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cakes.
    Melrose considered other possibilities to try at Ardry End. What about a theme park? A nature perserve such as the Duke of Bedford’s at Woburn Abbey? Tigers? Lions? Chimpanzees? He mused. Perhaps he would come up with something sitting around in Boring’s, that London club out of some previous century.
    Yes, Boring’s would definitely be on the list of Most Nostalgic Places in the country.
    Ah, dear old Little Widehips!
    Dear old Slough!
    Dear old Boring’s!

5
    I think it’s disgraceful, me, you being punished when it was the only way of getting those kiddies out of that house.’ At the moment Carole-anne was sitting on Jury’s sofa, applying nail art, little dibs and dabs of rhinestone and sequins.
    ‘Pete Apted argues exigent circumstances.’
    ‘Who’s he?’
    ‘A barrister. Quite brilliant.’
    ‘What’s ‘exigent circumstances’?’ She pressed another bit of rhinestone onto a nail.
    From where Jury was sitting, it glittered in the lamplight. ‘That is a situation wherein the police find an emergency, say inside a house, husband battering wife and kids, something like that, a situation in which there is no time to get a warrant.’
    Carole-anne looked over at him, eyes wide. ‘Well, for heaven’s sake, that’s just what you found.’
    ‘Not precisely. See, the circumstances were known by vice. A colleague of mine had been trying to get into that house for months.’
    ‘You didn’t know that.’
    Jury raised his eyebrows. ‘That’s what Pete Apted said.’ Did he have, sitting across from him, a budding barrister? Good lord. Carole-anne arguing a case in court. The thought made him dizzy.
    She waved the law away. Jury caught a glimpse of silvery bits, as if her hand were trailing stars. Carole-anne did not need body art; her body was already art.
    ‘If the law’s going to be that finicky, there’s some of us never will be able to do what we think’s right.’
    That from Carole-anne amounted to a philosophical position.
    ‘Yes, the law does tend to get picky at times.’ He thought for a moment. ‘I’ve been meaning to call Charly Moss.’
    ‘Who’s he?’
    ‘Not a–’ But he caught himself before he said, ‘Not a man, a woman.’ He smiled. ‘Charly’s a solicitor. One used by the able Mr. Apted.’ No use telling the truth. He’d be in for a merciless grilling.
    She was finished, apparently. She held out her hands, the shocking pink nails studded with a selection of silvery things.
    ‘What d’you think?’
    ‘Frankenstein’s fingers?’
    She threw a pillow at him.

6
    As Wiggins stirred and stirred his tea, Jury told him the story of the Gauhs’ disappearance. Then, as in some religious ritual, Wiggins tapped the spoon three times on the edge of his mug.
    ‘It’s the strangest story I’ve ever heard. But why did this Harry Johnson tell you it?’
    ‘We were sitting in the Old Wine Shades, that’s a wine bar in the City, talking about narrative in dreams. I said that we always dream a story.’
    Wiggins shook his head. ‘No, I don’t dream a story. I dream in symbols. Usually I can’t say what they mean.’ That settled, Wiggins sat back and sipped his tea.
    ‘You dream in symbols, yes, but the symbols take place in narrative form. Like this: let’s say your symbol is a villain. There’s your villain. Next, a victim. There’s your victim. Then a pool of blood.
    You don’t switch from one to the other without making the connection: the villain goes up to the victim and knifes her or shoots her and there’s the pool of blood. Pool of blood being an effect. It’s connected. They’re all connected.’
    Wiggins thought about this, but gave no sign of agreeing.
    Jury went on. ‘We’re always waiting for a story, that we ourselves were a story.’
    Wiggins looked puzzled. ‘What does that mean?’
    ‘That I’d had four pints.’
    Wiggins smiled. ‘All right. Now what about this Harry Johnson? How much had he had?’
    ‘Whiskey, only two.’
    ‘Are you