"I'll start with the cat."

"What cat?"

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

"Which next-door neighbour?"

"The one that died."

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

"Yes," said Kate, "that would be good."

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

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

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

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

"The check-in girl at the airport..." he said at last.

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Does that bother you?"

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

"I see," said Dirk.

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

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

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

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

He picked it up and looked it over, wondering what impulse had made him pick it up in the first place.

"I don't really know anything about Howard Bell," he said.

Kate was surprised at the way he suddenly changed the subject, but also a little relieved.

"I only know," said Dirk, "that he sells a lot of books and that they all look pretty much like this. What should I know?"

"Well, there are some very strange stories about him."