doing you a favour.'

'Yes, you were. And I'm grateful. Don't mention any of this, though, there's a good chap. You may as well push off now. Oh, by the way,' Metcalfe was struck by a sudden thought, 'you wouldn't know where I could get one of those little tape-recorders?'

'No idea, I'm afraid. You might try the small ads in Private Eye. I seem to remember mention of surveillance equipment. Or Exchange and Mart.'

'Good idea. I'll see you around. And thanks for your help with the barbecue.'

'A pleasure,' Jake murmured at the departing businessman's back.

The conspirators met and parted. Jake limped to his bike and found that he couldn't swing his leg over but had to step gingerly through the woman's frame. He was sorry he'd passed up Solomon's offer of a lift. Pedaling hurt too and the shooting pain when he squeezed the left-hand brake lever made him instantly desist. The ride up Frog Lane had never seemed longer. Jake disengaged the energy-sapping dynamo and simply pulled off the road whenever anything approached. He dropped the bike in the hallway at last . Then there was Guinness and Irish stew followed by tiramisu.

Another cup of tea, a joint, a long hot bath and bed.

Back at Sallowfield, Metcalfe was wondering whether to have Jake killed. It was obvious he knew more than he was letting on. His mentioning of Napalm and 'gobbledegook' showed that. Still. the main thing for now was to allay Jasper's suspicions. He turned on the charm. Jas, Gavin and Wilfred were discussing rugby.

'Chris. This'll interest you.' Jasper leered complicitously at his host. 'Talking about you know what, three of the old Namibia gang are coming over to watch the Boks play. Remember, you met them before. We called ourselves the Iron Fist.'

'Yes, of course.' What a delightful surprise. 'Capital chaps. Maybe we could get together sometime.'

'For sure. They're staying with us for a few days. We'll make a plan - maybe spend an evening talking over old times.' A drunken wink.

Gavin glanced discreetly at his watch. Drunks were so tedious and Jasper was well away. Now Chris was offering brandy in the form of a generous slosh in the bottom of a big balloon. Well, why not. Good old Wilf had offered to drive. It would warm the cockles. The unaccustomed chill of an English evening had penetrated his bones. He sniffed the bouquet and let a drop roll over his tongue and down his throat. Good brandy. It spread through his chest like mellow fire. Jasper knocked his back in one.

'These plates are so beautiful, Cecily,' said Charleen in a desperate attempt to distract Cecily from Jasper's loathesome behaviour. 'I'd love some like these, but I'd be too scared to use them in case they got broken.'

'Oh, my mother gave me some really good advice once. She said if I ever found a dinner-service I really liked, I should buy two sets and then there would never be a problem with finding replacements. So I did. And Sod's Law, the only things that've got broken in fifteen years are a milk jug and an egg-cup. But it's the exact opposite with car-keys. As long as I've got only the one set, I never lose them, but the minute I have duplicates cut the whole lot vanish into thin air.'

'Ja, life's like that. But I'll remember that idea about the two dinner services.' And Charleen smiled, choked with envy. She snickered. 'I should do that with shoes. Every time I find something I really like, they stop making it. Mind you, Jasper would have a fit. He's always going on about how much I spend.'

'Men,' Marjorie weighed in, 'have no idea of what it costs just to maintain a semblance of decency. Of course in Zim there was either nothing to buy or the price was astronomical. I remember when we had shops with all the latest London and Paris fashions. We should have left the moment Mugabe got in.'

'South Africa's on the skids too.' Charleen joined in the chorus of woe. 'Joburg's got the highest murder rate in the world, there's a rape every couple of minutes and half the population's dying of AIDS.'

An awkward silence fell. Through the window twilight had deepened to night. A gust drummed rain on the glass.

Chris approached, bearing brandy.

'Chris,' Charleen flirted clumsily, 'it was very generous of you to buy Cecily two dinner-services. I mean, it's a saving in the long run, isn't it? I just wish I could get Jasper to see it.'

'Not guilty, I'm afraid,' said Chris suavely. (Charleen felt an incipient moisture in her panties). 'Nothing to do with me. Cecily has her own income. I only married you for your money, didn't I darling?' he said, nuzzling her neck.

'I sometimes wonder,' she jovially replied. 'Ooh. Is that your special brandy. Come on girls, you must try this. Rachel, won't you join us for a snifter of cognac?'

'When!' said Marjorie as Chris tipped the bottle. 'Just a taste. Then we'd better toddle off. I know Rachel has to be up at the crack of dawn to get over to Plymouth for a case conference, haven't you dear?' And she beamed sickeningly at her prospective daughter-in-law.

Soon after, the party broke up. The young things headed for a nightclub in Rottingdean and Wilfred responsibly drove his parents and Rachel home.

Chris and Cecily and their weekend guests had a cup of coffee in the kitchen and Chris drew Jasper aside to get the names of those friends of his who were coming over to see the Springboks. He then went to his study and spent a few minutes writing an email to Sir Ambrose Mortimer but decided not to send it until he'd had a word with Cecily.

Chapter 22

Solomon was back in London leading a double life. Andy and Sandie were in the throes of separation and the house was a minefield of sulking, tears and recrimination. It was by no means impossible that Sandie would betray his marriage of convenience out of spite. She darkly suspected him of having somehow lured Andy away from the Sapphic sisterhood and neither Solomon's astonished laughter nor Andy's earnest eloquence had wholly convinced her. And faced with the prospect of returning to South Africa he was surprised to realise how much he'd come to like Britain. The arts, for instance, were at a much higher level. Reading a Capetown newspaper made him cringe. Not to mention Doris Lessing. South Africa had a handful of writers, artists, musicians who were OK but most of the stuff was imitation Yank or Brit. Black musicians followed the latest American trends at a distance and 'real' indigenous music was heard at tourist circuses. And Auntie Minnie's letters from the 'rainbow nation' contained mostly bad news. She longed to see him but advised him frankly to stay away. She was happy he'd found a girlfriend and while she would have stoutly denied sharing the common coloured aspiration to marry white, let alone to looking down on blacks, a lifetime's prejudice is not extinguished by wishful thinking.

And talking of Ruthie, would she want to follow him back to the ends of the earth? And if he divorced Andrea and married Ruthie, might they let him stay on in the country only to jail him for fraud?

Ruthie, meanwhile, had been getting increasingly fed up at VIGIL. Her immediate boss, Clive, was one of those dreary Christians who go into charity work because they don't want to. Clive never laughed and was a stickler for that red tape, which drove her mad. Her revenge was to steal time whenever she could, to devote to the long arid search for any information which might help her lover in his obsessive quest.

'Joyce talked of a "fatter of macht",' he'd told her last night, 'and he wasn't far wrong.'

Spending time together had lately been problematic. Solomon sometimes thought he was being followed. Probably nothing, logic reassured him, but why take chances? He took to leaping on or off public transport at the last minute, walking one floor up or down from where the lift stopped and darting the wrong way up one-way streets on his bike. He sometimes bought Andrea little gifts and phoned home at least once a day. Workwise he and his partners had become embroiled in the relicensing of their patented software which involved hours of mind-numbing and pocket-stripping meetings with bankers and lawyers. So it wasn't until a few days after the barbecue that he went to a new internet cafe to read his emails. Solomon had instructed Chris's computer (from a distance) to copy all new material to a site which he called Boombust. There was a slender harvest of business emails as well as one from the golf club and an insurance quotation on his car. There was also an email from Chris to 'Ammor' which read:

Ambrose, my old friend, it's been far too long. We must get together soon. I hate to dredge up ancient history, but someone's been sniffing around O. K. and I'm sure you're as keen as I am that this sort of thing is stamped on. We could meet at White's any evening except Friday. Please let me know a.s.a.p.

Yours, Chris.

No reply as yet, but it had only been sent on Monday. And if Ambrose wasn't Sir Ambrose Mortimer, he'd eat Carmen Miranda's hat. Of course the peer may simply have rung Chris or sent a native runner or even used the post. He'd have to wait and see.

Meanwhile Chris had not been idle. The local butcher's brother was the local postman and between them they heard all the village gossip. Chris, popping in to pick up a few chops for supper, made sure of praising the meat they'd enjoyed over the weekend. It was time to find out more about Jake. Did Reg know anything about some computer chappie who'd set up in the village?

'Well only that South African bloke down the other end of town. But he doesn't fix them or anything. Says he's a software designer, whatever that is. Seems to be doing alright anyway. He likes his sirloin steak.' Reg's huge red hands confidently chopped chops.

'I could do with some advice about upgrading my firm's computer system.' Chris stroked his chin. 'I might look him up. Where did you say he lives?' Jake's address.

'Down by the council houses as were. Off Corporation Terrace. But he's away a lot in London. I'll tell him you were asking after him.'

'No, don't bother. I expect I'll bump into him myself sometime. What does he look like?'

'Well he's what we used to call a half-and-half. You know,' Reg's voice sank, 'touch of the tarbrush. But he's nice enough. A good customer. Short little fellow with his front teeth missing. Remember that song: "All I want for Christmas is my Two Front Teeth"? We live not far away and at first I was worried he'd be bringing in a whole lot of darkies with loud music and drugs but fair dos he's been no trouble at all. So far.'

'Well, that's good. Anyhow, regards to the missus. I'd better go.'

Chris's savoir faire lasted till he was in his car. Jake's boss sounded like a Cape Coloured, which set alarm bells jangling. Jake's credibility went up in smoke. It was time for a council of war.

On Wednesday morning something stirred. There was an email from Sir Ambrose to Chris, which was copied to Solomon's address.

'My Dear Chris,' it ran, 'I'm afraid I'm stuck at home with a crocked leg, but I would be pleased to see you and your better half on Thursday at eight for a light supper. Please let me know if this is convenient. Love to Cecily.

Ambrose.'

Chris's confirmation of this arrangement came thirty-seven minutes later, which suggested either that he was in the habit of checking his personal messages at that time or that he was distinctly jittery.

Solomon went off to the library for a Who's Who and found Sir Ambrose Mortimer's address. Then he phoned Jake from a callbox and brought him up to speed.

On Thursday afternoon Jake cycled cautiously down Frog Lane carrying a piece of plasterboard, a bag of Artex and a handful of galvanised nails. It was a lovely day and even in his apprehensive state Jake noted a clump of Ragged Robin and a long stretch of Queen's Lace. Then the big Copper Beech and he was there. To his relief, Chris's car was nowhere to be seen. Cecily greeted him cordially and soon he was sawing and nailing and stippling. Cecily brought down a cup of tea and the traditional three biscuits on a saucer of which he only ever took one. He carried on until the job was done then he crunched up a chocolate Hobnob and washed it down with a mug of cold tea. A little lie-down in the wheelbarrow was called for. He'd been sleeping badly since the barbecue as every time he rolled over, the pain from his bruised ribs woke him up. He eased himself gingerly into the barrow with a satisfied groan.

He woke in pain. It was dark and when he tied to stretch out, his legs hit a wall. He groggily realised that they were tied together. He tried to sit up and his head bumped metal. His hands were also tied. There was a moment of panic when Jake felt the walls closing in on him. He flung up his arms and his funnybone hit the roof with a bonk of sheet metal. The panic ebbed slowly, along with the tingle in his fingers and he realised that he was in the boot of a stationary car. All was quiet but for the distant scream of a jet approaching a runway. If this was a boot, there was possibly a jack. It should be possible to wedge it under the lid and pop the lock. But Jake had no sooner thought of this than there was a grinding noise, a pause, another grind, a dull boom and then the clash of tumblers as a large lock turned. There were voices, footsteps clicking on a tiled floor and the lid of the boot was flung open. As Jake's eyes adjusted to the glare he saw Chris and Jasper looking down on him. Behind them sat another man in a wheelchair with a shotgun across his lap. Jake recognised the dignified ruddy face of Sir Ambrose Mortimer as seen on TV. Standing behind him was a stony-faced Cecily. Jake sat up warily and noticed that the handcuffs which gripped his wrists were covered in pink fur.

Chapter 23

Seven o'clock. Solomon gave it thirty-six rings then hung up. He couldn't help counting in repetitive situations, sometimes even slipping into the habit in mid-fuck. Where was Jake? He always phoned in after the five-to-six weather forecast on Radio 4. No message, no email and only an answering service on his mobile. It was probably nothing. He threw up a couple of possible explanations: Jake had simply forgotten – unlikely. He was asleep – but the ring on the old bakelite phone in which Solomon had indulged him, would wake the dead. He'd gone off to the Cornstook to get rat-arsed with Len Chicken? Ludicrous. Besides, it lacked an hour of opening time. He rang the Spar, the hospital, even (after a tortured ten minutes), the police. No-one had seen him. The familiar sense of impotence, so well learned under apartheid, threatened to crush him like a rusk. The trouble with spending so much time alone was that it was easy to lose perspective. He'd booked a squash court for eight, the very time that the Metcalfes were to meet Sir Ambrose, and this trivial coincidence somehow set his nerves jangling. Seven thirty. He tried the house in Uckwash once more (forty-seven rings) then set off for his game with Ruthie. There was no point in trying to hide this particular assignation as the white kit and squash racket were a dead giveaway.

Ruthie was wearing a green tracksuit to complement her red hair (one thought of the humble carrot) and was at the door to the leisure centre when Solomon rode up. He greeted her cordially but without kissing and communicated his unease. Ruthie reacted with admirable decisiveness. 'I worked with Jake for two years,' she told her lover sternly, 'and the one thing he was was reliable. It was sometimes a job to pin him down but if he said he'd do a thing he did it. You yourself know how rare that is. If he hasn't been in touch, something's wrong.'

'But what?' Solomon had been turning this over in his mind. Perhaps Metcalfe and Keate had resolved their differences and ganged up on him. His friend Jake, he soberly realised, might already be dead. Or Metcalfe might have set him some new task which rendered him temporarily incommunicado. It would be stupid to kill him until they knew just how much of a threat he represented.

'Come on,' urged Ruthie impatiently, 'let's take my car unless you know of a fast train to Uckfield.'

'No, I don't think so. The Metcalfes have a dinner date with Sir Ambrose Mortimer about now at his house. That's the place to start.'

'Where is it?'

'Near Crowborough. Place called Arbutus Lodge. A quick Google said that the gardens are open to the public one day a year and kindly provided a map. The AA recommends the Blackwall tunnel and then south via Tunbridge wells. I was toying with the idea of popping down there anyway to see how the landlord lies. If Jake's really in trouble and not just in bed with a new lady we may have to let the police in on it. Hi, Dave!' He changed tack as the secretary of the squash club appeared. 'Listen, I'm afraid we won't be able to use court number three. Could you let someone else have it? Ruthie has just remembered a pressing engagement – she has to iron her tea-towels. Ah, the old jokes are the best.'

'Take no notice of this spalpeen,' chaffed Ruthie. 'Only I've just heard that a cousin of mine will be at Heathrow for a couple of hours between flights and I haven't seen her in years, so I have to go.'

'No prob Ruthie.' Dave bounced on the balls of his feet, frightfully keen. 'As long as you realise that you'll have to make it up later to stay on the competition ladder.'

'Of course.'

'For sure,' chimed in Solomon.

'And if no-one can take your court, you forfeit the fee.'

A couple of nods and Dave was off. Solomon pedalled off at full speed to fetch Ruthie's car.

Ten minutes found them on their way and a mere two hours after that they had crawled across London and had arrived in Croydon. Their average speed shot up from ten to a dizzying forty miles per hour. It had just gone eleven when they pulled up at the ornate wrought-iron gates of Arbutus Lodge. An impenetrable holly hedge stretched off on either side and the gates themselves were topped with crested spikes. There was an intercom and a remote-control lock which Jake may have been able to fiddle but which they certainly could not. They parked across the gates, climbed on the protesting roof of the car and jumped over. Solomon had found some of Ruthie's paint-spattered blue overalls in the boot, which more than covered his conspicuous whites. She had refused to stay in the car and was now padding along beside him clutching a mobile phone in one hand and her squash racket in the other. The long tarmac drive between looming rhododendrons was dimly lit by streetlight orange bouncing off the clouds. They advanced warily – there might well be dogs or alarms. There was the house - a long, low, Lutyensesque thing with no car in the drive and only a single porch-light burning. From the woods came a ting as some clock struck the quarter-hour. Solomon looked in the direction of the sound, along the continuing drive. There was a splinter of light at the far end and a faint gleam gradually resolved itself into the sinuous bulk of a gold-painted Jag, such as Jasper Keate drove.

Ruthie tugged at his sleeve and they set off, cutting across a perfect lawn and narrowly avoiding the lily pond. As they drew near they saw what looked like a Victorian carriagehouse with a walled and cobbled courtyard. Jasper's Jag, identified by the vanity plate JK3ATE which had cost almost as much as the car, was parked by a pair of carriage-sized double doors from which light leaked. The clocktower, hayloft and stables were all dark and silent. None of the windows was curtained and the dusty piles of leaves and peeling paint told of neglect and abandonment. They crept closer. Round the back of the carriagehouse a shaft of light fell onto the trunks and rusty needles of a thick stand of larch. Solomon murmured into Ruthie's ear and she set off to work her way through the sticky branches and snatchy brambles round to the window. She walked straight into a dead zone for mobiles. Solomon sidled up to the doors. Light shone underneath where rot had gnawed at the wooden sill. Lying on the cobbles he could see nothing but there were voices dispassionately conversing. Yes. That was Jake, still alive. And who but a South African would say 'Ag please, man.'? Jasper. And at least Chris and Cecily and Sir Ambrose.

What Solomon didn't know was that Jake's cover had been shredded. Chris had put a private detective onto him and up came his links with VIGIL. His 'resignation' as Director of Information came at the same time as a mention in the Crouch End Digest of his being convicted on drug-peddling charges. Furthermore Jasper had eventually satisfied him that he'd had nothing to do with the video's disappearance (a signed petrol receipt gave the date and the time was confirmed by the code of the cashier who'd just come on duty). So Jasper had been not in Uckfield but in St. Albans spending £42.83 on petrol. Chris put all this to Jake after they'd let him sit up in the boot of Chris's Lexus but kept him tied up to forestall trouble. Jake's other hip was now bruised where Rufus's pinecone had dug into it. So. Why had Jake lied? Who was he working for? Was it James Kennedy or Wolfie Goldblum, two sharks who'd long had their eye on Proteus? Or was someone else out to ruin him? Who? And why?

The detective had also investigated Solomon. Cecily had wangled his name out of Rachel and had run an internet search which turned up an article in Lingo, a programmers' magazine, and twenty-seven other references to patents and business links. His computing credentials seemed to be kosher, but the fact that he was a South African and a presumed Cape Coloured to boot made the links to Basil van der Westhuizen and some slanderous nonsense about Olieboom hard to disbelieve.

Chris laid this all out for Jake to realise that further deception was pointless. 'Well,' he prodded.

Jake sat up in the boot of the car. His head was pounding and his mouth was dry. 'Alright,' he croaked. 'I'll tell you everything. But I need some water.'

'There's a bottle of Evian in the cubbyhole,' said Cecily coolly, not taking her eyes off Jake.

'Jasper, there's a good chap.'

'The little shit can drop dead as far as I'm concerned,' grumbled Jasper but he went and got the bottle. Jake clutched it between his hands like a squirrel and swallowed a few grateful gulps. Things cleared a little. He was in a large barn or garage lit by a glaring fluorescent striplight. There was a click of pawl and ratchet and a whirring noise as a nearby clock struck twelve.

When it had finally finished Jake said: 'The person who put me up to this is a journalist called Basil van der Westhuizen.' Tell truth and shame the devil.

'What about this Witbooi?' spat out Jasper, with a sarcastic emphasis on the 'Wit'?

'Oh,' Jake said lightly, 'he's nothing to do with this except that I met Mr. van der Westhuizen through him. All he cares about is computers. Mr. van der Westhuizen's just a journalist following up a story.'

'So he stole a video from my house?' asked Chris.

'I don't know where he got it, or what's on it,' protested Jake. 'All I know is that he gave me a hundred quid to spin that yarn about seeing Mr. Keate at Uckwash station. He said he wanted to stir up something about Olieboom, whatever that may be. He seems to think he's onto something hot about an alleged war crime.'

'Ag kak, man,' Jasper exploded. 'A SWAPO ammo dump went up. There was a official report. End of story.'

'That's not what I heard,' Jake invented rapidly, 'I gather that there's an eyewitness, a poacher. This chap said that the people of the village were herded into the schoolroom by white men with guns and then there was screaming followed by silence. He also said that birds and insects fell out of the trees. Later there was a big bang and he said that if he hadn't been hiding in a hole he would have been killed by flying rubble.'

'This lie is Mylai, this lie is your lie,' Solomon mentally mangled Woody Guthrie, 'from Caliefornia to the New York Lielands...' He wished he could see what was going on.

Ruthie's position was somewhat better. She had wormed her way round to the window and could see Cecily and Sir Ambrose. Jake was hidden by the lid of the boot above which the heads of Chris and Jasper were intermittently visible. Their expressions were not fond. She could hear little more than the odd word. The putty holding in the glass was old and hard and with her fingernails she began prising out the brittle triangular strips. The glazing sprigs had long since rusted away so it went well apart fom the odd tiny creak and clink. Two minutes and the dusty pane lay at her feet.

Jasper Keate's words came through loud and clear: 'This is all rubbish. That's not what happened.'

'Quiet, Keate.' Sir Ambrose's Oxford-educated tones would brook no nonsense. 'I know it's all lies, but I'm a great advocate of giving a thief enough rope to hang himself. Pray continue, my young friend. Has this journalist fellow any evidence to corroborate this putative witness?'

'Some munt whose been at the malpitte,' snorted Keate. 'That's all it is.'

'No, there's more,' Jake assured them. 'Mr. van der Westhuizen also has the results of an autopsy conducted on a house-snake found in the ruins of the schoolroom which was shown to contain traces of NACT – a banned chemical for which Mr. Metcalfe's company holds the patent. And I haven't seen the video but I gather that it shows the deliberate incineration of two tramps in what seems to be Proteus's test chamber.' Jake stole a glance at Cecily, but her expression of cold calculation didn't change. So either she was an excellent actress or the fact that her husband was involved in a sadistic murder came as no surprise to her. Another exit clanged shut in Jake's face. 'I think that might be hard to explain away, Mr. Metcalfe. Also he said that one of the voices on the tape was apparently from South Africa. I don't suppose that could be Mr. Keate, could it? You know that if anything happens to me that video goes straight onto the internet.'

Metcalfe shrugged. 'We have experts who will pronounce it a crude fake. I've been involved in the movie business and I know all the tricks. You don't realise what you've stumbled into, little man, but any talk of publication of top secret material would be quashed.'

'A blanket injunction with immediate effect,' Sir Ambrose said flatly.

'You see, Jake, stirring up mud won't get you anywhere, but I shan't deny that it would be a nuisance. What is it that this muckraking journalist wants? By the way, he doesn't seem to be accredited and none of my South African acquaintances has heard of him.'

'Perhaps that's not his real name,' said Jake reasonably, trying to keep the shake out of his voice, 'but it's what he told me. As for what he wants, my impression is that he's desperate for a scoop.'

'I see. I think it would be as well to meet this ambitious journalist. How do you contact him?'

'Usually by phone, or email. I can't remember the number offhand but I've got it at home. But I think he's in Namibia at the moment.'

'I'm not sure that I believe you,' said Metcalfe with feigned indifference. 'Your record hardly inspires confidence.'

'Lemme hold his hand on a hot exhaust manifold,' Keate impatiently volunteered. 'That used to do the trick in the old koevoet days.'

'No, it's all true,' protested Jake, aware of dripping sweat.

Cecily ran the tip of her tongue over her painted lips. 'It seems to me, Jake,' she said in a cold, hard voice, 'that you have a very poor hand. An unsubstantiated rumour about one accident at a SWAPO weapons dump and a video cobbled together after another accident in this country are hardly likely to overturn the law on double jeopardy. Shall we get Mr. Keate to see what else you know or would you rather be a little more forthcoming?'

'Alright,' Jake blurted. 'There's plenty more. What about the murder of Alfred Toplady, for instance?'

He'd made an unexpected hit. There was sudden confusion in Cecily's eyes and she shot a glance at her husband which he failed to meet. He resorted to bluster.

'Now you're just fantasising.' He tried a scornful laugh. 'Alf died of heart failure, pure and simple. I was fond of old Alf – we both were – and we were very distressed when he died. But he had been poorly for a long time.'

'Yes.' Jake felt like he was coming down off acid: there was a sudden click and everything seemed cool and clear and detached. 'Yes, he was sick. So sick that he needed a pacemaker. Tell me, Mr. Metcalfe, why did you hire a huge electromagnet for the week of Alf's death?'

'What's that got to do with the price of eggs?' Metcalfe's voice had frayed at the edges.

'Just this. They specifically warn against using it near a whole range of sensitive equipment, including pacemakers.'

'Poppycock. I see what it is: you're one of these conspiracy theorists. Besides, even if your ludicrous assertions were true, which I'm not admitting for one minute, how would you go about proving them?'

'I don't have to prove them. Your wife believes me, don't you Cecily?'

'Utter rubbish, she...'

'Quiet Chris,' Cecily cut him off. 'I don't know what to believe, but we can thrash that out later.' She wheeled Sir Ambrose closer. 'In any case, Jake,' she continued, 'if you think that I'm going to allow you to ruin my husband or the business which we've built up together, you're very much mistaken. Now, we need you quiet for a bit.' She reached into her bag and took a hypodermic from its case. 'Your arm, please.'

Jake hurled himself back in the boot onto his faithful pinecone. With sudden inspiration he unobtrusively wiggled it into his armpit. There was a snick as Sir Ambrose closed the breech on his shotgun and aimed it at Jake's head. Cecily wiggled a finger and the pointee sat up, careful to make no sudden moves. His stiff arm was seized and the sleeve of his jumper pushed back. 'Make a fist,' ordered Cecily, whose father had insisted on her getting a nursing diploma before he would subsidise her arts degree. She'd actually liked nursing and had found it a thousand times more use in her life than, say, a textual analysis of The Faery Queene. She found a vein and stuck in the spike. 'Don't worry,' she blithely assured him, 'it's just a little soporific.'

Jake held his arm tight to the pinecone, cutting off his circulation while he silently counted one and two and three and four for a full minute and ten seconds for luck, then let his eyes close and slumped down in the boot.

Ruthie had seen Sir Ambrose point his gun and realised that any intervention might get Jake's head blown off. She tried dialling 999 again but there was no signal. Climbing a tree might help but she couldn't afford to move. She found herself rehearsing speeches for the prosecution at a murder trial and angrily (but quietly) snapping off the twigs which were sticking into her.

'Will that take care of him?' asked Sir Ambrose.

'Oh, yes.' Cecily was breezily confident. 'I gave him enough heroin to kill a horse. We'll stick him in the woods with a syringe still in his arm. Can't see the police wasting any time on a convicted drug-pusher who's obviously OD'd by accident.' She closed the boot.

For Solomon, lying on the cobbles outside, the words were a dagger in his heart. He had to do something, but what? He jumped up and cast about for a weapon. In one corner of the yard stood an old cast-iron pump. The handle had been taken off and its long oldfashioned ess lay rusting among the weeds. It was good and heavy. Perfect. Time to create a diversion. Boop. Boop. The handle bounced twice off the toughened windscreen with a noise like a football bounced on the road but a third swing brought a satisfying crash and the demented yeeping of an alarm. The door opened and Jasper looked out and received a whack which broke his collar-bone and knocked him to the ground. Solomon skipped in and pulled the door to behind him, locking himself in and Jasper out. Sir Ambrose was already covering the door with his shotgun when there was a twang and a whup and he clutched his eye which had just been hit by a squash ball energetically propelled by Ruthie's racket.

Solomon dived for the gun and backed into a corner with it before the others could move. 'Non-white' South Africans had a keenly honed sense of immminent danger. Metcalfe lunged towards him but stopped short as Solomon flicked off the safety catch. He knew guns. His Uncle Hector had illegally picked up an old Boer War Mauser with which Solomon had once shot a zebra which had been turned into the toughest biltong he'd ever tried to chew.

'Where's Jake?' he demanded.

'In the boot of the car.' Ruthie's voice came throught the window.

The car alarm stopped and was succeeded by the brisk churn of a V12 engine and the fading sounds of hurried departure. Simultaneously there was a thumping sound from the Lexus. Solomon backed over, not taking his eyes off the three respectable murderers, and flung open the lid.

'Solomon. Thank Christ.' Jake struggled upwards, his left arm held stiffly to his side.

'Jake. My man. Are you OK?'

'No. Quick, get me a tourniquet.'

'You, Metcalfe,' Solomon pointed the gun at him, 'Take off your tie but don't try anything. First sign of anything untoward and I shoot. Attaboy. Ruthie,' he sang out, 'you'd better come down here. It looks like Jasper's headed for the hills but he may come back when he finds your car across the drive, so be careful. Nice shot, by the way.'

'Thanks.'

Seconds later she tapped at the door and Solomon let her in. Without a word, she picked up the tie where Chris had tossed it and hurried over to Jake.

'Here,' he directed, 'poke it under my armpit. Good. Now tie it nice and tight. Ow. Not that tight. OK here goes.' Jake lifted his arm and the pinecone fell out. He closed his eyes. 'Whew. What a rush. And that was only a bit of it. I've still got an armful of heroin I daren't let through. Cecily's got a syringe in her bag. We could try sucking the stuff out of the same vein, but I really need a hospital.'

'We're on our way,' Solomon reassured him. 'Do you want to try that trick with the syringe first?'

'Yes, I think so.'

'Right. Ruthie, hold out your racket for Cecily to put her bag on, if you'll pardon the split infinitive.'

Ruthie proffered the flat head of the racket at arm's length and Cecily, after a level look at Solomon's implacable expression, lifted the bag between thumb and forefinger and deposited it as stipulated. Ruthie tipped out the contents of the little calfskin bag and found the syringe in a tampon-case. There was also a little bottle labelled insulin. The veins on Jake's arm were still engorged, the one he'd been injected in dripping blood. Ruthie pushed the plunger fully home (catching the few drops on a clean tissue) and jabbed, unfortunately closing her eyes at the last minute.

'Ouch.'

'Sorry, Jake, I'll try again.'

'Don't jab,' he said quickly, 'just push the point slowly in. Ignore my screams. They're just reflexes. I feel no pain.'

Ruthie overcame her qualms and slid the sharp into the vein then slowly pulled the plunger right out and let Jake's blood run free over the Lexus's metallic paintwork and trickle to the floor.

There was a single distant clang, then silence.

'Someone should explain the meaning of the word "gatecrasher" to Mr. Keate,' observed Solomon drily. 'I hope he's insured for damage to Miss McNulty's car. How's Jake doing, Ruthie?'

'Not too badly. I'd guess that's about an armful of blood, but we'd better keep the tourniquet on till we see a doctor.'

'Right. I'm sure Mr. Metcalfe would be delighted to lend us his car. You, Mortimer, is there another way out of here?'

It was many years since Sir Ambrose Mortimer had been addressed by an underling with anything but extreme deference, but his throbbing eye and an intimate knowledge of the effect of buckshot at close range meant that he let this insolence pass.

'There is a track through the paddock,' he grudgingly conceded, 'but I could have my personal physician here in ten minutes. I am myself in considerable pain and I don't want to risk losing an eye.'

'You'll be fine, apart from a spectacular shiner,' Cecily was decided. Her mouth curled in a sour smile. 'And Jake's in no danger either. I'm a trained nurse. I only gave him enough to knock him out.'

' "Enough heroin to kill a horse" you told forever Ambrose.'

Cecily brushed the objection aside. 'That was just to calm him down. Jake was still useful to us. I needed him as bait to get you here. I assume I'm talking to Mr. van der Westhuizen. Besides, if I were to murder Jake I wouldn't leave him in the boot of a car with all the problems of rigor mortis and cadaveric lividities.'

'So you'd lie to Sir Ambrose Mortimer but not to me. I'm touched.' But Solomon had in fact been ninety per cent convinced by Cecily's matter-of-factness that she was telling the truth.

Ruthie had found the key to the pink handcuffs in Cecily's bag. She freed Jake's hands and untied the rope round his feet.

Jake sighed and clambered out of the boot, smiling a stoned smile and energetically scratching his thigh. 'Point of information. My arm's gone dead. I don't want gangrene. I say take off this tourniquet.'

'If Jake dies,' Solomon soberly promised, 'I'll kill all three of you. What say, Cecily? You'll be the first to get it if I find you've lied.'

'No. Go ahead.'

Ruthie loosened the tie and there was a tense moment, then Jake shook his head and tutted. 'Damn,' he said. 'Nothing. I was hoping for at least a little buzz.' He scratched his arm. 'If I may make a suggestion.' He held up the fluffy pink handcuffs.

'Good idea,' said Solomon. 'Chris with his Arab strap, Cecily with her handcuffs. Touch of the Swinburnes eh? Cecily, you stand behind Ambrose. Now both hold out your hands to signal a right turn. Good show. Jake, can you come up carefully and snap on the darbies?'

'My pleasure.' Jake approached and did the business. Cecily's wrist was four clicks thinner than Sir Ambrose's. She was impassive, Ambrose was puce and sweaty but Chris looked as if he were about to choke from impotent rage. Tableau.

'What, erhm,' Chris cleared his throat, 'what is it you want, exactly?'

'Justice. What Jake was saying earlier about the evidence we have against you is all true. I'm sure that if Jasper Keate is identified with the voice on that video he'll have no hesitation in incriminating you as well, but what happened to those tramps is not my main concern. What I'm after is whose idea it was to gas the village of Olieboom in nineteen eighty-six.'

'I have no idea what you're talking about. Look, Chris wheedled, 'this whole thing is a misunderstanding. Olieboom was an accident. A SWAPO ammunition dump exploded and killed an entire village. I looked it up when I got that email. That's the truth, pure and simple.'

'Truth is never pure and rarely simple. See Oscar Fingal O'Flaherty Wills Wilde. For instance, the idea that the entire village was eliminated is false. I count myself an Olieboomer even though I was living in Capetown at the time. What is true is that all the rest of my immediate family as well as some friends and even one or two enemies were coldbloodedly murdered. Not a day goes by that I don't think of them, my nights are broken by nightmares. And don't think you can scare me – I have AIDS and I'm not long for this world. Wait. That's an idea. Ruthie, the syringe. Can you draw out a bit of my blood?'

'Well, sure,' said Ruthie dubiously. 'If you insist.'

'I do. Go ahead, but be careful not to prick yourself.'

Solomon handed the twelve-bore to Jake and Ruthie tied up his arm and managed to control her trembling while she drew off half a syringeful. Solomon spritzed a few drops from the needle. He certainly had everyone's attention.

'Lady and gentlemen,' he addressed the captives, 'what I have in my hand is a slow and horrible death after a life of miserable apprehension. Here in what's laughably called the civilised world, poisons can extend your worthless lives but suppression is not cure. I daresay you have shares in drug companies. Do you think they would rather keep selling their expensive palliatives, or find a once-and-for-all cure? I'm on forty-eight pills a day. Your one chance of avoiding this creeping death is to talk. You, Sir Ambrose, are you familiar with the Hindu gods?'

'Not particularly. I read Geography at Oxford. I know that one has six arms and another the head of an elephant but I'm afraid that's as far as it goes.'

'Uh huh. Jake! Don't go to sleep on us. Give the gun to Ruthie and stop that scratching. It's driving me mad.

Jake shrugged, handed over the gun and put his hands in his pockets.

'You know Chris here better than I do. Would you describe him as the poetic or fanciful type.'

'Well, the only gardening comment I've ever heard him make is that he likes to see stripes on the lawn, so I'd say no. Cecily's the one with artsy pretensions. And there's a photo on the piano of her grandparents sitting on a verandah in Calcutta.'

'Well, well. Cecily, was Operation Kali your idea?'

'I haven't the faintest inkling what you're on about.' Cecily shrugged, the picture of affronted respectability.

'Sissy,' Ruthie blurted. 'Yes, that's who you are. Mrs. Toplady kept talking about someone called Sissy. She showed me a picture of a little girl sitting on her Alf's knee and said that they'd never had kids of their own but that she was like a daughter to them. She said the child was from a well-off family but I got the impression that she wasn't very happy at home. Kept in touch via Christmas cards and the occasional letter but that they hadn't met in years. Happily married,' Ruthie continued remorselessly, 'with two grown-up daughters. But she didn't seem to connect you with that nice Mr. Metcalfe who'd given Alf a job. I wonder why.'

'Because they were proud.' Cecily shook her head. 'When I heard that Alf had been laid off at the furniture factory I got Chris to offer him a job. He'd never have taken it from me. Luckily they didn't know my married name as I was going through some feminist nonsense when we tied the knot and I kept my own name.'

'Would dear old Alf be proud that the little girl who used to ride-a-cock-horse on his knee had married a man who fried tramps for fun and profit?' asked Solomon sarcastically. 'We know that the so-called accident upset him terribly but what if he became suspicious? He had a heart condition serious enough to require a pacemaker. Here's a scenario: Chris hires the most expensive electromagnet on the market, sets it up and zaps Alf. If it doesn't work, nothing's lost. But Alf considerately dies in exquisite pain and the megamagnet is returned a few days later, never having gone through the firm's books.'

'How...?' Chris caught himself, 'Come on, this is utter nonsense. I mean...' He sputtered into silence as Cecily gave him the basilisk treatment.

'I hope you realise that I had no knowledge whatsoever of any of this,' declared Sir Ambrose leadenly. 'My sole involvement with Metcalfe is limited to entirely legal and above-board commercial activities.'

Solomon snorted. 'Ooh. "My dear Chris", "Love to Cecily". Doesn't sound much like a purely business relationship to me.'

'Not to mention holding a gun on me while he thought Cecily was putting me down.' Jake yawned and shook himself awake.

'We don't believe you, Ambrose old fruit, but I don't suppose you'd hesitate to throw Chris to the wolves. What about it, Chris? And your good lady wife. If I were to stick this needle in your leg would she lift a finger to stop me?' Solomon feinted with the hypodermic while Chris shrank back in horror. 'Just one little prick and you've had it. With your immune system shot there are an almost infinite number of ways to die. You'll waste away (they call it "slim" in Zim) and you could go blind, get pneumonia and or Karposi's Sarcoma. Some of these disease names are so poetical aren't they? Meet my daughter Leukemia and my son Phthysis.' Solomon grinned evilly. 'Or you could die of the common cold.'

A drop of sweat stung Chris's eye and his collar felt clammily cold.

'Come on. Let's talk Olieboom. Start with NACT. It wasn't all destroyed, was it?'

'No, not all of it. But,' Chris stole a look at Sir Ambrose, 'the authorities unofficially condoned what we did. We were in the middle of the cold war and the South Africans had heard that the Cubans had nerve-gas and naturally wanted some themselves as a deterrent.'

'Thatcher, Reagan, Apartheid. Ah, the good old days,' sneered Jake who had opened the driver's door of the Lexus and now sat sideways on the front seat.

'I never supported Apartheid,' protested Chris earnestly, 'but a communist takeover of South Africa would have been an unmitigated disaster. Anyway, and I know this is a trite argument but nonetheless true for all that, if we hadn't sold it them France and Israel would have been in there before you could say knife.'

In the distance, a starter-motor nagged again and again until it faded into silence. A car door slammed.

When Jasper, in panic fear, had rammed the gate, the jolt to his broken collar-bone had been so painful that he'd blacked out. Now his shoulder was swollen and so tender that the slightest bump set off sparks behind his eyeballs. The gates were unscalable in his present condition and the house was locked up and deserted. There was no other way. He had to go back to the stables. Yissus, man, he thought, Sir Ambrose had a moera big shotgun. What a cunt to run away and then crash his beloved Jag. Not only that, if they killed that fucken hippy he wouldn't put it past Chris to land him in the shit. He hoped that the bastard who'd whacked his shoulder was even now dying a lingering death. As long as he'd been alone. Jasper took a can of aerosol wheel-cleaner from the boot and shuffled off like a coolie with knees bent, cradling his useless right arm in his left to avoid the agonising flash and long resentful throb caused by the slightest shock. He made steady progress.

Meanwhile, Chris was indeed busy blaming everything on his luckless confederate.

'Yes,' he'd hastily admitted as Solomon aimed the syringe at him like a dart, 'I did know that NACT had been used at Olieboom, but only afterwards. Keate was responsible. I couldn't say anything because I'd supplied the stuff, but I swear to God that I didn't think it would ever be used. But Keate himself had no option. The client insisted on a demonstration.' Chris mutely appealed to Cecily but met only an icy stare.

'Well, why didn't you say so?' Solomon's sarcasm could have stripped paint. 'I forgot the first rule of business: the customer is always right. Fancy an atrocity? No problem. So Jasper thought this up all on his ownio did he?'

'Yes. Yes he did.'

'If that's true you should sue your face for libel,' was Jake's bored contribution.

'I think you're wasting your time on him,' said Ruthie. 'He keeps looking at his wife for a steer. Try her first.'

'Bad dog, Chris!' Jake's pinpoint pupils and laconic delivery brought Lieutenant Data to mind. 'Poor dumb brute. I'd say Cecily'd be more upset if you threatened to inject Rufus. And we've already seen Sir Ambrose's take on loyalty.'

'So, Chris my old chommie, it looks like you're dispensable,' said Solomon carelessly. 'OK buddy. Assume the position. Face the wall with your arms up and your legs spread.'

Chris shrank back into the corner, staring-eyed with terror.

'Whose idea was it really? Cecily's?'

Chris gave a palsied nod.

'Cecily?'

'It was the least bad option,' she tiredly confirmed. 'The brief was to exterminate a roomful of people quickly enough to minimise the chance of effective resistance. It took seventy-three seconds to extinguish all signs of life. We got the contract. It bailed us out at a time when the firm was about to go under. But the village had already been identified as a SWAPO base and was due to be obliterated anyway. I'm sorry your family was involved, but these things happen in war.'

