Disordered Minds

become so diluted that your great-grandchild will carry only a tiny percentage of you. People's value is in their achievements, George, not in their ever diminishing gene pool.'

It was on the tip of her tongue to say achievements were empty when there was no one to share them with, but instead she gave a relaxed laugh. 'Then let's find somewhere to eat while we work out who really killed Grace,' she said, pulling left onto Bridport Road. 'That would be one hell of an achievement.'

She drove to the Smugglers Inn at Osmington Mill, to the east of Dorchester, which had been built in the thirteenth century, beside a stream, in a cleft between two swooping downlands that rose to meet the spectacular Jurassic cliffs of the Dorset coast. The car park overlooked the sea-a turbulent gray that April lunchtime, whipped by an easterly wind-with the thatched inn accessible via a steep ramp and a flight of steps. 'My treat,' said George firmly, leading the way. 'I had a paycheck this morning so I'm feeling flush.'

Jonathan made a halfhearted protest. 'Why don't we go Dutch?'

'Because you're broke and I'm old enough to be your mother,' said George, pushing open the door. 'Also I'm starving, and I refuse to feel embarrassed about eating three courses while you pick away at some miserable little starter because it's all you can afford. Reason enough?'

He followed her inside. 'I suppose Andrew's been dishing the dirt on me again?'

'It depends how you define dirt. Most of what he said was highly laudatory.' She turned to look at him. 'What do you think?'

'That you're feeling sorry for me.'

'Thepub, Jonathan. What do you think of the pub?'

'It'll do,' he said, taking in the impressive oak beams that crisscrossed the low ceiling, the open fireplaces with glowing embers and blackboards advertising local lobster and a healthy wine list. 'At least it's an improvement on the Crown and Feathers.'

'You're very difficult to please,' she said with a sigh. 'Anything's better than the Crown and Feathers. I hoped you'd appreciate some atmosphere.'

He laughed and steered her toward the bar. 'I was teasing, George. If you want to pass yourself off as my mother, you'll have to learn to take it.'

This sharing of a meal was so different from the first that Jonathan wondered whether George's remark about a bad beginning making a bad ending was true. If so, he blamed Roy Trent for it. However ill Jonathan had been feeling that day, it was the other man's use of 'black' and 'wog' that had really raised his hackles. 'Tell me something,' he invited when a natural lull came in the conversation. 'Did you phone Roy to tell him you were going to be late for the lunch in February?'

George paused with her fork, laden with steak-and-kidney pudding, halfway to her mouth. 'Of course I did. I said I'd be lucky to be there before twelve-forty-five and asked him to take you up to the room. Why do you ask?'

'Just interested in why he was so aggressive. He left me standing at the bar for a good ten minutes before he put in an appearance, then the first thing he did was call me a wog, but he must have had some suspicion of who I was. The only other people there were a middle-aged couple and Jim Longhurst, so it's not as though there were droves of potential Jonathan Hugheses to choose from.'

George looked appalled. 'Did he really call you a wog?'

Jonathan nodded. 'Wog ... black ... darkie-the only thing he didn't call me was a nigger.'

George's face went through several gargoyle gyrations. 'Good lord! That's outrageous! No wonder you were so cross.'

Jonathan grinned as he cut into his fillet of salmon. 'I think he was trying to get rid of me before you arrived.'

'He'd have succeeded, too, if my neighbor hadn't come home when he did. I'd reckoned another half hour on the charger before there was enough juice in the battery to give me a spark, then Barry turned up with jump leads and had me ticking over in a couple of minutes.' Her forehead creased in a frown. 'I phoned just after midday, and Roy said you were already there.'

'Then he was watching me through a spyhole,' said Jonathan bluntly, 'because he didn't emerge till twelve- fifteen. I thought at the time it was a damn strange way to run a pub.'

'He has a CCTV camera above the till and a couple of monitors in the kitchen.' She chewed a piece of steak. 'I'm completely shocked. He told me the only racist remark he made was that he was expecting a white man and you took off like a rocket. Do you still think he isn't involved?'

Jonathan shook his head. 'I'd probably agree a ninety percent certainty that he was one of Cill's rapists, but I can't see the connection with Grace unless the police missed a hell of a lot of evidence. Even if Colley Hurst was the murderer and bath taker, there was nothing to indicate the other two boys were there.' He shrugged. 'I suppose Colley might have told them about it afterward, but it doesn't explain why Roy would want to protect him now.'

'Perhaps we should ask him,' said George lightly.

'He'd laugh.'

'Not if we concentrate on Cill's rape,' she said. 'We know he was taken in for questioning about it and we know the names of his friends. It'll be interesting to see his reaction.' Impatiently, she pushed her plate aside and propped her elbows on the table. 'He's so smug, Jonathan. At least let's put him on the back foot.'

The idea was tempting. 'What good will it do if we can't link him to Grace?'

'It'll scare the bejabbers out of him,' she said, 'particularly if we ask him who Priscilla Fletcher is and why she would want to steal your wallet. As far as he's aware, his ex-wife is completely unknown to us. In any case, I can't believe he called you a wog-it's so rude.'

The closer they came to Bournemouth the more Jonathan regretted agreeing to accompany her. Sticks and stones might break his bones but rudeness had never killed him. In one form or another, he'd lived with it all his life. It had turned him into a deeply repressed individual, but it was the sticks and stones that frightened him.

'You're such a coward, Jon ... it's embarrassing. When are you going to stand up for