Candlenight

was clear that Giles, having brought Berry to see the house without getting the expected result—'Gee, Giles, this is just amazing, you're a lucky guy, I can't tell you how jealous I am' — had been studiously avoiding the issue.

While Berry… Well, what was his excuse?

You asshole, Morelli. he told himself. You blew it again. All ways, you blew it.

This was three days ago. It was now Wednesday night. It was well into October. It was dark. He had nobody to talk to.

Miranda had landed a part in a TV commercial for perfume. Although the perfume was made in Wolverhampton, they were making the commercial in Paris. She'd left a message on his answering machine to say she might be back by the end of the week if she didn't run into any vaguely interesting Frenchmen looking for a little fun.

Berry sat down and tried to watch a re-run of an episode of Cheers. Even that didn't lift him out of his private gloom. When it was over, he switched off and lay down on his bed. missing Miranda, haunted by the same crazy question. Am I psychic or just neurotic?

'The kid's neurotic,' Mario Morelli had said. It was the first time he was conscious of hearing the word. He'd been — what? Nine, ten? The year he went to summer camp and was so unhappy they sent him home, scared — he heard his dad telling his mom — that he was going to walk off on his own and drown himself. After that, Mario took no chances; he wasn't having a son of his bringing down scandal on the family.

His career. Really, he was afraid of what it would do to his career.

In subsequent years they reluctantly took him with them on vacation, which was how he first saw London. He'd been happy then, although he knew things between his parents were not good. He'd pretended he was there alone, pretended it was his town. Felt the history of the place; imagined he was part of it, not part of his dad's vacation, which seemed to be full of inefficient service and lousy Limey food.

How long after that was The Gypsy?

Whenever, that was the year the vacation coincided with his mom being in hospital having this Ladies' Surgery — he never did find out whether it was a hysterectomy or new tits — and his dad had to take custody of the kid.

Berry had spent this dismal fortnight down in Florida, where Mario — already a high-profile newsman with NBC — had borrowed a beach house from a friend. Come to think of it, this friend had been a senator, the bastard already getting too close to politicians for a guy who was supposed to be ruthlessly impartial.

Anyhow, that had been the summer of The Gypsy. He didn't know if she was a gypsy, but that was how he always thought of her. He didn't know, either, if she was a phoney. Just always hoped she was. Better to be a basic neurotic than what she said.

He remembered the nights spent holding the pillow around his head to muffle the sound of Mario humping Carmine, his mistress, in the next room. One night he didn't go back to the beach house, just walked until dawn, a night of spinning pinball and hard coloured lights and cheap music.

And The Gypsy.

She was this mid-European lady, with a sign over her door covered with coloured moons and stars. He couldn't imagine now how the hell he'd found the courage to walk in there with his five dollars.

She'd said. 'You not a happy boy, you mixed up.' He thought she was about to use the word neurotic, like his old man. But she went on, 'It affect you more on account of you sensitive, right? Have eyes inside, yes?' Berry staring at her blankly. 'One day something happen to you. Wow! Crash! Boom! And then you know what you got.'

Crazy. The lights, the hot music, and The Gypsy. Sometimes — occasionally in the years before The Gypsy and increasingly afterwards — he'd gotten feelings about things or places. Small things, stupid things. Feelings that said: don't get closer to this, back off. And The Gypsy's words would come back to him, and he'd laugh. Try to laugh, anyhow.

She'd been called Rose-something, weren't they all? She'd taken his money, but afterwards given it back to him. 'You and me, we in same shit. You find out. Good luck, huh.'

Most likely, she was neurotic too.

The thing that really got to him was old Winstone. Put the arm on young Giles, stop him, not meant to be there, all that crap. The sequence of events leading up to him standing in a dark, cold room permeated by hatred.

Or maybe simply a perfectly ordinary room with a certifiable neurotic standing in it.

On Friday night Miranda called Berry from her mother's house in Chelsea to say she was home.

'Did you get my message?' she asked him.

'Did you get a Frenchman?'

'They all tried too hard.' Miranda said. ''I wanted one who really didn't want to know, but they all tried too hard. I'm afraid Paris has become rather tedious.'

'As tedious as Wales?'

'Do me a favour. How did you get on. anyway?'

She seemed to have forgotten about telling him not to bother coming back.

'Oh, you know, OK.' Berry said. 'Interesting place, good scenery. Crazy language.'

'And you spelled it out for him? As stipulated in the dying wish of old what's-his-name?'

'It was complicated.'

'Complicated. I see. What you're saying is you didn't sort it out. You didn't, did you? You really didn't tell him. You spent the whole weekend poncing around with a lot of Celtic sheep-shaggers and you didn't say a word.'

'That isn't quite fair. Miranda. What happened…Listen, can I see you?'

She hung up on him.

Angrily. Berry broke the line and tried to call her back.

Then he changed his mind and called Giles at home. This was it. The end. He'd lay the whole thing on him, the whole Winstone bit, the bad vibes in the judge's study, everything.

Giles's phone rang five times and then there was a beep.

'This is the London home of Claire and Giles Freeman. We 're not here, so you can either leave a message after the tone or ring us on Y Groes 239.'

Beep.

Berry put the phone down.

Y Groes 239.

'Shit,' he said, dismayed.

Giles had complained it would be months before all the legal stuff was complete, what did they call it, probate.

'They're living in that goddamn house,' Berry said aloud. 'They moved in.'

He'd blown it. He'd let everybody down again. Giles, Winstone. Even Miranda.

You're a waste of time, boy. You know that?

Mario Morelli's words, of course.

You got no guts is the problem.

CHAPTER XX

WALES

One of the first things they did was to go into Pontmeurig and choose a bed.

Nothing else. Not yet, anyway. Any changes, they had agreed, should be dictated by the cottage itself. They felt that after they'd spent a few weeks there they would know instinctively which items of new furniture the judge's house might consider permissible.

But a new bed was essential. There was only one in the place, an obvious antique with an impressive headboard of dark oak which was possibly Claire's grandfather's deathbed. Hardly be seemly for the pair of them to spend their first night in Y Groes squashed into that.

So they ordered the new bed from Garfield and Pugh's furniture store in Stryd y Castell, Pontmeurig. It