Echo

finished pedantically, 'for people who felt it necessary to change their identities.'

'That's well brilliant, that is. Mike said you were a genius.'

Barry pulled forward a folder from the back of the desk. 'Unfortunately there are rather a lot of them, and in some cases the only record I have is a photofit picture.'

'Why're the police after this Drew bloke?'

'He drove a cattle truck, containing his wife, two children, thirty sheep, and two million pounds of gold bullion onto a cross-channel ferry, and vanished somewhere in France.'

'Shit!'

Barry tittered in spite of himself. 'That's what I thought. The sheep were found wandering around a French farmer's field, but the Drews, the gold, and the cattle truck were never seen again.' Nervously, he opened the folder to reveal prints and newspaper clippings. 'We could go through these together,' he invited, 'and sort them into those that are worth a second look and those that aren't. They represent the hundred or so men sought by the police in nineteen eighty-eight.'

'Sure,' agreed the boy cheerfully. 'Then what do you say to coming out for a drink with me and Mike afterwards? Are you game, or what?'

Deacon spun his chair round an hour later. 'Oi! You two! Shift your arses! Come and read this.' He cocked both forefingers at them in triumph. 'If this isn't what made Billy go walkabout I'll eat my hat. It's the only damn thing in the news during the first half of May that makes a connection with what we've got already.'

Mail Diary-Thursday, 11th May, 1995

NIGEL OFFERS SMALL CONSOLATION

FOLLOWING her divorce from restaurateur Tim Grayson, 58, Fiona Grayson is believed to have returned to her first husband, entrepreneur Nigel de Vriess, 48. According to her friend, Lady Kay Kinslade, Fiona is a frequent visitor to Halcombe House, Nigel's home near Andover. 'They have a lot in common, including two grown-up children,' said Lady Kay. She drew a discreet veil over the bitter divorce ten years ago when Nigel abandoned Fiona for a brief affair with Amanda Streeter, whose husband, James, later vanished with L10 million from the merchant bank that also employed Nigel de Vriess. 'Time heals everything,' said Lady Kay. She denied that Fiona is having money problems.

Nigel, who once described himself as 'the man most likely to succeed,' has had a checkered career. He made his first million by the age of thirty but, after disastrous losses in a failed transatlantic airline venture, he joined the board of Lowenstein's Merchant Bank in '85. He left in '91 'by mutual consent' after entering the computer software business through the purchase of Softworks, a small underfunded company with hidden potential. He renamed it DVS, recruited a new workforce with new ideas, and turned it round in four years to become a major player in the lucrative home computer market.

Less successful in love, Nigel has been married twice and his name has been linked to some of Britain's most beautiful women. But Fiona clearly remembers him more fondly than most. One of his ex-lovers, actress Kirstin Olsen, described him memorably as: 'undersized, tight-fisted, and performs better on top.' Kirstin Olsen's new romance is Arnold Schwarzenegger lookalike Bo Madesen, voted 'the sexiest hunk in the world' by readers of Hello! magazine.

Deacon read it aloud for Terry's benefit and chuckled when the boy laughed. 'It probably serves him right, but I feel sorry for the poor bastard. He obviously didn't compensate Ms. Olsen adequately for the effort she put into her orgasms.'

'Hell has no fury like a woman scorned,' quoted Barry ponderously.

'I know that one,' said Terry. 'Billy taught it to me.' He fell into his imitation of Billy's voice and declaimed theatrically: ' 'Heaven has no rage like love to hatred turned, nor hell a fury like a woman scorned.' However, Terry, that doesn't mean fury as in anger, it means Fury with a capital Eff, as in the winged monsters sent by the gods to create hell on earth for sinners.' He beamed at the two men and returned to his own mode of speech. 'Billy reckoned they came after him every time he got pissed. It was one of his punishments, to have Furies claw at him whenever he was off his head.'

'He had a passion for hurting himself,' Deacon explained to Barry. 'He'd thrust his hands into a fire to cleanse them whenever they offended him.'

'The Furies sound more like DTs,' said Barry.

'Yeah, well, it was him used to claw himself, but he always said he was fighting off the Furies when he was doing it.' Terry pointed a finger at the monitor screen. 'So are you reckoning Billy went looking for this Nigel geezer? Why'd he want to do that?'

Deacon shrugged. 'We'll have to ask Nigel.'

'I expect this is too simplistic,' said Barry slowly, 'but could Billy just have wanted Amanda Streeter's address? If he didn't know she was calling herself Amanda Powell, how else would he find her?''

'That's gotta be right,' said Terry admiringly. 'And that means Billy must've known James, seeing as how Amanda didn't know Billy. Know what I'm saying? So all you've gotta do now is find out the names of blokes that James knew and you'll have Billy sussed.'

Deacon shook his head in mock despair. ' 'We could work out who he was in five minutes if we knew how to access the information you already have in your head.' He arched an amused eyebrow. 'The man was clearly educated, he was a preacher, he was a fan of William Blake, quoted Congreve, knew his art, his classics, had views on European politics, believed in a code of ethics. Above all, he seems to have been a theologian with a particular interest in the Olympian gods and their cruel and arbitrary meddling in people's lives. So? What kind of man has those characteristics?'

Barry removed his glasses and set to work on them again. His self-loathing had become a physical pain in the pit of his stomach, and he was afraid of what he might do this time if Deacon abandoned him. He knew the other man well enough to know that if he divulged Billy's identity now, what little interest Deacon had in him would vanish. Deacon would set off with Terry in hot pursuit of Fenton, leaving Barry to the terrible confusion that had reigned in his soul for twenty-four hours. He thought of what awaited him at home, and in despair he clung to the hope that his hidden knowledge offered him. Deacon didn't need to know who Billy was-not yet anyway-but he did need to know that Barry would deliver eventually. 'My father was fond of