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nothing.
    Ruth’s clothes were like her mother’s, simple, good quality, and not many of them. He found a suitcase and packed, shoving a few things that needed ironing on top, but whatever was forgotten could easily be picked up later. Damn Esther Marx, why did her home tell him so little? What had the killer come for – to find something, recover something? It was such a dull story. Esther Marx, French woman of Jugoslav origin, Dutch subject by marriage, had earned her living as a nurse in a military hospital, married a Dutch soldier, and lived placidly without passions or dramas, for ten years, and then had been shot. Why should she be shot after ten years? What had brought the upheaval about? And killed with a machine-gun! Brutal, efficient, but reckless. How the devil was it that nobody had paid any heed to the shots? Mrs Chose had talked about a crashing noise, but nobody else appeared to have thought anything of it!
    Outside, he picked up his policeman.
    â€˜I can’t see any real good in your hanging about here – I’ll give you a lift back to the shop.’
    â€˜Thanks, chief.’
    â€˜How is it that in a soundbox like that nobody notices shots? Even assuming he fired all seven together – the womanacross the passage thinks someone maybe fell off a stepladder – what are you sniggering at?’
    â€˜You never look at the television, chief?’
    â€˜What have I missed now?’
    â€˜Of course you haven’t had Gerard’s report yet. She was done in in the lunch hour – very cleverly, right in the gangster serial.’
    â€˜Oh no,’ light dawning.
    â€˜There’s always a terrific din – car crashes, broken glass, tommy guns – it’s a send-up really: Perils of Pauline, 1970. Fifteen minutes.’
    â€˜Once a week or every day?’
    â€˜Every day. You must know the theme tune – that drummer. You’re standing still, dad – Rick Starr.’
    â€˜Why not Rick Shaw?’ resignedly.
    â€˜Yesterday they packed the police car with dynamite and it went off when he turned the starter key. Boy, poor old Rick, sticking plaster on for nearly threequarters of an hour and the girls hysterical about his eyebrows, cutting bits off their own hair and sending it into the studio.’
    â€˜Just as a sacrifice, or intended to replace his?’ interested.
    â€˜Don’t ask me, chief, I’ve got no daughters, thank God.’
    â€˜A pro who times his jobs to the television – well well. Not original, but effective.’
    Arlette was asleep. As he screwed the cap back on the toothpaste, a thing she was quite incapable of doing, he found himself humming a little song. With a little recollection he traced it to the hero of a television serial – words adapted by French urchins …
    â€˜Thierry-la-Fronde est un imbécile
…
Avec sa fronde en matière plastique

Qu’il a acheté au Prisunic
…’ It was him!
    He levelled a sub-machine-gun at the bathroom glass and said, ‘You’ve ten seconds to live.’ Wasn’t his style. He needed a leather coat and a cigar, like Colonel Stok of the KGB. He tried to see himself as Colonel Stok, but his orange pyjamas, bought by Arlette, with
‘Oui à l’amour’
in midnight-blue script across the bosom, quite spoilt the effect.

Chapter Seven
    He nearly turned into Colonel Stok again next morning; it was colder than ever, the wind had risen, and was dashing the now much heavier rain against the panes in a rhythm like automatic-rifle fire. He put on his leather coat and a hat with a wide brim, but forgot his cigars – he had to take Ruth to the hospital and was preoccupied.
    â€˜Those shoes are too thin – put on your gumboots.’ Luckily he had packed them last night. He watched Arlette biting her thread; she was sewing a button on Ruth’s raincoat.
    â€˜Her birth certificate says “Father Unknown”.