'And, it seems, in business.'

'Sure.' Cecily shrugged. 'But business is war. And as in war, anything goes. I was swindled out of two-thirds of the modest capital which my father had left me before I decided to strike back. Scruples are an unaffordable luxury when you know your opponents will use every dirty trick in the book. If you haven't found that out yet, I don't suppose you'll be in business for long.'

So that was it. Solomon felt only a great emptiness. Chris had made the stuff, Cecily had picked Olieboom as the demonstration site and Sir Ambrose had at least turned a blind eye, if he had not been actively involved in propping up a loathesome regime which would have done anything to stay in power. All three had been prepared to murder his good friend Jake. There was no question that they deserved to die; or better, a long spell in prison. But did he really want to torture these nice upper-middleclass people by proxy? Would that not reopen his festering wounds? And was death simple, free and final? Yes and no. Death trailed broken cobwebs in its wake entangling unwary victims. He could kill all three of them here and now, but that would be to involve Jake and Ruthie to an intolerable degree.

Sir Ambrose looked grey apart from his plum purple eye which had swollen so much that he could hardly see. The harsh bluish fluorescent light did him no favours but Solomon knew that the ex-Minister of Defence was his most dangerous enemy. That right arm which was presently held upright by the pink handcuffs could still be wielded to devastating effect. Legally, for instance, it was the word of a convicted drug dealer, a coloured alien in a fraudulent marriage and an Ulsterwoman against that of three pillars of the establishment. Evidence would be discredited, ruled inadmissable or prompted by malice. He could be certified, deported, jailed or killed. Any legal action could be strung out for years, potentially bankrupting him and ruining his life. But he had to know all he could.

'Sir Ambrose,' Solomon returned to the fray. 'We've heard very little from you. What do you have to say?'

'I am not at liberty to disclose matters of State Security,' the peer stonewalled, 'but I can assure you that I have not been involved in anything illegal.'

'So the substantial monies popping up in your account in Antigua just after Operation Kali could be easily explained?'

Sir Ambrose made the sound represented by Harumph but before he could speak there was a wheezy clank and the stable clock struck one. Sir Ambrose had graduated to goldfish impressions when Solomon laughed. 'Môre is nog 'n dag, alles sal reg wees,' he continued. Ruthie had come to recognise this particular succession of throat-clearings as a sign that things would be OK again and hope leapt up in her heart.

Cecily spoke: 'It's late. We should be getting home.'

It was unfortunate for Jasper that Cecily's cool words were the first thing he heard on reaching the stable doors. He jumped at once to the wrong conclusion, that everything was under control, and tapped on the door.

Solomon indicated that Sir Ambrose should answer.

'Yes, who is it?'

'It's Jasper Keate, Sir Ambrose. Can I come in?'

Solomon nodded.

'Yes, of course,' said his obedient puppet, keeping his good eye on the shotgun as Ruthie moved back a little so as to cover both the three miscreants and the door.

Jake strolled over, picking up the pump-handle which Solomon had discarded. He twisted the knob and kept behind the door as he opened it.

Jasper, his eyes screwed up against the glare, saw Ruthie and reflexively loosed off a lefthanded squirt of cleaner. It is doubtful if it would have had any effect at that distance even if the nozzle had been pointing in her direction, but it was not. Jasper's own arm and chest were suddenly covered in white foam which began fizzing busily. He jumped back but the pain in his shoulder made him crumple to his knees.

Jake moved to secure the door.

'The return of the missing link,' quoth Solomon merrily.

Jasper looked up at the familiar accent and saw a short little klonkie with paintsmeared overalls smiling derisively down at him. There was a ding as Jake's leg-drive with the pump-handle hit the aerosol can for six, stinging Jasper's fingers with joy-buzzer effect.

Jasper was beginning to suspect that coming back had been a mistake. 'Poeslap,' he admonished himself. Why had he listened to his stress-counsellor's advice to leave his mobile at home? The pain nagged like a hungry cat. Jasper hated cats. That fat ginger girl, he noticed, had opened the car door to use as a gun-rest and the Coloured was holding a syringe full of blood. What the hell was going on? Look at Sir Ambrose's face. Jasper's suggestion that they should hold Jake's arm to a hot manifold came back to him, but this was no time for reverie. As an old soldier he saw that resistance would have to wait.

'Jasper,' Solomon addressed him familiarly, 'we've never met but I've heard so much about you. These nice people here were just telling us that you carried out the massacre at Olieboom practically singlehanded.'

'That is blatantly untrue,' protested Cecily.

Jasper's skin began to burn where the cleaning foam had penetrated his shirt. He started to cry.

'Help me,' he yelped. 'This stuff's burning my fucking skin off and my shoulder's fucked.'

'Solomon.' Ruthie's voice betrayed her inability to withstand the pain of others. As for the Baster himself, Jasper's pain not only gave him no pleasure but actually made him feel sick.

'Please man.' Tears dripped off Jasper's chin. 'I'll tell you everything 'strue's God. There's no way they gonna hang it on me. Ah, shit.' And he began a panicky flailing at his chest.

'OK. Jake, help him off with his clothes and let him wash himself under that tap. If he tries anything break his other arm.'

'Wilko, Bilko.' Jake leaned his cudgel against the wall within easy reach and started carefully peeling off Jasper's jacket.

'Eina!' cried Jasper.

'Let me do it,' said Cecily impatiently. 'I am a qualified nurse.'

Solomon gave it a minute and nodded. Ruthie gave him the key and in seconds Cecily was free. Chris crept reluctantly over to take her place and held out his hand at full stretch, ready to snatch it back at the first sign of injection. Then the stainless steel beneath the pink fur linked him to Sir Ambrose.

Cecily was ministering to Jasper and had gently cut off his clothes using the scissors on Jake's Swiss Army knife. His chest where the chemicals had touched it was scarlet, with erupting welts and blisters. His right shoulder hung at a sickening angle and a sharp bit of bone had pierced the skin. Cecily got him to the tap and proceeded with prolonged irrigation of the affected area. This flushed a gout of foam down the waistband of his trousers and elicited fresh screams. Soon a completely naked Jasper was crouched under a running tap. The icy water was from Sir Ambrose's own borehole. Cecily ripped up what was left of his shirt to make a sling and bandages and soon Jasper was standing shivering in his wet trousers with his arm strapped up and the trickle of blood staunched. This was not how he'd fantasised about showering with Cecily.

'This hypodermic is full of blood infected with AIDS,' Solomon courteously informed Jasper. 'First sign of trouble and I stick it into you. What say we stroll over and join the others?'

It was a glum foursome who were huddled together in silence apart from a low ostinato of groans and swearing from Jasper.

'It's late,' said Solomon. 'Let's make this quick. Jasper, tell me what you know about Operation Kali and you may get out of this alive.' A drop of blood swelled on the tip of the needle and then dropped to the dusty floor.

'It was Chris Metcalfe,' Jasper hurriedly muttered. 'I had a little pest-control business in Doornfontein and he approached me and said did I want to make some money. I said ja, sure and he said he had this shit-hot insecticide but he needed a dispersal system. He said spraying and fumigating always missed certain areas. He wanted max coverage because this stuff was so strong that you didn't want to use more than you had to. He reckoned it was the best thing ever invented.'

'It was a damn good product,' said Chris gruffly. 'Handled properly, there was no danger. And it broke down into harmless byproducts in ten minutes.'

'How did it work?' asked Jake with awakening interest.

'Well, it wasn't exactly a poison,' said Chris, forgetting his peril in pride at his product. 'It short-circuited the nervous system by breaking down the insulating properties of myelin. It was universal – worked on anything from nits to elephants.'

'But you were banned from making this boon to mankind in seventy-eight,' Solomon reminded him and here we were in, in what, Jasper?'

'Um, eighty-five. End of eighty-five.'

'And yet here you were in eighty-five talking about using the stuff on termites. Surely even a Doornfontein pest-exterminator might have heard that your stuff had been banned.'

'I knew it wasn't nothing to do with termites,' Jasper gave Chris a dirty look, 'he made such a song and dance about not telling nobody that I could tell something was fishy. Turned out that he wanted to use a foam dispersal system that one of our old German scientists had come up with. What it is, you squirt jets of liquid and it turns to foam and sinks to the floor. Then the bubbles burst and the stuff rises up and fills the room.' Jasper groaned. 'Then one day Chris brings along this guy from BOSS and he tells me it's a matter of state security and I got to keep my mouth shut. Listen, I'm sick. I got to get to a hospital.'

'Soon. Then what happened?'

'Well, I kept on at Chris until he told me that the stuff was really for some kind of weapon and that South Africa needed it because the Cubans already had something like it. Then like a couple of months later he asks me do I know any reliable men for some top secret tests and I gave him the names of some of my old pals from the Koevoet days. I didn't know nothing till I saw the fillum.'

'Liar!' shouted Chris. 'You took that film yourself.'

'And just who were these customers you so wished to impress?' asked Solomon silkily.

'That's restricted information,' warned Sir Ambrose, 'which it would be most unwise to divulge.'

'In any case I don't know,' said Chris wearily. 'We sold the stuff to some rightwing Afrikaner group but I'm sure they were just a front. Where would people like that find five million quid?'

Solomon gave a spritz of blood to keep the needle clear and Chris leaped back in terror spinning Sir Ambrose's wheelchair round and getting a nasty hack on the shin from the footrest.

Cecily, knocked off balance, jostled Jasper who gave a shriek and fell to the floor curled up in agony. Chris had his back to the wall and Sir Ambrose, at crotch level, was reminded of the tinned asparagus they'd had for supper. Cecily got up and stood nonchalantly on one leg with the other cocked against the wall and surveyed Solomon with a sour, knowing smile. The cocky little coloured advanced on her quailing husband. Sir Ambrose wrenched lefthanded at his wheelchair to face him.

Solomon edged up to Chris's manacled side. 'Chris, old chap,' he began in South African suave, 'please tell me about Sir Ambrose's part in all of this.'

'He set up the deal,' said Chris dully. 'Why don't you ask him?'

'Good idea. I will. Sir Ambrose, how's the eye?'

'Extremely painful.'

'Splendid. I'm tired so let's make this quick. Who got the stuff and what did they pay you? Tell me and I'll not only not infect you with AIDS but I'll let you seek prompt medical attention.'

'I can't tell you that. But it was cleared at the highest level and I personally never made a penny out of the deal.'

'What?' Chris's jaw literally dropped. 'How can you say that? You made more than the rest of us put together. You didn't buy this place on a minister's salary.'

Jasper groaned loudly.

'Names, Chris.' Solomon followed the path of least resistance. 'I want names.'

'Oh God.' Sweat poured from Chris's face. 'The chief negotiator was a chap called Frikkie Venter.'

'Not the Frikkie Venter who was head of the Getrouster Afrikaner Trekkers?' asked Solomon delightedly. 'Known to friend and foe as GAT, the euphonious Afrikaans for arsehole.'

'Something of that sort.'

'So it was fine to sell the most lethal nerve-gas ever invented to a bunch of right-wing loonies who make Wouter Basson, aka Dr. Death, look like Little Bo-Peep.'

'Is that the one who was trying to find a poison or disease that would kill only blacks and leave whites unharmed?' Ruthie chipped in.

'The same. Well, Chris?'

'Er...'

'The point is,' Cecily contributed crisply, 'that they may have been thoroughly detestable people but they were staunchly anti-communist. And they were under control.'

Jasper groaned again and Ruthie whimpered in sympathy.

'Here, Cecily.' Solomon sprayed a Zorro zed across Chris's shirt. 'There's a bit of that morphine left. Thanks, Ruthie. Give Jasper a shot and put us out of his misery. I haven't got AIDS by the way, I was just pulling your leg.'

'I know.' Cecily wiped the needle on her dress, filled up and injected Jasper as she spoke, before he could put up a fuss. 'It was obvious to me that you were in no sort of terminal condition. The biggest danger is that of hepatitis.'

'Well why didn't you say so?' Chris came petulantly back to life.

Cecily gave him a long, level stare and then turned back to Solomon. 'And I don't think that girl has it in her to shoot either.'

'Not to kill perhaps,' said Ruthie suddenly Oirish, 'but kneecappin' yez all would be a pleasure. And would you kindly remember who it was gave Sir Ambrose that lovely shiner?'

'We'll have that syringe and the vial back please.' Solomon was leaving no loose ends.

Cecily shrugged and turned nonchalantly to a yawning Jake as if to hand them to him, drawing back the plunger as she came. Her next move was a complete surprise. With a swift sidestep she got behind Jake with one arm round his throat and the other presenting a needle-tip to his jugular vein. Everyone froze.

'Now this is a real threat,' said Cecily professionally. 'A syringe full of air. I don't know whether you're familiar with the term embolism, but...'

The medical lecture was cut short by a Blagadang! from the shotgun. Cecily screamed and released Jake, who felt himself all over but seemed to be intact. No-one else was hurt, either.

'Jake, are you OK?'

'Seem to be. But I don't know why.'

'Because I hit the wall behind you and Cecily shielded you from the ricochets,' explained Ruthie shakily. 'I expect her back looks like a colander.' And Ruthie began weeping softly.

'It's alright my colleen bawn,' Solomon soothed her. 'You did well.' He laughed his explosive laugh. 'Cecily miscalculated. She thought you were Jake's woman and so you wouldn't dare shoot. What if she'd grabbed me?'

'I don't know.' Ruthie looked stricken. 'I didn't think, I just did it.'

'Well that rebound was a stroke of genius,' affirmed Jake, 'even if the shock nearly killed me. I expect this ringing in my ears will eventually stop. All the same, I'd feel happier if I had the gun. Why don't you see how badly she's hurt?'

'Don't you dare touch me,' said Cecily venomously, backing nearly against the wall to hide her ripped dress and insulted flesh. Solomon had a quick flash of a bit of buttock dotted with beads of blood.

'Looks like she'll live, worse luck,' judged Solomon. 'Cover me, Jake, while I free Chris. Ruthie, open the doors, it's time to go.'

The doors screeched open but apart from the roar of not-that-distant traffic and an orange rim to the sky all was rural peace.

'Right.' Solomon freed Chris from the handcuffs. 'We're going. Chris can come with us to the gate and then drive back and succour you suckers. Needless to say, any attempt to harm any one of us will lead to immediate exposure of your crimes. Behave and we'll see what happens.'

'What do you want from us?' Chris looked hagridden. The pouches under his eyes could have made hammocks for hamsters.

'Oh, we'll be in touch but I think we'll let you stew awhile. Jake, escort Chris to the front passenger seat and get in behind him. Ruthie, my skat, you sit in the back. I'll drive.' Solomon eyed Cecily who was biting her lip in either pain or frustration. 'So, you thought up Operation Kali, did you, Chris made the poison, Jasper delivered it and Sir Ambrose raked in the shekels. Is that a fair precis?'

'The village was doomed anyway,' Cecily insisted flatly. 'It had been identified as a SWAPO base and was due to be blown to kingdom come. You could argue that we greatly reduced their suffering.'

'Sure. And anyway who cares about a handful of Basters? Everyone pretended to be shocked when Mao said that in the event of a huge number of casualties in a nuclear war all the Chinese would just get fucking and churn out a few million more people, but it's just commonsense. All this guff about how each human life is so precious. The truth is that we're all dispensible. The difference is when it's someone you know. Remember dear old Alf.'

The slamming of car doors told Solomon that it was time to go. He climbed in, slid forwards the driver's seat, started the engine, found the lights, reversed into the courtyard, spun round and set exuberantly off. Chris sat rigidly next to him with Ambrose's gun pressed against his neck.

Jasper's metallic gold Jag had utilised its crumple zones to the full and the stout gates were bent and twisted but still joined at the lock. Ruthie's Fiesta had a ding in one door but was otherwise unharmed. Solomon turned round the Lexus and had Chris get out and stand in the full glare of the headlights where they could watch him and he couldn't see much of them. He jumped up on the bonnet of the Jag and helped Ruthie over the gate. Jake frootled around in the Lexus and emerged with the dented tin of wheel-cleaner which he'd taken off Jasper as well as Cecily's drug paraphenalia. Then he climbed over and onto the roof of the Fiesta where he held the gun up in the air and fired off its remaining cartridge before tossing it over the gate. The Purdey landed on Jasper's crumpled bonnet with a derisory clang that made Chris flinch. 'Go on, fuck off,' he told Chris who crept back into the car and set off with a screech of tyres. Jake watched in the harsh moonlight as Chris failed to slow for a bend, skidded on rotting leaves, gouged black ruts in the lawn and ended up sunk to the gunwales in the lily pond. Jake laughed till he was sick. Still doped to the gills he found himself enjoying vomiting until a banging on the roof brought him to. He jumped down, wiped his mouth and let the others in on the joke. Solomon smiled expectantly, waiting for the punchline.

'What's going on, so?' came Ruthie's anxious voice.

'Chris missed the turn and ended up in the duckpond,' said Solomon. 'It would be nice to think that we'd panicked him into it, but I suppose he might have had a heart attack or conniption.'

'Do you think?' Ruthie was alarmed. 'I suppose we'd better go and see.'

'I wouldn't bother.' Jake giggled. 'It wasn't a heart-attack. The reason he didn't slow down was that I'd jammed my faithful pinecone under the brake-pedal. I didn't expect him to take off like a scalded cat.'

'Jake!' rapped Ruthie over Solomon's raucous laugh, 'that's not funny. He might have been killed. Innocent people might have been hurt.'

'That's a good one. And which innocent people are these, exactly?' Jake was elaborately sarcastic. 'I could see the whole nest of vipers crushed without a qualm, but Chris pranging his Lexus is a good start.'

'Scalded cat skedaddled. Addled skid.' Solomon threw pearls before swine.

Inside the Lexus in the pond, Chris found that the electric windows no longer worked. He exerted all his strength against the pressure which was holding the door shut. The thought that he might sink and drown forced open a crack and the next moment he was up to his nipples in cold and filthy water. He brokenly waded to shore through the stinking black mud that lilies like.

'He's out,' said Solomon curtly. 'Let's go.'

They went.

Chris met the wheeled and walking wounded coming down the drive. The news that he'd totaled another of their means of transport was not well received. They reached the house where Sir Ambrose called for an ambulance for Jasper and for his own physician for himself and Cecily.

Chris treated his humiliation with brandy.

No-one phoned the police.

Chapter 24

'Kali means black,' Solomon paraphrased from the encyclopaedia. He was sitting on a rickety couch back in Uckwash with Ruthie's head in his lap and a mug of cocoa to hand. Jake had thrown up again when they got home and had then, in Junkie parlance, gowtched out. His snoring reassured the others that he was still alive.

'She was a kind of devouring earth-mother,' Solomon continued, 'seen as a blood-smeared old hag with bared teeth and stuck-out tongue, naked but for a garland of skulls and a girdle of chopped-off hands.'

'Ugh.'

'She's often shown dancing on the inert body of Siva. Now who does that remind me of?'

'Yes, poor old Chris is in for it now,' said Ruthie comfortably. 'She thinks he killed her Uncle Alf. Nothing else you said made the slightest impression, but that really got to her.'

'The sky is dark with chickens coming home to roost.' Solomon sighed. 'Nietzsche mentions a biographer of Beethoven who'd been obliged to give up his task as he found so much of his hero's life unpalatable. The point is: how much truth can we bear? Say Cecily's responsible for the idea of gassing a roomful of people as a promo; what effect on her actions does it have to know that Olieboom was doomed in any case? And while I wouldn't mind her being run over by a steamroller, you must admit that she has some admirable qualities.'

'What?' Ruthie tried dudgeon. 'That she keeps a clean house and is a loving mother? You could say the same of Maggie Thatcher but that doesn't make her any the less a loathesome reptile. I think you just fancy those slim Home Counties types with their Jaeger suits and gymkhanas.'

'No, give me a fat Irish slattern any day,' said Solomon, smiling to show that he meant it, 'but you must admit she's cool under pressure; and getting the jump on Jake with that empty syringe was a wow. First-class needlework, if not in the same class as your trick shooting. And Cecily is what passes for cultured. Jake says she has a nice touch at the piano. Chris is a typical sleazy businessman – I've met hundreds like him \- and my countryman Jasper is beneath contempt. Sir Ambrose is the one to watch. If he can call in old favours from the government or secret services we're fucked. The thing is, what next? Jake's cover's blown so there's no point in staying in Uckwash but no reason to go either.'

'Well I'm going to bed. Don't get any ideas, by the way. I have to sleep. Remind me to set the alarm so's I can call in sick in the morning.'

Solomon took the floppy disk of fact and speculation about Olieboom as well as Cecily's syringe and morphine and the household stash of recreational drugs and hid them in the rotted cavity of the old oak stump in the garden.

One of the things which had first struck Solomon after South Africa was that so many Brits were happy to rely on no more than a pane of glass and a sense of general rectitude to keep thieves at bay. A nation sufficiently at ease with itself to interpose no more than such a brittle barrier was not to be sneezed at. But back in the house he felt suddenly vulnerable. It was possible that the affronted and affrighted would set the police on them, but unlikely. He hoped they hadn't yet had time to organise an 'accident' of some sort. Aside from the windows the door could have been smashed to matchwood by a disgruntled toddler... He got into bed. Ruthie snuggled up. 'He felt harassed,' said Solomon and did so, turned away and fell into a troubled sleep. He was swimming off Cape Point where the Indian and Atlantic oceans officially meet when a cold current dragged him down. He tried to swim but found that his arms had shrivelled to thalidomidey stumps and a giant clam had gripped his leg. Then he was in a tin trunk, still unable to breathe, and someone was hammering on the lid.

There was a clang as Ruthie flung out an arm and knocked over the metal wastepaper bin in which she'd stuck Jake's old windup alarm clock to amplify its raucous din. The clock lay on its back, still ringing and moving in jerky circles like an arthritic breakdancer.

Solomon, jolted awake, gasped for air. The nighmare faded and was gone. Ruthie at last managed to quiet the clock and the peace was like that when a fractious baby is put to the breast. It was as near the peace that passeth all understanding as they were likely to get.

'Ugh. What the hell time's this?'

'Never you mind. Go back to sleep. I just wanted to get Clive before he sets off in case he needs to arrange cover. What can I say's wrong with me? I'm such a bad liar. Even when I'm really ill it sounds like I'm lying.'

'I'm trying to sleep. Don't you know it's the crack or mesial groove of dawn? Ag what's the use.' Solomon snickered. 'Tell him the truth, that you're knackered after rescuing a friend from murderers and see if he believes that. No, better go with summer flu, there's always a lot of it about. Does that get me a cup of tea?'

'What, the feeblest excuse in the universe? No, it had better be a migraine. I might get around to making a cup of tea if I feel like it.'

By the beam which lasered through the gap where the skimpy curtains failed to meet, Solomon guessed it was half past eight. The outline of Ruthie's ample bum through her cotton nightie stirred his cock but his heart felt scorched and sere. She heaved herself up off the slab of foam on the floor which constituted Solomon's bed and went off to phone. Her back was stiff but she bet it wasn't as sore as Cecily's. Worse than that, though, had been the insult to her ladyship's dignity. That had really hurt the stuck-up cow. And she, Ruthie, had given the mother of all black eyes to Sir Ambrose Mortimer, an erstwhile member of Her Majesty's Government. They'd stirred up a hornet's nest there all right. A shudder of fear shook her and she crept off to make lame excuses to her boss. She'd settled on a tummy bug when everyone knew she was as strong as a horse.

After breakfast Solomon wrote out an account of Jake's kidnapping and prospective murder and had Ruthie independently compose her own version of events.

At eleven Jake emerged, saying he felt like death warmed up but was otherwise fine apart from from a tendency to weepiness or giggles. But bacon and eggs had never tasted better or fresh air smelt so sweet. He read through both accounts of their night's adventures and added a few pertinent observations of his own. Solomon took notes and eventually produced a version on which everyone could agree. He wrote it out neatly in longhand (he wasn't such a fool as to trust this stuff to a computer) and all three solemnly signed it. Solomon planned to send it to Selwyn, to be opened in the event of his death.

The question of what to do next had still not been resolved. The enemy was now alerted and when Solomon tried to access Chris's email, he wasn't surprised to find that the address had been changed. Ditto Sir Ambrose.

'Well that's that then,' said Solomon. 'Uckwash is finished and klaar.' He looked straight into Jake's eyes. 'Listen Jake, I'm sorry I nearly got you killed, but we've made tremendous progress with Olieboom. I'm really very grateful.' And he clasped his friend's hands between his own.

'Oh, don't mention it.' Jake was suddenly gruff with emotion. He sniffed back a couple of tears. 'I must say I'd have preferred somewhat different circs for my first heroin trip, but it had its moments. Besides, look at all the new friends we've made.'

'That's the trouble. I don't see why you should stick your neck out for me. Look. Hows about a paid holiday in Madagascar until this thing's settled?'

'What!' Jake snorted incredulously. 'Leave my fate in your two left hands? If I'm going to be handcuffed and doped and terrified out of my tiny mind I want at least a say in it. Besides, I feel I've got my own score to settle,'

'I suppose that's how they feel, too,' said Ruthie wearily. 'This is how feuds start. Can't we just hand what we've got to the Crown Prosecution Service and let them deal with it?'

'Your confidence in our legal system is touching,' said Jake wryly. 'Working at VIGIL I'd have thought you'd seen enough corruption to embitter you for life. As Terry Pratchett says: "There's no justice – just us." But I agree that there's no point in hanging about here. Haven't seen Len lately. Wonder if he'd like his old job back? I'll pop into The Cornstook tonight. At least give him his chooks back. That's what I'd call revenge. Letting Len loose in Cecily's garden again. Pity, really. I was just getting it into shape.' And Misery's raven settled once more on his shoulder.

'I still need you as a secretary for the business side of things,' said Solomon, 'and Ruthie has a point about feuds. The question is whether or not a black eye, a peppered back, a broken collarbone and two wrecked cars are sufficient punishment for their crimes? Not to mention loss of face and the knowledge that there's a sword of Damocles hanging over them. "Perpetual forgiveness of each vice, Such is the Gate of Paradise" as Blake puts it. But what if they're not willing to forgive and forget? We're too far in to back out now but I'm prepared to wait for their next move.'

They waited. Weeks passed with no sign of trouble. The move from Uckwash went smoothly and Jake was lucky enough to find a flat near his old stamping-grounds in Crouch End. Solomon used one room as an office, paying half of Jake's exorbitant rent, but sedulously kept up his pretend marriage to Andrea. An increasingly unhappy Ruthie carried on working at VIGIL and saw far too little of her often paranoid lover. The only piece of good news was that Jake had bumped into Rachel, his old probation officer, outside the local nick and she'd told him that Chris Metcalfe had broken up with Cecily, moved out of the family home and was now living in a 'grotty little flat' in East Hoathly.

The real breakthrough came by email from South Africa. Almost a month had passed since Jake's kidnapping when Selwyn sent over an obituary scanned in from an Afrikaans newspaper. It noted the passing of Frikkie Venter, former leader of the Getrouste Afrikaner Trekkers, an extremist rightwing group of Afrikaner nationalists. Peacefully, on the Freestate farm where he'd hoped to establish an all-white homeland. Frikkie's coffin had been carried by six of his friends. The obituarist was careful to deplore Frikkie's now-unacceptable racism, but the drift of the article was that he'd always had only the good of the volk at heart. There was a photo of Vrikkie's coffin, covered in the GAT flag, borne aloft. Solomon had always felt that an ox, rampant on a field of gold would have been appropriate, but it was a sort of downmarket Nazi thing: red and black with a spade and rifle crossed in a white circle. A long list of the mourners included only a couple of English-sounding names, one of which was Jasper Keate. Looking again at the photo, the man himself could be glimpsed behind the pallbearers.

So Jasper was back in South Africa. And he had been close to Frikkie Venter. That was dangerous. An easy way out for the Brits would be to have Jasper eliminated and then blame everything on him. A few thousand rand in cash and another would be added to South Africa's ever-growing list of unsolved murders. This would be a bad time for Solomon to be bounced out of Britain. They needed to go on the offensive again, but a frontal attack was out of the question. How to exploit the bad feeling between the Metcalfes? He needed to know more about Cecily and the Topladys. Ruthie had mentioned that Alf's widow, Florrie, talked of enjoying her Bingo on a Thursday night. Today was Thursday and sure enough, Ruthie, by dint of hanging around for three hours in the rain, managed to bump into the old girl and got herself invited back for a cup of tea and a warm. Florrie needed no prompting to launch into how Sissie had popped in just the other day, out of the blue. She'd told her old auntie that she'd separated from whatsisname and she went on to talk about Alf and how good he'd been to her in the old days. They ended up crying.

'I went to put me arm around 'er,' the old lady quavered, 'and she jumped and said sorry but 'er back was still sore where she'd fell off an 'orse onto a gravel path. Well, I didn't say nothing but I wouldn't be surprised if it was 'im beatin' 'er up. 'Er father used to beat 'er mother when 'e was drunk, you know and many's the time I seen marks on 'er own little legs, but she never let on, she didn't. People think that sort of thing only goes on among the likes of us, but there's plenty goes on be'ind those posh front doors that you never 'ear about.'

'The sad thing is how many abused children are attracted to the worst kind of men.' Ruthie rolled out the platitudes. 'How do you break that vicious circle? One cousin of mine was brought up in a poor part of Belfast. She was a bright girl, the first in her family to go to university and sure didn't she end up throwing it all away to marry a van driver, who turned out to be a gunman for the UVF. It's lucky for this Sissy that she had you and Alf to fall back on.'

'It was that,' said Florrie complacently. 'She was telling me that she often thought back to the happy times we'd had together and did I have anything of Alf's to remember him by? Well, my dear, I says to 'er, I 'ad a big clear-out after Alf died and most of 'is clothes an' that went to the 'eart shop. 'e was a devil for keeping all sorts of old rubbish. There were two tea-chests full of old papers an' I burnt the lot. I gave 'er a couple of photos an' she was that grateful. But after she'd gone I got to thinking and I remembered there was a shoebox with some bits and bobs on top of the wardrobe. I was going to pop it in the post to 'er but the prices are something scandalous. It'll keep till I see 'er again.'

'Didn't you say she lived in Uckwash?' Ruthie lied (for once) fluently.

'Did I? Uckwash? Yes, that sounds about right. Forget me own 'ead next. ''Ang on, I've got it right 'ere.' She picked up a phonebook with a pink leatherette jacket. 'Would you read it, dear? My eyes aren't so good anymore.'

'Is this it? Cecily Louch, Sallowfield, Frog Lane, Uckwash?'

'Yes, that's it.'

'Well, what a small world. I'm going down that way on Saturday, to see a girl-friend.' Ruthie was apparently struck by a thought. 'I could drop some stuff in for you – I go right past the front door.'

'That would be very kind of you, if you're sure it's no trouble.'

'No, no trouble at all. A pleasure.'

'Well thank you very much. As I say I was going to post it but on a pension you 'ave to watch every penny.'

Florrie shuffled off to her bedroom and emerged with a box neatly wrapped in brown paper.

'There's Alf's old pipe in there and 'is penknife an' a wallet – empty worse luck – an' a couple of those paperbacks 'e liked. Tell 'er to keep what she wants and chuck the rest. I'm just sorry it's not more. Now then, fancy a top-up?'

Ruthie declined with thanks and left bearing the shoebox with a song in her heart. ('You've got a lotta nerve / to say you are my friend...' sneered Dylan.) She phoned Solomon and Jake and set up a meet.

Chapter 25

Jake's new flat was on the fourth floor of a fifties block overlooking the main road. It was where buses and trucks changed gear as they started up the hill. After the peace and quiet of Uckwash, this had taken some getting used to but the fact that there were all those clamorous steel stairs for any potential enemy to climb gave a somewhat fallacious sense of security. The friends gathered around the kitchen table as Jake, wearing Marigold washing-up gloves, carefully slit the paper and lifted out the contents of the box one object at a time. There were three paperbacks – two Zane Greys and a Doc Smith - a worn pigskin wallet, a pipe along with a tobacco pouch and smoker's knife, an old Arsenal season ticket, a photo of a works outing and a certificate for third prize in a dog show. Nothing worth a damn, but Solomon seemed perversely pleased. The books were flipped through a page at a time. An inscription on Riders of the Purple Sage read: Happy Birthday, Uncle Alf. All my love, Sissy. The wallet and tobacco pouch were empty and contained no secret compartments. The prize certificate was held up to the light but revealed nothing.

'Zat, niks, niente, zilch.' Solomon looked thoughtful. 'I wonder if Cecily had better luck? Unless it really was just a sentimental visit.'

'No, I don't think so,' said Ruthie firmly. 'I got the feeling that even Florrie was a bit puzzled. Apparently Cecily had a good poke around – went through the drawer where Alf used to keep the household bills although Florrie told her she only kept polish and dusters there now. I got the feeling she was looking for something specific.'

'Oh, well.' Solomon opened Riders of the Purple Sage and was soon lost in it. Ruthie went off to make more tea.

Jake was fiddling with Alf's stuff. He'd slit open the linings of the wallet and tobacco-pouch just to be sure and had found nothing. Now he had out the knife and had extended its blades and reamer. He inserted the spike into the pipe's ebonite mouthpiece and was surprised to feel it tap against something hard. A twist pulled the mouthpiece from the stem and a little plastic cylinder fell out. A filter. Jake remembered his father smoking a similar pipe. But where his father's filters had contained patented crystals that went from clear to yellow to black as they 'purified' the smoke, this one looked empty. One end had been cut off with what Jake surmised was a junior hacksaw. He held the filter up to the light and saw that it was lined with blue paper. It didn't look tarry or smell of smoke. Had they struck pay-dirt? Jake tapped the cylinder until the edge of the paper appeared and pulled it out. It had been folded twice. He flattened what turned out to be a handwritten note which read: 'Dear Chris, Have arranged shipment for Thursday the fourth of July on a Greek tanker, The Golden Fleece. Talk to Captain Cashen. Enclosed please find a customs clearance certificate. The canisters are to be labelled Pyrethrin. Petrus will handle the SA side. All the best, Ambrose.'

Underneath, in another hand, were the words: 'Del. Southampton 4th July 1985. Signed A. Toplady.'

Jake's yell brought the others running. As he read on, Solomon's smile threatened to split his face. 'I bet Cecily would like this as a souvenir of Uncle Alf,' he ventured. 'Hands up anyone who thinks this has nothing to do with NACT? Or at least something decidedly fishy. Pity the date puts it at almost a year before Olieboom. But I'll bet Petrus is Colonel Petrus Brandt, so for Sir Ambrose to claim complete ignorance of supplying nerve-gas to what would nowadays be classed as terrorists stretches credulity. Pity that both Brandt and Toplady are dead, but this little note still speaks.'

'Looks like faithful old Alf wasn't quite so faithful after all.' Jake raised a quirky eyebrow. 'Do you think he was putting the squeeze on Chris or was it just an insurance policy?'

'Probably the latter. But if his employers knew that he had potentially dangerous information that would be an excellent reason to shut him up. And damn Frikkie Venter for killing himself. I'd been relying on him to tidy up the South African end. Now that Jasper's there he's also out of reach. It's the pallbearers I'm sorry for. Old Frikkie was always a hearty eater. I wonder if we'll see Jasper again?'

'I could ring his firm and ask to speak to him,' Ruthie volunteered. 'They might tell me where he is and when he's expected back. It's a pity we don't know who else was at Olieboom.'

Solomon postmodernly smote his brow. 'I wonder if any of them turned up at his funeral.' He grubbed in the biscuit-tin where he kept important documents and brought out his printout of the obituary. 'Let's have nog 'n dekko.'

Ruthie pressed her substance against Solomon's side as she crowded up for a closer look. Solomon felt a wave of affection. She'd burrowed into his life just as her red hairs, with a life of their own, had burrowed into his foam-rubber mattress.

Solomon rolled the names on his tongue, tasting them. 'J.A. Kromhout, S.B. van Schalkwyk, H. du Plooy, F.G.Snyman, O.P. Nel. Hm. Snyman. Our neighbours back in Olieboom were called Snyman, but it's a common name. Three brothers. I vaguely remember them. There was one everybody called Snakey. Snakey Snyman. Snakey by name and Snaky by nature. What was his real name again?' Solomon looked at the grainy photo. The faces of the nearest three pallbearers were slashed by the shadow of the coffin in the harsh sunlight but the middle one suddenly swam up from the murky depths of memory like a carp at feeding-time and, to change the metaphor, set off a fireworks display in Solomon's synapses. 'Frans! That was his name. Ja, a truckdriver once asked me the way to their farm and showed me an invoice with his name on it. Solomon stared at the thin man in the picture and near-certainty came. The scrawny neck, jug ears, thinlipped mouth. Add fifteen years to the Snakey he'd known (but never loved) and this could well be the man. There'd been bad feeling between the Witboois and the Snymans for years. Family lore had it that Solomon's grandfather had once sold a couple of cows to old man S after his herd had been wiped out by Rinderpest and had never been paid for them. Die Oubaas, as everyone referred to him, was a Dopper of the narrowest kind and had once refused to work on a Sunday even when cows broke in and ravaged his mealies. Dopper meant a candle-snuffer and was adopted by the Dutch Reform zealots who boasted of having snuffed out Voltaire's candle of enlightenment. Solomon would write to Auntie Minnie about the Snymans. If Jasper and Frikkie had been at Olieboom they would have needed local information – and who more local than Snakey? One day he'd have to go back to Namibia – he could see it now. But now he and Ruthie would sneak back to her flat for a quick fuck and then he'd return to Andrea's. Five more weeks, he told Ruthie, and he could apply for naturalisation as a British citizen.

Chapter 26

The next few days were hectic. Solomon discovered that Sofcel, a huge multinational company, had brazenly stolen his animation program and was hawking it around at cut-price. Although he was in the right and had no doubt of being able to prove a clear infringement of his patents, he was not so naive as to imagine that a simple lawsuit would decide the case. Their lawyers could string it out for years. The battle between Kodak and Polaroid over a similarly simple theft came to mind. Sofcel could bankrupt him and ruin his life. Jake got in touch with a lawyer from the old VIGIL days whose advice was to sue Sofcel and then push for an out-of-court settlement. Solomon was tempted to release his software for free on the net rather than be compromised, particularly as he had a much better version almost ready to go. But he doubted that this was purely business in that the board of directors for Sofcel numbered one Sir Ambrose Mortimer among their ranks. As he was also on the boards of a dozen other companies this may have been happenstance but he somehow doubted it.

He'd posted the box of Alf Toplady's bits and pieces on to Cecily, less, of course, the damning note. In the face of Sofcel's attack, he now sent photocopies of it to Cecily and Sir Ambrose. Ruthie had phoned Keate Aerosols to learn that Jasper was due back in three days' time.

It seemed that a trip to Namibia might not after all be necessary. Selwyn emailed that he had found an F.G. Snyman in a farmers' directory – a bywoner or tenant farmer working on a farm in the platteland near Delareyville. If that was Snakey, thought Solomon, things weren't going too well. A bywoner was generally looked down on in farming circles as being too poor even to own his own farm. Selwyn added that he had business down that way and would try and look up Solomon's erstwhile neighbour (if it was he). Solomon replied that he should keep his ear to the ground, his nose to the grindstone and his shoulder to the wheel while not taking his eye off the ball. Furthermore, seriously, to remember that discretion was the better part of valour.

Although Solomon checked Basil van der Westhuizen's emails twice a day, his enemies had not yet taken this means of contacting him. An air-letter from Auntie Minnie was more disturbing.

'Dear Solomon,' she wrote. 'Thank you for your munificent cheque, which was quite unnecessary. However, I have, as you suggested, spent it how I liked. I was able to get some much-needed reference books for the school library and a lovely thick lambswool blanket for myself for these cold nights.

'Concerning your enquiry about the Snyman family, all I know is that there was bad blood going back years between Grandpa Clem and old man Snyman. I think that your mother (God rest her soul) worked as a cook for them at one time, but I was away in Cape Town by then.

'Solomon, darling, I wish that you could end this obsession with what happened at Olieboom. "Vengeance is mine, saith the Lord." I hate to see you wasting such a promising young life chasing chimeras. Please, for the sake of your old aunt, let it be.'

There was more about the weather and the endemic corruption and incompetence of local government and a recipe for a Malay fish soup. That wasn't all that smelt fishy. Auntie Minnie was one of the least meek Christians Solomon had ever met. Her favourite saying had always been: God helps those who help themselves. And Bunyan could have modelled Valiant-for-Truth on her if he'd toned it down a bit. Had someone leant on her? Nah. They'd spoken on the phone yesterday and she sounded as feisty as ever. Then what. Was there something about the Snymans that she wasn't telling him?

Sofcel, meanwhile, had replied to his lawyer's letter denying that they had stolen his software and furthermore countersuing in respect of certain subroutines to which they claimed copyright.

'Copyright!' he harangued Jake. 'It's like trying to sue an author for using "and" and "but". These things are in the public domain. Every programmer uses them.'

'Ah, but they can tie you up in expensive litigation to prove it.' Jake was unruffled. 'You get a nervous breakdown while the lawyers rake in the shekels.'

But there was still no overt sign. The first crack in the facade of indifference came a week after Solomon had forwarded Alf's legacy. He and Ruthie had gone off to the Lake District for a weekend break to celebrate Solomon's application for British citizenship, having passed three years of marriage to Andrea. His wife was at feminist conference in Manchester. Late on Sunday night as they were bombing down the motorway Solomon's phone rang. It was an uncharacteristically distraught Andrea who told him that the flat had been burgled and ransacked but that only the computers and all their videos seemed to have been taken. She'd called the police and they'd promised to send someone in the morning. Solomon soothed her as much as possible and said that he'd be home soon and would explain everything.

