Disordered Minds

out of it. The last thing you do is take a swing at anyone.'

'For an anthropologist, you have a great dislike of people, Jon.'

'It has nothing to do with anthropology. Abstract science doesn't generate hate.'

'Then what does?'

War, thought Jonathan. His anger and aggression had increased by leaps and bounds since his passport had started being questioned. At the back of his mind was a constant fear that if he lost it, he would lose everything. As always, he patted his breast pocket to reassure himself it was there. The gesture was so automatic it had become a nervous tic.

A car drew up to the pavement beside him. It was an ancient Mini Cooper with its backseat piled high with books and files. 'Excuse me ... excuse me!' a woman called in a shrill voice as she wound down her window. 'Are you Jonathan Hughes?' The voice rose to hideous vowel-strangled stridency. 'Excuse me ... excuse me!'

Jonathan ignored her.

He heard the gears crunch as she set off in pursuit on the wrong side of the road. 'Please stop!' she shouted, pulling round a parked car to draw ahead of him. 'Oh, help!' Her wail reached him as a van appeared out of the sleet in front of her and she slammed on her brakes.Jonathan screwed up his eyes in pained disbelief and waited for the inevitable to happen. She was lucky. The reactions of the van driver were as quick as hers and he stopped his vehicle a yard from her bumper. His views on women drivers, mouthed through his windshield with his finger pointing skywards, were inaudible but intelligible, and none of it was complimentary. In particular, he didn't like fat women drivers. With a shake of his fist, he reversed up and pulled away.

Jonathan bent down to look through the window. 'You'd better pull over before anyone else comes,' he said. 'I'll wait.'

She was red-faced and shaking, but she had the presence of mind to do as he said. 'God, that was stupid,' she said, opening her door and climbing out. 'I am so, so sorry. What must you be thinking?' She was zipped into a padded red coat with Wellingtons on her feet and a lime green woolen hat clamped to her head like a Roman helmet, none of which did anything for her figure or her complexion. She looked like a squat garden gnome and Jonathan wondered if she ever bothered to consult a mirror. He put her age at about sixty.

'What do you want?' he asked.

'I'm George Gardener.' She offered an apologetic hand which he shook reluctantly. 'I can't tell you how embarrassed I am about this. I could murder Roy and Jim for being so crass. I'm not going to make excuses for Jim-he's rude to everybody-but I'm afraid Roy thought you were a crack-cocaine dealer.' She pulled a wry face. 'The police keep warning us about London-based gangs moving in and he thought you were one of them.'

'Is that supposed to make me feel better?'

The color deepened in her roughened cheeks. 'I'm just trying to explain why he said what he did.'

'I thought crack-cocaine dealers were Jamaican Yardies. Do I look like a Jamaican?'

'No, but ... well, you have a very English name and you don't look like an Englishman either,' she said in a rush.

Jonathan was unimpressed. 'And you have a very male name, Mrs. Gardener, but I didn't insult women because I was expecting to meet a man.' His mouth twisted cynically. 'Does your friend assume all white men who enter his pub are drug dealers?'

She hesitated, considering the wisdom of answering. 'As long as you don't mind my quoting him, then yes, he would ... if they were flash bastards in smart suits ... and the police had told him the gangs were white. People like that don't go into his pub.' She wrung her hands. 'Please don't be offended. Roy wasn't being racist, he was just trying to explain why he hadn't recognized you. He works very hard to keep drugs out of that pub, which is why most of his customers are elderly and he doesn't make any money. It's not a trendy place. The young wouldn't be seen dead in it.'

Jonathan could well believe that. He wouldn't frequent the Crown and Feathers if he were paid. But he wondered at her naivety and was tempted to repeat the conversation from his point of view. There was no question in his mind that Roy was as racist as they came, but there was little point arguing about it. 'All right,' he said with a curt nod. 'I am not offended.'

'Then you'll come back?' she asked eagerly.

'No. I'm freezing to death and I'm not a beer and sandwiches man, Mrs. Gardener. I'll find somewhere with a more substantial menu.'

She sighed. 'It's Miss actually, but I can't stand being called Ms. I'd rather you called me George.'

Why wasn't he surprised? No man in his right mind would want this earnest little bumpkin with her terrible fashion sense and bulky body.

'Roy made a hotpot specially,' she told him. 'He's a good chef-truly-and he's given us one of the private rooms. There's a fire going. The only reason I chose the Crown and Feathers was because Roy knew Howard Stamp.' She placed a small, pleading hand on his arm. 'It all went wrong because my car wouldn't start. It's the cold. I should have put newspaper under the hood last night, but I wasn't expecting a freeze. You wait: statistics say that at least two of my constituents will have broken a hip by this evening and fifty percent of the rest will be shivering in blankets to avoid upping their heating bills. Those are the pensioners like Jim.'

Jonathan might have said that Bournemouth was holding fewer and fewer attractions for him, but he hesitated when she mentioned Howard Stamp, and she saw the interest in his face.

'Oh, brilliant!' she said, clapping her hands like a born-again Christian. 'Hop in and I'll drive.'

He almost abandoned it there and then. 'I'd rather walk, thank you.'

'Oh, come on,' she said, shepherding him round the hood. 'I need Roy to charge the battery for me, so there's no point leaving the car here. You don't want to pay any attention to what that van driver said. My eyesight's fine and I've had a license for years. Also, I don't usually drive on the wrong side of the