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strip should be the same precise width.
    â€œI don’t know that I’ve got a lot else to ask you, Mrs. Caine. I hear that Aaron didn’t talk about anything that he mightn’t have talked about on any other evening, and that he left at about eleven-twenty.”
    â€œThat’s right.”
    â€œWhat did he talk about, in fact?”
    â€œNew Guinea. He always did. What it was like, and whether they would ever go back there. They’d seen some sort of exploring film on the telly a few weeks back, and they were desperately stirred up—the old ones, anyway. There’d been a village just like theirs. I don’t think there was a serious possibility of their going, but it gave them something to talk about.”
    The strips of pepper went into melted butter in a frying pan; a saucepan was filled with water, presumably for macaroni. Mrs. Caine managed to cook as if she knew precisely what she was at, and with very few movements. Now she started to open a tin of stewed steak with an old-fashioned, pre-butterfly can opener, the sort you have to wrestle with. She wrestled clumsily, and Pibble was just about to do the honorable thing and take the job on himself when she jabbed her left thumb with the spike of the instrument.
    â€œI’m an idiot,” she said, and ran cold water on it. “There’s some Elastoplast in the top left cupboard behind you, on the second shelf.”
    There was, too. None of Mary’s in-the-thing-behind-the-thing-over-there-I-think. Dear God, an unself-conscious jewel. He stripped the plastic protection from the sticky surface and smoothed the plaster around the strong, small thumb. It curved very sharply back and its nail was bitten flat down to the skin.
    A voice came from the door.
    â€œUllo, ullo! The other fellah caught in the nest, eh?”
    Pibble turned and saw his destined Adversary. He knew him at once, and his innards cringed, the creature of his waking nightmares, poised to demolish whatever he began or undertook—always the same, with the same lounging arrogance, the same Olympian sneer. The nightmare became real only once in a couple of years, and this, now, here, was one of the times.
    The Adversary’s smile was genial, denying the hint of cruelty in the words. Even teeth flashed; brown eyes crinkled at the corners. The clothes were sharp and modern, a chocolate-brown suit with its waistcoat buttoned high, and on the notch of pink shirt a patently club tie. Everything about him suited him, even the bruise-colored sacs below his eyes and the alcohol hoarseness of his voice.
    â€œDarling,” said Mrs. Caine, “I’ve got the most awful news. Somebody murdered Aaron Ku last night, hit him on the head on the stairs, and this is the Detective Superintendent who is trying to find out what happened.”
    â€œChrist! Who’d want to bash old Aaron? Poor old black bastard.”
    â€œDarling, why don’t you take the Superintendent into your study and tell him all he wants to know about the Kus. You understand them much better than anyone. And I’ll get on with luncheon.”
    â€œRight. Come along, copper.”
    â€œIs your thumb all right, Mrs. Caine? Shall I finish off the tin for you?”
    â€œGood God! Cut yourself, Sue? PERFECT WOMAN SLIPS SENSATION! I must make a note in my diary.”
    â€œOff you go, Bob, or you won’t get any lunch.”
    â€œAye aye, Cap’n. Come along, copper. You married, old man?”
    They moved out into the passage, Pibble sweating lightly. Caine’s aggressive, self-assured charm reminded him of Walewski, the big docker with a knack of knocking his women about in a way that hardly marked them at all, though they might have to go to hospital for months. Walewski had enjoyed his art, certain that none of the women would ever give evidence against him. He’d been right—their terrified fascination with him, all five or six of the ones Pibble had met,