'Things are moving,' he told Ruthie with satisfaction. 'They're getting rattled. Did they really think I'd be so stupid as to leave anything important just lying about? I'd better check that Jake's OK.'

He was, having spent all weekend in the flat playing with some new electronic toys which he was sure Solomon would find interesting.

They dropped by Ruthie's flat first, which was also undisturbed. The fact that he could soon legally leave Andrea and move in with her found her oddly ambivalent. She loved him madly, of course, but actually living together would entail introducing him to her family and she wasn't looking forward to that. At least he wasn't a Catholic, but the McNulty family's views on other races ranged from mild incomprehension to casual bigotry. The old-fashioned thrillers her father read, for instance, were liberally sprinkled with villainous half-breeds. "Chigroes" in Dr. No, the treacherous half-caste guide in The Lost World. A Bastard would be beyond the pale. She also felt a stab of jealousy at Solomon's evident solicitude for Andrea and fretted that she herself had become entangled in his troubles. Then there was work tomorrow and Clive, her boss, was becoming unbearable. The surging happiness as she and Solomon had stood on the Pike o' Stickle only yesterday now seemed years away.

Back home, Solomon had decided on the truth. Andrea had known nothing of what he'd been up to and what he said left her indignant on his behalf and frightened on her own. She came and leant heavily against him. She was another strapping lass and Solomon gamely braced his muscles. He patted her hand.

'You know I've been given unlimited leave to remain in this soggy isle,' he told her. 'Just say the word darling and, dash it all, I'll do the decent thing and we can be divorced tomorrow.'

'You do say the sweetest things.' Andrea smiled. There was a moment's silence. 'You're good to lean on, I must say. So immovable, like a horse or an oak tree. Thanks. The worst thing about being burgled is that you feel all your dirty little secrets are thrown into the street. I'm not talking about sex although all they took of mine were three finger-in-the-dyke videos and my computer, but who wants it known that you have a whole lot of lipstick stubs in your drawer, all different, all with at best one more smear in them, or an envelope with three buttons for clothes you've long since thrown away? People think that because you're a lesbian it's all dildoes and vibrators and whips.' Andrea rolled up her eyes. 'I've got one old vibrator in my sock-box that I last used when I was twenty. They left that. But what really hurts is losing my Apple Mac.'

'Was there anything vitally important on it?'

'Not really. Email addresses, my diary, income tax details. Some work using an art program. But those who want to make the effort to contact me will and who needs those who can't be arsed?'

'We old programmers have a saying which I've just made up,' said Solomon sagely: 'When your database goes down you find out your real friends. I suppose the insurance will cough up the cost of a new one. I'll tell you what to get if you'll let me pay the extra. Luckily my laptop only had a few business letters on it. All my important stuff is in a safe-deposit box at the bank. Jake'll be annoyed that they've taken all those Buster Keaton videos he lent me, but on the whole, it's a relief. The visual equivalent of your buttons. All those things you felt you really should get round to watching sometime but knew you never would. Albatross, what albatross?'

'You do me good, Solomon,' said Andrea. 'You're so off your trolley that my little troubles don't stand a chance. But it's three in the morning. Help me pile some furniture up against the door. Work tomorrow. The police said they'd be around first thing.'

And so to bed.

Chapter 27

It was a fractious and jittery Solomon who made it to the office in Jake's flat by ten thirty. Aha! An email from Selwyn.

'Hi Witbooi,' it ran. 'Success of a sort. F.G. does seem to be the right Snyman but mevrou told me he wasn't there. He's actually in your neck of the woods with a couple of maats to follow the Boks. Dunno where he got the bucks because the farm looks in a bad way, although his sheep are in fair condition. The old Tannie asked me if I was English, obviously still bitter about the Boer War. I told her no, I was a Jew. Nee, ek is 'n Jood. That seemed to be OK. We chatted about travel. Hester (the wife) was originally a Brakpan girl. She's never seen the sea. I said that I might be going over to the UK myself soon, but that it was very expensive. She said that a friend was treating Fransie to the trip as otherwise they'd never have afforded it. She asked me to post the attached letter to him. No doubt you'll find it interesting.'

Selwyn had scanned in the envelope too. The address was c/o Mr. J. Keate, 143 Albion Crecsent (sic), Slough.

'Soon, hopefully of Despond,' said Solomon. 'Hey Jake. Come check this out.'

'Well, well, well.' Jake read over Solomon's shoulder. 'Wouldn't it be fun if this turned out to be a party for all the surviving Olieboom team? If we could get one or more of them over here I've got a new persuader.'

'Go on then. What is it?'

'I'll show you.' Jake crossed over to an amplifier sitting on a huge speaker and pressed a switch. Nothing happened. Solomon frowned. He felt jumpy and dislocated. Maybe Auntie Minnie was right – he should give up. A wave of black dread washed over him. Why was Jake smiling through gritted teeth? Something evil was in the air. Solomon felt his marrow freeze. Jake switched off the amp and the terror slowly receded.

'Good, eh?' Jake preened himself.

'Was that you?' Solomon was incredulous. 'You swine. How did you work that? Some sort of hypnotism? Jesus. It was like someone walking over my grave to the power of ten.'

'It's a subsonic generator. They've found that frequencies too low to hear can still induce a spooky feeling. There was this cave in Arizona that had a reputation for being haunted. Even the most hardened sceptics felt a sense of foreboding. It turned out that the wind blowing across the mouth of the cave was turning it into a huge organ-pipe and generating this incredibly low sound. When they blocked off the entrance to the cave, the spookiness vanished.' Jake pressed his switch again.

Solomon shuddered. 'Ugh. For the first time in my life I can feel my flesh creep. Fuck it's horrible. Enough already. Phew. Jake, my friend, I think you're onto something there.'

Jake, pale and sweaty, gave a convulsive nod.

'I think first we should pay Jasper and co a discreet visit.'

'I was afraid of that. I don't know if one sub-woofer can cope with a whole gang of killers on its own.'

'Oh, no contact just yet. A bit of furtive observation is what's called for here. Ideally I'd like to tackle Snakey on his own. I wonder if he's still as thick as pigshit? His father was a Bible-bashing bigot of the first water.' A memory flickered through Solomon's head and was gone. Hector. Something about Hector and superstition. Ja, that was it. Hector had made up a whole lot of ridiculous ideas which he claimed were old Herero superstitions. He imparted some of these to the Oubaas from time to time and watched his changed behaviour with great glee. It was only when he told his sometime employer with a straight face that it was considered very bad luck to step on a puffadder when the moon was full that a suspicion of being mocked began to ripen. Memories of putting an apple in his hat if he saw a white calf and of not daring to step over his own shadow before breakfast returned. An hour later, Hector was thrown off the farm.

Jasper's address was in the phone book and 143 Albion Crescent turned out to be a fairly large mock-tudor semi on a quiet suburban street lined with plane-trees. The mock half-timbering on the common gable was painted black and white on Jasper's side and green and yellow on his neighbour's. There was something profoundly English about this unhappy juxtaposition, thought Solomon. It's my castle and I'll do what I like with it.

Jake had borrowed a Dormobile from some friends. They managed to park more or less opposite Jasper's house and sat and watched it through the van's discreet net curtains. Long hours passed and nothing happened. At five-oh-four a red Astra rolled into the drive and Charleen got out, slammed the door and began crossly lugging in bags of shopping. Two more hours of nothingness passed but at last, at seven thirteen, Jasper's Jag arrived and pulled up in a spurt of gravel. The nose had been panelbeaten but large patches of filler were still unpainted. A beefy stranger in a blue suit was driving. Jasper, still wearing a sling, got out of the passenger seat and the back disgorged another two men. One looked, even in his beige safari suit, like an Aryan hero: blonde and muscular. On the other side, nearest the watchers, a thin man with a little pot-belly stood in the weak sunshine. At twenty yards through net curtains they could see the stains and fraying of his old grey suit. He turned in their direction. His face was sunburnt but for the pallid band where his hat usually sat and he didn't seem to have made much of a job of his last shave.

Solomon was suddenly ten years old again, sitting on the cool cement steps of a farm shop and watching an Afrikaner in a white bakkie swearing at a hapless black petrol attendant. The cold grey eyes, jug ears and thinlipped mouth of the same face in its younger days. Snakey had not aged well. He oozed defeat. The quartet visibly pulled themselves together and tried to look sober. Jasper, with a conciliatory smirk, let them in. The plastic oak-effect door slammed behind them, swung open, slammed, swung open and was finally closed with a vicious upward jerk of the handle which shot out bolts in all directions.

'So?' asked Jake.

'Yup. Snakey Snyman was the one nearest us. That jaunty little fellow in the crumpled grey suit. Now listen. Assuming they're over for the rugby they'll be here at least until the big match on Saturday. I'd guess Jasper's at work most of the time so the other three probably stick together a fair bit. From the way Charleen was stomping about, I reckon she's none too keen on Jasper's old army buddies. Let's assume they'll be doing the usual touristy things: horseracing, strip shows, hanging around in pubs complaining about the beer.' Solomon was struck by a bright idea. 'Tell me, what's the one thing people do in private?'

'Fuck,' said Jake promptly, 'or shit or squeeze zits or eat bogies.'

'Let's stick to fucking,' said Solomon hurriedly. 'Do you happen to know any shortsighted whores?'

'What's the matter? Has Ruthie gone off you? Have you tried putting a paper bag over your head?'

'Look who's talking. No, it's not for me. I was thinking of a honeypot for Snakey. I'd pay her, of course, but she'd have to be a good enough actress to make him think she finds him irresistible.'

'Supposing such a paragon exists, what do we do with him once we've got him in the mood?'

Solmon told him. By nine it was dark but there was no question of putting on a light. They shared a thermos of tepid black tea and then slid into their sleeping-bags where they tossed and turned (but mostly, as Solomon said, tossed) until the horribly early dawn. At seven-thirty, Jasper, driven by Charleen in the Astra, merged with the rush-hour traffic and vanished from their ken. It had gone eleven before the three rugby fans emerged. Snakey was wearing a newish brown suit which didn't quite fit, but he seemed almost spry. They didn't take the Jag but set off on foot for the bus-stop. There was a wait of five minutes, then a bus came and they climbed aboard. Jake slid into the driving seat and set off in hesitant pursuit.

'This is ridiculous,' protested Solomon after the third long wait. 'Who in their right mind would go to Slough city centre? I say we head for the station.'

'I hear and obey, O wise one. If we lose them it's your fault.'

They followed the signs to the station and were waiting on the London platform when their quarry appeared. They let them get on and then squeezed into the same carriage. At the first stop there was a mass exodus and Solomon and Jake piled into the seat behind the three jollers. Solomon said nothing as he'd been earnestly assured by his friends that his accent could curdle milk. As it happened, Snakey was facing them, but no sign of recognition crossed his face. So either Jasper hadn't briefed them or his descriptive powers weren't up to much. The three carried on a loud conversation in what they imagined to be impenetrable Afrikaans. It seemed that they wouldn't have minded fucking most of the women in the carriage and they argued over their various attractions with lip-smacking relish. They interspersed this with complaints about the weather, the beer and the prices. Snyman was called Fransie, by his friends. He called them Hennie and Paul (pronounced pole).

He was whining again. ''n Goie oes? Ag nee, man. Vreeslik sleg. Ek het hierdie geld baaie nodig.'

Another poor harvest. Solomon remembered too well those years when the red dust blew and the rains never came. The Baster's ears had pricked up when Snakey mentioned money, but there was no hint as to its source. The conversation turned to their programme for the day: Madame Tussaud's, Les Miserables and then a meeting with Jasper in Soho for a night of strip-clubs and pubs. Solomon flickered a glance and caught Snakey nervously licking his lips. He could see Snakey counting the pennies, watching the prize he'd hoped to bring home vanishing in a puff of smoke, each lost pound killing eleven rands. What would he take back to pay off his debts?

The train rattled along stuffed to the gunwales and they heard no more except that Hennie, in reply to a mumbled question from Paul, said: 'Har-witch en dan Austria.'

Solomon held Jake back as the three Afrikaners got off at Paddington and told him what he'd overheard.

'I don't fancy spending the day following them around tourist traps,' said Solomon. 'We've got work to do. We could pick them up after The Glums, as I believe Les Mis. is amusingly known to the cast. But our real need now is for a reliable whore. Surely you must have come across dozens in your time with VIGIL?'

'Not really. One or two. Sex-industry workers we used to call them. But they weren't what you'd call reliable. Unless – there was this East German woman I once helped, Eva Vogelsang. I got her away from an abusive pimp. Nice woman. Not on drugs which made her a rarity. I wonder if she's still on the game?' Jake got out his address book and dug out a four-year-old number. He'd found a phone-box and was pleasantly surprised to find Eva at home and sounding as cheerful and positive as ever. She remembered him instantly and confirmed that she was still prostitutionally active and happy to earn some money. Jake was, of course, still welcome to a freebie any time he cared to take it up. She could be there soon.

An hour later, Eva showed up. She was wearing well and looked, following her brief, as wholesome as fresh butter. Her skin was pink and shiny and her blonde hair was tied back in two plaits with dark blue velvet bows. She wore expensively-faded jeans, a tan suede coat and sensible shoes. She could have been, and in fact was, one of those respectable mums waiting at the school gates for their offspring. Eva's father had been a sergeant in the Stasi in the dear dead days beyond recall and the idea that she was to lure a client into a trap came as no great shock to her. Her admiration for British justice had been tempered by her contacts with the police. Jake had promised that the guy wouldn't be harmed and that he would have no comeback against her and because it was Jake, Eva conceded that this was probably true. If it ever came to questions she was to tell the truth: that she'd been paid by another man to sleep with her client and afterwards she'd taken her money and gone. Solomon offered to let her in on the whole business but she preferred not to know. Jake went off to set up his special effects back at the flat and Solomon and Eva got to know each other. They were in a cafe opposite the theatre when they saw the targets go in and started on a very leisurely lunch. Over sea-food salad, steak and chips and ice-cream Solomon told Eva about Namibia's bloodsoaked history from German colony to 'democratic' present. She was bright and attentive and spoke good English. Aspects of the South African apartheid regime sounded just like life under Honeker. She had actually had relatives in Namibia. An aunt of hers, a certain Fraulein Senta Schreier had run a boardinghouse in Windhoek in the fifties but was now dead.

'How about if we change her into an uncle,' suggested Solomon, 'say a Nazi sympathiser who was interned during the war. Snakey would like that.'

'Poor Tante Senta,' said Eva with a smile. 'I hardly remember her, but she always used to give me sveeties when I was little.' She shrugged. 'I know Nazis. Some of my clients like me to wear an SS uniform.' Eva didn't fuss about her customers' tastes. She just, Solomon thought, let them wash under her.

Talking of lack of taste, the boys didn't walk out early so Solomon was on his third coffee when at last the doors opened and the crowd erupted, blinking, into the cold bright light. The three South Africans walked over to a lamppost bristling with signs where they stalled, buffaloed.

'Your man is the one with the A to Z,' said Solomon.

'Chust my luck.' Eva grimaced. 'Oh vell. Vish me luck.'

Eva strolled towards the trio while pretending to be absorbed in the publicity stills on the walls of the theatre. She bumped straight into Snakey. Solomon, watching from a nearby doorway, was impressed by her technique: the breast squish, the clutch at the arm, the pretty confusion.

'Ach, I'm so sorry. Please forgive. You are tourists, ja?'

'Ja, we from Sith Efrica,' said Hennie. And you?'

'I am from Chermany. Eisenach. Near ze Vartburg Castle? Vhere Martin Luther translated ze Bible? Eva Vogelsang.'

She impulsively stuck out her hand to each of the men in turn and then shyly asked if they'd mind her tagging along with them for a bit. She could see they were gentlemen and she was bored on her own. As they moved off together, Fransie said something which caused her to collapse in a fit of giggles and once again clutch his arm. This time she didn't let go.
Chapter 28

Back at Jake's flat things were going badly. The metric plywood didn't quite cover the imperially-proportioned window and he'd run out of duct tape. Worse, the microphone which was to convert Solomon into the Voice of God had developed an intermittent crackle which would expose its mundane nature in a trice. The pitch of Solomon's voice was to be electronically lowered and a touch of echo added. The big bass speaker of the dread generator went in the cupboard and the voice of God came from a squawker set in the wall behind a straw hat. Jake had found some old black satin sheets and pillowcases and a crimson duvet-cover.

Solomon arrived back to help and put his Afrikaans bible, open at the story of the Cities of the Plain, on the bedside cupboard. His one clear memory of Oubaas, Snakey's father, was that he'd once described Hillbrow, Johannesburg's touch of the cosmopolitan, as Sodom and Gomorrah. The five-year-old Solomon was struck by the profound horror which crossed the old man's face. He'd been strong on religion – every morning the entire family and workforce, from Herero herdboys to Baster foreman, would gather in the big kitchen for prayers. How often, he now wondered, had his own mother stood there with the servants?

There was a flash of lightning, followed almost immediately by a loud peal of thunder. Solomon flinched, then plumped himself down on the bed.

'Good, eh?' said Jake smugly. 'Staggered flash and thunder off a tape. Did it fool you? Be honest.'

'Let's just say I hope he doesn't have a weak heart.'

'And that he does have something to do with Olieboom. Pity to waste nearly five grand of equipment if your old nextdoor neighbour is completely innocent.'

'That had occurred to me. Hence the precaution of the video of himself and Eva in case he's tempted to make a fuss. But there's something fishy about that money he was talking about. Who's paying these clowns and for what?'

'Well maybe we'll find out if Eva manages to get him back here. What time did she say?'

'About seven. But she'll phone ahead.' Solomon picked up his script. 'Kyk in die Bybel, Fransie,' he fire and brimstoned.

'Cake in the babel?' queried Jake.

'Almost,' Solomon smiled. 'Look in the Bible's what it means.'

'I still think we should slip him a tab of acid.'

'Too risky. He might tell all or just sit gibbering in the corner. Or he might even have taken acid before and recognise the symptoms. Armies are awash with drugs. No, I'm relying on the power of superstition stirred up by technology. If that doesn't work, I'm sure the prospect of sending a video to dear old Hester back in Delareyville will shake out a few facts.'

Ruthie rushed over after work to add a woman's touch to the decor. Three heartshaped cushions, red, yellow and green were scattered about and a large pink Gonk was stuck in the corner. A festoon of beads was hung over one corner of the mirror.

'It needs a few dozen pairs of shoes littering the floor,' said Solomon, getting in a dig at one of Ruthie's vices, 'but we'll assume he's too keen on a fuck to notice.'

'Do we have to video them?' Ruthie wheedled. 'It's so sordid. And what if he does turn out to have nothing to do with the whole thing?'

'Then we'll destroy it, of course. Tell you what, we won't even watch it unless we need to. Let's hope Eva remembers to leave the bedside light on.'

Ten minutes later Eva rang to let them know that she'd managed to get Fransie on his own; the problem had been getting rid of Hennie. Fransie was drinking brandy and coke. Barring breakdowns, strikes or suicides on the line they should be there in forty minutes. Yes, Fransie was pretty loathesome but she could handle him.

They tried out all Jake's devices one last time then bundled themselves into the office, drew the curtains, doused the light and locked the door. The only light came from a little video monitor which showed Jake's bedroom. It seemed like forever but was in fact just twenty-seven minutes later that the stairs rang with climbing footsteps and noises of entry followed. Jake pressed RCD. Eva's gurgling laugh came loud and clear as the bedroom door opened and Jake hurriedly hushed the volume.

Ruthie's job was to run Eva home after her sordid business had been completed and to give her five hundred pounds cash. Her feelings about prostitutes were mixed. Middleclass prejudice suggested a diseased, drug-addicted vampire, but there was a sort of slummy thrill too. She thought of Solomon's engorged purple glans and licked her lips. Had Solomon ever fucked Eva? No, she was Jake's friend. But a woman who'd fuck anyone for money was always a threat. Solomon, seeing Ruthie's conflicted face in the flickering blue light, got her earlobe into the gap between his front teeth and gently mangled it. Ruthie melted.

They saw Eva come in, twirl and peel off her coat and scarf to reveal a frilly low-cut blouse with a rose stuck in the cleavage.

Fransie followed, strutting like a bantam, still unable to believe his luck.

'This is a reely nice place, hey.' Fransie's halting English came through the thin wall. 'How long's your friend gonna be away?'

'Now sree veeks, I am sinking. She is in ze Cotsvold's vun veek already. Come liebchen. Sit on ze bet. Let's have a drink.'

'Ja. Good idea.' Fransie sat heavily, having misjudged the height. 'Yis.' He flopped back. 'God man, I'm poegaai already.'

'Vat vould you like?'

'Ag whatever you got's OK by me, sweetie.' Fransie closed his eyes and began singing the Afrikaans version of The Big Rock Candy Mountain: 'Die gezoem van die bye en die lekker Turksvye...'

Turksvye, thought Solomon. Literally Turkish figs. The English, hardly an improvement, was prickly pear. There'd been a big clump of prickly-pears at Olieboom in the old days. It wasn't the spines that were the problem, he remembered, but the little brown hairs that got under the skin and drove you mad with the itching. Hector had taught him how to peel the things with a knife and two forks. He could still taste the fruit, sweet and sicky as the flesh disintegrated leaving a mouthful of gravelly seeds. Beetles (cactoblastis cactorum) deliberately released by the South African government to control what was seen as a noxious weed, had done for Olieboom's prickly pears. Oh and cochineal. Solomon remembered the squirts of shaving-foam that had appeared on the plants and turned into thousands of those little beetles whose carmine colour when crushed had dyed generations of fairy-cakes pink. And British uniforms red. He and his cousin had had a den in the heart of the thicket. As kids they'd stolen two of Hector's Balkan Sobranies (the last word in sophistication) and had crawled down the narrow tunnel between the thorns to their clearing. It was cold out of the sun and they'd huddled up to Cassius Clay, as Hector had named his bull-terrier. The boys lit up and Solomon remembered the cough which sent meteors across his vision, the dizziness, the nausea. Boetie had blown some smoke into Cassius's trusting nostrils which had the effect of making him charge round and round the tiny space barking madly. Solomon could still see the glee in his piggy little eyes and the grin of his fearsome teeth. Cassius had been killed soon after that by a leopard and the prickly pears had turned to parchment stretched over dry brown mesh.

Fransie lay back on Jake's bed, his trousers tented by a creditable erection. Eva came back in with a tray of bottles and glasses which she put down to lay a friendly hand on his crotch. Fransie pulled the rose from her cleavage and fumbled with her buttons. She murmured something and he stood up, staggering a bit and removed his jacket and trousers and hung them neatly on a chair. Eva began coquettishly removing her blouse and Ruthie put a hand over the monitor. The squeals, creaks, grunts and moans of coition filtered through the wall and Ruthie felt her face burn. Both boys found it necessary to adjust their garments. Ruthie sighed and sneaked a quick look and found that reality, as was often the case, was less exciting than imagination. The couple had by this stage moved under the duvet and only some vague humping was to be seen. Over Fransie's scrawny shoulder Eva's head was thrown back in apparent ecstasy. 'Ja, ja, ja liebling. Fuck me harder. I'm nearly zere.'

'Ek ook. Uh, uh, uhhh. Ja. Do that thing again. Jissus, that's something else hey. Milk me dry, baby.'

'Every last drop,' Eva purred.

They lay still for a moment then Fransie rolled off her and lay flat on his back. His narrow brow was creased with thought.

'Shame I got to back to S.A. so soon.' He clicked his tongue. 'My usual vokken luck – I'm only around till Saturday. Then I got some business to do before we go on Monday.'

'Vot kind business?' Eva was intrigued.

'Ag, man we just got to deliver some stuff to a place called Braunau in Austria.'

'Braunau. I sink zat is vhere Hitler vas born, ja?' Eva was carefully noncommittal.

'Zat so?' Fransie looked drunkenly shifty, Peter about to deny Christ.

Eva kissed his cheek. 'I'll be back soon,' she told him. I go to make pipi. She allowed Fransie a glimpse of cunt and arsehole as she scrambled out of bed, picking up (why, Fransie groggily wondered) clothes and shoes on the way. She left. Had Fransie been listening he might have heard the lock engage. But he was preoccupied. Flipping back the duvet he grabbed the condom which was still attached to his semi-erect cock and pulled. It stretched out to a good eighteen inches (Ruthie couldn't suppress a small whimper) before letting go with a snap. Fransie's cock dropped onto his leg.

'Things I wish I'd never seen,' whispered Ruthie. 'Eva should be decent by now. I'll drive her home. Good luck with the ghoulies and ghosties and long-leggety beasties. I'll leave my mobile on if you need me but please be careful.'

'We will. Ciao carissima.' mouthed Solomon while Jake gave a languid wave.

Ruthie slipped away. They heard murmurings and then the door went. On the video monitor the men watched Fransie get up, naked and take the wallet from his pants. He counted the few notes twice then went and sat dejectedly on the bed. There was half a warm flat brandy and coke in a tumbler. He absentmindedly knocked it back. Jake, on Solomon's signal, turned on the dread. In less than two minutes they had the disturbing feeling of watching a man in despair. Solomon fought his own sense of futility, cleared his throat and switched on the mike.

Jake threw a couple of switches and lighting flashed with thunder right behind it. Fransie jumped up, shook his head in disbelief and slumped back onto the bed.

'I see you, Frans Snyman.' Solomon rolled out the grave Afrikaans.

Fransie snatched the duvet over his scrawny nakedness and looked frantically for the location of the voice.

'Eva!' he called uneasily. 'Where are you?

'Eva has gone,' answered a deepened Solomon in die taal, that Afrikaans in which the subsequent dialogue occurs. 'Eva has gone, but your sins still stink in my nostrils.'

Jake produced another bolt of lightning and thunderclap. Even on the little screen it was obvious that Fransie was shaking with terror. Afuckenmazing. Their little trick had worked. Solomon had not overestimated the farmer's superstitious side. But whether it was Fransie's pitiable figure or the silent rumble of the dread generator, Solomon didn't know, but he wanted to give up now. No. He hardened his heart and softened his voice.

'It is never too late to repent of your sins, but you must acknowledge them in all their foulness. We will start at Olieboom, Frans.

Fransie moaned and started banging his head against the wall, which was luckily made of plasterboard.

'Frans!'

The wretch stopped the self-concussion and began to sob brokenly.

Solomon was paternally relentless. 'What happened at Olieboom, Frans? Why did they kill a whole village?'

'Cassandra, that Baster woman. It was all her fault.' Fransie's voice rose hysterically. 'She hexed the Oubaas. Made him leave her half the farm.'

Jake, wotting not of this conversation, was concerned by the grimace of pain which crossed Solomon's face. It would have helped had he known that Cassandra was Solomon's mother's name. There was worse to come. It seemed that Fransie's father had wanted to leave his wife of thirty years and set up with this Baster meid as Fransie disparagingly called her. Such a scandal in the Afrikaner community was unthinkable but the dominee had at last talked him round. Die Oubaas never spoke to his wife again. This, Fransie was convinced, had led directly to the cancer which had soon eaten away half her face and then killed her.

'So because your father loved another woman you had to kill innocent people?'

'I didn't kill them, Lord,' Fransie whined. 'It was the war, I swear to Go... I mean it was a designated target. It was a SWAPO base, we had to destroy it.'

Solomon solemnly read out a roll-call of the dead while Fransie collapsed face down on the bed and went into rather horrible convulsions.

Solomon cut his throat with a finger and Jake turned off the dread.

'Frans Snyman, do you repent your sins?'

Fransie lifted his head and looked frantically around.

'Yes, Lord.'

'Good. Why are you in England?'

'To see the Boks play.'

Abysmal silence yawned.

'Frans.'

'To deliver some goods to Austria.'

Solomon winkled out some details, but either Fransie didn't know what they were shipping, or he wouldn't tell. His answers got slower and more reluctant as if it was beginning to dawn on him that an omniscient God ought really to know these things.

Jake's eyebrows asked about more persuasion, but Solomon shook his head. He removed the mike from its box of tricks and plugged it straight into the amp. The slight crackle of breaking and making contact made Fransie look up suspiciously. He sprang up and began to struggle into his trousers.

'Thanks for all your help, Snakey,' said Solomon normally. 'We've got you now.'

Fransie stared at the straw hat which concealed the speaker. 'Hector,' he said with slow apprehension, 'is that you.'

Solomon's yell of laughter made Fransie's face shrink. His eyes narrowed to slits and the mouth pursed bitterly. Fear chased anger across his face and back again.

Running the gammat of emotions as Solomon had more than once punned.

'No, Snakey,' he resumed. 'It's not Hector. Hector's dead, remember? I'm Solomon Witbooi, Hector's nephew. The one Olieboomer you forgot to kill.'

'Solomon. Jesus.' Fransie evidently remembered the cheeky Baster kid who'd kept up a running commentary on passers-by which had kept his friends in stitches. He yanked his belt tight, bunching the trousers somewhat and slipped on his patently plastic shoes. Shirt unbuttoned, jacket flung on. Tie shoved in pocket. Dash for the door. Frantic rattling at the realisation that it's locked and then a sudden recoil at an authoritative thump on the other side. 'Stand back,' shouted Solomon and we'll open the door. Don't try anything or we'll shoot you like a dog.'

A quick squinny through the keyhole showed that Fransie understood force majeur. Solomon opened up and with Jake covering him with a loaded crossbow they came in and closed and locked the door behind them.

'OK Snakey,' Solomon reverted to English, 'let's talk. Jake, put up your arbalest, there's a good chap. Mr. Snyman knows we have the whip hand.'

Snakey licked his lizard lips.

'So it's reely you, hey?' Snakey's tone conveyed that this was one of the least delightful surprises yet in a life singularly lacking in delightful surprises. 'Listen Solomon, strues njannies I din't have nothing to with what happened to your people.'

'Cut the kak Snakey. You were there. We've got it all on tape. You reckon Hester would go for a video of you screwing another woman? Or that your pals would appreciate your telling us of this latest business? What simple transport job needs drivers imported from South Africa? And what's this about die Oubaas leaving my mother half the farm?'

Snakey made a noise which turned to hysterical gulping laughs. 'What happened?' he gasped when he was able to speak, 'what happened is that the kaffirs took it. It's not only youse Basters they stealing from but white people too. Some curry-cruncher from the bank came down and said they were cutting us off. They took the farm and gave it to some minister's nephew.'

'Easy come, easy go.' Solomon shrugged. 'It doesn't matter to me – I'm rich anyway. So what's it like being a bywoner? What are the big boys tossing you for this dirty work? If it turns out that you've been shipping illegal weapons to terrorists you could be looking at twenty years in jail. And you will be caught. Now that we know when and where the stuff's going, trapping them will be a cinch. Of course we couldn't let you warn them – that would be silly. Someone will phone Jasper and tell him that you've had to fly back home because of sudden illness in the family. Or you could just pretend to run off with Eva, follow in your father's footsteps.'

'She was a witch,' muttered Snakey, shaking his head. 'She put a curse on our family. And I found that blerrie Hector scattering yellow powder and feathers by the barn and the next day our bull dropped down dead. The police said the yellow powder was just mielie meal, but I know it was magic. Since then nothing's gone right for us.'

'If it warn't fer bad luck,' sang Solomon, 'I wouldna had no luck at all. Well,' he reverted mercifully to speech, 'when Hannah Arendt talked of the banality of evil, she might have been thinking of you, me ol' china.' His tone sharpened. How much were they going to pay you?'

'I dunno what you talking about.'

'Jake, stick the point of your quarrel in our guest's ear.'

'My pleasure. Better not stand there in case it comes out the other side. Interesting to see what two hundred and seventy-eight pounds of pull can do.'

Snakey froze as Jake's lovingly-sharpened spike pricked his ear.

'How much?' Solomon persisted quietly.

'Thirty thousand rand.'

'There, that wasn't so difficult. Now listen, Snakey, I've got a proposition for you.'

Chapter 29

The deal was this: Solomon would say nothing about Snakey's involvement with Olieboom or his recent tryst with Eva if Snakey went to the police and gave them enough information to precipitate a raid on a certain delivery from Proteus. He could claim to have betrayed his friends and employers because of the noble stirrings of his grubby little conscience, if he liked. Not only would he be let off jail, but there was likely to be a bidding war for his insider status. He stood to make a damn sight more than a miserable thirty thousand.

Solomon's pacing as he argued had taken him to the far corner of the room and Jake was seated with the crossbow across his lap. Snakey sprang up and managed to splinter one of the top panels of the door with his shoulder before his captors could react. He hurled himself at it again as Solomon snapped to the big Afrikaans bible and brought it down on his head. There was a dull thud. Snakey's eyes crossed and he slept. He awoke a little later to find himself lying on the bed with his right wrist lashed securely to his left ankle with his Bok supporter's tie.

Solomon repeated that in the event of a successful prosecution of any or all of the principals, Snakey was likely to make a lot of money. In fact Solomon offered to cover his expenses plus ten thousand rand if he didn't make more than Chris and co had been prepared to pay him. He would of course deny that he'd ever made any such offer, not to mention the ludicrous allegations of blackmail and extortion. But he was sure Snakey would see where his best interests lay. Snakey saw.

'What is it they're selling?' asked Solomon again. 'Is it the same stuff they used at Olieboom?'

'Ja. They told me it's pesticide but I'm not stupid.'

'This van they're using. What is it?'

'Blue Mercedes. Dunno where from but it's left-hand drive.'

'How much are they shifting?'

'Hunnert kilos.'

'Where are you picking it up?'

'Some little place near Reeding.'

'Reading,' corrected Jake.

'Ja, that.'

'And what's the name of this delightful spot?' enquired Solomon.

'Ag man it was one of those snaakse English names. I can't blerrie remember.'

Snakey's desperation showed that this was probably true.

'Goring,' prompted Jake, 'Pangbourne, Nettlebed, Hungerford, Wantage, Um, Binfield?'

'Impressive,' conceded Solomon. 'How do you come to know these delightfully-named places?'

'Oh, we lived near Reading for a while. I enjoyed exploring the area by bike. What about Arborfield, Garrison, Sherfield-on-Loddon?'

Snakey shook his head.

'And how's the stuff packed?'

'Canisters marked "insecticide".' A sly smile twitched the corners of his mouth.

Twang, whoosh, doink! A quarrel pierced both pillow and mattress and buried its point in the wooden bed.

Snakey jumped, ricking his shoulder as he was brought up viciously short by his bonds. Sweat ran into his eyes, making them sting.

'What's the joke?' asked Solomon as Jake ratcheted back the cord, fitted a new bolt and aimed at the hooped figure on the bed.

'OKOK,' said Snakey urgently. 'What it is is that the cylinders are sort of like double inside. There's a small little one on top that lets out pesticide from the valve so it looks like that's what's in it.'

'Ingenious,' said Jake. 'We could get the police to take along a hacksaw and offer to saw the thing open. That would provoke a reaction.'

'Good idea. Cut it in half. My Biblical namesake would've approved. You know, I'm not sure, on second thought, that I like the idea of the police. It's quite possible that Sir Ambrose could nobble them. Perhaps playing the international terror card could be more productive. Who is this stuff going to, Snakey?'

'Hey listen, Solomon. I dunno niks. Only this is the last of the stuff they've got. Chris said he'd be glad to see the back of it.'

'I bet he will. Sounds like our friend Chris is jumpy, but not so jumpy that he's not prepared to sell the stuff rather than dump it. Whereabouts in Braunau are you taking this NACT. And by the way what do you call it among yourselves?'

'Die Regmaker.' Snakey was turning sullen again.

'The Setter-to-rights,' translated Solomon, 'also used of a badly-needed drink or a castrator of animals. As alluring as The Final Solution except that there's no such thing. Death is never simple or final except for the victims.'

'I got a moera piss on board,' moaned Snakey. 'Can't you untie me and let me take a slash? I won't split. Youse ouks have got me by the short and curlies.'

'True,' said Solomon. 'Just as long as you remember that we could have you behind bars for the rest of your miserable life. But first you'll tell us exactly where you're taking the stuff.'

'I dunno man. Honest to God. Paul's got the map. All I know it's some little airstrip up in the mountains. Eina! I got a cramp in my leg.' And Snakey's face crumpled in pain.

Solomon wearily nodded and Jake got his scissors and snipped neatly through Snakey's beloved tie. The mass-murderer grabbed his big toe and pulled on it till the spasm subsided. The boys walked him to the bog and waited outside listening to the long, strong discharge churning the water in the S-bend followed by a flush and running water. After a while Solomon nudged open the door in case Snakey had somehow wedged himself into the space above and was preparing to get the drop on him. But far from such heroics they saw the failed platteland mielieboer sitting on the toilet fully clothed and rubbing away at his forehead as if to iron out the furrows of worry, sunburn and time.

Back in Jake's bedroom Snakey sat docilely on the bed while Solomon rattled away at his laptop for some minutes before announcing that there were two airports within fifty kilometers of Braunau. Did the names of Neue Flugplatz or Edelweiss mean anything to Snakey?

Snakey shook his droopy head then caught sight of Jake and the crossbow. 'Ja,' he suddenly remembered, 'that one like the song.'

'Edelweiss, edelweiss,' sang Solomon, almost recognizably.

'Ja, that's it. Vok. Listen man, if they know I blitted they'll fucken kill me.' Snakey oozed earnest helpfulness. 'I din even wanna come on this trip but I needed the bucks.'

Brisk steps rang out in the stairwell, keys churned locks and Ruthie tapped at the door.

'Sure, it's only yourself,' Solomon greeted her. 'Eva back OK.'

'Yes, fine. She seems very nice. We talked about schools.' Ruthie seemed abstracted and couldn't keep her eyes off Snakey. 'What did you find out?'

'Oh, quite a bit. Our friend here is probably the one who suggested Olieboom, but his motives were pure – money. It seems that his father had left my mother half his farm. He'd wanted to leave his wife and family and run off with her but the forces of religion, law and propriety ganged up on him and made him stay. He never spoke to his wife again. The joke is that the farm was taken anyway. Snakey says, as far as I can tell, that the bank foreclosed because of government corruption. But he was there at the massacre.'

'How can you sleep at night?' Ruthie blazed at the wretched Afrikaner. 'What kind of man murders women and children in cold blood? And these weren't strangers. These were people you'd known all your life. You have children of your own. How'd you like to see them dragged off to be slaughtered like cattle?'

'Ja-nee,' his shoulders drooped. 'Some things you don' unnerstan' till you got kiddies. But it was war, man. It wasn't my idea to target Olieboom, they just wanted someone who knew the area. Orders was to leave no witnesses. And it was a SWAPO ammo dump. That vokken Hector had cases of AK47s in his lorry, hidden under a load of bricks. There was also mortar shells and grenades behind the pigsties.'

'And it got you a whole farm rather than only a half,' Solomon cut off his stream of self-justification.

Snakey sighed. 'Ja, that too. But our lawyer said we could of had the will overturned like that.' He flipped a contemptuous finger. 'There was a doctor who'd swear the old man was, what's kranksinnig?'

'Insane.'

'Insane. If it'll make you happy, my life's been shit from then on.' Snakey tasted the full bitterness of that truth, then blurted: 'Look, what do you want with me?'

'We want you to tell your story to someone in authority, but there are things to arrange. You stay here and think about things. Don't do anything stupid – we'll be watching you on CCTV. There's an Afrikaans bible there if you fancy a read. Look up Cain and Abel.'

The three friends left. Snakey pulled off his shoes and jacket and climbed into bed. Incredibly, he soon drifted off into a shallow, jittery sleep.

Solomon had discovered that there was only one international flight out of Edelweiss on the day in question – a Learjet bound for Afghanistan. But who to tell?'

'My mate Brad has a brother who's quite high up in Customs and Excise,' volunteered Jake. 'They'd probably be glad to poke the old Bill in the eye. We might try them.'

Solomon gave it a minute then nodded. Jake got dialling and two phone-calls later got through to the man he wanted. 'Hello, is that Mr. Trant? My name's Jake Ridler, I'm a friend of Brad's. I'm sorry to disturb you so late but he assured me you were never in bed before one.'

Solomon smiled at the contrast between Jake's easygoing appearance and his businesslike telephone voice.

Jake went on to explain that plans to export a highly-dangerous banned substance had come to his attention and as he wasn't sure what to do about it, he would value some advice. He went into some detail on the nature and history of NACT (without mentioning Olieboom). Martin Trant politely heard him out until Jake happened to mention the Learjet and Edelweiss airport, when he suddenly interposed some pointed questions. It was obvious that something had connected.

'I'd have to speak to your source, myself,' said Trant. 'You say you have him with you?'

'Yes, he's actually in my flat right this minute.'

'And whereabouts are you situated? Yes, I know it. No, no need to pick me up. I'm just around the corner. I'll be there a.s.a.p.'

Jake hung up. Well, that put a firecracker up his arse. He's coming right over. I hope we're doing the right thing, that's all. I see prison doors yawning before me.'

'Oh well, alea jacta est and a half,' responded Solomon. 'There, what do you think of Snakey's statement?'

'Pompous and longwinded.' Ruthie looked over his shoulder. 'Leave out the Geneva convention, love. Just stick to the facts.'

' "I had six honest serving-men",' Kippled Solomon. ' "They taught me all I knew. Their names were what and why and when and how and where and who." Why "knew"? Has he forgotten it all? One might almost think it had been twisted to rhyme with "who". Could've used "ken" and "when" although that would introduce a Scottish element. There. Is that better, Miss Prim?'

'Much. Just change "conspiracy" to "plan" and it'll do.'

'Should we soften Snakey up with a bit of light dread?' asked Jake.

