Echo

nothing for you, though.'

The old man beamed at him. 'You're giving me lunch. What more could I ask? Won't you introduce me to Barry first? I've been so looking forward to meeting him.'

'Yeah, right.' He grabbed the little man's arm and dragged him forward. 'This is my mate, Barry, and this is my other mate, Lawrence. Stands to reason you two're going to like each other because you're both mates of me and Mike.'

Lawrence, accepting this naive statement at face value, took Barry's hand in both of his and shook it joyfully. 'This is such a pleasure for me. Mike tells me you're an expert on photography. I do envy you, my dear fellow. An artist's eye is a precious gift.'

Deacon turned away with a smile as the ready flush of pleasure colored Barry's face. Lawrence's secret, he thought, was that he was incapable of sounding insincere, but whether his feelings were really as genuine as they appeared, it was impossible to say. 'Whiskey, Lawrence?'' he asked, heading for the kitchen.

'Thank you.' Lawrence patted the seat beside him. 'Sit next to me, Barry, while Terry tells me who made such a wonderful job of the festive decorations.'

'That was me,' said Terry. 'They're good, ain't they? You should've seen this place when I first got here. It was well unfriendly. No color, nothing. Do you know what I'm saying?'

'It lacked atmosphere?'' suggested the old man.

'That's the word.'

Lawrence looked towards the mantelpiece, where Terry had arranged the objets d'art from his doss in the warehouse. There was a small plaster replica of Big Ben, a conch shell, and a brilliantly colored garden gnome squatting on a toadstool. He doubted they represented Deacon's taste in ornaments, so attributed them correctly to Terry. 'I congratulate you. You've certainly made it very friendly now. I particularly like the gnome,' he said with a mischievous glance at Deacon, who was returning with the whiskey.

'I'm glad you said that,' murmured Deacon, putting the glass on a table at Lawrence's knee and retrieving his own. 'I've been racking my brains for something to give you, and we wouldn't miss the gnome, would we, Terry?'

'Mike hates it,' confided the boy, reaching it down, 'probably because I nicked it out of somebody's garden. Here, it's yours, Lawrence. Happy Christmas, mate.'

Deacon gave his evil grin. 'I tell you what, if there's a mantelpiece in your sitting room, then that's the place for it. As Terry says, you can't go wrong with spots of bright color about the place.' He raised his glass to their guest.

Lawrence placed it on the table. 'I'm overwhelmed by so much generosity,' he said. 'First a party, then a present. I feel I don't deserve either. My gifts to you are so humble by comparison.'

Deacon's lip curled. He had a nasty feeling the old buzzard was about to shame them.

'Can we open them now?' asked Terry.

'Of course. Yours is the largest one, Barry's is the one wrapped in red paper, and Michael's is in green paper.'

Terry handed Deacon and Barry theirs and ripped open his own. 'Shit!' he said in amazement. 'What d'you reckon to this, Mike?'' He held up a worn leather bomber jacket with a sheepskin collar and the Royal Air Force insignia sewn onto the breast pocket. 'These cost a packet down Covent Garden.'

Deacon frowned as the boy thrust his arm into a sleeve, then glanced towards the old man with a questioning look in his eyes which said, Are you sure? Lawrence nodded. 'You'd never find that in Covent Garden,' Deacon said then. 'That's the real thing. What did you fly?' he asked. 'Spitfires?'

Lawrence nodded again. 'But it's a long time ago, and the jacket has been looking for a home for many years.' He watched Barry finger his package on his lap. 'Aren't you going to open yours, Barry?'

'I wasn't expecting anything,' said the little man shyly.

'Then it's a double surprise. Please. I can't bear the suspense of not knowing if you like it.'

Barry carefully slit the cellotape, as was his character, and unfolded the paper neatly to reveal a Brownie box- camera wrapped in layers of tissue paper. 'But this is prewar,' he said in amazement, turning it over with immense care. 'I can't possibly accept this.'

Lawrence raised his thin hands in protest. 'But you must. Anyone who can tell the age of a camera just by looking at it should certainly possess it.' He turned to Deacon. 'Now it's your turn, Michael.'

'I'm as embarrassed as Barry.'

'But I'm delighted with my gnome.' His eyes twinkled mischievously. 'And I shall do exactly as you suggest and put it on the mantelpiece in my drawing room. It will look very well beside my collection of Meissen porcelain.'

Deacon bit off a snort of laughter and pulled the wrapping from his present. He didn't know whether to be relieved or dismayed, for while the gift had no material value its sentimental value was clearly enormous. He turned the pages of a closely written diary, spanning many years of Lawrence's life. 'I'm honored,' he said simply, 'but I'd rather you left it to me in your will as something to remember you by.'

'Then there'd be no pleasure in it for me. I want you to read it while I'm alive, Michael, so that I shall have someone to reminisce with from time to time. As far as you are concerned, I have been entirely selfish in my choice of a present.'

Deacon shook his head. 'You've already hijacked my soul, you old bastard. What more do you want?''

Lawrence reached out a frail hand. 'A son to say Kaddish for my soul.'

The smell of decay that poured out through the door like a tide of sewerage when the police ram burst open the door of Amanda Powell's house drove the team of policemen staggering backwards. So thick and putrid was the stench that it stung eyes and nostrils and loosened the contents of stomachs. The very fabric of the house seemed to ooze with the liquid of corruption.