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were going up and down, taking me in with horror. Then I realized. They had a tall mirror on one wall, so I checked.
    I had discarded the nylon raincoat. There was caked mud all down the right side of my trousers and a scorched hole in the left arm of my jacket. My tie was twisted and drooping, the shirt soggy. I turned and grinned at him.
    ‘ I’d like to see Karen Gaines,’ I said.
    ‘ Karen?’ he asked. ‘Karen Finn?’
    ‘ So you find her and bring her out here. Eh?’
    He got the point, and went.
    While he was away I tidied what I could. Then I lit a cigarette to create an impression of lack of concern for my appearance. She was three minutes.
    She had changed her dress. Now it was something in powder blue that ran in a very nice line over her hips. The neckline was high, and she was carrying a tiny dress handbag. Her eyes looked darker than I remembered them.
    ‘ Yes?’ she said abruptly. ‘What is it?’
    ‘ Where can we talk?’
    She waved a hand impatiently. I suggested we went out to the car. She was eyeing me with more tension than I thought my appearance warranted. We walked together down the steps.
    When she saw how low the Porsche is she said use hers. Her Rapier was only four cars away. I let her slide behind the wheel and reach over to unlock the other door, then I got in with her.
    ‘ It’s Paul, isn’t it?’
    They have intuitions, as they call them, which are the result of putting two and two together.
    ‘ There’s been an accident.’
    ‘ He’s hurt?’
    ‘ I’m sorry, Karen, but it’s worse than that.’
    She drew in her breath, clutched the little bag to her lap, and stared out over the wheel. ‘He’s dead?’
    ‘ Yes.’ I looked at her. One of the floodlights glanced harshly through her side window and did unflattering things to the lines of her face. She hadn’t got the fine planes of her mother’s features. In the cross light her eyes looked wild.
    ‘ Tell me what happened.’
    ‘ He ran off the road. The visibility was very poor.’
    ‘ Oh Paul,’ she whispered. ‘Poor Paul.’
    I offered her a cigarette. She took it automatically, and her eyes didn’t focus on the lighter. Smoke bounced back at her from the windscreen. ‘He was a good driver,’ she said.
    ‘ Everybody makes mistakes. Some people take chances.’
    ‘ Yes. Yes, I suppose so.’ She paused. ‘He rather fancied himself, you know. Kind of a romantic, I suppose. He lived on dreams.’ She turned to me then, quickly, her eyes bright and eager. ‘He fancied himself as a rally driver. He always drove just a little bit beyond his abilities.’ She sounded very mature, choosing her words so carefully.
    ‘ He fancied himself as a writer, too,’ I said.
    She looked squarely into the night ahead. ‘Yes.’
    ‘ Which could also be dangerous, I suppose, depending on what he intended to write.’
    ‘ Oh that!’ She delicately picked a morsel of tobacco from her tongue. ‘Nobody took it seriously.’
    ‘ Then what did they take seriously?’
    She seemed not to have heard. ‘He was wildly enthusiastic.’ She was already used to speaking of him in the past tense. ‘Well, I mean… you met him. You must have seen how he was.’
    Yes, I’d met him. ‘He was my client.’
    ‘ That silly business!’
    ‘ Which nobody took seriously?’
    At about that time she became aware that I was cross-questioning her. I saw her shoulders stiffen. Then she relaxed, drew in smoke, then flashed me a look of entreaty. I smiled to show I’d received it, and duly noted it.
    ‘ Mr Mallin,’ she said quietly, ‘you’ll need to remember I was nine when that terrible thing happened to my father. Other little girls have their fathers die. They get over it. Mine didn’t die.’ She drew in her breath and got the words out in one burst of passionate disgust. ‘He was hanged.’ She gave me ten seconds to consider it. ‘Can you imagine what that would mean? I was Karen Gaines. My father was hanged. It followed me wherever