'Better not. We don't want any hint of coercion, not to mention the nuisance of neighbours throwing themselves out of windows. Right. I'll run off three copies. Jake, can you hide that video of Snakey's adultery and confession in case Mr. Trant brings friends and they jump to the right conclusion.'

'Already done. It's behind that hit-or-miss ventilator grille in the kitchen, hanging down the cavity on a bit of fishing-line. If anyone but me opens it up it'll fall down inside the wall, so keep your clumsy hands off it or you'll have to buy the downstairs flat so you can knock a hole in their wall to get it back.'

'Not to worry. Why don't you make our visitors some of your diabolically strong coffee.'

'Sure.' And Jake went off to grind and tamp and blast with steam.

Solomon woke Snakey with a cup of hot coffee and a couple of the Ouma rusks which Selwyn had brought from South Africa. Jake had moved the crossbow out of sight, but it was still three to one. Not to mention the various Swords of Damocles hanging over his head. The coffee and rusks with their overtones of Boere hospitality brought an ache to Snakey's heart. In the New South Africa, Afrikaners had come to feel like a persecuted minority and sometimes found themselves allied with Asians or Coloureds or Portuguese against the hated blacks. But even Snakey's views had changed. The new black leaders may have been corrupt and incompetent but he would never again regard them as stupid. And despite the big talk, the chances of GAT or any other rightwing Afrikaner group organising a successful coup, were zero.

The brandy had long worn off but the terror at hearing the voice of God still lingered in Snakey's nerves not to mention the bitter humiliation of having been fooled. He was also beginning to feel that Jasper, Paul and Hennie had treated him badly and a number of slights and sneers came back to him. So when Solomon had explained quietly in his mother tongue that someone from Customs and Excise was due shortly. That nothing would be said about Eva or Olieboom, provided Snakey stuck to the shipment of NACT and answered relevant questions truthfully. Then, having signed a statement, he'd be free to go. Of course he and his pals would be under constant surveillance from now on and any atempt to give the alarm would result in his own exposure as war-criminal, lecher and fink. Or he could disappear. Solomon would be happy to put him up in a cheap hotel until after the operation. Possibly the witness protection programme could be invoked. By the way, did Snakey prefer to be called 'Fransie' as he was now among friends? After a long, suspicious pause, the Afrikaner nodded. Did he understand the situation? He was blowing the whistle on a bunch of unscrupulous criminals. He was a hero.

'Snakey here prefers to be called Fransie,' Solomon told Jake and Ruthie. 'I've spelt out his options and he's agreed to help us nail the big fish provided it gets him off the hook.'

'I see. One fish is going to help you nail another.' Jake raised a pitying eyebrow.

'Haven't you heard of a hammerhead? Now there's an intriguing image.'

'Fransie, you must do the right thing.' Ruthie had changed tack. 'I'm sure that the deaths of innocent people must weigh on your conscience. How would you feel if this horrible stuff was to kill thousands more, maybe even Afrikaners.'

Fransie looked up at her haggardly. His conscience, such as it was, had never given him more than the odd pang over events at Olieboom, but he now felt that a silent mountain of guilt had been rearing up behind him for years and had finally toppled onto him. Like many unthinking sadists, Fransie was also a sentimentalist and Ruthie's warm eloquence brought a lump to his throat.

'God is merciful.' Ruthie, feeling an utter fraud, found herself imitating a Sunday-school teacher on whom she'd once had a crush. 'Repent of your sins and you will be forgiven. Didn't our Lord say: Go and sin no more?'

Fransie heaved a deep sigh, sniffed and wiped his eyes. 'Ja, OK. I said I'll sign that thing. I mus' go back to Jasper and them in the morning and I'll tell them I wanna go back to SA 'cause my rich uncle's about to peg. I do' wanna be there when they picked up.'

The downstairs buzzer sounded and Jake remotely let in Martin Trant. There was the sound of trotting feet on the stairs and Jake opened up to a tall, stooping figure in an anorak, denims and trainers. The man offered a cold, limp hand but his eyes were busy.

'You're Jake, I take it. I asked Brad about you and he seemed to think you wouldn't have contacted me without good reason.' Martin's long lips made a thoughtful moue. 'He said you were the most moral drug-dealer he knew. I gather you've paid your debt to society. It's the moral bit that worries me.' A smile broke through.

'Yep, you're Brad's brother all right. The same deadpan humour. We're all in here.' Jake ushered him into the bedroom. 'Ruthie McNulty here works for VIGIL and this is Solomon Witbooi, my boss. On the bed is our informant, Fransie Snyman. Lady and gentlemen, this is Mr. Martin Trant of HM Customs and Excise.'

'Mr. Snyman.' Martin showed his ID. 'I understand you may have some information for us.'

Chapter 30

So it came to be. Martin Trant tweaked Solomon's statement and Fransie signed. The other two witnessed it and Martin gave Fransie a lift to the nearest hotel, where he could spend the rest of the night.

'Don't worry about anything – we'll be keeping an eye on you,' Martin reassured Fransie - but funnily enough this sent a shiver up his spine.

It was an apprehensive Fransie who met up with Paul and Hennie at a Golden Egg but he soon found that far from suspecting his betrayal of them, he was suddenly regarded as a bit of a Jack-the-Lad, a gay dog, a dark horse. He squirmed pleasurably under their ponderous jokes and dirty innuendos. Plus Solomon had slipped him a small wad 'for expenses' which turned out to be five hundred quid. And the promise of millions from the newspapers. It was such a relief to be free of the penny-pinching cramp of poverty, that he insisted on paying for their breakfast. Cutting a modest dash at last, Fransie felt a lifetime of snubs and humiliations fly up in his face. He was relieved to be able to admit that he actually hated Jasper and Ambrose and Chris. Even Hennie and Paul had sometimes treated him like shit and he'd had to take it.

There was of course the risk that Fransie would warn Jasper-hulle but Martin thought not. He'd managed to convince him that the best plan would be to stick with the gang and let himself be arrested and subsequently freed. And even if he did cave in he might frighten the businessmen into doing something stupid. What had made Martin take Jake seriously was that Interpol had warned of talk that a group of extremist Israelis was trying to get their hands on some extremely nasty stuff and that a possible route involved Edelweiss airport and Afghanistan, via an America-friendly Afghan warlord. Despite his appearance, Martin was sufficiently senior to place Jasper and the boys under surveillance and even to keep an eye on the still-separated Chris and Cecily. No-one had mentioned Sir Ambrose Mortimer whose movements were consequently unknown.

On the Thursday evening before the shipment Chris drove his new (insurance money) Lexus into Jasper's drive. The four men were there but Charleen had gone to a movie with a girlfriend.

Cecily had a night in with the box. After an hour Chris came out, shook hands with Jasper and set off on the three-hour drive to East Hoathly. If he noticed the grey Volkswagen a couple of cars behind him, he gave no sign.

At five the next morning he was on the road again. This time he drove straight to a lock-up garage on the outskirts of Reading. A few minutes later Jasper's piebald Jag pulled up and disgorged its occupants. Fransie looked queasy but even his darting eyes didn't notice either the grey Volswagen which drove by or the red Sierra parked on a yellow line. The transmitter in his pocket told the watchers that he was less than a hundred metres away on a bearing of five degrees off true north.

Chris unlocked the up-and-over door and Hennie drove out the van. Paul and Fransie climbed into the passenger seats and Jasper parked his car in the lock-up before joining Chris in the Lexus. The van followed them into the traffic and as soon as they were out of sight the Sierra set off after Fransie's bleep. At the edge of Basingstoke was a depot with a high wire fence. Trant's men got a telephoto shot of canisters being loaded into the van. By nine o'clock they were on the road heading north, the Sierra tailing the van tailing the Lexus.

Solomon had been feeling frustrated at being left out of the action but an email to 'Basil van der Westhuizen' needed his attention. It was from Cicely, proposing a meeting between just the two of them which might prove mutually advantageous. Solomon picked up the phone and discovered that she would be in London that very day and that they could arrange to meet. Twelve, outside the Serpentine Gallery in Hyde Park, traffic permitting. It was a temperate day in early September and the herbage was showing wear and tear.

Solomon got off the tube at Knightsbridge and took a stroll through the park. Would Cecily, for instance, come along Rotten Row and what would that mean? Yes and nothing. She was there a little early, waiting.

'Good morning. Or is it afternoon? May I call you Solomon?'

'Still morning,' Solomon consulted his trusty Bolox, 'if not entirely glad. First names by all means. Let's keep things civilised. But you'll excuse my sense of wariness.'

'It's alright,' she smiled stiffly, 'no tricks.'

'Why don't we find a bench somewhere out in the open?' suggested Solomon, 'unless sitting's still painful.'

'It's not. Now and again I can see the funny side,' Cecily chuckled grimly. 'I'm divorcing Chris, you know. I have you and your associates to thank for that and I do thank you.'

A direct look. They sat, an elegant woman in heathery tweeds and Nubuck boots and this gaptoothed nutbrown still-young man in a garish hand-knit sweater, tracksuit and trainers.

'Let's talk business,' Cecily began. 'I faced Chris with that note of Uncle Alf's and he admitted that Alf had said he'd go to the police with it unless he was told the truth about those two tramps. By the way, I had no idea that that was anything but an accident. Chris admits that Alf was getting to be a nuisance, but denies killing him. I don't know whether to believe him or not but I know that he could have and that I no longer love him.'

'So what's the deal? You hand over Chris for that atrocity and we agree to stop persecuting you over Olieboom?'

'That's it. You're quick, aren't you? Chris and Jasper too. It's true they won't be punished for your tragedy but you're never going to get anywhere with that. Forget me and Sir Ambrose, we're untouchable. He's safe behind the Official Secrets Act; I never put anything in writing and I'm at least twice as fragrant as Mary Archer. What does it matter why the perpetrators are punished as long as they are punished?'

Solomon had assumed that this invitation to parley was at least partly to keep him out of the way of illegal shipments. The breeze set sunlight skittering across the water and a new notion came to him. Perhaps it was sheer coincidence that had brought her to London. She may have known nothing about the latest deal. Perhaps it was Chris's own idea, to keep her Harpy clutches off the loot.

'Assuming I go along with your idea,' said Solomon drily, 'what's in it for you? The scandal will destroy the firm you both built up over so many years. The name of Proteus will stink.'

'True. I'll be able to buy Chris out for next to nothing. The beauty of bankruptcy is that it wipes out so many debts.'

'Ah yes, limited liability. The two most beautiful words in the business lexicon.' he shrugged Yiddishly. 'I'm in business myself. I know.'

'Just so. But the real value of the firm's not in its name but in its patents and expertise. I expect to dispose of those profitably. I've already spoken to some of our competitors and I'm sure I'd do very well for myself. As for your business, I believe you're engaged in litigation about software. You must know that could ruin you.' Cecily cocked a quizzical head. 'I could get it stopped at once if it were worth my while.'

'Hm. So I'd get my software back and Chris and Jasper in jail.' Solomon pretended to muse. 'And you'd get, apart from Proteus?'

'Well, an undertaking that you wouldn't pursue the matter of Olieboom. And that Chris and Jasper must be tried only for the napalm – that there be no mention of NACT. It's as good as you're going to get, Mr. Witbooi. I'd take it.'

'I might. And then again I might not. After all you were the one who came up with the idea of gassing a village. I'd quite like to see you and Ambrose in the stocks being pelted with rotten turnips.'

'Well I can't speak for Sir Ambrose but I'd consider a broken marriage, a flayed back and the thought that her husband may have murdered an old friend punishment enough for doing no more than change the means of death for those doomed people. And if my life's bad now what do you think it'll be like as the ex-wife of a sadistic murderer? Do you think I relish having to tell my daughters, not to mention having my private life splashed all over the tabloids.' Cecily twisted to face him and in the unforgiving sunlight she did look more haggard than her manner suggested. Her lipstick had bled into the fine lines radiating from her mouth and her eyes were shadowed with fatigue.

'As my Uncle Hector used to say: "My heart pumps vrot custard for you." Solomon toughed it out. His thoughts kept reverting to Fransie and Hennie and Paul and their vanload of death. Would Martin get them? Had Fransie cracked and spilt the beans? Was the whole trip an elaborate decoy while the real stuff was spirited off elsewhere? He glanced around but saw just the normal mix of joggers, dog-walkers and an old lady feeding the ducks.

His mobile rang and he walked out of earshot to answer it.

'Hullo.'

'Solomon? It's Martin Trant. I thought you'd like to know we picked up the suspects as they were about to board the ferry.' Martin chuckled. 'Your wheeze of pretending to saw one of the canisters in half worked a treat.'

'And messers Metcalfe and Keate?'

'We got them too. They were in the car behind. Keate made a run for it but one of our chaps brought him down in a very creditable rugby tackle. After the driver of the van admitted that they were carrying nerve gas, Metcalfe told them to refuse to say anything until his lawyers arrived. We may need you to testify, by the way, so let us know where to get hold of you. You'll be informed if there are further developments. Excuse me please. I have a news conference.'

'Certainly, Martin. And thanks for the good news.'

Solomon returned to Cecily, who was sitting bolt upright on the bench with both hands clutching the bag on her lap and smiling her sphinxlike smile. He sat down and eyed her levelly for a moment.

'You know that feeling,' he began conversationally, 'when you've spent ages making a house of cards and someone cheerfully flings open the door?'

'What of it?'

'Well, remember saying that the valuable parts of Proteus were its patents and expertise? You forgot to mention the stockpile of NACT. Whoops, there go your cards.'

'What stockpile of NACT?' Cecily sniffed contemptuously. 'If this is a bluff, it's not a very good one.'

'There must be some mistake, then. I've just heard that Chris, Jasper and three South African chums have been arrested trying to smuggle the stuff out of the country. If you really knew nothing about it, my guess is that Chris wanted to keep the money for himself.'

Cecily chewed her lower lip. 'The swine,' she muttered. 'The filthy swine. "Our little nest-egg. Our pension fund." Ha.' She shook her head and refocused on her adversary.

'Yes, that stockpile. I hope you know a good lawyer. The NACT cat is out of the bag. Jasper's three chommies were at Olieboom and I wouldn't be surprised to find that using them again was at least partly to draw them in further to stop them running to the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission for a deal. Sir Ambrose will have some serious explaining to do, Official Secrets Act or no. Which leaves us, my dear Cecily, with you.'

'I doubt you'll be able to touch me. I've been very careful.'

'Perhaps. But it was your money which floated Proteus and you've effectively been a director all along. There must be office staff who know what's going on – switchboard operators and such. And Chris may not want to implicate you but what about the others? Jake takes a more merciful view – he thinks Len Chicken lurking in your shrubbery's punishment enough.'

Despite herself, Cecily smiled. 'It's true. I must admit that I miss Jake. I used to be quite fond of him. Oh, well. I'd better be going. I assume that what you've told me about the arrests and the NACT is true?'

'You betcha. Listen to the next news bulletin. Big businessman caught shipping nasties to loony Afghans. Or maybe to Saddam or Gadaffi or Sharon. Shame, hey. That should blast his daughters' matrimonial chances. At least I don't have to worry about my little sussie's chances – she's dead.'

'I'm sorry.' Cecily, appalled at the threat to Pookie and Sukie, felt Solomon's pain. 'You know I could never bring myself to watch that film they made. Chris swore it had been destroyed but I wouldn't be surprised to find he'd kept a copy for himself. He's not a bad man, though. People can't help their predilections. I don't love him but if he's really in trouble I'll have to stick by him. It's one thing to throw him to the wolves myself but it looks so tacky to run away at the first sign of trouble otherwise. I'm a fighter. Tell me,' Cecily looked him in the eye, 'is that it or are there more revelations to come?'

'That's all for now. I've got most of what I wanted: I know the who and the how and the why of what happened at Olieboom and all those involved will have suffered some pain. But apart from some, I hope, damning testimony, I'm out of it now.'

'Good. I don't need papers. If you give me your word that you'll accept whatever the courts decide and pursue the matter no further I'll call off the dogs.'

'OK. Ten fingers on the Jewish Torah as a friend of mine says. I promise. I always was a sucker for the British sense of fair play.' He stuck out a hand and they shook on it. Cecily stood up abruptly and Solomon scrambled to his feet.

'One more thing,' he said. 'A little fact that you can have as a gift. It seems that a major problem at crematoria is that pacemakers can explode and damage the ovens, so great care is taken to remove them first. I don't know what they do with them afterwards but you could find out.'

'Indeed. I'll follow that up sometime. Thank you. Goodbye, Solomon.'

'Goodbye, Cecily.'

He watched her walk trimly away, her hips stiff under coat and skirt. A mallard ran squawking over the water and winched itself into the sky. A few leaves fell. It was done

Chapter 31

Or not. Three months passed. Chris, Jasper, Hennie and Paul had been convicted of attempting to smuggle the banned precursors of chemical weapons out of the country and were all in jail. The source of the three-and-a-half million dollars which surfaced in Chris's Virgin Islands bank account remained untraced. A couple of corrupt Austrian baggage-handlers were exposed but the warlord had vanished back into his tribal Afghan mountains. An Islamic fundamentalist, he'd been paid by the Americans to fight the Russians and a blind eye had been turned to his poppy production. More freedom fighter than terrorist, know what I mean? So there was no link to the alleged Israeli end-users and Chris hadn't been done for aiding the enemy. Nevertheless extremely serious. Betrayal of trust, wicked, unprincipled. Fined £50,000 and sentenced to twenty months in Ford Open Prison. Solomon's testimony had not been required and not a breath of the little massacre at Olieboom was heard. Sir Ambrose's name didn't come up, nor did Cecily's (cast as the wronged English rose).

Fransie Snyman took the high ground. He woodenly insisted that he had betrayed his friends at the moral promptings of his Calvanist soul. He had not wanted the unleashing of a new horror on suffering mankind on his conscience and had felt it his duty to report it to the proper authorities.

The tabloids didn't exactly enter a biddings war but Solomon found Fransie an agent who sold slices of him to all comers and sent him back to South Africa with his pockets stuffed. Here he soon found that no-one likes a whistleblower.

Another month. Hennie and Paul had served four months of a six-month sentence. With time off for good behaviour they were expelled from the UK and told never to return. Back home Hennie returned to selling razor-wire and Paul got a clerical job at Pick and Pay. Fransie got word to them that any attack on him would open a can of worms. The next day he picked up the phone to hear: 'You a dead man.'

Funnily enough, a few weeks later Fransie had stopped his new BMW at a 'robot' (the Czech word South Africans use for traffic-light) and rolled down the window to buy a paper. A black man popped up, shot Fransie in the head, dragged his body onto the road and raced off in the car. Neither carjacker nor Fransie's brief pride and joy was ever found.

Solomon anonymously posted the video of the burning tramps to the Crown Prosecution Service but it was decided that the possibility of faking couldn't be ruled out and that there was no point in reopening what everyone agreed had been an exemplarily thorough enquiry.

Cecily's involvement with the family firm was looked at and it was agreed that she had probably known of neither the retention of the banned substance nor of the attempt to sell it. She walked. The rest of the staff at Proteus Chemicals were also exonerated. The last mention of NACT in the company records was that in 1978 all existing stocks had been destroyed. There was a certificate to this effect, signed by a certain A. Mortimer, Head of Inspection. No-one had so far connected him with the noble lord of the same name.

Keate Aerosols turned out to be on the brink of bankruptcy so Jasper was spared a fine, landing instead eleven months in jail and the revocation of his right to remain in Britain. An appeal to this was in progress in the long dying years of an unpopular Tory government mired in sleaze.

The legal wrangling over Solomon's software was quietly dropped and an out-of-court settlement agreed which almost covered his legal fees.

Jake had given in his notice and was going off to join the National Trust in Yorkshire as an undergardener.

Ruthie had gone back to Belfast for a few days and had been a bit peeved at how readily she'd been able to talk her family round to her potential marriage to a half-caste South African as soon as he could divorce his lesbian wife-of-convenience. She hadn't realised how low they'd rated her chances. At least he wasn't a Catholic and being well-off helped. Young Billy had been thrilled with the computer-games Solomon had sent him. Ruthie had also handed in her notice at VIGIL and was all set to work for Solomon.

And that might have been that, but for two things. The first was a letter from Auntie Minnie including: 'I have been wrestling with my conscience and have finally decided that as the last of the Witboois you have a right to the truth. What I said about the Snymans was not strictly accurate. I do know quite a lot more about them. Your mother once told me that when she married your pa she was already carrying Oubaas Snyman's child. Your father Isak knew about it and to give him credit he always treated Conrad as his own son. You mustn't blame your mother – she was a young girl, a Baster. Die Oubaas, a white man, was in a position of power over her. He said he wanted to leave his wife and run off with her to somewhere away from Apartheid but whether he meant it or not it came to nothing. Conrad was a lovely boy and a good brother to you. Peace to his memory.'

Solomon tried to conjure up a picture of his brother and failed. Conrad had been tall – a sixfooter in a family of shortarses and his skin had been on the au lait side of café. He'd never been the sharpest knife in the box but he'd been easygoing and had often let Solomon tag along where another brother might have tried to cut loose. He'd become a ship's steward and had been enjoying a rare shore-leave at home when the massacre came. So Fransie had urged the killing of not only his neighbours but of his half-brother too. Had he known? Too late to ask now. And had Solomon's mother's alliance with the boer ended with her marriage? Perhaps he himself... No, everyone had always insisted he was the spit of Isak. Olieboom was not so easy to forget. The clincher came a few days later. He was walking by the canal in Camden Town after a concert of South African jazz when there was a click from the shadows. An ear trained on the streets heard an opening flick-knife and propelled him into the canal as a lunging arm missed him by inches. Solomon came up in the shelter of a narrowboat and watched the back of a man in fringed black leathers climbing purposefully up the stairs to the street. There was the sneeze of a motorbike firing up and a smooth snarl as it accelerated away. There was something familiar about the sound but he couldn't think what. It sounded too expensive for a crack-headed mugger. Someone had been hired to kill (or at least cut) him. He hauled himself out on the opposite bank and released such of the water and slime as wished to return to the canal. And what about Ruthie and Jake? A couple of skinheads with tattooed arms and beringed ears approached.

'You OK, mate?' asked one with the friendly concern of a fellow-drunk.

'No, I'm fine, thanks. Just stepped back without looking. That water's fucking cold.'

'You sure? No' gonna top yourself or nuffink?'

'No, honest, I'm fine thanks.'

'Well, cheers. Take care.'

They went. Solomon wrung out his clothes and emptied his trainers. His mobile was dead and he set off to find a phonebox. Ruthie had been sleeping, but once roused she'd insisted on coming to fetch him. Yes, she'd bring her squash racket. She'd even check under her car for bombs if he insisted. She hadn't been brought up in Belfast for nothing, you know. Jake was still awake and alive and suggested that they convene for a council of war. Twenty minutes found them in Jake's kitchen with tea and homemade macaroons.

'And you're sure he was trying to kill you?' Jake confirmed.

'Treely and rurally as Joyce puts it. Fohshuwa in black South African. Yes. A mugger would've demanded money, cards, mobile. A random maniac would've dived in after me or at least tried again. This guy just waited till I was right by him, flicked open his knife and stabbed. He was dressed in fringed black leathers with a black helmet and I heard a motorbike start up.' Solomon pondered a moment. 'You know what, I reckon it had a rotary engine like the one that young Jago next door was playing with.'

'What, that Wankel-engined Norton?' asked Jake. 'There aren't a lot of them about. The police could probably find him for you. Would you recognise him again?'

'Doubt it. I couldn't prove anything. The real question is – what has changed? I've stuck to my side of the bargain and I can't see why Cecily or Sir Ambrose would want to rock the boat.'

'Maybe it's not her.' Ruthie shrugged. 'That sort of stupidly vindictive thing is right up Jasper's street. I suppose it's possible to hire a hitman even from prison.'

'Best place for it,' Jake confirmed. 'You could arrange for anything from a light drubbing to a long, horrible death. The rates were surprisingly reasonable.'

'When living's expensive, life is cheap,' said Solomon gnomically. 'Let's sleep on it.'

Jake set his homemade burglar alarm (a string pulled a greased pencil from the jaws of a clothespeg letting the drawingpin electrodes touch and activating the old school firebell. The dread generator was also standing by. He went to bed and had a quick wank in which he imagined, among others, his Probation Officer Rachel. He mopped up and went to sleep.

Solomon was woken twice by Ruthie's jerking upright in bed, clamping a hand over his protesting mouth and hissing: 'Listen!' while she strained, wide-eyed and flare-nostrilled to pierce the semi-dark until whatever anomaly she had noticed in the early-morning noise of North London had passed. He held and comforted her. She smelt rank. He liked that in a woman. He was woken from a dream of turning cartwheels down a mountain, bouncing in the uneven rhythm of an idling two-stroke: Ding. Ding. Deringading. Deding... He was woken this time by Ruthie's silence as she lay rigidly awake so as not to disturb him.

They cuddled briefly then Ruthie padded off to make tea, glad to the point of tears to see the grey morning and to look down on houses and trees and traffic. Had Solomon actually been killed, she told herself, she would have been too scared to pursue the matter. And if it was only intimidation, she had to admit that it worked. Which of the mice would offer to bell the cat?

They had a cup of tea and a somewhat inhibited fuck by which time the sounds and smells of Sunday breakfast had begun to insinuate themselves under the door.

After orange juice, bacon, sausage, fried tomatoes, scrambled eggs, croissants and coffee they decamped to the lounge to discuss strategy.

Solomon sighed wearily. 'Am I just being obsessive when I say that I think this latest thing is tied up with Olieboom? Something's happened. Let's see what news there is from the Rainbow Nation. Some rainbow. Ranges all the way from black to pink. Solomon's fingers rattled over his laptop but there was little of interest. The South African papers had run a couple of stories on the chemical weapons trial but mainly because there were South Africans involved. The Weekly Mail hinted that the US had hushed up enquiries into the identity of the eventual customers, raising speculation about the mujahideen or Pakistanis or Indonesians.

Ruthie seemed distracted, sitting silent on the sofa gnawing a twist of hair. Jake had phoned a motorbike-mad Rasta friend of his to see what he knew about Nortons.

'Oh well,' Solomon turned away from his screen, 'nothing seems to have come up. I'll check my emails later. Why the long face, Pigsney?'

'Solomon, you have to leave this country.' Ruthie turned her doom-heavy eyes on him. 'I'll come with you if you want me, but I'm not going to let you stay here and be killed. I remember a man down our road who was accused by the UVF of being a traitor. Someone in the pub told him they were after him. Three days later he opened the front door to what he thought was the postman and he was shot five times in front of his children. No-one saw anything. Next time you won't be so lucky. How can you guard against a bullet or poison or a hit-and-run?' Ruthie sniffed and a tear slid down her cheek.

'Where could I go,' smiled Solomon, patting her hand. 'Back to South Africa with one of the world's highest murder rates? The States? South America? No, if it wasn't meant to just frighten me, it's war. We'll have to get them first.'

'And just how do you propose to do that? We know what happened at Olieboom but if they could call that video of the tramps a fake what about some terrified lecher maundering away in Afrikaans? And I'd hate to drop Eva in the shit. Anyway, according to Selwyn, Fransie's dead. I wouldn't be surprised to find that the same people were behind that murder too. Please, please,' Ruthie grew fervent, 'let it drop. Draw up a statement promising never to bring up Olieboom again and send it to Cecily and Ambrose. They can control the others.'

'I can't agree.' Jake was off the phone and had started building a tower of matchsticks. 'They wouldn't trust Solomon and he'd be mad to trust them. Trying to kill him shows all deals are off. They probably feel that they have the upper hand at the moment.'

'Ambrose Bierce defines "Impunity" as "Wealth",' said Solomon casually. 'We could take away all their money. We've cost them about five million quid so far.'

'That's probably why they're trying to kill you and probably me and Ruthie too,' explained Jake with sarcastic patience. 'I think that for the moment we should all stay here and at all times at least one person should be awake. Here's a rota I've drawn up. Oh, that's a stroke of luck. It seems to be my turn to sleep now. Wake me at five if you must and I'll take over. Charlie and poisons in the stash. Goodnight and good luck.'

Jake went.

'I think this is going to be a three-piper, Watson,' said Solomon, crumbling a stick of Durban Poison into a bong. 'You crack it.' He lit a joss-stick. 'Incense and insensibility.'

Ruthie stiffly shook her head. 'No thanks. I'm paranoid enough as it is. I'm scared, Solomon. I don't want to die now that I feel the happiest I've ever felt.'

'Me too.' Solomon puffed away and gathered in his shivering mistress with his free arm. 'Happy.' Puff puff. 'Scared.'

She leaned against him, his Queen of She-bear as he inly sometimes called her. Deep, dark, powerful feelings surged in his heart. Solicitude, murderous rage at her enemies, fear that he'd lose her and then - at this mute body nuzzling him – love.

Another puff. Another stage of zonked clarity. Solomon looked at the Gaboon Viper skin tacked to the wall and thought how much nicer a South African flag it would have made than the multicoloured Y-fronts which had been chosen.

Downstairs the hall-door clanged shut and light footsteps ascended the stairs only to stop, jingle keys and go in to the flat below them. They breathed again. Solomon rolled his tense shoulders and Ruthie kissed him and snuggled down. Solomon picked up the South African Weekly Mail and began scanning the latest list of people who were due to testify at the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. He grudgingly gave Tutu his due – it had been a good idea, the one time his Christian lies had served a useful purpose. Second to last on the list was a certain G.B. van Tonder. Solomon had begun smiling expectantly at Doonesbury before an intimation shot troutlike through his brain and was gone. He sent the bright flies of memory dancing along the water. Cast after cast until... whumph it was there. G.B. Could this van Tonder be Doc. Katz's erstwhile boss, known to one and all as Grootbek? Solomon had forgotten van Tonder. He'd known enough about NACT to confiscate Doc's specimens and notes and terrify him into silence. If this was the same guy it would make sense for him to try and get an amnesty for foul deeds done. But Cecily and co were British. There would be no amnesty for them. Solomon could see that they wouldn't want him stirring up Grootbek's memory. The first thing was to find out. He woke Ruthie who was lying the wrong way (face-up) on his lap and sent her off to bed while he fired up the old PC and got off an email to Selwyn. He made another cup of strong coffee.

At five he woke a commendably grumpless Jake and staggered off to bed for a few hours. He dreamt of snakes. A flat white cobra, segmented like a tapeworm, reared up and struck with jutting fangs. Now a python had him in its coils and was crushing him to death. He half-woke, feeling fractured, and found that Ruthie had flung an arm across his chest as she slept. Despite its dead weight she was alive and whimpering in her sleep. He gently disengaged himself. She saw the NACT squirted through the keyhole to become a choking tide of death. She looked down on her own contorted body and that of her father who suddenly leered up at her with Solomon's face. Late. Had to get to work. Her green eyes fluttered open on Solomon and a cup of tea. The nightmares gave way to fraught reality. No way she was going out to work. Eight. She rang Clive at home to ask for the few days holiday she had coming to her and they were gracelessly granted.

Solomon tried phoning Selwyn but got his answering machine. Then it was a normal business day. Solomon plunged into his own little world of programming while Jake took Ruthie through the idiosyncracies of the filing system. At four o'clock Solomon once more checked his emails and found that a long string of noughts and ones had flashed across continents and landed in his inbox.

'Ah, Sol,' the message ran, 'It so happens that the G.B. van T. of whom you speak is indeed the very Grootbek who used to drive my dad mad. He's apparently giving expert evidence (hard to believe) on government payouts to anti-ANC groups. Nothing's been said about chemical weapons or Olieboom. By the way, the lab's closed down. They're auctioning all the stuff off this Friday. I might even jol down there and have a look. Cheers. Selwyn.'

'Ja.' Solomon clasped his hands together and shook them in victory. 'Hey listen up people. It is the same guy – old Doc Katz's supervisor. I may have to go out to Joburg myself and have a word in his shell-like.'

' "Whither thou goest I will go," ' Ruthie implacably quoted Ruth, 'If I have to buy my own ticket. I'm bloody well not staying here by myself. And what about the dangers of South Africa which you never tire of telling us about?'

'Jake's here. I'd only be away for a few days, Puddingbush. This is probably van Tonder's last chance to get things off his chest. I'm sure if he had any involvement with Olieboom he'd jump at the chance to sell his friends down the river. I just want him to tell what he knows. There'll be no danger.'

'I'm coming.'

'As the actress remarked to the bishop,' smirked Solomon. 'OK, OK. He halted the incipient protest. 'You can come. Jake too, if he wants. Ja.. Why not? We deserve a holiday with perhaps a little work from time to time. We could go to the Okavango swamps, Jake. You'd love them. It's a naturalist's paradise so naturally there are plans to drain them. Last chance to see.'

Their eyes met and briefly held. Jake smilingly shook his head. 'No. We'll go sometime when this is all over. Besides, I'd like to nose about at this end.'

'You paint a pretty picture. Up to you, but don't get yourself killed. I mean it. Take, as you Brits say, care.' Solomon surveyed his friend fondly. 'And to think that at this moment you could have been shagging Cecily. She hinted as much last time we met. Sweet Cecily,' he burst into what the charitable might have called song, 'fragranter than Mary Archer.'

'She's got a soft spot for me as my dad used to say,' Jake deadpanned. 'It just hasn't been dug yet.'

'Stop it,' snapped Ruthie. 'You're behaving like children. Jake, if you're not coming to South Africa at least get out of London for the moment. Go off to Lerwick like you're always threatening. Please,' her voice softened, 'these people would think nothing of crushing you if they could get away with it.'

'Don't worry about me, Ruthie.' He patted her hand. 'I'll be fine. They were all set to kill me once before, you may remember. I'll sleep with a loaded crossbow under my pillow. Alright, I won't. But I'll be very careful.'

Jake stood pat. The next evening Ruthie and Solomon boarded a flight to Johannesburg.

Selwyn picked them up in the morning at the ringingly-renamed Johannesburg International Airport. As if, thought Solomon, Jan and his Smuts could be wiped from history as easily as that.

They ground along the multi-laned highway from the airport in Selwyn's old Land Rover while traffic flashed by on left and right. New factories, offices, warehouses had sprung from the dry red earth, big and brash in the bright light. To Ruthie it all looked less British than American. African were the minibuses crammed with black passengers next to shiny new cars with one white driver. Trucks, bakkies with black workers in the back, buses. The air was blue with the smoke of clapped-out diesels. Off, through leafy suburbs, with beggars at each set of traffic-lights. Then they were at Selwyn's house in Victory Park, behind an eight-foot high wall topped with razor-wire.

The day passed in settling in and making various abortive attempts to contact van Tonder. That night Ruthie couldn't sleep for seething at the blatant injustice of whites living in such luxury while the great mass of blacks still lived (Selwyn assured her) in grinding poverty. But her breakfast pawpaw with lime juice, eaten in the shade of an old mimosa, was the first sign of weakening.

Selwyn went off to work while Solomon unsuccessfully tried to run members of the Getrouste Afrikaner Trekkers to ground.

The next day, Friday, found them bumping along the road to Halfway House with Selwyn to the old lab where Doc had worked. The auction didn't start till eleven but they were going early for the preview.

Old Phineas at the gate recognised Selwyn from many years ago and cheerfully raised his boom. Ja it was too sad that the old place was closing. He was staying till the buildings were sold then he didn't know what he'd do.

They were the first customers. The laboratories, consisting of half-a-dozen little buildings huddled around a three-storey office block, looked neglected. The flowerbeds were mostly khakibos, the tarmac was cracked and several windows had been boarded up. Inside, behind the reception desk was another of Selwyn's old friends.

'Mavis. Long time no see. How's it going with you?' Selwyn bent and kissed the powdered old cheek not guarded by a dangling cigarette.

'Selwyn!' The tart lips of Keeper of the Portal stretched in a smile. 'I'm fine, thanks. I last saw you at your dad's funeral.' Gruff smoker's rasp. 'What brings you here?'

'Well, mainly for a last look round, but I thought I might pick up a few bargains. These are my friends from England, Ruthie and Solomon.'

'Pleased to meet you.' They shook, Solomon noting the slight hesitation and then the determined grasp as her sixty-year-old hand touched nonwhite flesh. Her mismatched eyes, one blue and one brown flickered from Solomon to Ruthie and back again and had their number.

'Are any of the old staff still about?' asked Selwyn.

Mavis snorted dismissively and shook her head. Not a hair of her shiny blonde carapace broke ranks. 'All long gone. They were supposed to clear out their offices but rubbish was just left to rot. A couple of the lab technicians are supposed to be coming in later to tell people what's what.'

'Do you mind if we have a wander around?' asked Selwyn casually. 'I'd like a keepsake or two to remind me of my dad.'

Mavis shrugged. 'Help yourself. All the auction stuff's in the canteen and anything else will just be thrown out.'

'Thanks, Mavis. See you later.'

They took the lift up to the second floor, where Doc had worked, to allay Mavis's possible curiosity and then walked up a glassed-in flight of stairs through the fierce trapped heat to van Tonder's office. There was no problem getting in. Someone had nicked the door. And the stinkwood desk. There was a plywood patch on the wall where an air-conditioner had been. A filing cabinet lay on its side, spewing papers.

Solomon groaned. 'Better look through those, I suppose.'

'I'll do it.' asserted Ruthie. 'I don't want a martyr on my hands. God. Can we open a window? I can't breathe.'

'Sure.' Selwyn complied, opening the steelframed window to the limit of its sliding brass stay. A hot breeze stirred then thought to hell with it. A shrivelled brown Fatsia stood in its pot. He looked round at the somewhat motheaten head of a deer above the door. The long corkscrew horns. 'Hey, I remember that Kudu. I was a kid and my Dad was showing me round. He'd brought me into this office to meet his boss. van Tonder was quite nice to me actually. He told me he'd shot that buck himself and gave me a roll of 3X mints. I was struck by the way my father called him "Mr. van Tonder" while Grootbek called him "Doc". Even at the age of nine I could see that the old man was worth a dozen of him. That was the day I became class-conscious.'

As he talked Selwyn desultorily riffled through a stack of dusty magazines, a biscuit tin containing paperclips, a broken pencil-sharpener and a box of perished rubber bands.

Solomon had found an old personal phonebook called an Eezy Finda – the kind where a slider on the metal case makes the thing spring open at the required letter. He stuffed it in his back pocket to look at later. Then there was a fiveheaded mealie-cob, a bakelite ashtray and three old Popular Science magazines which he was methodically fanning through.

'Any luck, Ruthie?' he asked, without looking up.

'Fraid not, love. Mainly ancient invoices and receipts and old insurance policies. Why on earth did they need one hundred and fifty oxhides in nineteen fifty-seven? God, it's in pounds, shillings and pence.'

'My dad was chairman of the Save LSD committee,' Selwyn volunteered. 'I think he quite liked lost causes. Er...'

'Like father like son, eh?' Solomon grinned at his friends discomfiture.

'Well, I didn't say it. Sorry. I'm finding this whole trip a bit on the down side. I mean I spent quite a bit of time here myself. I had a job as a lab technician's assistant one school holiday and I used to drop in sometimes to see the old man. There were a couple of good people here. Sad to see it all closed-up and derelict.'

The heat grew more oppressive. Sweat rolled off Ruthie's forehead, stinging her eyes and dripping off the end of her nose. Drops fell onto a glossy advert for a Ford Fairlane at which she stared for some time before shuddering, standing up and going to the window for air. The view was less than lovely. The compound in which the institute sat was bounded by a high double fence topped with razor-wire. Beyond lay a stretch of burnt veld with bare red earth between the spiky black tufts of grass. Big purple clouds seemed to be piling up on the horizon. She sighed heavily and went back to her files. Solomon and Selwyn, having worked their way through the meagre contents of the bookcase, met in the middle.

Solomon shrugged. 'Oh well, we tried. Give it up Ruthie. We'd better go now if we want to see the auction. I don't suppose there's a safe behind that buck's head. What about the stuff on that shelf next to it? Come on Sel, you're taller than me so if I stand on your shoulders I'll be able to see.'

'Nice try, shrimp. But one and a half is the same as a half and one. Besides, it's a shorter distance to fall.'

'Oh, it's too hot to squabble.' Ruthie did a convincing imitation of a hot and bothered mum. 'Look, I've finished with these files, why not just stand the cabinet against the wall and use that? And if you pull out the drawers you can even make steps.' With a mighty heave she righted the grey metal coffin and the three of them dragged it into position. Solomon scampered up, catching his foot in the second drawer. One grazed ankle later he was on top looking at a dusty shelf nine inches deep. This was where van Tonder had kept his sporting trophies – a small cup for the under-fourteens hundred-yard crawl, a statuette of a golfer in mid-swing and an army medal for marksmanship. The were also a tobacco tin (Three Nuns) containing a few trout-flies, a box of blank index-cards and a Marmite jar which sloshed when shaken.

Lightning split the sky making Jake's tricks with flashguns seem the paltry things they were. Ruthie shrieked and cowered.

'And five and six and seven,' droned Selwyn, 'nineteen...' Thunder detonated and then began a long backfilling roar. 'Twenty miles away. What've you got there, Sol?'

'Gaai, I'm afraid. Just knicknacks. An empty foolscap-sized box file. Unless these blank cards are written in invisible ink. There's a clockwork razor and an unknown liquid in a Marmite jar. Marmite. The mite that mars. Oh well. Môre is nog 'n dag, I suppose.' And Solomon clambered to the floor.

'Marmite, hey?' Selwyn sighed. 'The old man loved Marmite. It was another of his fads. He reckoned eating it kept mosquitoes away. He used to mash it up with butter to slather on hot toast. He kept the old bottles for his specimens – claimed the dark glass stopped light spoiling them.' Selwyn stopped at the implications of what he'd just said.

Solomon climbed up again and picked up the jar.

'This liquid could be formaldehyde, I suppose. Here. You take a look.'

