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assisted in compiling. A man whose daughters hated him for that and everything else.
    The pier hove into sight and Jones felt his spirits lift like a seagull in flight. He felt it was his duty to warn Thomas against Di Quigly, because she was her father’s daughter with bad blood in the veins and a scavenger parent, and at the same time, he thought that he also ought to warn her off whatever she had in mind, whatever that was: couldn’t be good. Jones had a penchant for thieves, especially those who refused to inform on each other, but they were still thieves.
My intentions are entirely honourable,
Thomas had said to him earlier, anxious to reassure as if Jones was a real uncle. No telling what Di’s intentions were towards him; Jones couldn’t guess those.
    Fuckit: no one would listen. They were both damaged goods. Thomas would be all right; Thomas was rich and the rich lived in another territory where they took care of themselves. As long as it didn’t go any further: as long as Di and Thomas didn’t get basic, like have sex. Naa, surely not. The man was an old gent, and little Di had no tits. But, did Thomas know about Quig? And what did Di know about Thomas with his penchant for little girls?
    S urely not, Saul Blythe thought. Surely not. Thomas has been effortlessly celibate for as long as I’ve known him: the passion goes into the collection, and so it should. And he shouldn’t need another protégé; he has Me.
    Saul never made an orthodox entry, loathed being announced and sidled in whichever way he could. Why knock on the door when you could manoeuvre the lock and gain the advantage of an unobtrusive entrance even when expected? He was standing on the stairs leading up to the gallery room, admiring the way the assembled paintings had been rearranged and listening to the merry sound of talk, drifting down. The sound was almost unearthly for its un -familiarity. For all the glory of the contents, some of which Saul had enabled Thomas to acquire, and despite the sheer amount of vibrant life in the paintings on the walls, the house had become a sombre place in the last three years.
    Someone had brought it alive.
    ‘Writing something every day doesn’t have to mean an essay. You excel yourself, Miss Shakespeare, but could you do it in rhyme next time?’
    ‘No time, Teacher – I’ve got another job, remember, but I got another bit here, and that rhymes, alright?
Twixt Beatrice, Gayle and Edward/ There’s more love than you think/ But never a bloody word of it/ Is ever distilled in ink. Please write or phone, or email, do/ Because the sea is missing you.
Shit poetry, but.’
    ‘That should do it,’ he said, ‘But not yet, perhaps. What else did you write when I wasn’t looking?’
    ‘I planned what I would like to eat at a party if I was a grandchild. Stick to short sentences, you said, so I put: Lots.’
    That was when Thomas laughed, as if it was funny, Saul thought a little sourly, subsumed with a kind of envy. There were two doors to the room, just as there was to almost every room in this house. He entered, stage left, behind them, always relying on that little element of surprise that was his stock in trade. He carried the pictures he had brought with him.
    ‘Hello,’ he drawled.
    They were not touching, although they sprang apart as if they were, the two of them at the desk on either side, sharing a screen as if taking bites at the same fruit. Thomas leapt to his feet.
    ‘Saul, you old bugger. How many days late this time? Di, this is Saul; Saul this is Ms Diana Quigly. I’ve spoken about you to one another.’
    He had. She smiled at him, uncertainly. What a little mess she was, looking like a mongrel dog fresh from rescue and all in mangy black and smelling of bleach, in contrast to Thomas who was pressed and trimmed. Saul looked round, suppressed a gasp. The room was subtly transformed – the same as it was, but different. Light gleamed off dull polish: the colours of the oak floor, the