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count on his job – not at your age. But you've got a great chance to make a good impression. You're a lucky young man.' With the venomous clarity of hope deferred, it occurred to Malcolm that, despite the car and the chauffeur and the rings on those plump fingers, Heathers' accent was exactly still like the one his mother would have described as that of a keelie, a boy from the slums of Moirhill. The hostility of the thought frightened him; it wasn't something he had planned for; it didn't fit in with what he wanted for himself . Sweat trickled down between his shoulder blades.
    'Mr Heathers –'
    'Blair. That's all the respect I need. Just Blair. My father now, he was different. When I was a kid , I saw him getting into an argument with a rent collector who'd been calling him “Heathers” – without any "mister" in front of it. He knocked him down. I'll be honest with you; he kicked him in the head.' Heathers smiled. 'I don't offend easily. But then I'm a more successful man than my father.'
    Glancing away, Malcolm saw Kujavia leaning back in the corner with his eyes shut. There was no way of telling if he was awake and listening. 'Denny!' Heathers leaned forward to the driver. 'I'll need you again in about half an hour – after you take Mr Wilson back to his work . '
    'There's no need , ' Malcolm said . As he spoke, the car came to a halt . Without waiting for the driver, Heathers opened the door himself and swung round to get out.
    'Really, there's no need.' He did not want to be left alone with this ugly ill-smelling old man. 'I can make my own way.'
    'Did I promise you a run back?' Heathers held up one soft white hand in admonishment. 'People have to keep their promises to one another. Otherwise it would be all take and no give. That wouldn't be right.'
    As they pulled away, he glimpsed Heathers trotting up the broad steps in front of his building. Success made you healthy, energetic, slow to take offence. Turning, he found that Kujavia had opened his eyes and was watching him. The moment of recognition followed at once.
    'Why you look at me like that?' Kujavia growled .
    'I've just remembered where I saw you before.'
    On Saturday night. Arriving at Heathers' house; as he got out of the car with Irene, the first person he noticed was John Merchant. The tall figure of the Convenor was bent forward with an odd intent stillness. Following his gaze – a car pulled up at the entrance – a big car but shabby, with one wing crumpled. A woman getting out – and Merchant looking not at her but at the man inside, whom you glimpsed, white face, spiked black hair, a lumpy ugliness . But glimpsed only for a moment before your attention was entirely taken by the black woman . It was as if everything Heathers' money might obtain for you had been gathered in a single fleshly image.
    'You don't know me.' As he spoke, Kujavia leaned forward and closed the glass panel that shut off the driver.
    'You didn't go into the party,' Malcolm said . 'You brought the black girl – Rafaella ... ' He couldn't remember the second name she had given . 'You brought her and then you drove away.'
    'What bloody party?'
    'On Saturday night at Mr Heathers. There were a lot of people there, dozens of people . But you just brought the woman and then drove away.'
    'Why I do a thing like that?'
    'Because you'd brought her for me,' Malcolm said, and something in the other man's stillness told him that what he had suspected was true .
     
    ‘– My family are Nigerian’, she had said. The taxi tilted and they rushed down into the tunnel under the river; a lorry hurtled past them in the slow lane, hung the echoing clamour of its wheels over them like some crazy fairground machine; and her eyes shone as she turned to him . ‘ My family are Nigerian. My father was killed in an accident, and my mother did not send for me to bring me home. My mother would have sent for me but she was not able though she kept wanting.’
    Black satin skin, extraordinary