There was a faded label stuck on the jar. Selwyn spelled it out, held the jar up to the light and began to laugh with satisfaction. 'Lady and gentleman, this is our lucky day. Too much! Look here. This is my dad's writing on the label. Lamprosis fulginosis, that's the brown to youse ouks. If this isn't the little fellow I found at Olieboom, I'll eat my hat.'

Solomon clattered to the floor and all three huddled round as Selwyn unscrewed the cap and sniffed. 'Hm. Surgical spirits.' He inserted deft vet's fingers and gently pulled out a little snake by its tail. It had a battered look as if it had been whacked to death with a stick. 'So, we meet again my friend.' His smile broadened as he thumped Solomon on the back and said: 'We've found our witness.'

'Are you sure it's the same snake?' asked Solomon forensically.

Selwyn sighed. 'Young male in mid-moult, ribs crushed in three places, scar on tail – of course it's the same snake you doos. As to whether there are any traces of NACT left, we'll have to wait and see. But we can certainly demand answers to a few questions.' He coiled the snake back into its bottle.

Another crack of lightning as a few raindrops peashot the windows and pocked the dusty floor.

'Ekescuse me seh.' A black figure filled the doorway, exuding disapproval. 'Nobody is allowed up here... Ai! It is Mister Selwyn. Sorry, sorry my baas but we are having too muchi trouble with tsotsies' A grizzled Zulu in an olive uniform stepped into the room.

'Caseless, you old rascal, you still here?' Selwyn advanced, slickly clasped, thumbtwiddled and clasped again. 'How you keeping?'

'No I'm alright.'

'These are friends of mine from England. Solomon and Ruthie.'

More handshakes.

'Baas Selwyn...'

'Just Selwyn, Caseless. This is the new South Africa, remember, free at last.'

'Yes my baas. Hau!' Caseless flinched as Selwyn once more drew out the snake. 'Is no good to playing with these things.'

Selwyn draped the dead reptile over his arm. 'Tell me Caseless, have you ever seen this snake before or even the bottle it came in?'

'Never. I never see before.'

'We found it up there on the shelf.' Selwyn pushed back the snake's lip revealing its harmless little teeth. Caseless moaned softly. 'It was here in Mr. van Tonder's room but it belonged to my father. Do you mind if we take it?'

'Yes, you take. Take away.'

Caseless's normally black face had gone a blotchy grey. It was the first time Ruthie had seen an African blench. He kept his eyes on the snake as Selwyn gently restored it to its bottle but only when the cap was screwed firmly down did he relax.

van Tonder, according to Caseless, had apparently left under a cloud. He'd been given ten minutes, under strict supervision, to clear his desk and two of the security team had escorted him out of the building.

Had, Solomon wondered, van Tonder feared to draw attention to important evidence or simply forgotten it? Always assuming that there was anything to find after all these years. No, this little snake would turn things upside down.

On cue, the storm broke and a heavy shower cooled the air. Ten minutes later, the sun shone on a freshly-washed world.

Downstairs, Selwyn showed Mavis the Marmite jar, told her where he'd found it and asked if he could take it. She gave her gruff blessing and lit up another Camel.

Selwyn forgot about picking up an old-fashioned chemical balance at the auction and they made their escape. He drove while Solomon rang round about suitable analysts. An old girlfriend of Selwyn's who was a TV researcher had given him the number of the tame boffin they used for the odd scientific quote on fashionable theories. Dr. Philpott seemed to be labouring under the delusion that Solomon wanted to use him in a forthcoming programme and was consequently extremely helpful. The most promising of the half-dozen names he provided seemed to be that of a professor of forensic chemistry who had done some work for the UN. Selwyn knew the name; Doc Katz had mentioned him now and again. When Solomon eventually ran him to ground at his lab in Randburg, Selwyn took the phone. Professor Apfelbaum was civil, but unfortunately so snowed under with work that he couldn't promise to start for at least six weeks.

'We were rather hoping for a quick result,' persisted Selwyn. Solomon ran his thumb over his open hand as one dispensing banknotes. 'Naturally we'd be prepared to pay you for the inconvenience, but this is an important matter. Would an extra thousand rand make a difference?'

Apfelbaum stiffly implied that he couldn't be bought – at any rate not for less than two thousand. They settled on fifteen hundred. Selwyn took the wheel and they headed for Randburg. Solomon looked through van Tonder's phonebook but felt himself getting carsick and desisted. Ruthie held the Marmite jar with both hands on her ample lap to minimise the bumps and grinds so faithfully transmitted by the stiff leaf springs.

'Someday,' Solomon Satchmoed, 'you'll be sorry. The way you treated me was wrong. There won't be another, to treat you like a brother. Someday you'll be sorry, dear.'

'Have you hurt you throat?' enquired Ruthie with mock concern.

'Just doing my Louis Armstrong bit. A little song of vengeance. He claimed that it had come to him in the middle of the night – he got out of bed and wrote it straight off. Hector used to play his Hot Five and Hot Seven seventy-eights on his windup gramophone. Louis Armstrong and endless hymns were my earliest musical memories.'

Ruthie laughed. 'One year we hired a cottage in Connemara. It was very primitive: no electricity or anything but there was an old Victrola and one record. I was about six at the time and I played it over and over. Drove everyone mad. It was Jeepers Creepers by your man Louis.

The lovers struck up while Selwyn shook his head pityingly. In his mirror he noticed that the Army lorry which had stuck to his tail for the last few kays was pulling out to pass. The white front-seat passenger looked down at them once, twice and held up a ready, steady finger. Selwyn hit the brakes just as the finger slashed downwards and the truck cut across him. They hit but the Land-Rover bounced off the bigger vehicle's front tyre and Selwyn found himself hurtling down the steep side of a flyover ramp. They got to the bottom without rolling over and as soon as they'd stopped Selwyn, without a word, engaged low gear and fourwheel drive and started clambering up the other side.

'Good idea to try your brakes just then,' said Solomon when the lump in his throat had subsided.

'Ja.' Selwyn essayed coolth but his hands were shaking. 'I remembered our Drill Sergeant in the army saying "Ten... wait for it, wait for it... shun!" and that was what that guy in the cab was doing. Lucky there was nothing behind us, hey? Let's see the miserable fuckers follow us up here.'

'They tried to kill us.' Ruthie's incredulous squeak.

'Indeedy doody.' Solomon showed off his London slang. 'I'm pleased to see you hung onto the evidence, sugarplum.' A reassuring kiss. 'We'd better turn off our phones in case they've got friends in high places who could track us. I take back everything I said about Land-Rovers, by the way. This fucking thing's half mountain goat.'

They crunched through some dry grass, gained the level ground and set off they knew not where. Twenty minutes of capricious turning down side-roads and doubling back convinced them that they weren't being followed and they finally felt safe enough to stop and examine the crash-damage. There was nothing serious so they set off the long way to approach Randburg from the Krugersdorp side. It had gone three when they finally found Elektroskan Laboratories on the outskirts of town in a converted dairy. Professor Apfelbaum was a balding, kindly, serious man with heavy blackrimmed glasses. The laboratory was small, with the usual retorts, microscopes and gas spectrometers. Yes, of course Apfelbaum remembered Doc. They'd shared a passion for liverworts. Sorry to hear he'd passed away. Of course now that he knew Selwyn was the son of a colleague, he'd waive any payment.

'Just a moment, Professor Apfelbaum.' Solomon interpreted Ruthie's dig in the ribs as a sign to tell all, 'this is more than just a test for a banned substance. There are people who object strongly to our looking into this matter and it's only fair to tell you that if you find what we suspect there's a remote chance that your life would be endangered. If you want to back out, we'll understand.'

'You realise,' Apfelbaum was professionally grave, 'that if I were to find traces of an illegal substance I would be obliged to report it to the relevant authorities.'

'Sure.' Solomon was easy. 'The more the merrier. Spread the risk a bit. A truck ran us off the road today. We could easily have been killed.'

'What, you mean deliberately?'

'Ja, Prof. it's true,' confirmed Selwyn soberly. 'And someone tried to stab Solomon in London a few days ago. Nize babies.' A Jewish shrug.

'I see. I think you'd better tell me what this is all about. Just come through into my office here. Matthew,' Professor Apfelbaum told his black assistant, 'will you finish off that analysis for the dairy?'

'What, the lactose percentages?'

'That and the e-coli count. Come this way, please.'

The office was a tiny room with a big desk cluttered with PC paraphenalia and piles of paperwork. Apfelbaum produced three plastic chairs, turned on a noisy but efficient air-conditioner and said: 'Go ahead.'

Solomon told him about Olieboom with Ruthie and Selwyn chiming in as necessary and by the end the professor was biting his lip. Something had touched him. He gulped and cleared his throat.

'My son Eli was killed up at the Caprivi strip in eighty-six,' he said desolately. 'It was an accident. What they nowadays call friendly fire.' His mouth found it's habitual bitter line.

'Oh my God that's so sad,' Ruthie condoled, eyes brimming with tears. 'How awful for you.'

Solomon regarded her with pride. She spoke from the heart, never having had to learn the oblique cunning of the underdog. And it worked. Apfelbaum was visibly moved. He offered to test the snake at once and Solomon insisted on paying him the going rate so that there should be no suspicion of either favouritism or bribery. They went back to the lab where the professor took some samples of tissue, lung, liver and gut and gave Selwyn the mutilated corpse to keep.

'What are we going to do with that?' Ruthie, ever one for the awkward question. 'It should be put somewhere safe a.s.a.p.'

'I've got a safe back at the house for my guns and prescription drugs,' Selwyn soothed her. 'It'll be fine there.'

'People,' said Ruthie tiredly,' are trying to kill us. That snake may be the only evidence in the entire universe that NACT was ever used at Olieboom. Wake up, guys and smell the coffee!'

'The young lady has a point,' said Apfelbaum with heavy-handed gallantry. He considered for a moment then volunteered: 'I have an associate who works for the UN who has access to a secure storage facility, insofar as one can talk of such a thing in this country. A very reliable man. He would probably be prepared to look after your specimen until I've had a chance to do the analysis. I'll give him a bell, now.'

'Thanks, that would be very helpful.' Solomon was painfully sincere. 'And we'll keep a piece of snake ourselves. A sort of indenture. Did you know that an indenture was originally a piece of paper torn jaggedly down the middle, giving the parties half each. A lot harder to fake than a pin number.'

'In-dent-ture. Like indented. I see.' And Ruthie smiled. 'Talk of cutting snakes in half sounds like one of those old Celtic myths. Probably a magic cauldron's involved somewhere. It usually is. Which reminds me: I'm starving.'

Professor Apfelbaum's hasty offer of tea or coffee was politely declined, Ruthie flusteredly insisting that her cheery observation hadn't been meant as a hint. The meeting adjourned after Apfelbaum's contact proved unreachable. A message was left and the three friends set off through the rush-hour traffic towards Selwyn's house and the promise of a kleftiko of lamb made by Katie, Selwyn's Greek partner. Three traffic jams later it was getting dark. They bumped along with the buckled wing giving the headlight beams a cross-eyed look. Solomon drummed his fingers on the dashboard. 'The question is,' he asked, 'how did they know we were here? Who knew our plans?'

'Well, me,' said Ruthie. 'And Selwyn and Jake. But they might have followed us to the airport or tapped the phone.'

'Or one of us could have been hypnotised or shot full of sodium pentethol,' contributed Selwyn, 'or been drunk or stoned - but I don't think it was me.'

'Nor me. Nor Ruthie neither. Which leaves Jake. Or some sophisticated bugging device.' Solomon tried to think of Jake back in grimy old London but the lush sprawl of treelined Parktown North made this difficult. Through wrought-iron gates in the the ubiquitous high walls were glimpses of floodlit mansions.

'It's weird,' said Ruthie. 'There's no-one about. No kids with skateboards, no-one taking a stroll to the corner shop or the pub. No pub or corner shop come to think of it.'

'Ja, we've locked ourselves into the world's cushiest jail,' said Selwyn smugly. 'White South Africans don't go in for pubs much. We entertain at home or go to sports clubs or restaurants. We shop in the malls. Places like Rosebank, Killarney, the Carlton Centre. Crime's out of control, there's huge unemployment, but I'm still optimistic. Getting rid of Apartheid and the Nats' police state without a bloodbath was quite an achievement.'

'For sure,' Solomon fervently agreed. 'I feel less threatened walking with a white woman here than in parts of the UK or even the States. And I can't say what a relief that is. Just hang a right here, Sel. This blue Merc's been on our tail for some time.'

'You're the baas.' Selwyn nipped across the road while the big Mercedes whooshed by.

Three sighs of relief.

'Of course they know where I live,' continued Selwyn, 'unless they just happened to see us at the auction and sommer decided to run us off the road. There's an outside chance that they'll be waiting at the house. Listen Solomon, there's a locker under your seat – here's the key. There should be an old Ruger lying around there. Mayswell have it out, hey?'

The gun, wrapped in an old sock, was rattling around in an assortment of spanners and bits of veterinary equipment. Solomon got it out and whacked in the magazine. He ostentatiously flicked on the safety and reassured an anxious Ruthie that there was, anyway, no bullet in the chamber. What he didn't mention was the thrill of power. Life or death a twitch of the finger away... it was with difficulty that he resisted the temptation to aim at other drivers and they got to Selwyn's house unmolested. The radio-controlled gate opened and in the triple-locked house they found Katie putting the final touches to supper. The boys locked up the snake in the safe and had a predinner joint while Ruthie found it a pleasant change to be regarded as sophisticated because she lived in London. Katie, a classical pianist, found South Africa provincially stifling – couldn't wait to get out of the place. But Selwyn loved the shrinking wilderness too much to ever leave. Men.

After supper Solomon waded through the pages of van Tonder's personal phonebook. None of the two hundred and thirty-six names was familiar. There were twenty-seven 'vans' from Aachen to Zyl. One number had only the letter K next to it. There seemed to be no list of obsolete Johannesburg phone-numbers on the net so a search of microseconds might now take years. But there was something else odd about the cryptic entry – it had been written in green ballpoint and the only other number so inscribed also bore a reminder of a fishing trip on Saturday the fifteenth of March. This time the internet did its stuff and it turned out that the year in question was nineteen eighty-six. Well, well, well.

'Listen, my old maat,' Solomon came out of his brown study, 'you wouldn't have any old phonebooks say circa eighty-six lying around.'

Selwyn shook his head. 'Nope. Fraid not. Why?'

'Well I've got a number here, but no name. I thought we could have a merry evening whiffling through the phonebook to find a match.'

'And to think I was going to propose an orgy. Just kidding, girls. No, I tend to chuck out things. Not like my dad. He used to hoard all kinds of shit. There's a room behind the garage at my mom's that's still full of his stuff. I suppose we could go and look there. The only trouble,' Selwyn persisted awkwardly, 'is that if there are nasty people about I don't want my family involved.'

'Oh, and I don't matter, I suppose?' Katie's eyes flashed Greekly but a corner of her mouth twitched in amusement.

'Ag, look man Katie, they won't hassle you,' Selwyn scoffed. 'Firstly, you know nothing at all about this business and secondly, you're the niece of the biggest gangster on the reef. No-one fucks with Theo Theodopoulos. But mostly there's me – I'd never let anything hurt you.'

'My big, brave man.' Katie blew him a mocking kiss. 'I'll never forget how you cleared that barb-wire fence when a cow chased you.'

'Not my finest moment,' Selwyn acknowledged. 'But you must admit it was a good jump. An inch lower and we'd both have been sorry. As it was I landed in a patch of dubbeltjies.'

'Little two-pronged thorns,' Solomon translated, 'I've trodden barefoot on them many a time. But seriously, I would like to get some phonebooks. I've got a hunch, as Quasimodo might have remarked. What could K stand for?' 'Komiteeledevirkafferwaatlemoenstentoonstellingsnotisieplaat?' offered Selwyn. 'Doc always maintained that that was the longest word in the Afrikaans language. Starts with a K.'

'It wouldn't be Kali I suppose you're thinking,' said Ruthie rolling up her eyes, 'Like the operation of that name.'

'Ja. Yes. "Tenuous almost to nullity" as the great Nero Wolfe once said. But what else have we got?'

'I'll get Robbie to have a look for the phonebooks. My brother. He's staying with my mom till his divorce is sorted out. If he finds anything we'll make a plan. Meanwhile, who's for coffee and baklava?'

The next morning Selwyn drove three kilometers to a public callbox, phoned Robbie and explained what he needed in order to 'look something up'. Then he and Solomon took the Land-Rover to the garage for some rudimentary panelbeating and headlight realignment and left the girls holding the fort. They took the elderly Nissan which was Exxel Motors's courtesy car and drove to a dingy office-block in Sandton. The doorman, after some intercommery, let them take the lift to the second floor. This was where Professor Apfelbaum's UN contact worked. They were let through a heavily-barred door by a guard who ran a metal-detecting wand over them and waved them into the office of a swarthy Swede called Bernt Svensen, who'd already been briefed. Yes, he would be prepared to keep the specimen and a signed statement from Selwyn saying when and where he'd found it. The vet handed over half a snake in its original jar and his deposition and was given a receipt. Mr. Svensen went off to store the potential evidence in a strongbox welded to the floor of his safe and Selwyn and Solomon went off to find another call-box.

A call to Robbie revealed that Doc had indeed kept all his phonebooks since nineteen fifty-four. There was a tea-box full of them. Unfortunately it had been under another two tea-boxes filled with junk, which he'd gone through first. But he had the volumes Selwyn wanted. He could bring them over.

'No need. Send them by courier, C.O.D. They're for a rich friend. And thanks, hey Robbie. I owe you one.'

Robbie argued a little for form's sake but bemusedly gave in.

Thirty-seven minutes later a helmeted courier found them in a steakhouse, handed over four thick volumes and was liberally rewarded.

Back home, Katie had gone off to a piano lesson so the other three went and sat under the old Mimosa and began their tedious trawl. Tens of thousands of numbers later, they had got precisely nowhere.

'Mother of God, my eyes!' cried Ruthie. 'I'm going blind now. That tree looks all fuzzy.'

'It is fuzzy,' tetched Solomon, 'but you're right. We need a break.'

'I'll make us some tea.' Ruthie bounced up while the boys sat.

'Cool it, Ruthie,' smiled Selwyn. 'I asked Lily to bring us some coffee and koeksusters at four and it's ten to now. I can tell her to make tea instead if you like.'

'Oh, I'll make my own. It's no trouble.'

'No, hold it, Ruthie.' Selwyn hastily cut her off. 'Lily's a bit funny that way. She doesn't like anyone else in her kitchen. It was six months before she'd even let Katie stir the soup. We only cook on Lily's nights off or she spends the whole time sulking.'

'It's just that it feels wrong,' persisted Ruthie, 'having people doing my washing and ironing and cooking. It's like being a child again – with added guilt.'

'Oh, you'll get used it,' said Selwyn airily. 'Look at Solomon. A few years ago he was servant-class himself but he's put the baas back in Baastard. No, seriously. Let Lily be a servant. Give her a nice little bonsela when you go. That'll make her happy and relieve your white liberal conscience.'

Solomon's phone rang. It was Jake, whose tone reeked of sackcloth and ashes. He'd been an utter cunt, a wanker, an arsehole. He'd just got Solomon's email about the latest murder attempt and had realised that it was all his fault. He'd gone to a rave in Wembley the night they'd left and after dropping a couple of Es had found himself dancing next to Philippa Metcalfe, also full of Ecstasy. Chilling out on the grass outside, he and 'Philly' had got into a long and soulful talk and decided that they loved each other. In the course of his ramblings, he'd happened to mention that Solomon and Ruthie had gone off to South Africa.

'You know what it's like with Ecstasy.' Jake sounded truly wretched. 'They say give it six months before you know what your feelings really are. I warned you I'd fuck up. Look, I'm sorry, Solomon. I'll try and sort out some loose ends here and get the paperwork in order. When you get back I'll be gone.'

'Ag for fuck's sake, Jake,' said Solomon exasperatedly. 'We all make mistakes, but that was a doozy. At least we don't have to wear out our brains wondering how they found us. That would explain why you've been so constipated-sounding lately. Did you at least get a screw out of it?'

'No. Ecstasy kills the carnal urge. We went our separate ways. In the morning I remembered what a horrible creature she really was (although she has her good points). I thought I could trust her but she must have rushed home to Mummy and told all.'

'Listen, Jake, can you remember exactly what you said to her?'

'I can try.'

'OK. Shoot.'

Jake talked and Solomon made notes, not forgetting to mock some of Jake's more flowery declarations. A measure of cordiality had been restored by the time he'd finished. But there was one more piece of news: Jake had phoned Cecily's number an hour ago and had received a message that she was out of the country at present and that any urgent business could be handled by the Proteus office. He'd rung up representing himself as the owner of the kennels where Rufus had been boarded and had luckily run into a dog-mad secretary. Seven minutes of doggy talk had painlessly elicited the name and telephone number of Cecily's hotel in Johannesburg.

'The Randcrest,' Solomon repeated and Selwyn nodded he knew it. 'Now listen, Jake, we need a trap. Put your mind to it. I'll see if we can regain the initiative at this end. Let's hope she doesn't get suspicious and ring the kennels.'

'What makes you think I won't tell her?' And Jake waxed bitter. 'How can you trust me? I can't even trust myself.'

'Ag kak man. You've been a great help, in fact. Admittedly, you also nearly got us killed. "Tea twopence. Biscuits twopence. A perfectly balanced meal." as Becket has it. I take it we're still friends?'

'Yeh. Thanks. I smell Basmati. Gotta go.'

'Bye then.'

'Take care. See you soon, Solomon.'

END.

'Cecily's in town,' he informed his so-far loyal friends. 'Jake had an Ecstasy-induced love-in with the older daughter and told her all. Maybe that truck running us off the road was no accident.'

'No!' Ruthie smote her brow in feigned amazement. 'Say it ain't so!' She cocked her head. 'Of course it was no bloody accident.'

'You scat she's staying at the Randcrest,' deduced Selwyn. 'So what's our next move?'

'I'll give it some thought. But first we have some phonebooks to peruse. Bet that number's unlisted.'

'Or van Tonder's bookie,' shrugged Selwyn.

'His bit on the side,' wrymouthed Ruthie.

Lily sauntered grumpily across the lawn with tea and scones and coffee and koeksusters. She was well received. It was hot even in the shade. Brightly-coloured birds fluttered from tree to tree. The sun blazed down on the red earth and strawy winter lawn through which coarse green shoots were starting to emerge.

'I think,' said Solomon, sucking syrup off his fingers, 'that they didn't want to kill us, just frighten us. Murderers would have just quietly shot us in our beds. Another robbery gone wrong, another unsolved murder. This stunt with the truck was stupid and whatever Cecily may be, she ain't stupid. Perhaps we should let them think they've won. Offer terms. Nah. They'd never believe us.' Solomon heaved a sigh. 'Tsk. Yirra, man. To think of Jake consorting with the enemy. Serve him right if he'd woken up in the morning married to "Philly". And to think he used to call her Pukey.'

'The poor boy,' Ruthie said sympathetically. 'He must be feeling just terrible. I don't feel too good in myself. Why did you let me eat so many scones? Anyway, time to get back to work. I'll stop gabbing cause I don't know about you but I can't talk and look for numbers at the same time.'

The trio returned to their dismal task.

It was a long three-quarters of an hour later that there was a satisfied 'Hah!' from Ruthie. 'Yess. I've got it: it's a certain C. Louch of nineteen Cumberland Crescent. Just check that it's the right one.'

'Yep. Well done, Sniggles. Louch,' mused Solomon. 'Ouch as in eina, I wonder. Or Loosh or Lootsh. Can't say it rings a bell.' He tickled his mobile. 'Hullo, Directory Enquiries? I'm looking for the number of a C. Louch, l. o. u. c. h. Ja, Joburg. Nothing at all? OK. Dankie mejuffrou.' He cut her off. 'Nothing. Another cul-de-sac. Straat loop dood or street walks dead if you want to be literal. Let's see if there's anything on Google.' Some minutes passed while Solomon plied his talents to no avail. He resumed: 'Not a sausage. Louch. Where do we go from here? It could even be Afrikaans. Pronounced Loug. Where's a bliksemse Broederbond directory when you need one? But maybe you're right. Maybe it is just the number for a mechanic or a whore. But still worth a trip to Cumberland Crescent if we're in the vicinity. Anyway, that's enough for now. How about a beer?'

The sun flared briefly and went down. The beer quenched the heat of the day and irrigated parched tissues. Talk drifted onto the new South Africa and Solomon was just saying that someone had told him that Sisulu was actually the brains behind Mandela when he tailed off, saying: 'I see I've lost my audience.'

Ruthie shed her abstracted air to shush him impatiently. 'Sh! I'm trying to think. There was something Flo Toplady said that I didn't quite get at the time. What was it now? Something to do with lunch.' She clicked her fingers impatiently. 'She said a horrible man missed a lunch. Didn't make sense. Unless... it wasn't missed a lunch but Mr. Lunch. That was it: A horrible man, Mr. Lunch. Or it could have been Lutch. Flo had a bit of a cold.'

'So?'

'Well, we'd just been talking about Cecily's parents.'

'Aha. Louch pronounced Lutch, rhymes with Dutch. Cee Lutch. Cee for Cecily. Cee Lutch – clutch. Kinda grabs you. Well done Shnookelfurter. Clutch.'

And Solomon suited the action to the word. For a couple of minutes the kisses, murmurs and groans so nauseating to non-lovers reinforced a bond.

Selwyn cleared his throat drily. 'Come on Sol. Don't I get a go?'

'OK.' And Solomon planted a big wet kiss on his friend's cheek.

'Ag sis man. Don't go bringing your verdomte English perversions to our fair country.' Selwyn elaborately wiped his cheek. 'We fuck girls here and if they resist we rape them – that's the manly Sith Efrican way.'

A moment's silence at an awkward truth.

'Cecily's maiden name under K in van Tonder's book.' Solomon groped for intimations. 'Written, we presume, in the months before Olieboom. That would put van Tonder in it up to his fat neck. Be well worth Cecily's while to shut him up.'

'Yissus.' Selwyn snorted. 'She'll have to stand in line. There's plenty-plenty people would like him to keep shtum. That's why he's in hiding, with an armed guard.'

Lily came out of the back door and trundled across the lawn to tell 'Baas Selwyn' that he was wanted on the phone. Selwyn was gone for a few minutes and returned with a long face.

'That was Prof Apfelbaum. He says there's no trace of what we were looking for.' He held his disconsolate expression for just long enough then smiled and added quietly: 'That's what I told him to say if the result was positive.'

Hushed jubilation. Who, after all, knew what was on the other side of the garden wall?

'Another fact.' Selwyn was grimly satisfied. 'And Prof Apfelbaum said he'd sent a copy to our Swedish friend. Well, he actually said he was thinking of buying a Volvo.'

'I'm thinking of buying a Volvo.' Solomon mocked this spy-speak. 'Ah, but the lobsters in Budapest eat velvet in the springtime. Ja-nee but this is great news. A fact is a fact. Sometimes I feel we're like Lilliputians frantically trying to tie down Gulliver with a million little ropes before he wakes up and devours us. But what have we got? A house snake poisoned with NACT. Not even that. A house snake containing traces of chemical byproducts not inconsistent with poisoning by NACT. There's only your word it came from Olieboom. If we can somehow prove that your dad's being taken off the analysis is related to van Tonder having Cecily's number and if he's scared enough of some future prosecution to tell all and if and if. I know I say put the if back in life but this is stretching it a bit thin. We need a clincher, say a movie of the actual atrocity or a diary or proof that Cecily was sleeping with say Frikkie Venter. I wonder if Jake's come up with anything. Jacob actually means "supplanter". Bit of a hint there for Esau the hairy one might think. Am I Esau? Esau, Marjorie Daw...'

'More like Eeeyore, I think.' Ruthie smiled despite herself. 'Come on, stop moaning. We're getting on fine. What happened to "follow the money"?'

'I'm getting too old to hack into bank accounts,' said Solomon with a sigh. 'Also Cecily boasted that she'd never signed anything and I'm inclined to believe her. I'm assuming van Tonder knew enough about Olieboom to be a real threat. If Cecily wanted to get at a protected witness, how would she do it?'

'Well lawyers would be one option,' suggested Selwyn. 'They could at least pass on a message. Or business associates.'

'Hm.' Solomon chewed it over. 'I tend to think she'd want to keep a low profile. Can't see her going through official channels.'

'What about his family?' offered Ruthie. 'Hasn't he got a wife and kids?'

'Ex,' explained Selwyn. 'She ran off with the pro from his golf club. Kept the Sunday Slimes happy for weeks.'

'That's not a bad idea,' said Solomon. 'Sel, my old china, do you have any chommies in the press?'

'Not exactly. An ouk I was at school with is a sub on the Star. I once treated his Ridgeback for an ear infection. Why?'

'I was wondering whether the society page would like a titbit that the wife of a man caught smuggling chemical weapons, was in town. Was this in connection with Truth and Reconciliation? Drop a few hints – you know, innuendo and outyoudoor. It might set the scene.'

'We're five hundred kays from the sea, so I suppose that lapping noise is libel lawyers licking their chops.'

'Ja. I suppose you're right. I wonder why she called it Operation Kali?' Solomon stood. 'I must just go and check my emails and trawl the net.'

The friends dispersed, Solomon to consult Oracle, Ruthie to wash her hair and Selwyn to feed his platannas.

'Kali,' Solomon announced at supper, 'is the Hindu goddess of destruction. Apparently there was a demon called Raktabija that none of the gods could kill because every drop of his blood that fell to the ground turned into a demon. Kali told the gods to attack the demon but cunningly – and quite impressively – she spread out her tongue to cover the whole battlefield so no drop of blood could touch the ground.'

'Yuk.' Ruthie pulled a face. They were dining a deux, an overcooked meal served by a sternly disapproving Lily. Selwyn had manfully accompanied Katie to a school concert starring a favourite niece but had refused to inflict such things on his friends. He took the Ruger and left Solomon the keys of the safe in case he needed the Hornet rifle.

'Unfortunately,' Solomon continued, 'although the demon was killed, his blood fell on Kali's tongue and made her drunk. She went on a rampage, killing everyone she met and dolling herself up with girdles made up of the heads, arms and guts of her victims. So far so psychotic. Shiva eventually pacified her by throwing himself under her feet - at which she threw off her ugly shape, embraced her husband and peace was restored. So, children, what do we learn from this story?'

'That too much dope and wine make you silly?' perted Ruthie. 'Or that there's good in everyone?'

'Arguable. And what's good about Cecily? Good mother, I suppose. She'd be vulnerable through her family I guess, although the Kali analogy fails in that she had Chris underfoot but just trampled him and moved on. Come on, Kali,' he exasperatedly complained, 'When I said lay down your arms I didn't mean on the new carpet.'

Ruthie giggled and wine spurted up her nose. When she had recovered her aplomb, she said: 'I think Cecily's weak spot is class. She values her social standing. Chris's being thrown in jail was a blow but I bet she still wants her daughters to marry into the upper crust.'

'We could get Jake to slip some of his elixir of love to say Sukie and Len Chicken. A video of them snogging would give Cecily what Selwyn calls "the stone zig". But I don't just want her to stop trying to kill us. I want the whole story to come out and I think this may be our last chance. I want them all punished.'

'Well a film like you were talking of would certainly punish Cecily. Can Ecstasy really make you think you're in love?'

'I gather so. Listen. Did you say film?'

'Well, video or whatever. Why?'

'Because these days even moviemakers are using video cameras, but when we were chatting with our friends in Sir Ambrose's stables they definitely referred to Jasper's effort as a film. Or fillum if you prefer the local vernacular. The thing is that films need to be developed and it wouldn't do for the wrong people to see it. I mean, the army has facilities but that would be too risky. One of Frikkie Venter's mob, perhaps? Although most of them couldn't find their arse with both hands. Wag 'n bietjie. Where's that newspaper report of Frikkie's funeral?'

'I put it in the briefcase.' Ruthie bounced up. 'I'll get it.' Two minutes later she returned with a yellowing excuse for a newspaper, open at the relevant page. The photo of the pallbearers was credited in small print up one side to 'Baanbreker', a pseudonym meaning 'pioneer'. This meant nothing to Solomon until he turned to the adverts and there among the tractors and corrugated iron dams and Band Bs was a small blackedged box at the bottom of the page which urged readers to support local businesses. Baanbreker Studios offered personal service, courtesy of Meneer Japie Walters, for all your photographic requirements. An address and phone number in Nelspruit were given. The advert was cramped and old-fashioned and looked like it probably hadn't been changed in thirty years. It stank of poverty. Meneer Walters might be easier to bribe than frighten in the event that he had any connection with Olieboom at all. Japie Walters. Hm. The Bastard rummaged in his briefcase and pulled out the Eezy Finda. The pointer clattered down its notchy spine to W and sure enough the lid sprang back taking A to V with it. However the Ws were somewhat overrun by an overflow of 'vans' from the Vs although there were plenty of Ws too. Wessels, Willemse, Welcome Inn, Wetherby, Wits Chemistry Dept., Weltman. But no Walters.

Lily arrived with pineapple upside-down cake and custard, received their cries of appreciation with the dignity of an artist and almost smiled. At least Ruthie could eat, Lily thought approvingly – not like that other one of Selwyn's who was too thin. They thanked her again. Lily vanished into the kitchen for another sip of cane spirit. After the washing up she'd go and see Christina next door. They could get drunk and wax maudlin.

'Damn,' said Solomon when they were alone again. 'I was sure it would be there. No-one says that ninety percent of amateur detecting is so fucking boring. It's like war – ninety percent boring and ten per cent terrifying. How's your terror quotient, by the way? You seem to be bearing up well.'

Brown eyes met green.

'Yes.' Ruthie nodded cautiously. 'I'm surprised I'm so calm myself. More angry than scared if you know what I mean. I'm glad we've brought Prof Apfelbaum in and his friend at the UN. Also we seem to be getting somewhere at last. I can feel a sort of momentum building. Here, do you want me to look through the whole thing? It might be listed somewhere else.'

'No, hang on. Let's try J for Japie – maybe they were buddies. Nope. How about Baanbreker?'

'Barnbricker.' Ruthie had a go. 'What's that when it's at home?'

'Um, I suppose a trailbreaker or pioneer.'

Solomon scanned the Bs in vain.

'How about P for photos?' Ruthie clicked, skittered, sprang. 'M. Fraid not. What on earth's a Potch bioskoop?'

'The cinema in Potchefstroom. Well, at least it's a movie connection. Ag nee man. Don't look under P. Remember van Tonder's a fucking Dutchman. Look under F for fotos. Jislaaik. Doesn't you know nothing?'

'I know that this might be what you're looking for.' She shoved over the pad.

'Fotos. Jaap. Yup. Sounds like our man. Japie's the affectionate diminutive. Course the number's changed but I bet it's him.'

Outside the big iron gate rumbled on its track, an engine vroomed and died and the gate trundled shut again. Doors slammed and the doorbell pinged its falling third. Solomon went to the door and looked through the peephole at Selwyn and Katrina. They didn't seem to be smiling the forced smiles of people with guns in their backs so it was the work of seconds to undo the deadlock, slide off the chain, pop up the button on the Yale lock and twist its knob to let in reinforcements.

Ruthie recommenced breathing. Perhaps she wasn't as calm as all that.

The concert had been mercifully short and Katie's niece had acquitted herself well. 'Ag shame hey she was so sweet,' was how her aunt put it. No-one had tried to kill them. They fell on the leftover pudding and Lily brought in coffee and announced that she was going off.

Solomon told them of the new finds – that there was a Jaap listed in van Tonder's phonebook under 'Fotos', that the picture of the pallbearers at Frikkie's funeral had been taken by Baanbreker Studios owned by one Japie Walters, who also advertised in the paper. Probably well in with the GAT crowd and possibly even the one who'd developed the Olieboom film, if there was one. Or not, of course. And where was van Tonder? Had Cecily already got to him? 'What's so frustrating is that we have no way of knowing what she's up to,' he seethed. 'I wish I knew how to bug her room or tail her car but we have to assume we're being watched ourselves. I hate reacting to things. If only we could find out her plans.'

'Hau you stchupid!' Selwyn whacked the coffee-table. 'As Lily would say. Here we are sitting on the world's best secret service and we're wondering how to find out what people are up to.'

'Secret service,' Solomon rallied, 'you mean the successor to the late lamented BOSS?'

Selwyn had never met such idiocy. 'No, you momzer,' he patiently explained. 'Who knows what's going on in every white house in the country? Tsk tsk tsk. Hau, you stchupid!'

Solomon roared with laughter, Selwyn spluttered, Katie tittered and Ruthie smiled to show willing.

'Who knows more about dirty linen than the people who wash it? And I don't mean priests.' Solomon raised Roger Moore's Saintly eyebrow.

Ruthie coloured. 'Of course,' she said. 'The servants.'

'Sure.' Selwyn struggled to his feet. 'Gimme the bottle of red from that Checkers bag there, Kat. Ta. I'll see if I can still catch Lily.'

'Here.' Solomon proffered a wad of notes. 'Tell her there's lots more where that comes from.'

'I'll come with,' offered Katrina.

'No, It'll be better if I speak to her alone.' Selwyn plucked a couple of notes and closed Solomon's hand on the rest. Then he walked through the swing door to the kitchen. From the resultant borborygmus of conversation it was evident that Lily was still about.

Katrina engaged Ruthie in girl talk while Solomon watched and thought. While Lily worked the grapevine he might try and find out more about Japie Walters of Nelspruit. Obviously the first question was: had he ever developed movie film? He'd put out a feeler on Monday. Jake's betrayal rose up like acid in the chest but how to use him?

'All fixed.' Selwyn entered rubbing his hands. 'I asked her to try and find someone who works at the Randcrest. I told her a bit about Cecily and said you'd pay well for information. Also that if she heard anything of van Tonder's whereabouts we'd very much like to know. She knew van Tonder. Dad brought him home to dinner once or twice. Office politics. Lily didn't like him. I can say that with confidence because she doesn't like any of our visitors.'

'Selwyn, you're horrible.' Katrina flopped against his leg. 'Lily's a lovely person when you get to know her,' she earnestly assured their guests. 'She's had a hard life.'

'Ha, Selwyn sneered. 'She's been in our family since she was sixteen and she's got lazier, fatter and surlier by the day. At least my mom taught her to cook. She taught herself to drink. But we love her really. If anyone can find out what's going on, it's Lily. She saw my brother's divorce coming months before anyone else had an inkling.'

Later, an email from Jake told Solomon that Sir Ambrose Mortimer was also out of the country but no-one seemed to know where and that 'Philly' had rung up to ask if he could score her some Es. He'd declined, but they'd parted on good terms. He awaited instructions.

Solomon let him wait. Selwyn stuck on a video of Dumb and Dumber. The girls got tipsy, the men got drunk and stoned. A good time followed by a bedtime was had by all.

Chapter 32

The next day, Sunday, Lily was off. She had church in the morning and an afternoon of sitting on the grass next to the road with some of the other staff, assiduously exchanging gossip. At seven that evening she turned up at the back door demanding that Selwyn take her at once to Alexandra Township. He must borrow Miss Katrina's car – not that horrible old thing that he liked to drive.

'Alright, Lily, we'll go now-now. Who's for a walk on the wild side?' he called back into the house. The others appeared. 'Come on, Ruthie. See how the other ninety percent live. No.' Selwyn paused responsibly. 'Perhaps you'd better not. It might be dangerous. Solomon can ride shotgun. Listen Sweetness, can I borrow your wheels?'

'Ja, sure. But she's an old lady hey. Treat her gentle.'

'Moenie worry. I had a Sonata just like it once. I'll cherish every dent, scrape and hole.'

'Lettie she's can coming too?' demanded Lily.

'Sure. The more the merrier. Ready Sol?'

'Put money in thy purse, to quote Othello. OK. Bye Shnookiebumps. See you later for the gross clasps of a lascivious Moor.'

Lettie emerged from behind the bougainvillea and the two ladies got in the back. The car hunkered down on its springs and they set off. After almost an hour of driving they found themselves at a tiny house just like all the others around it. It was dark. Streetlights were feeble and few. Rubbish blew around in the cold smoky wind. Lily told them to wait in the car while she and Lettie payed a visit. They walked five feet to the door, knocked and were received with loud cries of welcome. A light came on in the front room but the dark green curtains were drawn. A group of youths on a nearby corner eyed them with hostility. Solomon had the Ruger on his lap and Selwyn's hand hovered by the ignition key. One of the 'brothers' began sauntering over but the door of the house opened and a slight black man appeared. He called out a greeting, which was surlily returned and the nuisance receded.

'My name is Ezra. I work at the Goldcdrest Hotel. Those men are rubbish but I thinkso its better that we drive.'

'Solomon.' They shook.

'And Selwyn. OK let's move it out.'

As they drove past the group a casually tossed half-brick bounced off the door but they didn't stay to pursue the matter.

Ezra was distantly related to Lily. He was the Postal Services Manager (formerly Postboy) but he helped polish the odd car from time to time and consequently knew most of the chauffeurs. On Friday night he'd been chatting to his friend Nelson who was busy sluicing red dust off his white Mercedes. He'd mentioned that he'd only just come back from taking some people – a woman guest of the Randcrest and a man he'd picked up at another hotel – out into the gamadoelas way past Twyfelspruit. The woman was a Mrs. Metcalfe. They'd gone out to a big farm. He was taking them to see Nelson now.

The road led past a bit of bare veld. The burnt grass was clotted with rubbish and there was a rash of squatters' shacks made of tin and cardboard and sacking. The last house in the street was the one they wanted. Ezra said that it would be unwise to leave the car – he would fetch Nelson. A woman hurried past, head down.

