Echo

'None,' said Barry with rising excitement. 'I bought these as a Christmas present to myself because all my shoes are black. Mike knows that. He's the one who told me black shoes were boring.'

'Yes,' said Deacon thoughtfully, 'I did.' He bent to flick ash into the ashtray on the coffee table, using the pause for some rapid thinking. 'Give me a description of the man she was with last night, Barry,' he said, 'the one she's denying was there.'

'I've already told you,' said Barry uncomfortably.

'Tell me again.'

'Fair, good-looking-' he petered into an embarrassed silence, unwilling to revisit his shameful voyeuristic excitement. The thrill of the experience had long since vanished for him.

'The description Barry gave me this afternoon,' Deacon told Harrison, 'was toff, slim, blond, tanned, and with a tattoo or birthmark on his right shoulder blade. He didn't recognize him, and I don't recognize the description, but let's say that I can prove to you that such a man exists and that Amanda Powell is well acquainted with him?'

Harrison wasn't against the proposition. He still smarted from the drubbing he had received when he dared to question her denial. But... 'What difference would it make?'

It might persuade you to ask her why she's lying about him being there.'

'I repeat what difference does it make? There's no law against her having a man in her house, and Barry could have seen him on one of the other occasions she says he was there. In itself, the man's existence proves nothing.'

'But just for the moment, assume Barry's telling the truth. Accept that he hadn't been to Mrs. Powell's house before and that he did see a man there last night. Aren't you curious about why she's lying? I know I am.'

Harrison held his gaze for a moment. 'Mrs. Powell is very-' he sought for a word-'convincing.' He looked as if he were about to say something else, then thought better of it.

'Too convincing?' Deacon suggested.

'I didn't say that.'

Deacon stubbed out his cigarette, then moved to the telephone and consulted the address book beside it. He dialed a number. 'Hello, Maggie, it's Mike Deacon here. Yes, I know it's late but I really do need to talk to Alan rather urgently.' He waited, then smiled into the receiver. 'Yes, you old buzzard, it's me again. How are you feeling?' He laughed. 'She let you have a Bell's? Things are looking up, then. A small favor over the phone, that's all. I'm going to switch over to the loudspeaker because there are three other people in the room, and they're all interested in what I hope you're about to say. I want you to describe Nigel de Vriess for me.' He pressed the loudspeaker button and replaced the handset.

'What he looks like, you mean?' barked Alan Parker's gravelly voice.

'Yes. You might just confirm that you've never given me a description of him before.'

'Only if you tell me what this is all about. I may be on my last legs, but I'm still a journalist. What's the oily toad been up to?'

'I'm not sure yet. You'll be the first to know after me.'

'And pigs might fly.' Alan chuckled. 'All right, I've never given you his description before. To the best of my recollection he's about my height-which is five-eleven-and has blond hair which he dyes to cover the grey. He's always impeccably dressed in dark suits, probably from Harrod's. Wears a white carnation in his buttonhole. Good- looking, suave. Think of Roger Moore as James Bond, and you won't go far wrong. Anything else you want to know?'

'We were given a description of a man we believe to be him.' Deacon's grin reflected itself in his voice. 'But he was ballock-naked at the time so how he dresses doesn't help us much. He was described as having an all-over body tan and a tattoo or a birthmark on his right shoulder blade. Can you verify either of those facts?' '

'Hah! I can't speak for the tan, but he certainly has a birthmark on his shoulder blade. Legend has it, put about by him, of course, that it's shaped in the devil's number-six-six-six-which is why he was a millionaire by the age of thirty, the devil looking after his own and all that twaddle. But one of his floozies described it as looking more like a dog's pizzle. Never seen it myself, so can't say either way.' His voice took on a wheedling tone. 'Come on, Mike. What is all this? I'll have your hide if DVS is on the skids, and you've kept it to yourself. I've got shares in the bloody thing.'

'To the best of my knowledge, this has nothing to do with his business, Alan.' With renewed promises to keep his old friend posted, Deacon cut the line and lifted an eyebrow in Harrison's direction. 'Amanda's in-laws have been claiming for five years that she and Nigel de Vriess conspired to defraud Lowenstein's Bank of ten million pounds, then made a scapegoat of her husband by murdering him. No one, including the police, has ever taken the claims seriously because there was no evidence that Nigel and Amanda had anything to do with each other after she married James.'

Harrison digested this in silence for a moment. 'There still isn't,' he pointed out. 'Everything your friend said is presumably in the public domain. What was to stop you or Barry from looking it up and then using it to compromise Mrs. Powell?'

'Nothing at all,' said Deacon evenly, lighting another cigarette. 'In fact, that's exactly what I was planning to do after Christmas. The first opportunity I had I intended to make an appointment to interview de Vriess. You'll have to take my word for it that the only research I've done on him so far was to treat Alan Parker to a drink last Sunday and ask him how de Vriess funded the purchase of his mansion in Hampshire, which is the area that's been exercising the brains-and curiosity-of the Streeter family.'

'And I'd never even heard of him before last night,' put in Barry tentatively.

Deacon retrieved his notes from the kitchen, and shut the door hurriedly on the heavy fetid air that seeped out of it like sump oil. He handed the Mail Diary piece to Harrison and explained briefly why he'd been looking for it, or something like it. 'We're after anything that might connect Billy Blake to Amanda Powell,' he finished.

'Have you found a connection?'