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wanted to get on terms of personal confidence with his neighbors. But he registered, as he went to greet Tony, that Delphine knew who his decorator was, and knew he had a partner—and also that the word came naturally to her sort of circle. He thought she was someone he could do business with, but beyond that? He didn’t so far feel called upon to make her a bosom buddy.
    For the next half hour he and Tony were totally businesslike. Matt picked out a suitable floor covering for the kitchen, and a paper that reached out and grabbed him for the dining room. Now he chose paint for the kitchen, sitting room, hallway, and landing. The last area would cause the most disruption if it was not done before they moved in. But otherwise he did not see why he shouldn’t organize the movers to bring most of the furniture from the Pudsey flat the day after work was finished.
    â€œThen we can make decisions about the other rooms in our own time,” he said to Tony, “so the children can have their say. Either we can have them done one by one, or else I can take the children away for a week and have several done at once.”
    â€œYou’re wanting to get the children settled in as soon as possible, I suppose,” commented Tony.
    â€œWell, yes, I am. Get them settled in before their mother comes back. I brought them round the other night, and we all saw an urban fox, and somehow—there’s no rhyme nor reason to it—”
    â€œI know, I know. I’ve got children. And you want to strike while the iron is hot and they’re in love with the place. I think you’re wise.”
    â€œThat is exactly it. I’m afraid it might wear off. I’m probably hoping for the impossible but it would suit me fine if they never mentioned the bones in the attic again.”
    â€œNot much chance of that, with appeals for information on the radio, and the police conducting an investigation.”
    â€œNot very much of an investigation,” commented Matt. “They’re doing about as much as if it was a long-ago teenager’s bad mistake.”
    â€œWhich it wasn’t?”
    â€œOf course not. Like we said at the time, it was too big.” Matt shook his head in frustration. “But the police high-ups seem to be allotting it zilch in terms of time or money.”
    But they were doing something. Five days later, when Matt had been given a date by Tony for organizing the move, Charlie came by appointment to the studios of BBC Leeds. Matt had been intending to take him to the canteen when he suddenly had a mental picture of Liza Pomfret taking the next table to theirs and straining her ears for what she could make out of their conversation. He changed his mind immediately. They went out into the spring sunshine and down to the Merrion Centre pub, where they found a dim corner devoid of shoppers devouring shepherd’s pie or lasagna, and settled down over two pints to discuss developments.
    â€œFirst of all,” said Charlie, “something I didn’t know before, because this isn’t the sort of case that comes up every day: it’s not possible to ‘date’ bones in themselves—say when they were alive, roughly when the person died. Bits of flesh might be another matter, but there were none.”
    â€œI see. So no joy on the date?”
    â€œWell, not initially. Come back to that. The scientists are leaning in the direction of a little girl for the victim. Obviously we’ll be interested in the houses and their inhabitants, particularly the children. By the way, on the question of date, we made a bit of an assumption based on the dust and the area around the bones—frankly, it was more of a guess than anything. We thought the bones were over twenty years old. Going on that, we found that the last house owner who’d been there more than twenty years was your Mr. Farson, who moved there in 1977. Now eighty-seven, and living in a nursing home