'And I thought that only the Cape Flats had this lovely ambience,' said Solomon sourly. 'I tell you what though. Coming back from England you see it in a new light. You seriously reckon that more people are materially worse off in the new South Africa?'

'Well, crime and disease and unemployment are all up. And as far as corruption goes these guys make the Nats look like babies.'

Ezra tapped at Selwyn's window which was rolled down. 'Nelson says you must come inside.' Ezra beckoned invitingly. 'This is his brother Phineas. She will look after your car.'

A piece of the general blackness gave a shy smile.

Solomon stuck the pistol in his waistband under his jersey, hoping that the safety-catch would hold.

Nelson stood in the doorway to welcome his guests as they traversed the little crazy-paving path. He was a large portly man, slow and dignified. He led them into a little room with a leatherette three-piece suite and plywood furniture and offered them scotch and soda. In the yellow light he looked younger than his manner suggested and more than a little uneasy.

Solomon told his story yet again and showed Nelson a newspaper photograph of Cecily which was courteously perused and handed back without comment.

Nelson pursed his lips and decided. 'Ezra, why don't you take Mr. Katz into the kitchen while I discuss something with Mr. Witbooi. You can make us a pot of tea. There's some Black Forest Gateau in the fridge.'

He waited until they had gone and closed the door behind them then continued in excellent English: 'One of the things required of a good chauffeur is discretion,' he pontificated. 'See everything but say nothing. If I tell you something now, it's to go no further.'

'Well, I can't promise that the facts won't become public but I can say that no-one will ever know that it was you who'd told me. And I will do my utmost to ensure that there'll be nothing to embarrass or endanger you.' The look direct.

'I suppose that will have to do. Well then, yes, Mrs. Metcalfe is indeed the lady in question. I took her and another man out to a farm way out on the other side of Twyfelspruit owned by an Afrikaans gentleman. I dropped them there at eleven a.m. and they told me that my services would not be required until later. I was to be contacted by cellphone and in the meantime I was free to go into town for some luncheon. At the cafe I happened to mention the name of the farm to the woman behind the counter and she went suddenly quiet. She was one of my people, a Venda. I asked her what the trouble was and she said that that farm had a bad reputation in the area. A worker had been beaten to death there in nineteen seventy-eight and the farmer had been acquitted. There was always trouble there. She seemed to think it was the centre of some sort of Boere Kommando.'

'Not our old friends die Getrouste Afrikaner Trekkers?' asked Solomon.

'She hinted at that sort of thing.' Nelson shrugged. 'I had no wish to become involved. I stayed away from the farm until Mrs. Metcalfe telephoned me at six p.m. to come and fetch them. When I got there the bakkies and BMWs were gone. I merely picked up my passengers and brought them home.'

'Who was the man?'

'I was told to ask for a Mr. Barrett at the desk.'

'Can you describe him?'

'An upper-class English gentleman of late middle age. Rosy complexion. The lady called him Andrew.'

Solomon produced a glossy photograph of a board of directors clipped from the prospectus of an insurance company.

'Do you recognise any of these men?' he asked.

Nelson got out a pair of reading-glasses and gave it a full minute before pointing hesitantly at Sir Ambrose Mortimer. 'I think that person was the one in question. I've never, to the best of my belief, seen any of the others before.'

'Well,' Solomon started...

'No. I'm sorry, but I don't wish to know anything further.'

'Fair enough.' Solomon held up concessionary palms. 'But thank you for everything. You've been a great help.'

A wad of five hundred rand changed hands. Nelson accepted this with dignity and pocketed it uncounted. They drank tea and ate cake which had fallen off the Randcrest's dessert-trolley. Nelson drew Solomon a map of the way to the farm which the latter copied into a notebook. The original went into the little combustion stove in the kitchen. They dropped Ezra, a hundred rand richer and picked up Lily and Lettie who'd evidently had a whale of a time and who both mercifully fell asleep as Selwyn drove them home.

Chapter 33

Back at Selwyn's Katerina went back to her own flat. She gave piano lessons at an expensive private school in Kempton Park and needed an early start. Selwyn went off to make a phonecall.

'So what have you done now?' were Solomon's first words as soon as he and Ruthie were alone.

'Oh God am I that obvious? Alright, I'll tell you. But you must promise you won't be cross.'

'That bad is it? Come on. You know I can deny you nothing when you turn on the puppy eyes.'

Ruthie heaved a sigh. 'Well then. I phoned Jake and persuaded him that you need him. He's flying out tomorrow.' She gulped. 'I said you'd pay - or if not,' defiantly, 'I'll pay. He's due in at six in the morning. The thing is, love, that I don't know what mad plans you're hatching but whatever it is you need Jake around. You may be a genius in cyberspace but you can be the teeniest bit cack-handed in the real world.'

'You'll never let me forget that falling tower of teacups, will you?' He stumbled into her arms and printed a kiss on the corner of her mouth. 'Of course I'm not cross, Pucklechurch. It won't take you more than three years to pay off. No, I'm joking. It'll be great to have Jake here. Who's the lucky one who's got to get up at four-thirty to fetch him?'

'I will,' Ruthie jumped in. 'If Selwyn will trust me with his Land-Rover.'

'To the ends of the earth,' that gallant replied, entering with cocoa and Eet-Sum-Mor shortbread. 'Why, what's up?'

They told him. 'Sure, no probs. Jake can sleep in the study. And I've managed to get someone to cover for me at the AI unit so I can take this week off. Now, what's the next step O wise one?'

'We have to find this farm and do a recce. See if there are any weak spots. We can send Jake on a suicide mission. As Nelson described it, the house is up a long drive and is enclosed by a double fence. Apart from a clump of bluegums at the back and a patch of grass in front it's all bare ground. He said there were four bakkies and two BMWs parked there when he arrived on Friday.'

'Can't we just hand it over to the police?' asked Ruthie wistfully.

'There's no law against mixing with hate-crazed Afrikaners,' Solomon explained. 'even GAT was legalised along with all the other parties in the run-up to the election. Of course there may be a perfectly innocent explanation for Cecily and Ambrose's little trip but I bloody hope not. Why should Ambrose be calling himself Andrew Barratt otherwise? I wish we knew who owned the farm.'

'We can go out there tomorrow,' Selwyn suggested. 'I know a couple of farmers in the area who'll be able to tell us.'

'I'll fetch Jake and then phone Japie Walters,' Solomon contributed. 'We'll hire a car, something fast but anonymous, for a day in the country.'

'I'll make us a picnic and Jake can do some of his submarine sandwiches.' Ruthie had perked up. 'But now I think I'll turn in.'

Chapter 34.

The alarm-clock ripped Elastoplast from the hairy leg of sleep. Solomon gave up being a toddler sucking on the warm teat of a goat and reverted to a simulacrum of his waking self. Ruthie groaned and rolled out of bed. They got ready.

It was surprising how much traffic was about at five in the morning, mostly black workers going from one place to another. Along the motorway they thrummed and into the airport.

The plane was on time and forty minutes later Jake stood blinking in the arrivals hall. Solomon's rancour and Jake's guilt both evaporated at the sight of each other and their hugs and back-thumpings were warm. Jealousy, benevolence and relief struggled in Ruthie's mind as she and Jake exchanged an affectionate peck on the cheek.

'One thing that Philly said,' Jake remarked over the breakfast pawpaws, 'was that Cecily had told her that the horrible time they'd been having lately was nearly at an end and soon they'd be able to do what they liked. She didn't specify, but it sounded like money in the offing. Do you think there's another batch of NACT for sale?'

'No, I'm inclined to think that really was the last of it.' Solomon spooned pink flesh into his mouth, chewed, swallowed. 'Besides, the risk of physically smuggling the stuff at this time would be huge. No, when I last talked to Cecily she seemed to think that the value of Proteus lay not in the hardware but in their techniques and expertise. You know they say if you sell a man a fish you feed him for a day, but if you've got the fishing rights you can make a shedload of money. Something like that. The recipe for NACT's not on the net. I know, I've looked for it. There's everything from A-bombs to Zeppelins there: but no NACT. What's this got to do with van Tonder, I hear you cry. Well, short of death, there are two generally accepted ways to shut someone up – fear and complicity. Wouldn't it make sense to have everyone involved with Olieboom tied into some new crime for which there would be no apartheid-era amnesty?'

'Not to mention the money.' Selwyn rubbed his hands. 'But it would be a hell of a risk.'

'Not if Sir Ambrose is aboard. That might even imply some governmental sanction. Besides,' Solomon cocked his head on one side, 'Cecily's not lacking in courage. Remember she's a woman scorned than which hell no fury greater hath.'

'Yes, she wouldn't be put off by lack of courage,' confirmed Ruthie. 'I could see her going for it. The best of it is that if you're selling knowledge you can sell it over and over.'

'At least until your customers catch on. Anyway,' Solomon yawned, 'you three discuss it amongst yourselves. I'm off to phone Japie Walters to discuss photography.' He vanished into the study and emerged ten minutes later, looking cocky.

'Sweet. I let slip that I was a wealthy Afrikaner, something high up in the Volkskas bank, and that I was up in the Nelspruit district for some shooting. I said I'd recently discovered some old home movies including an undeveloped spool and asked if he could develop it and transfer it to video-tape. I said that a friend of mine, a rooinek called Keate had recommended him, but it evidently didn't ring a bell. Otherwise he was eager to please. Yes, he still had the equipment for developing eight millimeter although he hadn't used it for years and he was fully au fait with all the latest dubbing techniques. I asked if I could drop by tomorrow and see him and he said that unfortunately he had to be elsewhere on business but would be back on Wednesday. I said I looked forward to meeting him and he did some more grovelling. I'd say he was fairly desperate. I reckon five kay would have him barking and jumping through hoops.'

'He didn't say where this business was taking him, did he?' asked Selwyn. 'Be a joke if it turned out to be down Twyfelspruit way. They'd all have to be there. Maybe even van Tonder or at least someone to represent him. Apart, of course, from absent friends.'

'And those incarcerated at her Majesty's pleasure.' Solomon sank his chin judicially on his chest and looked over imaginary half-moon spectacles. 'Funny idea of pleasure she must have. But you're right.' Fist smacked palm. 'They can't afford to leave anybody out. The vultures will be circling. Or so we hope. We'd look a bit silly if it turned out to be a braai. Anyway, better get going.'

Selwyn, Ruthie and Jake sat in the cab of the Land-Rover while Solomon relived his youth, bundled in a blanket in the open back. They turned corners and doubled back until they were sure they weren't being followed then made for the nearest car-hire place where Solomon's plastic procured them a top-of-the-range Passat. Solomon drove, Selwyn navigated. They drove through miles of dreary highveld with only the occasional flat-topped koppie (decapitated by long-gone glaciers) for relief. Then platteland where the only vertical elements were mealie silos, windmills and the odd clump of bluegums. Hours passed. Nelson's map led them along corrugated dirt roads where the trick was to drive fast enough to bounce from crest to crest. There was no question of concealment here. Apart from the odd farmhouse or little cluster of farmworkers' shacks there were endless ploughed fields with the occasional dry pan. Here and there dirty, moulting sheep nibbled the dry grass and scrubby thorn-trees without enthusiasm. A plume of red dust rose up behind them. As they approached the farm marked on Nelson's map an old grey Chevvy emerged from the imposing stone gateway and headed towards them. They glimpsed a fresh white shirt and dark tie and a greenish jacket hanging in the rear window. The face under a bush hat sported gold-mirrored sunglasses and a thin moustache. Jake fired off a few discreet shots from his digital camera but without much hope. They passed with no flicker of acknowledgement. Solomon slowed down as they neared the massive pillars flanked by swooping walls in which wagon wheels had been set. Above the narrow entrance a beam from an ox-wagon bore a huge set of Africander cattle horns under which a sign in welded rods said: Heersegif.

Solomon giggled.

'Alright, what's the joke then?' asked Ruthie as straight man.

'Well, it's a sort of pun,' Solomon explained. 'Heersegif obviously means the Lord's gift, but gif also means poison so it could mean God's poison.'

'It's the way he tells them, folks.' Jake broke the short, reflective silence. 'Aren't we going to stop and get some pictures?'

'No. I can still see his dust, so he can see ours. I don't want him to think we've stopped here. Let's see what's on the other side. Damn. A gate. Anyone got some small change?'

Three piccanins raced along the 'barbwire' fence to open the gate and were rewarded with fifty cents each. Ahead was a stand of large bluegums. Solomon pulled up out of sight of the house and they got out of the chilly aircon into the breathless heat. A kraal nearby, built around a couple of withaak thorns, spoke pungently of sheep. Looking back at Heersegif through binoculars Solomon could see that the drive forked. One leg ran up to the house which was a plain old-fashioned building onto which a Cape Dutch gable had been grafted. It was surrounded, as Nelson had said, by a double electric fence enclosing a bare compound and a small bright green lawn edged by beds of red and yellow flowers. Behind the house was a grove of bluegums, five deep by eight long each of which, Selwyn informed them, could transpire four hundred gallons a day.

The other leg of the drive led to a big farmyard with barns, a cattle pen and a workshop where two black men were replacing a wheel on a tractor and another five were unloading sacks of fertiliser from a trailer. Each had two heavy sacks loaded onto his head with which he trotted off to the barn and came back seconds later for more.

Jake zoomed in as close as he could and clicked away. Two big, ugly Rottweilers loped around the lawn but there was no other sign of life around the house.

In a far field two tractors disced and harrowed.

An old black man approached slowly by bicycle. Solomon stopped him and he got off his bike on the far side, his muddy brown eyes on the edge of terror. Solomon calmed his fears as best he could and mentally noted that the slogan 'Free at Last' hadn't yet reached this part of the country. It wasn't even as if he were white. Through the fog of Ja, my baas and nee, my baas he established that Oneboy (as he was called) worked for another baas two farms away. And who owned Heersegif? Another baas, my baas. Baas Venter. And did Oneboy know Baas Venter's first name? The little man, shorter even than Solomon, shook his head and shuffled his feet.

Selwyn approached with a little bag of tobacco and remarked conversationally that there was a dust-cloud coming their way. Solomon handed over the tobacco to their overwhelmed interlocutor with thanks. Oneboy pedalled off and the friends climbed back into the car and drove on. Selwyn consulted his map. 'You know what, there's a friend of mine who lives near here,' he remarked. 'Well, say forty kilometers. D'you remember Adam Malherbe, Sol? No, I think you were already in the UK when I met him. He's a mad bugger. Used to breed camels for Botswana but last I heard he'd switched to growing cacti and succulents for the export trade. He's a liberal Afrikaner. Organic, eco-friendly and so on. He trained in France as a pastry-chef. He'll know what's going on here. His family has lived in the area for years.'

'Pastry chef, you say?' Solomon went to the heart of the matter. 'Let's go. By the way do you think this mysterious Venter is related to the late Frikkie of that ilk?'

'Well, Venter's a common enough name but I seem to remember that Frikkie's brother was something high up in GAT . Adam will know. Look, take that track to the right there. It means we have to double back a bit but we'll get to see the other side of the farm.'

The track consited of parallel paths either side of a hump.

'Watch the middelmannetjie', Selwyn warned. 'Little man in the middle', he translated for the back seat.

They skirted what generations of Venters had called the kaffer stat, the cluster of worker's hovels whose corrugated-iron roofs were held on with heavy stones and flat white pumpkins. A couple of chained-up dogs barked and a woman washing something in a paraffin tin shot them a sideways glance. A toddler dressed only in a ragged T-shirt clung to her dress. An old man slept sitting on a box in the sunshine. A smell of shit, burnt mealie-meal and smoke was sucked into the car, chilled, and eventually expelled.

Another gate, this one merely five strands of barbed wire stretched between sticks. Money changed hands again. They drove slowly on. A distant view of the back of Heersegif showed that the house looked impregnable from the back too. The bluegums were set well back within the fence and the only other cover was a couple of aloes near the stoep. Not to mention the alarms, floodlights and rottweilers. Solomon stopped for a minute while Jake took some more photos and everyone had a look through the binoculars.

An hour later they were sitting at Adam's table drinking coffee and eating yesterday's brioche with homemade apricot jam. Adam looked a typical boer with his thick-necked rugby-player's physique, khaki shorts and velskoen but his cheerful, open expression made him immediately likeable. His 'woman', Luisa, was away visiting friends in Lichtenburg so he was alone. Ja, he knew that shit Venter. Dirk Venter was in fact Frikkie's brother and he had frequently been in trouble for mistreating his staff. He'd made the mistake of picking a fight with Adam in the bar of the Palace Hotel once and a well-aimed kidney-punch had seen him pissing blood for three days. Adam didn't mind being called a kaffir-lover, it was the aspersions on his farming capabilities which had annoyed him. If there was any dirty work going on at Heersegif he'd be happy to help expose it.

'We've got a new Chief of Police in the district.' Adam chuckled. 'A black guy called Patrick Lutuli. He made a point of going round and introducing himself to all the local farmers. Venter threatened to shoot him if he didn't get off his land and wound up being fined a thousand rand. It would have been more but none of his staff would act as witnesses.'

'Is this charmer married?' asked Solomon.

'His wife left him and took the kids so he's on his own. I've seen him coming out of the bottle-store with a crate of cheap brandy. Talk is he's on a bottle a day.'

'Well as long as that's his only resemblance to Churchill we're laughing,' Jake observed drily. 'The point is to find out what's going on. Our only hope would be to stick a mike on Cecily or Ambrose or to focus a parabolic dish on the farmhouse except that we don't have one and we couldn't get close enough to use it. Do you think Nelson could get in somehow?'

Solomon shook his head. 'First we need to know who'll be there. If we can say to the police and/or the media that a British ex-Minister of Defence, the wife of a man recently-jailed for trying to flog chemical weapons, one of the top members of GAT and no doubt other scum and riffraff are gathering in an isolated farmhouse we might get a nibble. What's this new Chief of Police like?'

'Oh a real straight arrow, but he's got a sense of humour. I'm sure he spotted my peyote patch because he asked if I'd ever read that wanker Castenada. I don't know what they teach them in those Anglican Mission schools. Put it this way, I'd rather have him on my side. I got the strong impression that he likes to know all about what's going on in his area. I've got his personal cellphone number for emergencies. Do you want me to give him a ring?'

Solomon's glance took in three nods. 'Ja, thanks. At least alert him to the possibility of something happening tomorrow. We'll need to keep an eye on both roads to Venter's farm so I guess that means two cars and an early start.'

'No need. All the traffic comes from the east unless you're smuggling cattle from Botswana. And you're spending the night here.' Adam was adamant. 'I can get you up at five o'clock, if you like but I reckon it would be better to park my truck by the turnoff after breakfast. You could hide in the back and check out whoever goes that way.'

So it was arranged. Adam tried Patrick Lutuli's number but couldn't get through. He left a message.

After lunch there was a guided tour of the farm, the micro-propagation unit, the polytunnels, the packing sheds, the fields of exotic cacti. Large areas had been left to revert to natural scrub and Adam said that the wildlife was making a rapid comeback. On their walk they saw meerkats, starlings (the witgat spreeu) and guineafowl. Jake was fascinated by the plants and their culture. Adam gave his talk about working with the land rather than against it, recognising it as semi-desert and planting accordingly.

'You can grow mielies here if you're lucky,' said Adam. 'But you have to pump the land full of chemicals and pray for rain. A good oes can carry you through a couple of bad years but I've seen too many sandstorms. You can sit on the stoep an watch your money blowing away in the red dust. So I thought why not grow something that actually likes it here? Six morgen of cactus brings in twice what cultivating the whole farm used to. It's a cactus factory but it teaches people new skills. Me too. See that agave over there? You must try some of my first batch of tequila.'

Black workers, shadow people, wandered around doing things. Adam talked to one or two in Afrikaans and introduced his foreman but by and large the white visitors were timidly ignored.

'So, Shnookiebumps,' Solomon nuzzled Ruthie's cleavage briefly, 'what do you think of the platteland? Olieboom was just like this in many ways. Flat, hot, big skies. I love it, it's a good half of who I am.'

'It's so dry, it's frightening,' said Ruthie candidly after checking that Adam was out of earshot. 'I don't think I've ever wanted to see water so badly. My lips are cracking and my nostrils feel like they're lined with brick. I mean it's quite a shock, coming from the land of the Ulster raincoat.'

'Just give me the smell of diesel on hot sand and I'm happy.' Solomon closed his eyes and sniffed rapturously. 'Although I can quite see it could be an acquired taste. Wait till you've seen a couple of flaming sunsets or lain out at night looking at the stars. We'll have you drinking milk soured with urine and eating lizards before you know it. This is winter, of course. Spring and summer can be magical. Always, of course, weather permitting. Is that the truck?'

'Judging by the way Adam's opening it up for Jake, I guess so. Come on.'

The closed truck was unwindowed. A grid of mesh front and back gave a cursory nod in the direction of ventilation but the inside was baking hot. By fixing planks across the shelves which lined the sides, Adam suggested, they could stand and see out of the back. It was decided that Solomon and Jake would do the surveillance, Adam would sit in the driver's seat and pretend to be waiting for someone and Selwyn and Ruthie would go into town to see if there was any gossip doing the rounds and to be able to alert the police, if needed.

Jake went off with Adam to find some planks and the others sought the shade.

'Patrick phoned back,' Adam announced over the post-beer pre-braai joint, 'and said he was interested to hear about this meeting at Venter's place but that he couldn't see that a crime had been committed. Still, he said he'll be in this area tomorrow and if we find out anything definitely illegal he'd like to know. I also got the answerphone of a journalist friend of mine out Barberspan way and asked him to ring back. Now, who fancies some boerewors and stywe pap?'

Night fell and there was a move to the dying fire. Adam had built his braai area of local boulders in the form of an inglenook. They ate and drank, the wors and lamb chops deliciously flavoured by the wood from a dead peach-tree. Ruthie took to breaking off dollops of stiff white mealie-meal and dipping them in the spicy bone, tomato and onion gravy as if to the manner born. It was only on standing up that she realised she'd taken on far too much ballast.

Solomon took her away from the light to see the moistly twinkling stars of the southern sky. The electric fence buzzed and crackled gently but apart from that and the murmur of voices, it was quiet. Ruthie felt the tensions of the last few months start to melt into the vast spangled nothingness. Adam's black dog came silently up and shoved his cold wet nose in her crotch.

Chapter 35

By nine the next morning Jake's fears of being baked alive in the back of Adam's truck had abated. A wind blew in, fresh off the Antarctic. The sun was an incipient pimple on the grey sky. He shivered in his National Trust T-shirt as he discreetly videoed passing cars.

Solomon, in the garish jersey which Auntie Minnie had knitted him, stood by, pad and ballpoint at the ready, to take notes.

For a little country road between two nowheres it was surprisingly busy. A couple of the local boere stopped to see if Adam was OK and passed a few minutes in chitchat about the lousy price of mielies and the latest murdered farmer. At last they went and Jake gave vent to the sneeze which had been so insistent for so long.

It was nine forty-three when the first vehicle took the Heersegif turnoff. White bakkie driven by burly boer. There was a wash of Country and Western as he drove by. Solomon noted time, numberplate, rough description.

At ten-o-one a chauffeur-driven black Mercedes turned off. The glass was heavily tinted, the people inside invisible.

At ten twenty-eight they had the pleasurable relief of seeing Nelson drive Cecily and Ambrose by.

Ten thirty-one. Nog 'n bakkie. Two men, possibly father and son.

Solomon knew what the blue Volksie van was as soon as he set eyes on it. It was past its first youth and it's second didn't seem imminent. Ditto the driver. Dark green sunglasses covered his eyes but his complexion was of the sunset-pickled-in-alcohol variety. He wore a straw hat with an incongruously perky yellow ribbon. Walters se Fotografie on the side of the van was a foregone conclusion but satisfying nonetheless. Japie missed the turnoff but Solomon knew he'd be back. Sure enough, ten-forty-eight.

A surprise was another chauffeur-driven car. This was a ceremonious black Austin Princess with chromed pedestals on the wings where little diplomatic flags could be set. Two more surprises. A white chauffeur and, in the back a grizzled black man with black sunglasses talking on his cellphone. The car swept massively round the bend and continued imperturbably on its way. Eleven-o-six. There was something about him...

They gave it another half-hour but only some obvious farmworkers (two bikes, a tractor and a moped) used the road.

Solomon knocked on the bulkhead and Adam drove off until he was out of sight of the junction then stopped and let his grateful passengers into the warm plasticy air of his heated cab.

'Youse ouks are onto something here.' Adam chewed his lip. 'Did you recognise that guy in the Rolls?'

'Austin Princess,' Jake quietly corrected.

'A big black official-looking car,' said Solomon impatiently. 'It didn't have diplomatic plates as far as I could see. The occupant did look vaguely familiar. I've seen him somewhere – or at least a reasonable facsimile thereof.'

'He was an apartheid stooge in one of the old bantustans.' Adam tapped his teeth with his thumbnail. 'Ernest something-or-other. They had him up for corruption but he got off. Shabalala. That was it. Ernest Shabalala.'

'Ha. By George, you've got it.' Solomon beamed. 'Kickbacks from a casino, wasn't it? Can you pull over here for a second, Adam. I think we should chat to your friend, the Chief of Police. Fuck. Imagine being able to use the words "friend" and "police" in the same sentence in the good old days. Maybe all change is not for the worse.'

Adam stopped on a flat bit of veld, turned off the engine and pressed buttons. He'd been told to try the station first and was passed on with gratifying dispatch through two underlings. 'Chief Lutuli, this is Adam Malherbe.' Not presuming, keep it official. 'We have some interesting information but I'll hand you over now to my friend Solomon. He's got it all written down.'

Solomon kept it short and sweet with make of car, numberplate and confirmed sightings. The conversation was in Afrikaans liberally sprinkled with English words and phrases. Patrick agreed that a meeting between rich businessmen and disreputable politicians of all shades would bear some discreet investigation. He would have his men look into it. Solomon would be notified if anything concerning him turned up. Thank you and goodbye.

Solomon phoned Selwyn who was ten minutes away with Adam's pet journalist in tow. 'Did they show?' his friend asked nervously. 'It's just that I promised Teague an exclusive.'

'Don't fret. There's enough to keep the conspiracy theorists busy for a week. I've told the police who's there. It's quite a gathering. Tell you when I see you. Can you put me on to Ruthie?'

A little while later the cars arrived. Teague turned out to be a melancholy-looking tubby little man with a dry sense of humour. Creased grey suit, white shirt, cricket club tie. He at once drew Solomon off to one side to pump him with surprisingly sharp questions hidden behind an easy chattiness. The wind rose and a dust-devil in a nearby field made towards them. Adam had to leave in order to pack a consignment of plants for Welkom and Solomon and Teague got to the hired car just as the eddy struck. The car rocked on its springs, visibility shrank to five red feet and the bodywork and glass had a bracing shot-blast of gravel and mealie-stalks. Then it was gone, tottering erratically down the road like a top on its peg.

Solomon's phone rang and it was Nelson. It seemed that he and the other chauffeurs had been told to go away and return later. Not only that, the farm-workers had been given an unprecedented day off and had been lent a tractor and trailer to go to town. Even the house-servants had gone. Only a few of the old and sickly remained in their village. He'd met the cook in town and she'd told him. As for the rest, the 'African person' was indeed Ernest Shabalala and the occupants of the Mercedes were of a middle-eastern appearance.

'Thank you, Nelson. I appreciate this very much. I'll be round to see you soon. Goodbye.' He gave the others the gist of what he'd been told.

'Well, I'm gonna have a look.' Teague opened his door. 'Anyone coming for the ride?'

'I'll come, said Solomon, 'but I think Ruthie and Selwyn should wait here.'

'I'm coming too,' said Jake firmly. 'Perhaps I can find a way to get closer. Adam said they forecast wind. Could be useful.'

'Can't we all go?' asked Ruthie. 'I hate waiting around fearing the worst.'

'No, I think this is best. We may need some backup. If I phone and say "green" that means that everything's OK, "red" means call the police. In any case use your judgement.'

A peck on the cheek and he was gone. The three got into Teague's old Sierra, he turned the key and the three-litre V-six engine caught. A hundred lusty horses pulled them away. As they approached Heersegif Jake and Solomon ducked down. Apart from the six vehicles in the yard there was nothing unusual except perhaps for the man sitting on the stoep with a rifle across his knees. He wore a dark blue trenchcoat and a broadbrimmed boere hat. He watched them out of sight.

'How's about I drop you guys off here?' Teague pulled over. 'I could pretend to be lost – get chatting with the guard.'

'While we do what? Hang around like spare pricks at a wedding. No, I...' Solomon's phone rang. 'Yes, Chief Luthuli, speaking. Ha. Excellent. Thanks very much. Goodbye.' The phone was pocketed. 'The Chief of Police. Apparently two of those numberplates belong to local boys who're fresh out of jail. A condition of their parole is that they're not allowed to consort with known criminals and especially each other. He reckons that's enough to justify sending in a constable to ask a few questions. He should be here in about twenty minutes. I was going to say that I didn't want to rouse their suspicions but the cops'll put the kibosh on that.'

I have an idea,' said Jake. 'If Teague were to drive in through the gate and take the wrong fork that would take us out of sight of the house for a minute. He could drop me off and go back and ask directions. I might be able to get close enough for some vids. Solomon could go in the boot.'

'And what about the dogs and the electric fence?' asked Solomon.

'I'll work out something about the fence.' Jake was quietly confident. 'And if you'll lend me Selwyn's gun I suppose I could shoot the dogs.'

'If you think I'd trust a fucking Englishman to shoot a dog,' Solomon smiled, 'then you haven't got the brains God gave to geese. The rest of the idea's good though. I'll come with you.'

'I didn't actually notice any dogs,' said Teague thoughtfully. 'As an investigative journalist you tend to develope an eye for teeth. Sometimes people tie up their dogs if there are visitors about. Anyway, I'm game to try this stunt if you are.'

'Sure.' Solomon shrugged. 'What's the worst that can happen? We can be shot or mauled by dogs or at worst mauled and then shot. Let's rock.'

Teague turned round and set off. Approaching the gate of Heersegif he slowed and then turned hesitantly in, taking the road to the farmyard while happening to look away from the guard who had run up to the gate shouting and waving his gun. A quick U-turn and he was back at the gate, sans passengers. The guard carried on shouting for a while but was eventually persuaded that Teague was simply a poor misguided fool who'd got hopelessly lost trying to find Sannieshof. Why the rifle, Teague asked sympathetically. Trouble with the kaffers? A farming friend of his had recently been murdered out Potch way. 'OK, ja. Dankie hoor. Na regs, nie links nie. Totsiens meneer.' Teague repeated the directions, thanked the youngster again and got out of the cold and gritty wind into his car. He made a strategic withdrawal, just out of sight.

A sheet of corrugated iron clashed monotonously against the side of a shed. Jake beckoned Solomon inside. It was a workshop but it was the large FIAT tractor with chain-harrow still attached which engaged Jake's attention. The place was deserted and apart from wind-noises, and Teague's departing car, silent. They waited a timid timed ten minutes for guards or for the dogs to be loosed but all seemed calm.

'Do you know how to start these things?' asked Jake from the driver's seat. 'They've left the key in.'

'Sure.' Solomon hopped up beside him. 'You have to let the glow plugs warm up first. Don't tell me that's your cunning plan. To drive through the fence? I like it. It has a refreshing candour about it. I look forward to some high-speed dodging as the bullets fly about us.'

'Oh, we wouldn't be on the thing. Just lash the steering-wheel and let 'er rip. I reckon if we get the wind right there'll be such a cloud of dust behind the harrow that we'll be able to slip in in its wake. Of course that would alert the whole bang-shooting match but we might pick up some interesting reactions.'

'I was thinking of something a little more discreet: snipping a few wires, digging a hole to wriggle through. Or using a ladder.'

'If we could climb to the top of this roof and toboggan down we'd clear the fence by a good three inches. Landing would be the problem. Same as with pole-vaulting.'

Solomon climbed down and looked through a crack in the door. 'I think we could risk getting closer to the gate if we stayed in the cover of that hedge there. It'd be nice to be near the police when they arrive. You bring the camcorder, I'll take the gun. Sounds like a line from a song.'

They squeezed through the gap and were out. Nothing. The wind was against them and brought the clink of chain on iron as well as a collection of howls, roars and whistles. The leylandii hedge had been planted at the insistence of Dirk's wife who didn't like labouring blacks looking in at her as she sipped her breakfast coffee. Since her departure it had been neglected. A row of brown tops showed where it had last been brutally cut back. They gained the last bush. Jake sneaked a look past the end of the hedge and saw that the guard had his back to them, facing into a corner to try and light a cigarette. He didn't see the approaching police truck (used for transporting work-gangs of convicts) until it drove up to the gate and hooted.

The guard gave a perfectly satisfactory start and did the sort of double-take usually reserved for Laurel and Hardy. Seeing only a black policeman getting down from the cab he remembered his dignity and slouched surlily over. The conversation came clearly downwind to where our heroes crouched. Solomon translated. The policeman went woodenly through his rigmarole of having reason to suspect a breach of parole and demanding that the gate be opened. The guard went to talk to his boss. A less laggardly march followed by a rapid ejection.

Mr. Venter says have you got a warrant?

No, but...

No but nothing. Voetsak. There's no-one with those names here.

You refuse to let me see for myself?

Bloody sure, fuck off.

The policeman shrugged, climbed into the cab and turned round. As he drove through the gate the guard lifted the rifle to his shoulder in contemptuous dismissal. There was the sound of a shot and a tail-light cluster burst followed by the twang of a ricochet. The guard dropped his gun in astonishment and looked wildly round him then snatched up the weapon and backed cautiously onto the stoep. Behind the hedge Solomon blew smoke from the barrel of his pistol, picked up the still-hot doppie (ow) and led the retreat to the garage with the still-deafened and shocked Jake behind him.

'That'll fetch them back,' grinned Solomon. 'Soon, I hope, and with lots of reinforcements.'

'Or scare them away altogether. They took off in enough of a hurry. What if they don't come back till they've got a warrant?'

Sounds of a violent confrontation filtered through the trees and a few minutes later two armed guards started a bad-tempered survey of the outer perimeter. Solomon held the flapping corrugated iron tight against the building by pulling on a bent nail in the hope that the searchers would miss it. Footsteps approached the shed and the padlock on the big double doors was perfunctorily rattled. Then the guards walked round the side, passing Solomon's hide without a second glance. Solomon could hear their voices: one a baritone grumble and the other a thin tenor yelp. 'Nee, dit was nie my nie' cut petulantly through the fog and the men walked on. Soon there was the barking of dogs which tailed off and eventually stopped.

'We might have got away with it,' whispered Solomon as his friend joined him at the spyhole.

'How so?'

'I heard the one guy say no, it wasn't him in a way which suggested he wasn't entirely believed. I reckon his maats think he was stupid enough to fire at the police himself and is just lying to cover it up. If we got in we might yet find something useful. Are there any wire-cutters or similar on that toolboard over there?'

'Fraid not. Mainly giant spanners. Look at the size of this Stilson.'

'We call that a bobbejaan, a baboon in these parts,' began Solomon etymologically, but was cut short by the blare of a loudspeaker. This is the police, it announced. Throw down your weapons. The person who had fired at the police vehicle should consider himself under arrest. The message had hardly started being repeated in English when there was a burst of submachine-gun fire. Then silence. Solomon got to the crack just in time to see the police truck reversing rapidly behind the stone wall of the gateway. After a few minutes there was a whoosh as someone fired a bazooka from the house. A smoke-trail led high above the police to a silent puff of dust followed, a heartbeat later, by an earsplitting bang.

'Jesus.' Solomon sounded both shocked and excited. 'They're pinning them down behind that wall. I hope they're not just buying time to get rid of evidence.'

'Who's pinned who down?' asked Jake coming to look.

'Venter's boys have pinned the police. You know some would consider it almost their duty to help the police by creating a diversion.'

'What?' Jake caught Solomon's demonic smile.

'Yup. Time for plan B. Come on, let's go.' Solomon jumped up on the seat of the tractor and half-turned the key. In the agonising wait for the glow-plugs to heat up there was another rattle of bullets.

Jake jumped and hurried to grab a spade and a coil of stout wire.

Solomon gave the key a further twist. The engine churned and fired. He selected first gear, Jake released the handbrake and they surged forwards. The doors went down in a smash of iron, providing a rich cacophony as they were trampled by the wheels and drubbed by the harrow. Selected bits came along for the ride. They stopped while Jake pointed the tractor the right way, lashed the steering-wheel to a convenient handhold and got Solomon to stand to one side, depressing the clutch pedal by using the spade as a lever. Jake selected the third-lowest gear, set the hand-throttle on full-bore and jumped off. Solomon let go of the spade and the tractor reared, pawing the air then set off at a brisk walking-pace. The dust-cloud was all that could have been desired. The tractor stretched and snapped the first fence and then burst through and breached the second. A shout from the house was swamped by a huge explosion as the harrow leaped into the air, showering the chums with filth. Jake got a slash across one cheek and Solomon, who'd been talking, found his mouth full of earth. Otherwise they were unharmed.

'Landmines,' Jake guessed. 'Quick, we'll be safe if we follow the harrow.'

They coughed their way around what, even in this reduced visibility, was a sizeable crater and made by guesswork for the cover of the trees. The tractor had been knocked off course by the blast and was now aimed at the corner of the Dutch-gabled front. Someone was sprinting across the yard to intercept it but Solomon saw he'd never make it. The young rugger star, as he turned out to be, was ten meters short when the tractor struck. It punched through two foot of mud wall like a spade through a fresh anthill and stalled against the gable with a dull boom. For a minute the wall hung there then its knees buckled and it collapsed. To the watching police it was as if the front had fallen off a large doll's house. The tractor had smashed through an office with phone, computer, desk and filing cabinets. A large old safe stood in one corner. Across a Slasto-paved passage in the voorkamer or parlour, Dirk Venter, Japie Walters and (yes!) G.B. van Tonder were standing frozen around a table on which were a number of rifles and grenades. Venter was the first to move. He snatched up a rifle and ran back into the house, a bittereinder to the bitter end. Walters and van Tonder took the other Boer War option and joined the hensoppers. (Work it out).

Solomon could see none of this, but he did hear that the dogs had changed from hysterical barking to an eager whine. He looked round for Jake and realised that he hadn't seen him since they'd first hidden among the trees. Solomon absentmindedly pulled off a strip of rough bark to reveal the cool smoothness underneath. The tough leathery leaves high above rattled in another fierce gust. Sightlines through the forty-odd trees were surprisingly limited. Moving through the leaf and bark litter was noisy but he had to get a view of the back of the house. The loudpeaker spoke again, telling everyone to come out into the open with their hands up. There was a single shot and a ping and the booming voice stopped in mid-word. Nice shooting. Solomon peeped out from behind a tree and found himself opposite the back door. It was a typical farm stoep adorned with miscellaneous agricultural junk. There was a swaybacked sofa, a couple of milk churns, a chain hobble and a box of firewood. The screen door was slightly ajar but the wooden planking behind it looked all-too-solid. Where was Jake? A cold draught blew down Solomon's spine as he wondered if his friend had ratted again and was even now pointing him out to his enemies. He looked around and then back at the door whose oval bakelite handle was now slowly turning. A crack opened. Solomon drew back quietly and steadied his shaking hand, aiming at the legs of whoever emerged. To his surprise, it was Cecily who opened up just enough to squeeze through. She pushed the screen door irritably against an unexpected resistance and the bucket full of ashes which Jake had thoughtfully balanced on its frame yielded to gravity's ineluctable seduction and fell. Cecily was blinded by a shower of ashes and cinders and the edge of the bucket caught her a nasty cut on her forehead. The door slammed nervily shut behind her. Good old Jake leapt up from behind the couch and tore the bag from her unresisting hand before vanishing among the trees. Beat. The bucket rolled to a stop and the clatter of metal on concrete stopped bouncing back from the corrugated-iron roof. Cecily disdainfully brushed herself off and blinked the blood from her eyes. She knocked twice and was readmitted. The short lull ended with with the sound of approaching dogs. Dirk Venter, dogs to heel, dashed from behind the house to the shelter of the furthest trees in depressingly professional fashion. Christ! where was Jake? He'd run towards the far corner from which now came the noise of hunting dogs, coming upwind. There was no point in shooting at this range, not to mention the possibility of hitting Jake by mistake. The back door of the house opened and a couple of inches of rifle-barrel poked through. Solomon moved quietly back for more cover.

'Tst.' Jake's signal cut through a roaring gust of wind.

'You doubled back, you tricky swine,' Solomon whispered in relief. 'I was expecting you to be eaten by dogs at any minute. What's in the bag?'

'A video and a floppy disk, both unlabelled, but I think we can assume they're important. We should get out now.'

'Good idea. How?'

'You're the genius but those dogs are getting too fucking close.'

'Well, we'd never make it back through our hole in the fence. Our best bet would be to stick close to the wall, ducking under the windows. If we can make the front of the house the police can give us covering fire.'

'M. Or we could just smear ourselves with blood and jump into a tank of piranhas. I can see us beating our tiny fists on the gate while being shot at by both sides. Oh, alright. Let's go.'

They sprinted across twenty feet of bare backyard followed by a yell and a belated shot from the back door. They scuttled along the wall, ducking under the windows and had just turned the corner which the tractor had demolished when the path behind them was pocked by bullets.

Things were quieter round the front. The police had siezed the diversion of the tractor's rampage to cut the lock on the gate and drive in. Three were now standing covering the house. Patrick, Walters and van Tonder were trying to lift a stout bluegum pole off the leg of one of the guards and Selwyn was busy tying a bandage round the head of another man. He looked up and saw his friends approaching with hands up and he hurriedly told the police not to shoot. The little patch of grass, bordered on one side by a few spindly weeping willows, was a waste of mud-bricks, breezeblocks and corrugated iron. Solomon and Jake had hardly picked their way over to a delighted Selwyn than Dirk Venter careened round the corner. Jake, nearest to him, was still carrying Cecily's handbag. In a second, Venter stopped, snapped off the choke chains and cried: 'Vat hom!.'

