Echo

that nothing on earth would induce me to go down the same route. Julia and I loathed each other, never mind what she said afterwards. Believe me, she was as glad of the divorce as I was. Okay, I was the one who had the affair, but you try sleeping with a woman who doesn't want sex, doesn't want babies, and makes it abundantly clear that she only got married in the first place because Mrs. Deacon was a preferable title to Miss Fitt.' He stood up and walked restlessly to the window. 'Haven't you ever wondered why she never remarried, and why she continues to call herself Julia Deacon?' Briefly, he glanced back at her. 'Because getting out from under her parents was all she was interested in, and I was the sap who helped her do it.'

'And what was Clara's reason for getting married? How long did that one last, Michael? Three years?'

'At least she gave me a bit of warmth after eight frigid years with Julia.'

Penelope Deacon shook her head. 'So why didn't she produce any children?' she asked. 'Perhaps, after all, it's you who doesn't want them, Michael.'

'You're wrong. She didn't want to lose her blasted figure.' He pressed his forehead to the glass. 'You've no idea how much I envy Emma. I'd give my right arm to have her daughters.'

'No, you wouldn't,' said Penelope with a dry laugh. 'They're perfectly revolting. I can only tolerate them for a couple of minutes before their simpering starts to annoy me. I did hope you'd give me a grandson. Boys aren't so affected as girls.'

DS Harrison raised his hand in greeting to two uniformed policemen who were getting out of their car as he exited the station. 'I'm off,' he said. 'Five days' hard-earned leave, and I'm planning to enjoy every damn minute.'

'You jammy bastard,'' said the driver enviously, opening the rear door of the car and grabbing the occupant by the arm. 'Come on, sunshine. Let's be having you.'

Barry Grover emerged blinking into the sunlight.

Harrison paused. 'I know this guy,' he said slowly. 'What's the story?'

'Acting suspiciously in a woman's garden. More accurately, wanking his little heart out over a photograph of the occupant. What name do you know him by?''

'Barry Grover.'

'How about giving us ten minutes then, Sarge? He's claiming to be a Kevin Powell of Claremont Cottage, Easeby, Kent. Says he's related to the Mrs. Amanda Powell who owns the house. We thought it pretty unlikely, seeing what he was doing to her photograph but, according to her neighbors, she does have relations in Kent. She drove down there this morning to stay with her mother.'

Harrison looked at Barry in disgust. 'His name's Barry Grover and he lives with his mother in Camden. Jesus Christ! I hope to God wanking's the least of his crimes or we'll be digging out bodies from under his floorboards.'

'My son and I have never seen eye to eye,' Penelope Deacon told Terry, 'so much so that I can't think of a single decision he's made in life that I've agreed with.'

'You were thrilled when I said I was marrying Julia,' murmured Deacon from his position by the window.

'Hardly thrilled, Michael. I was pleased that you'd finally decided to settle down, but I remember saying that Julia would not have been my first choice. I always preferred Valerie Crewe.'

'You would,' he said. 'She agreed with everything you said.'

'Which shows how intelligent she was.'

'Terrified, more like. She used to quake every time she came into the house.' He dropped a wink in Terry's direction. 'Ma viewed every girl I brought home as potential marriage material, and she used to put them through the mill to find out if they were suitable. Who were their parents? Which school did they go to? Was there a history of insanity in their families?''

'If there had been, it would have been pointless your marrying them,' declared Penelope tartly. 'Both sets of genes would have been so tainted, your children wouldn't have stood a chance.'

'We'll never know, will we?' said Deacon equally tartly. 'Every time you brought up the so-called insanity on our side, the girls did a runner. It probably explains why Julia and Clara balked at having children.'

Terry grinned. 'That can't be right, Mike. I mean, okay, I've only lived with you for a couple of days, but it don't take that long to see you're not a nutter.'

'Who asked you to interfere?'

Terry was sitting on the floor, stroking an ancient, moth-eaten cat that had been around so long no one knew how old it was. It purred with raucous pleasure at Terry's ministrations, which Penelope said was unusual because senility had made it irritable with strangers.

'Yeah, but you need your heads knocking together,' said the boy. 'I mean you should listen to yourselves. Argue, argue, argue. Don't you never get tired of it? There might be some sense if it were going somewhere, but it isn't, is it? Me, I think Mrs. D probably said a load of things she shouldn't've done about you killing your Dad, but you've got to admit she weren't far off in what she said about your wives. I mean they can't have been much cop- either of them-or you'd still be married to them. Know what I'm saying?'

The contents of Barry's pockets and the envelope he'd been carrying were spread out in front of him on the table of an interview room, and sergeants Harrison and Forbes stared at them in perplexity. There were the prostitutes' cards, a stiffened condom that told them, without benefit of forensic analysis, what it had been used for. There were a dozen head shots of different men, some fully exposed, some underexposed, a paperback entitled Unsolved Mysteries of the Twentieth Century, and a folded newspaper clipping. There was the sodden photograph of Amanda Powell, now discreetly wrapped in cellophane to preserve the evidence of Barry's shame, a leather wallet containing money and credit cards, and a dog-eared snap of Barry cradling a toddler in his arms.

The tape had been running for fifteen minutes, and Barry hadn't said a word. Tears of humiliation ran from his eyes, and his flaccid cheeks wobbled pathetically.

'Come on, Barry, for God's sake talk to us,' said Harrison. 'What were you doing at Mrs. Powell's house? Why her?' He poked at the photographs. 'Who are all these men? Do you wank on them as well? Who's this child you're holding? Maybe you've got a thing about kids? Are we going to find pictures of children all over your walls when we go searching your mother's house? Is that what you're so worried about?'

With a sigh, Barry slid off his chair in a dead faint.

The police doctor accompanied Harrison into the corridor. 'He's certainly not dying,' he said, 'but he's scared out of his wits. That's why he fainted.