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paramedic was just loading a white and shaking Bill Lunt into the ambulance.
    ‘Mr Maxwell, Mr Maxwell,’ Bill held out his hand towards him. ‘Please come with me in the ambulance.’
    Maxwell considered the options. If this was daytime telly, that nice Dick van Dyke would be waiting for Bill in Community General. If this was modern film noir , the ambulance driver wouldbe psychotic old Nicholas Cage. As it was he saw the answer to a problem that had been dawning. ‘Certainly, Bill,’ he said, hopping aboard. ‘I’ll have to get off halfway, though. Sorry.’ He turned to the paramedic. ‘Columbine, if you would,’ he smiled. ‘No need to drive down the road, it’ll only spook the neighbours. On the corner will be lovely.’ He settled down on the vacant bed. ‘You really don’t look too well, Bill. Not too well at all…’

    The silence inside Number 38, Columbine, the little town house that was Chez Maxwell, south of the Flyover, was palpable. It was the silence of two people studiously ignoring a third. Nolan’s little nocturnal whitterings over the baby monitor were like sounds from another planet. Metternich, black, white, feline and neutered, who had been giving himself a thorough grooming, including all his private bits, curled up tight, nose up bum, when he heard Maxwell’s key in the lock. He didn’t like to take sides; this was a human thing – let them fight it out. He’d eat the survivor. Jacquie was knitting. She was concentrating furiously and her needles hissed together like tyres speeding on a wet road. No matter that she was dropping more stitches than she made, it being nearly one in the morning and all. She kept up the momentum, click, hiss, ignore,click, hiss, ignore. Motherhood may have slightly rounded Jacquie Carpenter, but it had made her more beautiful too. The grey eyes, smiling in the symmetry of her face; the lips parted in greeting. Tonight, however, was a little different.
    Maxwell tried the jolly approach. ‘Hello, Heart of Darkness,’ he beamed, hurling cap and scarf in all directions. ‘Got home safely, then. Nole in bed, is he? Good show.’
    Click. Hiss. Ignore.
    ‘You’ll never guess what happened to me this evening.’
    Jacquie put down her raddled knitting and stared at the man she lived with. ‘Ooh,’ she said, icily. ‘Let me take a stab. You went to the pub with a member of your department and spent the evening lesson planning. No, no, wait a minute. That sounds a bit far-fetched, doesn’t it? Like an episode of Hustle . Let me think, now.’ She tapped her chin with her empty knitting needle. ‘Oh, no, now wait a minute. I’ve got it. You went wandering off over the dunes with some mad photographer and found a body.’ She looked up, hands clasped now under her chin, the picture of an Angela Brazil heroine winning the hockey cup for the third time running. ‘Don’t keep me in suspense,’ she said. ‘Which of those was it?’
    ‘You’ve heard, then?’ he said, still smiling brightly, wondering whether he should risk a tip-toe to the drinks cabinet. After all, they called his favourite Southern Comfort SOCO these days; singularly apt bearing in mind the company he had recently been keeping.
    ‘Henry rang,’ she breezed, still in brittle, Jolly Hockeysticks mode, ‘I’d just set off home, and I’d already done enough overtime for a decade, so I’m joining the team tomorrow.’ Her icy resolve broke. ‘Max, how could you?’ She suddenly sounded like a furious mix of Margaret Meldrew and Barbara Good. ‘You nearly died not ten months ago.’
    ‘I’m allowed an accident, surely,’ he muttered, taking the chance and pouring himself a drink.
    ‘Yes, an accident. Anyone is allowed one of those. But someone was trying to kill you, Max. Because you were snooping about.’
    They had been indeed. And they’d got to old White Surrey’s brakes just to make a point. Maxwell could be flippant about it now, although he still had the headaches from