Jake didn't wait for a translation (take him!) but ran. Selwyn saved the day by whipping an old blanket from his vet's bag and interposing this, toreador-style, between the dogs and their prey. 'It's alright boys,' he said soothingly, 'I'm not gonna hurt you.'

To Solomon's amazement sixty-one kilograms of muscle, bone and first-class dentition backed away, cringing and snarling.

'Vat hom!' Venter was purple with rage.

It was unfortunate that Ernest Shabalala chose that moment to surrender, stepping out into the open with his hands raised high. The dogs saved face by ignoring Jake and turning on their traditional enenmy (amazing how they know) and began onomatapoeically worrying him. Venter raised his rifle to fire at the fleeing Jake but a police sniper shot and he went down. Solomon discreetly slipped Selwyn his gun and the vet strolled over to the ravening dogs and with great pleasure blew out their brains. The former Minister for Leisure wasn't too badly hurt although the arm he'd thrown up to keep his throat from being torn out was bleeding through the ripped silk sleeve of his suit.

Venter was still alive, but the bullet had hit his spine and he never walked again.

A Casspir armoured car trundled up, followed by Teague and Ruthie in the Sierra.

It was too quiet. Solomon, looking at the cross-section of the house, noticed a gleam in the loft-space. As his eyes adjusted to the gloom he saw that it was a rifle – one of many in a long rack. There were also metal boxes piled three high and their weight had caused a visible sag in the ceiling-joists. He drew Patrick's attention to this new development with a meaningful glance and the Chief of Police laid a warning finger across his lips.

'Don't shoot, we're coming out.'

Solomon recognised Sir Ambrose's fruity tones. A second later, he, Cecily and an arab dressed in a dark suit and kaffiyeh walked out with their hands up. They were cautioned, handcuffed and arrested despite Sir Ambrose's outraged blustering and the arab's insistence on diplomatic immunity. Cecily, sporting a bloodstained tea-towel around her head, was impassive and silent.

'Is that everyone accounted for?' Patrick asked Sir Ambrose.

'Yes, that's the lot,' Cecily answered for him. 'I feel ill. May I sit down for a moment.' She indicated a nearby bench.

Patrick nodded and she crept over and sat down, a broken woman. 'Jake, are you here?' She seemed to notice him standing nearby for the first time. 'Oh God,' she groaned. 'I've ruined my life.' She sank her head in her hands and began weeping, her shoulder-blades jerking under her dress with the force of her sobs.

Jake, helpless in the face of womanly woe, moved closer with murmurs of consolation. Her grief redoubled.

'Jake! Watch her.' But Ruthie's warning with its hard, contemptuous edge, was too late.

Cecily suddenly bounced up, snatched back her handbag and threw it two-handed, a good long lob, into the middle of the lawn. 'Now, Boetie!' a crisp command. A submachine-gun started up and everyone dived for cover. But the target was the handbag. Divots flew as the range was found and then the bag was shredded like a chicken in a jet engine. A few scraps of black leather and red silk lining blew in the wind. There was a clatter as the gun was thrown to the ground and the young athlete who'd earlier chased the tractor stood in the apex of the roof with his hands raised.

'Don't shoot,' cautioned Cecily hastily. 'There's no one else up there. Let's get this farce over with.'

She walked over and climbed into the back of the police truck followed by Sir Ambrose, Japie Walters, the arabic-looking gentleman (one Yacoub bin Yussuf) and Boetie van Jaarsveld who'd submitted to being helped down and handcuffed by two black constables without trying to disguise the loathing he felt at their touch. The policemen shoved him in, slammed the door and had a careful look round the house for further surprises.

van Tonder, on Solomon's recommendation, was to ride with the Chief of Police.

An ambulance and doctor 'rocked up' to Selwyn's relief and took the wounded off his hands. Now that the excitement was over, the place looked somehow small and shabby. It was obvious that something suspicious had been going on but apart from shooting at the police and destroying a handbag, no crime had been committed. The arsenal in the loft was more serious but that was Dirkie Venter's problem. There was a rat's nest in a cavity in the mud wall and the two Rottweilers lay dead on the lawn in the middle of all the other debris. Selwyn rejoined his chums who were also feeling a deep sense of anticlimax. Cecily's coup in destroying vital evidence had affected Solomon deeply. Not that he blamed Jake, but. Ruthie was busy blaming herself for not having spotted that the devious creature was up to something the minute she'd started hamming it up. As for Jake, he'd probably looked chirpier on hearing of his mother's death while he was in Catford nick.

Teague, on the other hand was delighted. Rumour and speculation were his stock in trade. Attacking the police at the home of the new leader of GAT would fill a good few columns. He'd finished phoning in a preliminary report so they all piled into his car as he set off to follow the prisoners back to town.

It was only when the reporter had dropped them at their hired Passat and had driven away to set up interviews that Jake, who'd been walking about hunched up in grief, reached under his tee-shirt and pulled out a video. He passed it over deadpan to Solomon.

'Don't rub off any fingerprints,' he warned. 'I noticed the Chief of Police chatting away to that black bigshot. They looked a bit too chummy for my liking so I thought I'd better hold on to the evidence in case it mysteriously vanished.'

'You bastard.' Solomon shook his head admiringly. Chuckles gave way to shouts of laughter. Selwyn patted Jake's shoulder while Ruthie reached over and loudly kissed his cheek.

'And the floppy?' asked Solomon, not daring to hope.

Jake dipped into his pocket and held up a flat black plastic square by the edges. 'Poor old Cecily,' he said smugly. 'It really hasn't been her day.'

'She was probably hoping for at worst a fine for destroying evidence and at best suing the police for false arrest. Dear oh dear. It really gets my Irish up when people get off scot-free for welshing on their debts, if you'll pardon the bigotry. Is there a verb to English, I wonder?'

'Don't wonder,' said Jake. 'Let's get into the car and turn on the heater full-blast. I'm frozen to the marrow.'

Chapter 36

Selwyn drove. Jake, wrapped in Ruthie's green fleece, sat beside him indulging in seismic shivers and chattering teeth while Ruthie and Solomon cuddled in the back. With his free hand Solomon was tapping away at his laptop trying to circumvent the security code behind which the contents of Cecily's floppy lurked.

'What four-letter word might Cecily use as a password?' he asked his friends. 'Kali doesn't work, nor does NACT.'

'Golf.' Jake.

'Arms.' Selwyn.

'Loot.' Ruthie.

'Hm. We've got one more try before it locks us out and then it'll be a bugger to hack into,' said Solomon. 'I think we'll have to leave it for now. I don't know what's on this disk, but I bet my bottom dollar it's important. When I told Cecily that Chris had just been arrested trying to smuggle NACT, she was indignant that he'd tried to steal what she called their pension. Something for their old age.'

'Aged is a four-letter word,' observed Jake.

'No.' Ruthie was decided. 'Cecily would rather have teeth pulled than use the word aged as a password. Too OAP. Not her style at all. How about loot? Or cool. Pension scheme plan or plot?'

'Sh.' Solomon looked inward, his eyes suddenly blank. 'No... She didn't say plan or scheme. What was it now?' He replayed his memories, Cecily's face with its transient flash of fury as she heard what Chris had done. The bench, the lake, the tree. 'That was our pension...' she'd said. Our pension what? Solomon walked past the thought pretending he didn't care although his sly sideways glance suggested otherwise. Ducks aquaplaning onto the pond. Memory, tickled, yielded. Yes, there it was. 'Fund,' he told his friends. 'That was it. Our pension fund. A more genteel term than loot. Fund. A nice neutral sound.'

Tickledytick.

'Ha.' Solomon gleefully smacked his fist into his other palm. 'Infuckingcredible. We've done it team - we're in.'

'That mangement-speak course has done you a world of good,' smarmed Ruthie. 'Who's this "we" of which you speak? You mean you, you arrogant bee.'

'No, really, it was just dumb luck. Any of you underlings could have done it.' A cheeky grin.

Ruthie play-punched and then kissed him.

'Nu? What's on it already?' Selwyn brought them back to the business in hand.

'You'd probably have a better idea than me,' said Solomon tilting his laptop screen so that Selwyn could see. 'It's a recipe for some chemical process and there's a diagram of a molecule like a crown of thorns studded with carbon and hydrogen atoms which is where I gave up. It's short and sweet though, only five pages. I can't see the actual letters NACT anywhere, but if that isn't what it's for I'll eat my hat. That leather one that Ruthie so hates. Ah, aitchtwoessohfour. That I recognise. What's an autoclave? No, never mind.'

They were some of miles downwind of Heersegif when there was a single loud whump like an enormous door slamming. In the distance, a cloud of red dust billowed up behind them, growing by the second..

Selwyn pulled over and stopped.

'The ammo dump if I'm not mistaken,' Jake soberly observed. 'Let's hope it was a controlled explosion and that no-one's been killed. Should we go back and see?'

'I suppose we should,' sighed Selwyn. 'Trouble is, I'm a vet. We could claim those GAT ouks that I bandaged were animals but I don't think that would work for the police. I don't fancy a suit for malpractice' He smiled his quirky smile.

Solomon shrugged. 'I think we'd just be in the way. By the time we get back the police and ambulance will be there. Nah. We'll get the story on the news.'

Ruthie sat tightlipped and no-one else volunteered anything so Selwyn got back on the tar road and set off.

'Tjee vet, jong,' Selwyn commanded himself in the local dialect and stepped on the gas.

They found Adam fizzing with news. Teague had just been on the box to reveal exclusively that a group of important people including a black politician, a British peer and a trade attache from an unnamed Gulf state had been arrested at the home of the leader of the Getrouste Afrikaner Trekkers, Dirk Venter. While he was live on CNN, news broke that the arms dump in the loft had exploded but the guards had been at a safe distance awaiting the bomb-disposal squad and that the only injury had been caused by a steel splinter in the larynx of a police constable. The arrested people claimed that a perfectly legal business meeting had been in progress but forebore to amplify. Others arrested included an expert witness for the Truth and Reconciliation Commission and the wife of a British businessman who'd been recently jailed for the attempted smuggling of chemical weapons.

'He didn't say anything about Olieboom,' cautioned Adam, 'but I reckon he's opened a real can of worms. Did you outjies know anything about the arms dump?'

'Jissus no.' Solomon snorted incredulously. 'We were hardly going to ram a tractor into ten tons of TNT were we? I bet it came as a shock to most of those that were there too. But not as much of a shock as I hope this video's gonna give them. This may be it. You have got a video recorder, hey Adam?'

'Sure.'

'You know, love,' Ruthie bit her lip, 'you don't have to go through with this. Let the rest of us watch it first. I don't want you needlessly hurt.'

'Thanks.' A heartfelt smile. 'I don't want me needlessly hurt either, but I'll have to see it sometime so why not now? Or,' as Jake entered with tea and biscuits, 'in a few minutes. Are you warm enough, me ol' china?'

Jake was dressed in Adam's brown cords and a thick red jersey with Ruthie's green fleece on top. His head was inserted into a handsome yellow and brown tea cosy with his ears sticking through the slits for handle and spout. To be fair, Adam's house was cold. There was a woodburning stove which he sometimes lit in the evenings but the plentiful draughts and cold stone floor so welcome in the heat of say, yesterday, did nothing to drive the chill from Jake's bones. Outside the wind had eased and a hazy sun lit the landscape with a cold harsh glare.

Adam and Ruthie opted for rooibos tea but the other three went for good old Joko.

Ten minutes later they were in Adam's small dark voorkamer watching Solomon nervously inserting the video the wrong way only to have it spat out. Second time lucky, the machine noisily swallowed. Adam worked two zappers and brought up a picture which woozed as the automatic tracking kicked in then steadied into a scene of a bare clearing in the red earth in which a group of Coloured people were being herded together by two men with guns.

'Olieboom,' Solomon noted tersely. 'Friends and family.'

The film was silent as was obvious when the camera zoomed in on two people talking.

'That's Colonel Brandt,' whispered Selwyn excitedly as he recognised his old commanding officer.

'He's talking to my Uncle Hector.'

Even without the sound it was obvious that Hector was pouring on the charm and being disdainfully ignored. The camera pulled back to show that the guards, seen from behind, were hustling people through a door in a wall smothered with white Bougainvillea.

Through his tears Solomon saw enough to be proud of the quiet dignity of his people. Dad, in his faded brown overalls and black wellingtons took his mother's arm as they walked through the door into the dark. And when a guard nudged Hector's sports-jacket with his gun he got no more than a look of sad reproof. Solomon recognised that jacket. Hector had always been a sharp dresser and the white linen number with its decorative black stitching was a favourite of his. When everyone was inside, the door was padlocked shut. The barred windows, Solomon remembered, had been set high in the wall to enable the schoolroom to be used for storage from time to time. Cut. The next shot was presumably from just such a window, looking down along a diagonal. Shafts of sunlight picked out two men arguing and a crying woman while the children huddled disconsonately in the middle. On one side Solomon's brother Conrad sat on a desk with his arm around little Susie. It was true. He was lighter than the average Witbooi... Solomon recognised them all, even one or two he'd forgotten, although his parents were out of shot. Then a dark thing flashed across the lens and fell to the floor. Four liquid lances shot out, quartering the room and quickly expanding into a blanket of foam which just as quickly evanesced. The effect was almost instantaneous. Whether Hector had tried to throw himself on the device to protect the others or whether his spasms had simply toppled him onto it was moot but in any case he landed on it looking like he'd been broken on a swastika. Of course he was much too late. This was no tide of death, it was lightning. It was as if the whole room had been simultaneously siezed by a variety of cramps – a hooped spine here, a foetal crouch there. The camera panned across the room revealing Solomon's mother with her head forced back, baring her teeth in a dead-dog snarl and a stiff leg with a wellington sticking up from behind an overturned table. In less than half a long minute everyone was dead.

The scene changed. Now they were outside again. In the bright sunshine, four soldiers wearing gasmasks were chucking bricks off a truck. It was a ten-ton Leyland with a dark blue cab on the door of which was written: H. Witbooi. Building Supplies. Cut to later, piles of broken bricks. Soldiers standing by eight flat crates with one opened to show the rifles inside. Camera pans round to the bed of the truck where another soldier points to a compartment under the boards where the arms were presumably hidden. This soldier has taken off his gas mask and as he looks up gloatingly those who have known the pleasure of his company recognise Snakey Snyman. White noise made visible. The tape stopped and the TV at once reverted to The Bold and the Beautiful but was immediately quashed by Adam. The videorecorder paused for reflection then rewound.

Solomon gently eased Ruthie's anguished clutch and took a deep breath. 'Listen,' he said quietly, 'I've just got to take a little walk by myself. Don't worry, I'll be alright.' And with a strained nod to the rest of the company he walked out.

Ruthie sat stricken, her eyes frozen wide in horror.

Adam shook his head and started up an octave: 'Hellsteeth man,' (urghm, he downshifted) 'to just sommer kill people like cockroaches. I saw some horrible things in Mozambique but nothing like that. And you reckon they were trying to sell this stuff to some Arabs?'

'Well, it certainly looks that way.' Jake tried to be dispassionate. 'I wonder how they got the jets to fire at the right angle? Gyroscope or something. Funny to think that Cecily may be right – if you're determined to kill in cold blood this may well be the most humane way to do it.'

'It beats Zyklon B by a mile,' said Selwyn flatly. 'That's what the Germans used. Took about fifteen minutes. They knew it had worked when the screaming stopped. Thank God this one was silent.'

Ruthie burst into loud, ugly tears and rushed off to find Solomon. He was not far away, leaning against a grapevine which grew up over the stoep. Sobs, every now and then, seemed to have been torn from his insides with a grapnel. Ruthie coughed. He turned to face her, tear runnels in the dust, and flashed his gaptoothed smile. She flung herself (oof) into his arms and they clung together like straws in a torrent. Solomon sniffed as he braced himself and Ruthie (being that sort of girl) offered him some tissues.

Bloort.

'That was my family,' said Solomon simply. 'Country people who thought they were as good as any German or Afrikaner. Jesus, talk about aiming low. Harmless, on the whole, although I must admit it does look like Hector was doing a bit of gun-running on the quiet. Apart from him they were slow and shrewd and cautious. I remember how embarrassed I was when my folks came down to Cape Town one time to see me – I must have been about ten years old. They seemed such country hicks. But back in Olieboom we got on fine, although it's fair to say that Susie and I were the only kids with any intellectual potential. My older brother Conrad was a sweet guy but solid teak between the ears. Hi ho as Vonnegut so often remarks.'

The pain abated somewhat, absorbed into Ruthie's reserves of calm. A last hug and a long, tonguey kiss and they went back to their friends.

Everyone had decamped to the kitchen where Adam was just getting some freshbaked bread out of the oven.

'Solomon, are you OK?' Selwyn put an arm around his shoulder. 'I feel for you, man. But at least we'll get the ones responsible.'

'Sure. The victims are no deader than they were ten years ago and at least now I know how they died. Quite different from how I'd imagined it. Fuck, that bread smells good. So. What's the next step?'

'It'd be good to copy that video before we hand it over,' suggested Jake. 'I suppose you've copied the floppy. That little disk's worth a lot of money to someone.'

'No longer.' Solomon flashed a mirthless smile. 'I've stuck it on the net – it's free to anyone who wants it.'

'Are you crazy?' Ruthie demanded. 'You've only given every fanatic on the planet the way to kill us all.'

'Slight exaggeration, perhaps. You'd need quite a sophisticated factory to make the stuff and the delivery system looks like a pretty complicated bit of kit. But this trial's going to raise a lot of interest in NACT and Cecily certainly has her own copy of the method for making it. Then there's Chris and probably Jasper and the Yanks and the Brits. I thought it might be a fairer trial if commercial considerations were not involved. Anyway, alea jacta est and a half.'

'Yes,' Jake smiled a slow smile, 'and the merchants of death will be so pleased you've killed their cash cow that they'll want to shake you warmly by the throat. Besides, correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't arming terrorists somewhat illegal?'

'A thing's only illegal if you get caught,' pontificated Solomon. 'The information's apparently been there for months already and it would be very, very difficult to trace back to me. But the first person to tap NACT and one other word into Google is in for a pleasant surprise.'

The four ganged up on Solomon but failed to sway him. Was he simply lashing out blindly in his grief? No. Was his own revenge more important than the lives of strangers? No. 'People kill other people,' he replied. 'These days mass-murderers are spoilt for choice. I'm amazed, for instance, that no-one's thought of stealing a petrol tanker, pumping its load down the tube and waiting for the first spark. So cheap and easy.' Couldn't he withdraw the info? No, he'd already created too many links. Sorry, but there it was.

Adam's phone rang and after a few words he handed it to Solomon. It was Teague with less than cheering news. A judge sitting in special session had just freed bin Yussuf and released Cecily, Sir Ambrose and Ernest Shabalala on bail of two hundred thousand rand each. Teague thought they'd probably walk. The most they were likely to get Cecily on was a charge of destroying evidence. The GAT boys had been thrown in chookie for illegal possession of arms and firing at the police and there were further possibilities. Investigations continued into where the tractor had come from but as it had exposed the illegal land-mines and the arsenal in the attic; and had hurt no-one except the pair of neanderthals who'd been firing a bazooka and a submachine gun at representatives of law and order, 'and,' as Teague drily remarked, 'even they weren't hurt much. I had the the impression that the police weren't all that worried about the tractor. What I'd really like to know is what was in that bag that Mrs. Metcalfe had destroyed.'

'I bet you would,' Solomon teased, then was abruptly all business again. 'Listen, Teague. Have you got some means of copying videos?'

'Ja, I got a little editing deck in the car. Why?'

'Because I've got something you really ought to see. Where are you now?'

'Waiting outside the courthouse with a whole bunch of other journalists for the Chief of Police. He's gonna say his piece and answer a couple of questions.'

'Don't waste your time. We've got you an exclusive here that'll put you back on the front pages. We're at Adam's farm now but I could come to you or we could meet halfway.'

'No, I'll come to you. I know where it is. See you in about an hour. Don't talk to anyone else, hey.'

'No way. Great. You won't regret it.'

And Solomon returned to the cavils of his mutinous friends.

'So then you'd give every nation on earth the Bomb I suppose.' Ruthie deployed the reductio ad absurdum.

'Actually, there's quite a lot to be said for that idea.' Solomon kept cool. 'But I can't see NACT being used much by terrorists. It's too quiet. They do like their bangs and infernos, bless them. An undamaged building full of corpses, no matter how picturesquely distorted, lacks the element of dash and bravado. If used on a big scale it would probably be by the big powers who already have it. No, as a weapon, it's only so-so: as a frightener, however, it's first-class. I hope you won't let on. People get so emotional about treason. But it'll be OK. Honest Injun. Trust me.'

And that was that. 'Oh, well. What the hell,' as Jake put it.

Freshbaked bread, butter and homemade apricot jam (with the cyanidey tang of the kernels) soon put things in perspective. Afterwards Selwyn and Jake went off to see what they could make of the recipe for NACT. The answer was: not much. Selwyn had, as a vet, studied chemistry but these formulae were way beyond him. The explanations made more sense and he grasped the nub of the idea that the breakthrough lay in rendering myelin conductive so as to short out the body's electrical signals, but he could no more have whipped up a batch than flown. The foam bomb made more sense to Jake. It resembled a metal burger about nine inches in diameter with jets poking through the slot in the 'bun'. The reservoir for poison was only two hundred cc., most of the rest of the space being reserved for compressed carbon dioxide and a simple impact trigger mechanism as well as a venturi tube for sucking up the foaming solution. Nowadays, thought Jake, a tad regretfully, they'd be full of chips.

So someone had just tossed it down and it had landed flat as a cowpat. The shock tripped the inertia trigger and gas blasted through the jets, picking up soap and poison on the way. So simple, so efficient. Jake had to admit to a grudging admiration of the design.

Fifty-three minutes after his phonecall Teague arrived, hot on the scent of a new exclusive. He ran the tape on his editing deck while Solomon identified people, choking up only twice. Teague, hardbitten hack that he was, was profoundly shocked. Roomful of men, women and children callously blotted out... Man's inhumanity to man... The clichés tumbled through his mind and he felt their inadequacy. Better leave out the arms found in the lorry, he told himself, don't muddy the main story. He copied and cut and soon had a film of the actual atrocity and a few soundbite-sized clips, which was where the money was. The part with Hector's lorry went onto another tape. The voiceovers he'd do later. Now for the interviews.

'So, Jake, would you be willing to swear on oath that this tape and this floppy disk here were found by you in Mrs. Cecily Metcalfe's bag?' asked Teague, deadly serious.

'Sure. They may even find her fingerprints or fibres from her bag or something.'

'And Solomon, you reckon that the information on this floppy disk could be used to make the poison gas we saw in the video?'

'I couldn't swear to it, but I'll be very surprised if that doesn't turn out to be the case.'

'I reckon so too,' Selwyn chipped in.

'Ja, I can quite see why Mrs. Metcalfe was prepared to risk imprisonment for destroying evidence. This stuff is dynamite. Talk about life after death.' Teague sighed. 'I was going to head for Joeys to see a couple of editors, but I think I'd rather come with you to hand over that evidence to the police. You are going to hand it over, I take it?'

Solomon nodded.

'Good. I'd recommend letting the local Chief of Police have first crack at it. I like to keep in with him where possible. What's your story for keeping it from him all this time?'

'Oh, in the excitement Jake clean forgot he'd taken them and it was only when we got back here that he remembered,' Solomon glibbed.

'Hm. Surely you can do better than that. Anyway, let's slaan voet in die wind en waai.'

'Ja, we'll go in a minute.' Solomon frowned abstractedly. 'Listen, Teague, can we just have another dekko at the beginning of that vid? Something's bothering me.'

The spinning head scanned the tape. Rust and plastic magnetically remembered. Again Hector was remonstrating with Colonel Brandt...

'Stop.' Solomon paused the tape, nudged the rewind and then advanced the tape frame by frame. In the bottom right-hand corner a wing-mirror on a Land-Rover caught a flash of sun. Back again, before the dazzle and there it was – a face slipping away in the mirror as the camera moved. On Teague's monitor the image in the mirror was tiny – a red face, a striped white shirt and an institutional-looking tie. The company gathered round.

'I might be reading things into this,' Solomon drummed his fingers. 'Who would you say that was?'

'Oh come on,' scoffed Jake. 'It's as plain as the exceptionally plain nose on your face.'

'Of course it is,' said Ruthie matter-of-factly.

Through the murk of a video of a film of a reflection of ten years ago displayed on a flickering screen, the face of Sir Ambrose Mortimer looked out. Their cup ranneth over.

Chapter 37

If the news that various leading figures from the international world of business had been associated with a discredited rightwing organisation like GAT had caused a stir, the revelation of what Cecily (allegedly) had in her handbag caused a storm. The video of the actual gassing soon appeared on the net although most broadcasters stuck to selected stills. Solomon's deposition that the place shown was Olieboom and the victims mostly members of his family aroused fierce indignation although there were immediate counter-suggestions that the whole thing was a put-up job.

van Tonder was the first to break. He cut a deal with the Truth and Reconciliation Committee just hours before the amnesty deadline in the hope that his peripheral involvement in mass murder would be more leniently dealt with.

The blow to Cecily of discovering that she hadn't, after all, managed to destroy the evidence was followed by two more. First was Chris's assertion from his prison cell that he alone had been responsible for Operation Kali and that his wife was entirely innocent. In a private letter which he'd had smuggled out to her, he'd said that he would do anything to help her if only she'd come back to him once he got out of jail. Cecily was touched and even felt a frisson of lust. The second was that she had finally forced herself to watch the video of the gassing and found herself sinking into a deep depression. She'd expected mud huts and barefoot peasants, not ordinary-looking respectable working folk she might have met at a Sussex church bazaar. Susie in particular reminded her of Pookie at the same age, with the pert assurance of a pampered child who knew that nothing would ever be allowed to hurt her. Cecily had not yet been charged with anything but the manager had discreetly asked her to leave his hotel. To avoid the press she'd had to suffer the ignominy of asking Jasper's Charleen (now back in South Africa) to put her up.

Cecily, Sir Ambrose and Ernest Shabalala had all been interrogated separately and together, with and without lawyers but all done with the utmost punctiliousness. They'd kept shtum.

Yakub bin Yussuf (may his tribe increase) was declared persona non grata and sent back to a Sharia trial. The Levantine ambassador insisted that bin Yussuf's putative actions had been entirely on his own initiative but he received a formal reprimand nonetheless.

Solomon told the police all he thought they needed to know. The bit about he and Jake having arrived just as the tractor had ploughed through the fence was thin but unimpeachable. Still, as Teague had suggested, no-one seemed to be following this up. The temporary withholding of vital evidence, namely the video and floppy disk, caused a few awkward moments but Jake's performance as a village idiot had made even that acceptably plausible. Besides, he'd saved this valuable material in the first place, from certain destruction. The defence lawyers didn't want prosecution witnesses turned into heroes either; and the black Chief of Police seemed too delighted at the prospect of jailing some prominent haters of his race to look too closely at his allies. Nevertheless statements were taken and signed and they were cautioned to keep the police aware of their movements.

Olieboom was different. Back in Joburg Solomon handed over the Marmite bottle with its piece of snake and Apfelbaum's analysis. He also mentioned that another portion of the snake was in the hands of the UN.

Nothing happened apart from a frenzy of speculation as to how much the principals in the case stood to have made from the selling of the gas. Sums of tens of millions of dollars were bandied about. Then Sir Ambrose jumped bail and over the next few days was reported in a Carribean tax-haven, in Helsinki and with his friend Kim Jong Il in North Korea. The police were embarrassed. Questions were asked and conspiracy theories flourished like fractals. Cecily and Ernest were kept under close surveillance. Namibia put a spoke in the wheel by claiming that the separate trial for the massacre at Olieboom should be held in the country where it had happened. South Africa replied that as the alleged atrocity had occurred under a de facto South African administration and had involved members of the South African security forces, it was felt more appropriate that the trial be conducted there. In any case Olieboom and the latest abortive deal were too closely tied together to be decoupled. But they were open to negotiation. The trial sank out of public sight and the pack of newshounds ran yelping off after the next story. The Public Prosecutor seemed to be taking forever to bring charges.

The dynamite which broke this logjam was provided by a fact-checker on the Hastings Echo, a little Nebraska newspaper owned by a multinational conglomerate. A whimsical article about chemical weapons had led Angie to check a reference to NACT. She'd typed in NACT and Oilybom (spelling was never her strong suit) and found one reference to a virgin site. She clicked and there it was. Complete instructions, so the preamble informed her, of how to construct a chemical weapon of quite exceptional nastiness.

'Mike,' she'd called across the tiny office, 'is this what I think it is?'

The chief sub ambled over. 'Looks like a D.I.Y. bomb of some sort Angie, but I flunked science at high-school. Isn't that that stuff they used in Africa somewhere? Where's our list of rentaquote experts?'

An hour later the whole world knew that the deadly expertise which had commanded millions so little time ago was now worth, as Solomon put it, 'gaai.'

As if by magic, things started to move. Charges were brought relating to weapons dumps and conspiracy to supply banned weapons and a commission was appointed to look into Olieboom but its results weren't expected anytime soon. The FBI traced the leaked information back eleven months to a computer in a weather station in Baffin Bay but nothing pointed to any particular member of staff and the likelihood that someone had hacked into their system gathered credence.

'Confucius he say burn your bridges only when bloody sure enemy on other side,' Solomon intoned gnomically. Since the bomb-making information had become public, relations with both Jake and Ruthie had been a little prickly.

Sir Ambrose was discovered in a cottage in Port Shepstone after an anonymous tipoff. An examination into his affairs had discovered that he was deeply in debt and yet money was somehow found for an expensive lawyer. Hauled back to Johannesburg he'd tried to avoid answering questions on Olieboom, pleading the Official Secrets Act but the government back home in Britain was in the midst of one of is anti-corruption drives and spat out the lukewarm Sir Ambrose saying that whatever he may or may not have done in Olieboom had had no official sanction and that the law should take its course. As to whether Sir Ambrose's later ministerial duties had included oversight of chemical weapons, well, that really would come under the Official Secrets Act. Suffice it to say that Great Britain was fully cognizant of her international obligations in this area and took her compliance with the relevant provisions extremely seriously. So there.

van Tonder had meanwhile confessed to the supplying of false paperwork to cover up the storage of forty kilograms of NACT as agricultural chemicals. But the big Afrikaner insisted he'd been leant on by two members of the then-apartheid government and forced to comply. He named two rabid right-wingers, both sadly deceased. As for the 'K' in his personal phonebook, he'd been unaware that it was registered to a certain Cecily Louch and had only used it once, to report that one of his scientists had found traces of NACT in a specimen but that he, van Tonder, had put the fear of God into the man and was sure there was no danger of a leak. No, he'd never met the lady, addressed her as Kay. He'd been given her number by one of the aforementioned Members of Parliament. He couldn't swear that the voice on the phone had been Cecily Metcalfe, but it was a woman with an English accent. The next day he'd received a hand-delivered package with five thousand rands cash in it and no receipt.

Cecily swallowed a handful of sleeping-pills but her stertorous snoring had roused Charleen and she was pumped out in time, ruining a perfectly horrible carpet. She was put on suicide watch in a private clinic and her daughter Phillipa flew out to be with her.

So far everyone positively identified on the video was dead. The entire village of Olieboom, Colonel Brandt, Snakey Snyman. Solomon's lot had been wrong about the man glimpsed in the wing-mirror. It couldn't possibly have been Sir Ambrose Mortimer. He had three highly-respectable people ready to swear that he'd been with them at the time of the atrocity, on a week-long fishing trip up the Wild Coast. It was true that the tie in the reflection was of more or less the shade of that of Sir Mortimer's old school, but what of it? The pattern was too indistinct to be of help, anyway as even Solomon, after digitally enhancing the image, was forced to concede.

The mills of justice ground exceeding slow.

The original eight-millimeter film of the atrocity was found in the safe at the back of Japie Walters's studio along with a spare video. Japie claimed never to have watched the film. As a loyal GAT member he'd simply developed it and given it back to the customer, whose name escaped him. He'd only seen it again the other day when Dirk Venter came in out of the blue and asked him to put it on video. Like so much else, the name Jasper Keate meant nothing to him.

The original reports on Olieboom were exhumed but some files were 'lost' or 'missing'. The military investigation into what was concluded to have been the accidental explosion of an arms dump had been signed off by Colonel Petrus Brandt but the forensic scientists quoted appeared on no army roll or academic register.

A sporting scandal erupted and Olieboom was relegated to the occasional filler. Teague banged on whenever he got the chance but two psychiatrists had testified that Cecily's precarious mental health wouldn't permit her to stand trial anytime soon.

Meanwhile, Solomon had taken his eye off the commercial ball and a Korean conglomorate had pirated some of his best software and was undercutting his company. Solomon's response was to release it free onto the net. Ruthie began to wonder if it was he, rather than Cecily who was cracking up under the strain, but he seemed preternaturally cheerful.

'Ag man let it go. Micmac's licence has run out anyway. I've got a much better version in mind.'

A bad outbreak of Brucellosis in Modderfontein had taken Selwyn away for a few days leaving Solomon and Ruthie alone in the house. Jake had gone back to his new National Trust job in Yorkshire, via a week in Madagascar and Katrina was at a music festival in Grahamstown. Even Lily was off. They were huddled together on the couch eating Ruthie's famous bubble and squeak and drinking cups of tea in front of the fake flames of the electric fire.

'The thing is,' Ruthie turned and eyed her lover with that frank look which men so dread, 'I'm tired of all this. I'm frightened. The people who want to kill us are still running around free. And I keep expecting you to be arrested any day now for putting that horrible stuff on the net. And I'm scared to open the paper and find some group of maniacs has gassed Tokyo with NACT.'

'And how many die on the roads or starve or are killed by treatable diseases. Not to mention the slaughter of conventional warfare.' Solomon shrugged. 'Nosiree Bob, you-all ain't a-gonna hang no liberal guilt-trip on me. As Nietzsche says, one must bear great burdens lightly. Besides, the game's not played out yet.'

'Will it ever be? There's Cecily pretending to be mad and Sir Ambrose with a cast-iron alibi and even if, by some miracle, they should be convicted there'll be endless appeals and dirty tricks. Look,' Ruthie rolled up her eyes, 'we know the who and the when and the how. Everyone involved will suffer or has suffered. Let what passes for justice trundle on. You'll have your day in court, but can't we just somehow forget all this for now?'

'OK.' Solomon nodded curtly. 'We will. I think it's time you met Auntie Minnie.'

Chapter 38

They drove down to the Cape. Solomon had got a four-for- three-weeks rental from the car-hire company and had opted for a Toyota Camry, despite the name reminding him, for some reason, of a cringing cur. They took their time and stopped overnight at a hotel in Colesberg, just over the Free State border.

'This is such a treat, I can't tell you.' Solomon was lying on his side on the too-soft mattress and gazing at the cheap chipped melamine furniture.

'Oh, it's not so bad,' said Ruthie undaunted. 'At least it's clean.'

'No, I'm serious. Not this particular hotel, which could be charitably described as a shithole, but simply that I can turn up and pay and get a room. I can be condescended to as a necessary nuisance like everyone else. Travelling about as a coloured in the good old days was fun – you weren't allowed into either the whites-only or even the blacks-only facilities. Outside the Cape there was practically nothing for us. It was worse for others. Indians gorenganzen weren't allowed to stop overnight in the Free State.'

'How did you manage?'

'Where possible we stayed with friends or acquaintances and there was a sort of grapevine of coloured kamers and B and Bs. Or we took turns to sleep in the car. I have done Joburg to Capetown in a day which is what you would call a thousand miles, but that's a bit much. The bad news is that I'd like to get going early tomorrow so that we can get through most of the Karroo before it gets too hot.

Ruthie had already learned the power of the South African sun. Distracted by the freezing air-conditioning, her left arm and the side of her face had got badly burned and her thighs had come out in red blotches in sympathy.

The hotel food with its grey slice of roast beef and overcooked vegetables sat heavy on her stomach. The black forest gateau hadn't been properly defrosted and the meal had been a waste of a bottle of tolerable wine. She felt suddenly weepy and weak. What was going on in this harsh strange land? Ruthie closed her eyes and saw road hurtling towards and through her and miles of barbed-wire fence and dry red earth. At long intervals there was a dry streambed or a clump of bleached reeds. They had passed through a belt of veld-fires with blinding smoke. A gust of wind had momently engulfed them in flames.

'Fancy a nibble?' asked her lover. 'They've given us peanuts and biltong and crisps in the minibar.'

'What, no rusks?' Ruthie's giggle had a hysterical edge. 'I just fancied a rusk washed down with a nice cup of flour.'

'We've got a kettle and tea and coffee and non-dairy creamer. I could make a beverage of some sort.'

'No,' Ruthie sprang up, 'I'll do it. Oh God.' She caught sight of herself in the mirror. 'What will your Auntie Minnie think of me? I look like a harlequin.'

'You'd fit right into the Coon Carnival.' Solomon smiled fondly. 'And don't worry about Auntie Min. She'll love you - unless she unaccountably takes against you. Depends how much dop she's had. No, don't worry. I'm joking. She's fine. Firm but fair.'

'Am I that transparent?' Ruthie blushed which at least evened out the red a bit. Her ginger hair had frizzed out in the dry air and whenever she walked across the nylon carpet and touched something she got a shock. Still, at least Solomon was with her. She filled and turned on the kettle and bent to kiss her man. A painful spark jumped earlobes.

'Come lie to me and be my love,' said Solomon nuzzling her breast.

'Ow. That hurts. Hang on, the kettle's boiling. I must drink or die. Not to mention another little lubrication problem.'

True. Sex had been more than a bit rocky of late. Ruthie still had grave reservations about the morality of unleashing NACT on the world although she had to concede that things had only started moving once that little bomb had reached its destination. The scientific community was split over whether the synthesis described was even possible. Bolting the stable door, the US put retention of data relative to NACT on its proscribed list, stopping legitimate research dead. But Jasper's foam dispersal mechanism showed promise and had been quietly appropriated by several interested parties.

Ruthie was worried about meeting Auntie Minnie while Solomon couldn't help wondering what she would make of the Cape Coloured community. True, there was a growing coloured middle class to which he supposed he belonged but the more visible majority were poor, loud, diseased and drunk. And British slums weren't a patch on the shanty-town slum which lapped at Auntie Minnie's concrete garden wall.

The hotel's twin guest beds were pushed together and as Ruthie feared her continuous desire to wee might be the harbinger of an attack of cystitis, they didn't bother to pull out the tight sheets and blankets and make a common nest but kissed, held hands and drifted off to sleep. At least Solomon was soon snoring while Ruthie, able to lie on only one side because of her sunburn, was awake and being driven mad by the feel of the sheet against her bare leg. She must have slept because the alarm's hysterical yeeping broke into a dream of feeding her father Syrup of Figs in the back of the docks bus.

By six they were on the road. Ruthie's sunburn had started to itch. Solomon pulled off the road, climbed a barbed-wire fence (ripping his Levis) and reappeared triumphantly bearing a spike of oozing cactus liberally garnished with thorns.

'For your sunburn.'

'What, I suppose I'm to sit on it maybe to take my mind off the itching. What is it anyway?'

'Aloe. Aloe Ferox. Al to its friends. Rub some of this green slime on you. It's very soothing. Even we Bastards burn.'

Ruthie doubtfully dabbed then smiled and slathered it on. 'M. Yes. That's great.' A quick but fervent kiss. 'Who's a clever Sollykins then?'

'Thatsy-watsy's meezy-weezy I supposey-wosey. Fancy a shaggy-wag my pretty maid?'

'Nobody asked you, Sir, she said.'

On. Lunch at Beaufort West was spoilt by the mutterings and black looks of a couple of Afrikaner louts at a nearby table and the churlishness of the white woman at the till. Ruthie was depressingly reminded of certain Neanderthal Ulster Unionists of her acquaintance.

On the road again they passed an open truck of Coloured farm workers just as something made them laugh. Ruthie was treated to twenty variations of her lover's gaptoothed smile, with its so-called "passion gap". Hours passed. The sun reflected off the stony land and gave Ruthie a headache. The blue ridges which had appeared on the horizon seemed to be getting no closer. Despite the foreground flashing by the view wheeled leisurely on either side. Then the land heaved and they were among the shrugged rocky shoulders of the Hex River Mountains, threading a pass. Something in Ruthie stirred. They crested a hill and below them lay the lush greens and yellows of the Hex River Valley in the sunlight of a late afternoon. Beauty's balm flooded Ruthie's sore dry soul. It was going to be alright. A tear crept down her cheek, reminding her that she needed a wee.

Chapter 39

Auntie Minnie had all her teeth and a powerfully direct gaze. Her tiny house, in a row of tiny houses plonked down on the sand of the Cape Flats, was homely and cluttered and smelt of fish and spices. She was small and stout and after briefly but emotionally embracing Solomon she stood on tiptoe to plant a kiss on Ruthie's cheek which the Northern Irish lass repaid with interest.

'We eat in five minutes,' Auntie Minnie announced. 'No. Make that four and a half. Go and freshen up, dear.'

Ruthie found herself in a minute bathroom tiled entirely in pink with dark-brown grouting. She washed the aloe juice and calamine lotion off her face and patted damp hands on her bristly hair. Oh God. In the sea air it it had started to curl. Three minutes gone already. She was fourteen again and back in gym. The whistle had blown and she was still struggling with a knotted shoelace. Her face was parti-coloured and a rash of freckles had broken out across her strong Irish nose. Solomon came and gently led her through into the kitchen just as Auntie Minnie was ladling a chunky fish stew into three deep porringers.

