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snare her. After all, she was only nineteen, less than five years older than Hazel. Denise tried to treat them as pals. The girls got the hint and reacted right, but they still took obvious comfort and satisfaction from having her at home with them. So did Harpur.
    Although he tried to be silent entering the house now, Jill, his younger daughter, must have heard something and came downstairs in her dressing gown. Possibly, she hadn’t slept but waited for him to return. She often did some monitoring of Harpur’s hours away from the house.
    â€˜We said surveillance,’ she told him. They were in the big sitting room, but not sitting.
    â€˜That’s right, surveillance.’
    â€˜When Denise arrived we thought we’d better explain it by saying surveillance.’
    â€˜Explain what?’
    â€˜Why you weren’t here.’
    â€˜Thanks, but I’d already told her I’d be late. She mobiled me to say she was coming over. I mentioned I’d have to be out a while. Tuesday mornings she has no classes. We can sleep on.’
    â€˜Yes, she said you’d mentioned you might be late, but we thought we’d better explain it was surveillance. Just to be sure.’
    â€˜OK.’
    â€˜Was it?’
    â€˜What?’
    â€˜Surveillance.’
    â€˜Of course.’
    â€˜Dad, do Detective Chief Superintendents have to go on surveillance in the middle of the night?’
    â€˜Not “have to”. This was special.’
    â€˜Why?’
    His daughters worried about Harpur’s morals and feared his occasional unexplained absences might offend Denise and make her finish things with him, and them. They’d had a loss and didn’t want another. ‘It was something you and Hazel said,’ he replied.
    â€˜Something Hazel and I said kept you out on surveillance until two thirty in the morning? What?’
    â€˜About competition and monopoly.’
    â€˜So, where did you have to do this surveillance about competition and monopoly because Hazel mentioned Karl Marx?’
    â€˜That was how it began.’
    â€˜Where?’
    â€˜This was a matter of watching how certain people behaved.’
    â€˜How certain people behaved?’
    â€˜Exactly.’
    â€˜Which people?’
    â€˜Certain people who interest us.’
    â€˜Yes, if you stay out in the middle of the night to do surveillance on them they must be people who interest you. I suppose surveillance is always about watching how certain people behave, isn’t it, dad? It’s what surveillance is. But which people? Where?’
    â€˜You had it absolutely correct when you spoke to Denise,’ Harpur replied. ‘Surveillance.’
    â€˜You’re brickwalling, are you? Why?’
    â€˜You should get back to bed now we’ve settled everything.’
    â€˜ Have we settled everything?’
    â€˜I think so.’
    â€˜Yes, you would. You think something’s settled if you can keep talking without saying anything at all.’
    â€˜We’ve been all around the subject.’
    â€˜Around, around, around, without really getting anywhere.’
    â€˜I think you should get to bed,’ Harpur said. ‘That’s where to get now.’
    â€˜Well, say “Surveillance, as a matter of fact, Denise,” if she wakes up and asks where you’ve been so late.’
    â€˜She won’t wake up.’
    â€˜Or in the morning.’
    â€˜It was surveillance.’
    â€˜But say it, so it’s the same as what we told her, and then it will sound true, totally true, because three people said it.’
    â€˜It is true.’
    â€˜But best say it – “Surveillance.” Then she’ll reply, “Hazel and Jill told me that. Surveillance.” But what if Denise asks, “Surveillance where?” You could cook up some answer for her, couldn’t you? You won’t cook one up for me, but you could cook one up for her, couldn’t you?