It was spicy and sweet and sour and with buttered wholemeal bread, quite substantial. Auntie Minnie watched approvingly as Ruthie ploughed into a second helping.

'Oh, this is so delicious, er..'

'Call me Auntie Minnie my dear. Everyone does.'

'Thank you, I will. What are these delicious little morsels, Auntie Minnie?'

'Those are called sour or Hottentot Figs. They're the fruit of some succulent, I believe.'

'Mm. That sourness against the fish is just perfect.' Ruthie's sincerity shone through. Solomon started, too soon, to relax. Through the kitchen window came sounds of a siren and shouts and screams.

'Police raid,' remarked Auntie Minnie.

The siren stopped and was succeeded by the unmistakeable sounds of heckling and further hoarse, angry shouting.

'Fancy a look at another side of the new South Africa?' Solomon offered. 'If Auntie Minnie will excuse us for a moment.'

'Certainly.'

The kitchen window cast its yellow light through some strong bars onto a small backyard edged by a six-foot fence of concrete panels. Beyond lay a choppy sea of rusty corrugated iron and sacking with candles or lamps shining here and there. The noise was centred on a police van with a flashing blue light which stood nearby. A couple of the local clowns were dancing with obscene intent in the glare of the headlights. Four police with torches grabbed a struggling man, threw him in the back of the van and climbed in after him. Some operatic screaming was performed by an unknown female as the van nosed its way slowly through the jeering crowd and drove off. Relative peace descended.

'Sure, it's like the Bogside on a Saturday night,' said Ruthie with a sigh, once back at the table.

'They're desperate people,' said Auntie Minnie compassionately. 'But I've never had any trouble. They know I'll always help them if I can. I've taught many children over the years and they haven't all turned into into prostitutes and gangsters. But violence is endemic. A man was murdered not one hundred meters away just the other night. They said it was vigilantes killing a drug-pusher but who knows? District Six in the old days was full of pubs and brothels but there was astonishingly little violence. All the races got on together.'

'Except for the blacks who were chucked out in nineteen-oh-one,' reminded Solomon. 'Although, to be fair, the biggest shock the Nats ever had was when the Coloureds voted with the blacks to get rid of them.'

'So young and so cheeky.' Auntie Minnie sadly shook her head. 'Just for that you get no pumpkin fritters. Ruthie and I will have to eat the lot.'

'Suits me.' Ruthie joined in the game.

'Huh. If I didn't eat your precious pumpkin fritters, you'd sulk for a month.' Solomon shoved back his chair. 'Where are they? In the oven?'

'As you well know. I saw you sneaking a look just now. Oh, go on then. Get them out. Ruthie, there's some sugar and cinnamon in that bowl behind you and a lemon on the sideboard. That's it. Thank you dear.'

After supper they waddled into the lounge for coffee and Auntie Minnie turned into the Grand Inquisitor. So much for a carefree holiday. She took them through the entire Olieboom story from the original massacre to the latest developments, showing an unnerving ability to skewer any weaknesses or inconsistencies in their accounts.

'It's a pity that the young man who found the video and floppy disk in Mrs. Metcalfe's bag is a convicted drug dealer,' Auntie Minnie pointed out. 'That will damage his credibility. And you say there were no usable fingerprints on either. It's difficult to see why else she'd want the handbag destroyed but you can't prove a negative. You really need someone who was actually there in eighty-six to speak up. What's this about Sir Ambrose's reflection in a mirror?'

Solomon got out his scrapbook and showed the relevant still from the video. Despite being computer-enhanced and blown up to A4 it was still murky and the elapsed time indicator which Japie Walters had superimposed on the original film meant that Sir Ambrose had a 3 over one eye. The facing page had a copy of the photo which Sir Ambrose had leaked to the press showing himself and two other men holding a fish apiece on the deck of a fishing-boat. Behind them was sea and sky.

'This is where Sir Ambrose claims he was at the time of Olieboom. The photo was taken by the fourth member of the party, a certain Harvey Birch. He's some big deal in Anglo-American and he's also the owner of the cottage where Sir Ambrose was hiding.'

'Another discreditable witness.' Auntie Minnie could, in another time and place, have been a formidable lawyer. She put on her reading-glasses and looked from one photograph to the other for an uncomfortably long time.

'It does look like him,' she finally conceded. 'Of course one is full-face and the other three-quarter profile but there's something about the jaw in particular that's striking. And this other one was supposedly taken on the same day that the arms cache in the school-room allegedly exploded. I suppose that they could have been gassed on one day and blown up on another but I think we can safely assume that they'd want to cover up their crime as soon as possible.' Auntie Minnie sighed and sniffed. Ruthie patted her hand.

'The thing about photographs is how humbling they are.' Solomon had a faraway look in his eye. 'It's always interesting the way you see what you want to see, but, in my pictures anyway, the camera picks up all sorts of extraneous rubbish. This photo of the fishing trip could have been taken at any time. The one thing we know is that it wasn't taken on the same day as Olieboom. I suppose the police will look at things like the age of the paper and so on but maybe we can find some internal evidence in the photo itself.'

'What, the time of year judging by the length of shadow sort of thing?' asked Ruthie.

'Good idea, although that particular one might be tricky on a boat. Best would be a wristwatch with the day and date or some sartorial touch of the wrong period or migrating birds. It could be anything. Let's see.'

Auntie Minnie got out a little perspex cube with a built-in magnifier and they laid the glossy magazine photo on the table and all crowded round. The cube was moved in half-steps so as not to miss any details on the overlaps. Ruthie went off to the toilet and when she got back the others were only halfway across the first line which seemed to be clear blue sky although there was a black dot which may have been a bird. At last they made it across and moved half a step down for the next traverse. And so on. The fibreglass top of the cabin and some rigging came in for prolonged consideration and then they started on the faces. Sir Ambrose's yachting cap could have been thirty years old and the floppy khaki headgear of his companions was equally timeless. More sky in blue and white dots. More tardigrade scrutiny. Row three or one and a half depending how you counted. Ruthie's attention wandered to the whole picture. Was that something on the far horizon? Through the faint haze she saw the crumbs of a slim white curve.

'What's that?' She pointed to the intimation. 'The edge of a sail?'

'Hang on. OK we're up to the first cleat on the mast. Let's have a look.' And Solomon moved the magnifier onto the little spike. The original camera must have been a good one as it slowly became evident that this was the slender horn of a crescent moon rising out of the sea. This was confirmed by the suspicion of continuing curve of the shadowed disc above the horizon.

'I saw the new moon late yestreen,' Solomon recited, 'Wi' the auld moon in her arm, And if we gang to sea, master, I fear we'll come to harm. Unquote. The Ballad of Sir Patrick Spens. In my humble opinion one of the greatest poems in the English language. Do you know what bad luck would be? Bad luck would be if the phase of the moon in this photo turned out to be the same as it was on the day of the massacre.' he smiled broadly. 'But I'd put ten to one against it. Well done, that girl. Excuse me please, I have stuff to look up.' He wandered into the hallway and soon the beeps and rattles of logging on could be heard over nextdoor's TV.

Auntie Minnie took off her reading-glasses and smiling, gave Ruthie both barrels. 'So,' she asked with female complicity, 'when's it due?'

'Oh no,' Ruthie was flustered. 'I'm not pregnant, Auntie Minnie, just fat.'

'Are you sure? I saw how you winced when Solomon hugged you. It looked like your breasts were sore. And you seem to need the toilet a lot, if you don't mind me saying so. And sour figs are usually an acquired taste. I may be wrong, of course, but I've seen a good few pregnancies in my time. There's a look that goes with it. When was your last period?' Kindly, matter-of-fact. 'Don't worry about me, my dear, I'm unshockable. Do you want to keep it? I say sooner an abortion than an unwanted child. That upsets the people in my church, but I've seen too many needless tragedies. But I can see you're a good girl. Have you mentioned anything to Solomon?'

'No, of course not. My last period was on time but it was very light. But I haven't had morning sickness or anything.'

'Oh, that comes later.' Again that intense gaze. 'As you know, I never had children of my own but I brought up Solomon as my son. He speaks very highly of you. How are things between you?'

Before Ruthie could answer Solomon burst into the room. 'In it's last quarter!' he cried. 'The moon was in its last quarter, waning, at Olieboom. It's crescent waxing in this photo. It couldn't possibly have been taken on the same day. We've nailed him. I must phone Teague and Selwyn.' He was gone.

'Crescent waxing.' Auntie Minnie snorted fondly. 'Little show-off. I remember him learning that stuff for a geography test.' She sighed. 'I wish to God this Olieboom business was finished and klaar as we say hereabouts. The thing is that he's fighting rich, important people and they can string it out for years. Or just have him murdered. Listen, if I tell you something now you must promise not to tell Solomon – I don't want him worried.'

'I promise,' Ruthie lied unconvincingly.

'Hm. Well, the thing is that that so-called burglar who broke in here told me that he'd actually been paid seven hundred and fifty rand to kill me. He swore he hadn't known that the victim was his old English teacher or he'd never have agreed. It was actually quite funny to have this hulking brute with a big knife standing there meekly mumbling his apologies. He was quite a sweet boy when I had him in standard six. I should have been scared but I was so cross with him that I felt no fear. Ira furor brevis est as the Romans say - anger is a brief madness. After he'd gone I just lay there trembling for hours with the all the lights on.'

'How horrible for you.' Ruthie squeezed Auntie Minnie's hand.

'I'm fine now.' Gruffly. 'Remember, not a word to Solomon. Do you love him?'

'Yes. Yes, I do. But if it turns out that I am pregnant I wouldn't want to use the baby to pressure him into doing something he didn't want to.'

'Nonsense. I'm relying on you to free him from this obsession with the family tragedy. A woman has to use every weapon she's got and a baby is one of the best.'

'Well, I won't tell him till I know for sure.' Ruthie fought a rearguard action despite knowing in her bones that Auntie Minnie was right. Pregnant. With child. She tried on the words. A new life? Where was the surge of joy? She tried to sense it but her womb was mute. So be it. Solomon hadn't come back. Auntie Minnie announced that she was off to bed and they said their goodnights. The strain of the last few weeks suddenly caught up with Ruthie. She had a perfunctory wash and tumbled into the second bed which Auntie Minnie had shoehorned into Solomon's room. She didn't wake even when he came in and sat at the desk clicking his keyboard like a Chinese merchant rattling an abacus.

Chapter 40

Up at seven with a bursting bladder, Ruthie tiptoed past Auntie Minnie's door.

'She's long gone.' Solomon's sleepily amused voice came from behind her. 'She leaves the house at six-fifteen on a normal schoolday. But we needn't get up.'

'I'll make a cuppa in a minute. Do you want one?'

'Ja sure. Lekker. Wake me when you get back with it.'

He was in a fight. Down. Someone was kicking his shoulder.

'Solomon! Wake up! There's someone in our car.'

'Sh. Stop shaking me.' Solomon groggily surfaced. 'The car? No that's alright. That's Edgar, one of the squatters. I hired him to keep an eye on it and thought he may'swell be comfortable.'

'Whew, what a relief. I thought he was about to drive off with it.'

'No, he's comparatively honest. I did keep the key, though. What's it like out?'

'Well, the sun is shining but there are a few puddles in the road.'

'It poured in the night. Nearly drowned out your snoring. The forecast is sunny but cool. We could take a picnic up Table Mountain or just stay here and make mad passionate love.'

'Tempting, but no.' Ruthie let him down gently. 'Come on, love. Be a shame to waste this beautiful day.'

'Hm. Do I detect a faint crack in the bell of your enthusiasm? And what happened to my tea?'

'The kettle!' And Ruthie rushed back to the kitchen.

Over breakfast the radio mentioned in passing that doubt had been thrown on the authenticity of a photograph in support of Sir Ambrose's alibi. Something to do with the moon. There was no comment from any of the principals. And now - sport.

On the road again the difference between the squatter camps and the smooth highways sweeping past luxury hotels, houses and blocks of flats was too obvious to remark. It was also obvious that most of the revoltingly rich were white and most of the blacks (and Coloureds) were poor although there were exceptions. Indians seemed to be doing well and she'd seen a black man in a Porsche. She found a chemist and got a pregnancy testing kit and a large tube of sunblock.

Twenty minutes later they were on the mountain, climbing a steepish bit of trail in the fresh sea breeze. Ruthie felt her heart open to the expanding vista. She wanted to cry at the beauty of the whitecaps on the ruffled sea, the homely heathers, the weathered rock. A bit weepy overall in fact. Neither of them mentioned Olieboom, the elephant in the room. Solomon did say: 'How are the fighty maulen,' and laugh but he didn't elaborate. Ruthie kept off marriage and babies but depite these reservations there was a renewed sense of loving complicity between them.

Going home in the violet twilight the car radio told them that Sir Ambrose's friend, Harvey Birch, had now admitted that the photograph must have been one taken in nineteen eighty-five, the year before the unfortunate happenings at Olieboom. It had also been brought to his attention that on that actual day he himself had been present at a board meeting in New York and that he was therefore unable to vouch for his friend's whereabouts. He deeply regretted having misled the police, but it had been an honest mistake. As a goodwill gesture he had donated an undisclosed sum to a police charity. There followed an ad for Car Spares. 'Shocks and batteries tyre and exhaust,' said Solomon lugubriously after a moment's thought.

'You can say that again. Oh. Ha ha.' She gave him a playful dead leg which he took in the spirit meant and patted her now-quiescent fist. The traffic thickened.

They got home to find that Auntie Minnie had invited round a few dozen friends and neighbours, to show off her nephew made good. She'd already laid out a huge spread, which made Ruthie ache with guilt although the plan had been for the three of them to eat out. Oh well. They'd no sooner washed and changed than the doorbell rang. They fixed smiles and charged.

The stiff respectability of the gathering lasted all of five minutes until the booze took hold. A good time was had by all and the loud laugh of Solomon was heard abroad in the land.
Chapter 41

Auntie Minnie's objection that proving Sir Ambrose wasn't where he'd said he was didn't prove that he was where he'd said he wasn't received a blow when another forensic expert claimed that expert measurement of certain significant facial elements proved to a probability of two hundred and forty seven thousand to one that the face captured so fleetingly in the mirror was indeed that of Sir Ambrose Mortimer. Sir Ambrose now changed his plea. He had, he now admitted, been at Olieboom at the time of the atrocity but only in his capacity as an undercover agent of Her Majesty's Government. He was prepared to testify, but asked for reasons of security, that this hearing be held in camera. Lawyers sprang into slow motion.

Then South Africa played a joker. Dirk Venter was in the hospital section of the prison, being treated for a 'super-bug' which he'd picked up while the bullet wound which had paralysed his legs was being treated. He asked to see his fellow-prisoner, Sir Ambrose Mortimer and the request was granted under the supervision of the head warden. The video of the meeting shows a suave Sir Ambrose approaching the bed with outstretched hand when there is a loud bang and he falls out of the frame. Dirk Venter then pulls a gun out from beneath the blankets, puts it in his mouth and pulls the trigger. The rest is pixellation. Sir Ambrose died some hours later of intestinal bleeding.

Conspiracy theories throve. No sooner had Occam's razor lopped off one shoot than a dozen more sprang up in its place. An enquiry was set up into how Venter had got hold of the gun but he'd had contact with at least fifty-eight other people in the last week and while checks were being made it was too soon to say anything yet.

'Vengeance is mine; I will repay, saith the Lord,' said Auntie Minnie sagely.

'Bollocks,' said Solomon Britishly. 'For mysterious read nonexistent. Enough, you know what I feel about God. Besides, you must admit that these two deaths have solved a number of problems for the powers that be. We know Jasper and Boetie and Hennie and Paul were at Olieboom, but it'll be hell to prove it.'

The 'new' South Africa took human rights more seriously than many an older bastion of democracy. Torture of prisoners was out. Whose decision it was to put Boetie van Jaarsveld in the same isolated cell as a sulky little black prisoner was never clarified. Boetie loudly declared that he refused to share with a stinking kaffir but was thrown in anyway, the key was turned and the warders left. Clarence mockingly introduced himself, only to have the hand of friendship rudely knocked aside before he could mention that he'd been a onetime bantamweight boxing champion. His first bareknuckled punch cut Boetie's forehead, blood streamed into his eyes and it was downhill from then on. Had one of Boetie's huge fists connected he would have ripped Clarence's head off its scrawny neck, but this was different from a few sly thumps in the scrum. Boetie lunged wildly round the tiny cell while Clarence danced about just out of reach but seemingly able to land another stinging punch at will. He stopped only when Boetie was lying curled up on the floor crying, with his hands over his face. Clarence trod on his crotch on the way back to his bunk where he settled down with a film magazine. As a multiple murderer he had a long time to go.

Boetie painfully reassembled himself and quietly climbed up to the top bunk, avoiding Clarence's eye, where he shivered himself to sleep. Awakened at six by the warder running his truncheon across the bars, he found he was so stiff that he could hardly move. His broken head had stopped bleeding but his eyebrows were clotted and his left eye was actually stuck shut. He crept decrepitly down the ladder and acknowledged Clarence's sunny greeting with a curt 'Môre' which was progress of a sort.

'Goeie môre my vrou, Hier's a soentjie vir jou,' sang Clarence and winked.

Good morning my wife, Here's a little kiss for you. Jissis no. Not that, not reduced to the wife of a kaffir. Boetie washed his face with a bit of water in a tin plate and pissed pink into the pisspot. Vok. He needed a doctor. He would claim that five warders had jumped him and beaten him up but Clarence would revel in the implied compliment. Besides, his fellow inmates all knew the score. He could already hear the derisory laughter. Trounced not only by a kaffir but by a little litey who looked like a good wind would blow him away. Homicidal thoughts rose like heartburn in Boetie's chest, but the thought of stabbing Clarence with a sharpened toothbrush as he slept was moderated by the drubbing he could expect if his victim awoke. He stole a glance at his cellmate's flat black face with its squashed nose and dead-looking stuck-on eyes and felt a shrivelling fear. The few GATties left were unlikely to break in and rescue him no matter how fervently he yearned to believe they would. But like all the other romantic dreams which he'd cherished (the Afrikaner homeland, the love of a good woman, winning the lottery) this too had turned to shit in his hands. He was nearly ready to blit. Tell them everything, the works.

At about the same time Solomon was on the up. They stayed a week with Auntie Minnie and in an old-fashioned Capetown lab a platanna unexpectedly found herself laying eggs. While Ruthie was alone with Solomon at Cape Point watching the white crest which was conventionally held to show where the Atlantic and Indian oceans met, she spoke: 'I'm pregnant.'

'Are you sure. That's great. You're keeping it, I hope.' The family look direct.

'Auntie Minnie asked me the same question. I guess you have a say in the matter.'

'What! You're not going to claim it's mine!' Solomon was theatrically aghast but a flicker of anxiety in Ruthie's face made him abandon the pose and kiss her. Their long embrace was broken by a baboon which snatched her sandwich from Ruthie's negligent fingers and bounded off among the rocks.

'So, you wanna get married or what?' clowned Solomon.

'Yes, of course. The only question is: to whom.'

'To meem. As soon as my divorce from Andy comes through.'

Had Ruthie dissolved in tears she'd have made a large puddle but retaining her corporeal form she smiled, dewy-eyed and said yes.

The next day after an emotional farewell to Auntie Minnie they headed north. Solomon's plan was to zip up to Namibia if Ruthie was up to it.

'Look, you don't have to suddenly start treating me like bone china just because I'm carrying our sprog, you know.' Our.

Solomon reached over and picked off a bit of sunburnt skin which was stuck to her nose like rice-paper.

'Ow. Still, at least it's exfoliated half my face. It feels lovely even if I do look like a boiled baby. What a horrible image.'

'Only half-boiled.' And he smiled at her with that cloying fondness which always made her want to grind her teeth. 'Seriously, love, would you be up to the trip?'

'Surely. As long as you promise to stop everytime I need to puke or piddle. I could sit in the back and do my other side.' Her tone modulated to tender concern. 'Are we going back to Olieboom?'

'No, I don't think that's necessary. Selwyn said there wasn't much left after the school was blown up and the bulldozers finished the job. He also said the soldiers stole everything not nailed down. I believe there's an Ovambo village there now. No, just a holiday although there is actually a hotel about fifty kay away which I'm keen to visit. Well, it's more a sort of country club with added rondavels called the Lorelei. It's still going, which is something of a surprise, although there's nowhere else to stay and they have the only golf-course for literally hundreds of miles around. Tell me,' Solomon came in from left-field, 'would you describe Cecily as hands-on or hands-off?'

'A bit of both, I suppose. She seems to like being in control but behind the scenes.'

'And would you say she likes combining business with pleasure?'

'I suppose, although business would always be top of that one's agenda.'

They packed up the car. Solomon paid Edgar and gave him a generous tip and they left the fertile Cape for drier parts. Mountains. Vast dry plains with a sprinkling of dorps and black villages. Ruthie had never seen such an empty land. The next day they crossed the Orange River into Namibia and Ruthie saw that her ideas of emptiness had been laughably modest. On one side-road they drove for four hours without seeing any sign of another person. They stopped for fifteen minutes to admire a twirly-horned Kudu bull cropping the scant brown grass between the thorn-trees. Onward. They skirted the Kalahari which was yet drier and even less inhabited. If they broke down here, Ruthie thought bleakly, they could very well die before another person came by. There was Perrier and cold roast chicken in the cool-box, but that was only enough for three days, tops. But Solomon was so clever. He would do something.

As dusk flamed across the sky they pulled over and had their picnic on a flat rock. Away from the noise of the car, silence was sweet. The harsh cries of roosting birds were sweet too, in their way, but a Kori Bustard tormenting a stinking furry scrap of dead thing nearby came perhaps under the heading of grisly fascination.

Later, huddled with Solomon under Auntie Millie's patchwork quilt, Ruthie felt that for the first time in her life she knew true happiness. Solomon felt apprehension at an alien life taking over his woman but also an irrepressible cocky pride. Auntie Millie had taken to Ruthie and abjured Solomon to look after her. They slept as best they could in the car and woke early, cramped and cold. The windows were covered in frost-flowers from their breath, already melting in the bright early-morning sun. Outside there was a hard frost. A troop of baboons was making its yobbish way down the far side of a dry gully, yelling and breaking branches in a depressingly human way. Painted Starlings were perched nearby in case of a possible breakfast. Solomon tossed them a few crumbs while Ruthie manfully managed to make bacon and eggs and a cup of English Breakfast tea on the little gas-stove and then plunged off into the bushes to be sick.

An hour later the day had turned blindingly hot and they were again hurtling northwards in their cool tin cocoon. Solomon had mercifully forgotten his cellphone in Capetown and refused to turn on the radio so they travelled in companionable silence. They stopped at a place of huge multicoloured boulders and sculpted watercourses, now dry, with little hollows in the streambed holding nests of jewelled pebbles. An orange and brown striped snake slid over the rocks and Ruthie, through her fear, admired its beauty. The creepers hanging from the dusty trees were studded with sturdy two-inch spikes but the slender snake threaded through them as smooth as smoke.

Dusk was falling when they regained a tarred road and saw their first truck. Twenty minutes later they were seated in a Bierkeller while a black waitress in Bavarian peasant costume took their order for dinner. In the dining-room, apart from a table of black businessmen in one corner, some of the staff and Solomon, everyone was white. Felix, who with his partner Herman owned the Lorelei, came over to schmooze.

'Willkommen, welkom, welcome, bienvenue,' he beamed. 'Is everything to your satisfaction? You're from the UK I believe. I hope you'll make full use of our sporting facilities. Tennis should be fine, but if you're thinking of a round of golf it would be wise to book.'

This was Ruthie's cue. Back in Northern Ireland, golf had been a popular plebian sport and Ruthie had once been runner-up in an under-fourteens competition. She still played the odd round with Dad when she found herself back in Belfast. 'Gosh. A golf course way out here,' she marvelled. 'I wish I'd brought my clubs. How do you manage the greens.'

'With great difficulty and a bit of cheating.' Felix shrugged charmingly. 'Yesterday we found an aardvark had dug itself a hole on the eleventh. 'It's a desert course so we do well on sandtraps. And the rough has to be seen to be believed, but we like a nice bit of rough.' An almost straight face.

Felix was a golf fanatic. The next minute he had drawn up a chair to their table, sat down and called for wine. Ruthie had no difficulty in leading him into talk of famous people down the years who'd played golf at the Lorelei. The fact that he had once played at the Royal Belfast in her home town instantly made them close friends. Her lack of clubs was no obstacle, the hotel had them for hire.

'And you, sir, are you a golfer?' Felix quizzically cocked his head.

'No, I'm afraid not. Squash is my game, although Ruthie here is doing her best to convert me.'

The upshot was that Ruthie agreed to a taster of a couple of holes before breakfast with Felix.

'Wunderbar.' Felix gave Solomon the eye. 'Do you know, sir, I never forget a face. Have we met before Mr. um...'

'Witbooi. Solomon Witbooi.'

'Aha.' It all fell into place. 'You were a youngster then. You used to come sometimes with Hector on the lorry. Tsk.' Felix shook his head sorrowfully. 'Terrible what happened at Olieboom, hey. The only time we see the police out here is when they want another bribe for the liquor-licence. A real tragedy, man. I was sorry. I liked old Hector. You went away, didn't you? To your Auntie in Capetown. And all the rest were killed. It's very good to see you again. Oh dear, I don't suppose we'll ever know what really happened there.'

'Oh, I know exactly what happened. I'd like a chat with you later, if you don't mind. This place is great, by the way, just like I remembered it. Do you still have that big case of trophies in your office?'

'Ja, although these days some of the more valuable objects are kept under lock and key. But I'd be happy to show you round later – say ten o'clock when the kitchen's winding down. Even non-golfers find some of the stuff interesting. I'll see you later, then. Auf wiedersehn.'

Felix moved on to a knot of Afrikaners at the bar and soon bursts of smutty laughter and snatches of rugby-talk rose above the hubbub.

Solomon ate steak and chips and drank Windhoek beer while Ruthie opted for pork-belly with dumplings and sauerkraut and Perrier.

Ten. The office door. Felix unclipped a huge bunch of keys from his belt and opened three locks. Fluorescents flickered into blue life. The focus of the room was a huge Biedermeyer desk with a glass trophy-cabinet looming up on the wall behind it. The entire room was panelled in pine, which had turned a smoky amber over the years, but a good deal of it was covered by photographs ranging from a sepia shot of a cyclist at rest, walrus moustache matching the droop of his handlebars to the long age of monochrome and into the colour age of present-day sporting heroes. One whole wall was entirely devoted to golf and the trophy-cabinet was crammed with cups and cut glass and little statuettes of golfers and leaping fish and animals. Felix did a twirl and opened his hands. 'So. How can I help you?'

Solomon launched into the Olieboom saga and told it well. At the end of it Felix was convinced.

'As to how you can help,' Solomon concluded , 'I think that some of the people responsible for the massacre may have stayed here in April or May eighty-six. I don't suppose you happen to have the old registers lying around?'

'Not here, no. Our accountant in Luderitz keeps all that stuff. But even if I knew I couldn't tell you. We do have a duty of confidentiality towards our clients.'

'Of course.' Solomon was emollient. 'But perhaps you wouldn't mind telling me if Colonel Petrus Brandt ever stayed here? The late Colonel Petrus Brandt.'

Felix considered for a moment, then said: 'Ja, as a matter of fact he did stay here a few times in the eighties, but I couldn't give you the dates off the top of my head. Quite a good golfer I remember. Why? What has he got to do with this?'

'Yissus man,' Solomon was astonished, 'he was only the ouk in charge at Olieboom. Didn't you see the stuff on TV?'

'No, I couldn't watch it. I can't stand violence. Herman refuses to go to the movies with me anymore because I spend half the time cowering there with my hands over my eyes. Of course one hears all the local gossip and I don't remember anyone mentioning Colonel Brandt. I could phone Luderitz and check, I suppose, but it's a bit late now.'

'If he was a golfer he may have booked a round,' suggested Ruthie. 'I don't suppose you've got the logbooks?'

'I just luurve your accent, Ruthie,' said Felix ardently, 'but seriously, that's a good idea. Dipak (that's our accountant) didn't want those. I kept them all. There are lots of famous names in there. Bobby Locke, Gary Player. Do you remember Hester Monro? At one time she was the Natal women's champion. Let's just see.' Felix pulled open the heavy bottom drawer of the desk. 'And, moreover, in chronological order. I'm a bit anal that way. Here we are. Nineteen eighty-six. And when, exactly?'

'End of April, beginning of May,' snapped Solomon. 'Sorry. I didn't mean to shout. I must be more nervous than I'd realised. Please, carry on.'

Felix squeezed Solomon's hand reassuringly between his own and then opened the book and started running down the columns. The fifth of May, slowly and painstakingly, nothing. The fourth, nothing. Felix kept the book to himself and all Solomon's quick glance had revealed was that the page was a mass of names and initials.

'I suppose someone else may have booked the time,' conceded Solomon. 'How does it work?'

'Well, the person booking has to be a member and he or she's allowed up to three guests. I know Petrus Brandt was a member but another member could have booked him in. We only need the name of the person who does the booking, the others are all initials.' Felix turned back another few pages and murmured: 'Well, whadaya know?' He beckoned them over.

There it was, beautiful in its simplicity. April the thirtieth. Kol. P. Brandt AM CM CL.

'Hey hey the gang's all here. I bet I know whose initials those are. This is fantastic, Felix. If we could just find a JK here, my joy would be complete.'

'Oh they wouldn't play with the likes of Jasper,' opined Ruthie scornfully. 'Correct me if I'm wrong but I'd say Cecily's a bit of a golf snob.'

'Cecily, Cecily, nee, wag 'n bietjie.' Felix blew into his cupped hands as if to charm dice. 'Luck, Larch... no, Louch. That was it. Ms. Cecily Louch. You reckon she's CL? What is her part in all of this?'

'Well, the film was her idea,' supplied Solomon, 'to be used as an ad for her hubby's poison.'

'It's true,' vouched Ruthie. 'She told us so herself, but of course she'll deny it all in court.'

'She also denies that she and Chris have ever been anywhere near Olieboom,' pointed out Solomon. 'This would seem to suggest that her veracity is not to be relied on.'

'Cecily Louch,' mused Felix. 'I could tell you something about Cecily Louch but you'd have to give me your word that you'll never tell anyone else. I mean it. This is very important.'

Solomon bound them both.

'OK then,' Felix continued, 'You see this little cross next to the CL?'

His listeners nodded.

'Now this could ruin the club if it got out but the truth is I put that there myself. It means that the person in question cheats at golf.'

Solomon guffawed but was quickly hushed by Felix's anxious eyes.

'That's why I remembered her name,' Felix whispered. 'I was playing the hole behind. She was on the fourth which has a big sheet of rock in the middle of the fairway. If you hit it right the ball goes almost twice as far but it just as often knocks you sideways into the rough, which is what happened to her. She went after it and I remember her calling out that she was lucky, it had bounced right back out again. I noticed the caddies exchange a look and after my game I went and had a look at the spot myself. I eventually found her ball in a hell of a lie between the roots of a tree. I knew it was hers because it was a new Japanese ball, a Shakuhachi or something, which no-one else had heard of.'

'What did you do?' Ruthie was outraged.

Felix shrugged. 'When it's just a friendly game I do nothing. These things are difficult to prove and a false accusation could destroy a person's life. Among the regulars there are always a couple of cheats and people soon get to know and refuse to play with them. After a while they tend to drift off somewhere else. Of course I'd report a cheat in competition but the main point of my little x. is that I prefer not to play with such people myself. Now, remember, not a word of this to anyone.'

'Could being exposed as a cheat really ruin someone's life?' Solomon asked thoughtfully.

'Oh, my dear, golf is like a religion.' Felix rolled up his eyes. 'Being caught cheating is like the sin against the holy ghost. I've seen two men exposed in my time. One eventually left the country and the other has become a hopeless alcoholic.'

'Well then, may I have your permission to tell just one other person: the lady in question?'

Felix looked at it for a while then gulped and nodded.

Chapter 42

There was no question but that Felix had been right about the power of golf. Cecily had been implicated in commercial murder and in the manufacture and supply of illegal weapons but she'd been strengthened and touched by the letters of support she'd had. The list ran from rich businessmen and conservative politicians urging her to keep her chin up to Flo Toplady who'd written to 'My Dearest Sissy' and said that she'd always believed her completely innocent of all these wicked slanders and always would. Philippa turned up trumps. She fielded her mother's letters and got rid of hate mail and the occasional pornographic fantasy. There was a letter for 'Mrs. Cecily Metcalfe (née Louch) purporting to be from Solomon Witbooi. As it was laser-printed and unsigned it should have gone straight in the bin but Philippa didn't hesitate to read it.

'Dear Cecily,' it ran, 'I assume there's some law forbidding contact between witnesses and defendants in trials but we needn't play games. I've told all I've got to tell to the relevant authorities and it will soon be public knowledge.

'I have recently returned from Namibia where Ruthie and I spent a delightful couple of days at the Lorelei Country Club Hotel. It seems that your memory may have misled you in claiming never to have visited Namibia. You played golf there with the late Colonel Petrus Brandt, Chris Metcalfe and Ambrose Mortimer, the day before the atrocity at Olieboom. Felix Weingartner is still there. He remembered you at once and told me a funny story about your Shakuhachi golf-ball and the fourth hole which I promised never to divulge to another soul.

'Here's the thing. You are doomed. Why string it out and spend a fortune on lawyers? The present climate of truth and reconciliation here in South Africa is unlikely to last. Better the sinner that repenteth and all that stuff.

'If you were to change your plea to "guilty" I should be struck dumb. O Felix Culpa! Yours sincerely, Solomon Witbooi.'

'That's unmistakeably threatening! He's trying to intimidate you!' Philippa, having shown the letter to Cecily, was shrill in her glee. 'We've got him, Mum. This'll entirely discredit him as a witness.'

But Cecily, seated at her desk, looked up at her quivering daughter with a look of such desolation that Philippa had to turn her head to hide the sudden tears.

'No, he's quite right.' Cecily gave a sad smile. 'As our American cousins say: Don't do the crime if you can't sit the time.'

'You're not going to give up. I won't let you.' Philippa lit up and took a deep drag of her cigarette. 'Look. There was a war going on. We were fighting the communists. As an enemy base the village was doomed anyway and you had tacit government backing for a scientific test.'

'Thanks,' said Cecily drily. 'I do know my own defence. The joke is that the only ones who believed in the power of communism were we capitalists. When I remember the tosh that was talked about the impressive GDP of the GDR, I feel quite ill. Just like the alleged military threat. All lies, it transpires. But it worked. What if nationalisation actually did turn out more efficient than the private sector? Byebye profits. When you talk nowadays of the communist threat people look at you as if you're barking. No, I'm for it, I'm afraid. And Mr. Witbooi is right about something else. The lawyers won't let go until they've drained every drop of blood from us. I shall want money when I get out of prison.'

'You're not going to prison.' Philippa was stern with a fractious child. 'What if you and Daddy were in Namibia at the time? You weren't at Olieboom - how were you supposed to know what would happen? You can say you thought they were going to test it on sheep or cows. Blame it all on Colonel Brandt. What's happened to you? Yesterday you were full of fight.' She eyed her mother narrowly. 'What was that so-called "funny story" about a golf-ball and what does O Felix Culpa mean?'

'It means that he's found a chink in my armour - my wretched vanity. He knows how I feel about golf.'

'Come on, what's this terrible secret?'

'I refuse to tell you. It would merely make you lose what little respect you may have left for me.'

And in the face of wheedling, brisk common sense and even a touch of huffiness, Cecily wouldn't budge.

Philippa stomped off to get a tinned Margarita from the fridge and Cecily picked up the phone. Selwyn answered and as he went off to find Solomon she heard someone in the house playing a Chopin nocturne which had been a particular favourite of hers in happier times. There followed the familiar mixture of admiration and envy as Katrina (for it was she) rippled through the difficult bit without slowing in pretend rubato. Through the tinny earpiece Cecily noticed she had a lovely touch.

'Cecily.' The Cape coloured accent and habitual mispronunciation of her name pained Cecily's ear. 'I take it you've got my letter.'

'Yes. I found it highly persuasive. You win. I shall be phoning my lawyer immediately after this call to change my plea to guilty. You can't possibly expect me to give evidence against my husband but aside from that I'll tell the prosecution whatever I know. In return I expect you to keep whatever Felix may have told you under your hat. I would like to say that I bear you no animosity for what you've done and I hope I'm a good enough sport to admit defeat but unfortunately it wouldn't be true. By the way, I don't know if this is being recorded, so I won't go into detail but that incident at the Lorelei wasn't sport - it was business. Ambrose was getting a bit stroppy and it was important to let him know I could take on the men and win. That was all.'

'Uh huh. Since you're in confessional mode, whose idea was it to try and force us off the road and kill us?'

'So he did try it. That was Dirk's stupid idea. I thought I'd talked him out of it.' Cecily snorted. 'Another illusion gone pop. I hope he never managed to harm your aunt in Capetown.'

'Depends how you'd define sending someone to kill her,' said Solomon with a coolness he didn't feel (Ruthie had told him after all), 'Luckily for you it turned out she'd taught him English so they had a chat about the good old days. Funnily enough he was murdered himself a few days later. Another unsolved crime. This business has left lots of people dead, hasn't it? The whole of Olieboom, Snyman, Petrus Brandt, Ambrose and the lovely Venter boys. You say you won't testify against Chris? But what about Jasper Keate?'

'I could hardly leave him out, could I? I'm sure the whole thing will degenerate into a welter of recrimination and counter-accusation and plenty will be suppressed at the behest of various secret services. The media will have a field day. Oh well. If you'll excuse me now, I've got to phone my lawyer. Goodbye, Solomon.'

'Goodbye, Cecily. And thanks.'

'Don't mention it.'

Solomon cradled the phone. 'It's over,' he told his friends who'd gathered expectantly in the doorway. 'Cecily tells me that she's going to plead guilty. She also says that running us off the road and trying to get Auntie Minnie killed was Dirk Venter's idea and that she was against it and I'm inclined to believe her.'

'Ugh. She's up to something,' said Ruthie disgustedly, but she was wrong.

The next morning CNN ran Cecily's change of heart fourth up. Not only was she pleading guilty but a statement was read out by her lawyer, baldly admitting her part in the planning and execution of the massacre at Olieboom with no attempt at exoneration. The meeting at Dirk Venter's farm, Heersegif, had been with the intention of selling the recipe for NACT to an unnamed foreign government. All the surviving members of the original Olieboom plot had been offered a slice of the fifty million dollars on the table to keep them quiet.

'My client goes on to say,' the lawyer read, 'and I quote: "In this case, the crime to which I wish to plead guilty is not that of conspiracy to supply a weapon of mass destruction, but that of fraud. The reason for this is that a sufficient number of vital details had been omitted from the process of manufacture to render it worthless."'

Solomon exploded in laughter. 'Good old Cecily,' he said when he was able to speak. 'Always another trick up her sleeve.'

Ruthie's eyes were shining. 'Does this mean that the stuff, er, someone released onto the internet is harmless?'

'Sure looks that way.'

'Oh. What a relief. It's like this cricket-ball I've had stuck in my throat for so long has just melted away. I haven't been able to sleep, just waiting for a knock on the door.' Suspicion darkened her face. 'Did you know that all along?' she asked accusingly.

'No I did not. But somehow I'm not surprised. I suppose it's true - there'd be no point in an easily-exposed lie. There have been those who've said it wouldn't work all along'

Namibia had eventually agreed to a South African trial. It started a month later. Cecily's evidence blew the other defendants out of the water and made the eventual guilty verdicts almost inevitable. She got fifteen years, Boetie thirteen and Japie Walters three. A file of evidence against Ernest Shabalala was 'lost' and he walked. G.B. van Tonder, Doc Katz's old boss, got six months. Chris and Jasper's fates were deferred pending matters pertaining to custody and extradition.

Solomon had his day in court but kept it low-key and factual.

Teague wrote a swashbuckling profile of Solomon with no more than one inaccuracy per line, detailing the years of his search and his final vindication. The reporter fancifully compared the slow accretion of facts to the waves slopping in at the open bow-doors of the Herald of Free Enterprise until, at the first tilt, thousands of tons of water hurtled across the car-decks to tip the ferry on its side.

After another visit to Cape Town they returned to Selwyn for a last couple of days before returning to the UK.

'You know, Holmes, there's still just one thing which puzzles me,' Solomon told his friend, 'you remember when Dirk Venter sicced his dogs on us?'

'For sure.'

'Well, how did you get them to run away from you and go and maul Ernest instead?'

'Magic,' said Selwyn. 'I gave them an anhoreh, the Yiddish evil eye. No, I jest. It's sommer my old vet's blanket. It smells of the surgery - disinfectant, anaesthetic, the various pongs of frightened animals. Scares the fuck out of them. I call it my blanket of death.'

Everyone laughed merrily.

Solomon and Ruthie went back to London to buck the trends for unmarried mixed-race couples and buckle down to making money. Solomon's new security software looks promising but the water is full of sharks and untold millions are some way off. Ruthie is happy nourishing a new life and working with Solomon from home.

Jake is happy in Yorkshire, screwing a barmaid and tramping the moors. Selwyn and Katrina have split up, almost amicably, she to pursue her music in Vienna and he to stay put.

Solomon is sleeping better and Ruthie is less often woken by his yells.

A snake with clouded eye and dusty skin found a secluded thorn bush, rubbed its nose against the rough bark and began to peel. Three hours later a new green mamba, clear of eye and bright of scale, went its blameless way.

Interest in NACT began to revive.

