Portobello

licensed for wedding ceremonies, was booked, the lunch menu scrutinised (and frequently subjected to alterations) by Eugene, the flowers lavishly ordered, the cars organised and, of course, every detail of departure for the honeymoon and the honeymoon itself arranged in advance. Ella had collected her wedding dress and her 'going- away' suit. Her own two suitcases were packed, as was Eugene's.

'You want me to come over in case anyone comes back here?' said Carli. 'I mean, serve tea or drinks or whatever?' She was plainly anxious to feast her eyes on the guests and get a sight of Ella in her wedding dress.

'No one will come back here, Carli. Not even ourselves. We shall go straight from the hotel on our honeymoon.' Ella could see no particular reason to tell Carli where that honeymoon destination was or when they would be leaving from Heathrow. 'While we're away perhaps you'd like to check-up on your – er, sweets you've left in the drawers. There seem to be rather a lot of them, even some in one of the bathrooms.'

The woman stared. 'My what?'

Her tone was belligerent. Ella felt she had herself perhaps been too abrupt. 'I'm sorry, Carli. There's absolutely no reason why you shouldn't keep your sweets in this house. Forget it.'

'I never eat sweets. Never. You're mixing me up with someone else.'

Ella started to say there was no one else but she stopped herself. Carli had been vacuum-cleaning their bedroom and she left her to it, going back into the guest bathroom. The brown-and-orange pack of Chocorange – for that, she saw, was its name – was still there. Down in the drawing room, Eugene had put all her books away as he had promised, neatly, precisely, according to author and each one alphabetically. She had been kneeling there, in front of the row of Forsters, when he had come in and shouted at, as he thought, an intruder. But had he really believed the person on her knees there in the fading light was a burglar? A bookish burglar with a fondness for literature? It was extremely unlikely. And why had he undertaken to finish the task she had begun?

She squatted down on the floor again and removed from the shelf A Passage to India, Howard's End, two copies of The Longest Journey, Maurice and A Room with a View. She put her hand inside, feeling behind the remaining books, first to the right and encountering more space, then to the left, her fingers coming in contact with a plastic bag full of something. She pulled it out. The something was a number of packets of Chocorange. She counted ten of them. The bag in her hand, she began walking about the drawing room, opening a tallboy, lifting the lid of a Chinese chest, pulling out a drawer in a console table. A carved flange, which Eugene perhaps believed concealed a secret drawer, yielded four packs of Chocorange. Under some folded linen in the chest she found six more. The house was full of the things. At the handsome lateeighteenth- century wardrobe, which stood in the hall where they hung their coats, she hesitated. The idea of going through a man's pockets was repugnant to her – but surely that distaste would only apply when the search was for letters or photographs? She opened the wardrobe door and felt in the pocket of Eugene's raincoat, which he hadn't worn much since the relentlessly wet summer seemed to come to an end in the last days of August. No Chocorange but a mass of the cellophane wrap covers with their distinctive red taping, which had to be stripped off in order to reach the contents. The pockets of a light linen jacket contained much the same discarded wrappings.

After that Ella went all over the house causing Carli, who encountered her in one of the spare bedrooms, to ask her what she was looking for. Ella simply smiled and shook her head. By that time she had found twenty-three packets of the things but she had left them where they were, concealed inside drawers and cupboards, some hidden in a spongebag. Those, she thought, he probably intended to take to Como with him. This find made her look inside his big suitcase, where she found another six in an inside zip pocket.

That must mean he couldn't exist without them, not even on his honeymoon.

Seldom did Lance have occasion to go into a pharmacy or what Uncle Gib would have called a chemist's shop. He was doing so this time at the request of his mother. She herself was too busy watching repeats of Cagney and Lacey on ITV3 to go out and buy the aspirins of which she regularly ate fourteen or fifteen a day but had run out of, for she too was an addict in her own way. Lance chose this particular pharmacy because he passed its window on his way to visit Uncle Gib and it was the first one he had come to since walking down from his parents' flat. His walk necessarily took him down the Portobello Road and the sight of the stalls and small shops full of delectable goods made him feel even more acutely the lack of the means to buy them. Copies of designers' handbags, but so much like the real thing as to be indistinguishable from them, were everywhere this morning. A new shop had opened selling home-made soaps whose strong, nostril-burning scents dominated all the usual smells of bacon and cheese and doner kebab. They made Lance sneeze but Gemma liked that sort of soap and the 'natural' bath essences the shop also sold. He'd like to buy them for her even if they did give him an allergy. And he'd like to buy that green lace tunic with the sequins and those black velvet harem pants and that… It was no use. He was once more approaching skint status, Elizabeth Cherry's three hundred pounds and the thirty pounds Dave had produced nearly gone.

He hadn't seen Gemma since the night of the fire. But he had heard from her. The postcard she sent him was the first missive that might be called a letter he had ever had. It came to his parents' address, which she must have remembered from when he first met her. The postcard was a picture of the late Princess Diana with the infant Prince William. It said, How are you? I hope OK. I miss you. Abelard says to say hi. Lots of love, G.

He turned into Golborne Road and there was the pharmacy on his left. The man standing at the counter he recognised at once as White Hair, the rich git who was the owner of all that stuff he'd nicked and lost when Fize and his mates attacked him. Lance would have expected White Hair, if he had been in that shop at all, to have been buying expensive perfume for his girlfriend or maybe a new electric shaver. Instead, he was in the act of paying for three packs of sweets the assistant was just putting in a paper bag. Lance didn't expect to be recognised and he got a shock when White Hair turned round, gave him a curt nod and said good afternoon. For a moment Lance thought he must know him in his burglar's identity. Then he remembered trying and failing to claim the money found in the street. He muttered a 'cheers' in return but by that time White Hair had gone, taking his sweets with him.

Lance bought his mother's aspirins and began the walk back to Kensal Road where his parents lived. But before he reached it he recalled his mother telling him that Uncle Gib had moved in with those god-botherers, the Perkinses, in Fermoy Road. Lance didn't know the number but he had no difficulty in finding the house. Where its neighbours each had a laurel bush in their front gardens, the Perkinses had a sign proclaiming Jesus Lives!. Lance rang the bell.

There was no response. He rang again. This time he was aware of a flicker across the corner of his eye on the left side. Someone had twitched a curtain in the bay window. Then he noticed a narrow gap between the front door and its frame. The door wasn't shut but very slightly ajar. Expecting some kind of trap, he gave it a very cautious push. It swung open silently and, stepping over the threshold, he found himself in a narrow hallway.

Framed texts on the walls told him that the better the day the better the deed and that if he honoured his father and mother his days would be long in the land. There was no one about but an ashtray on the windowsill full of stubs of a familiar brand was evidence of Uncle Gib's presence in the house. The silence was disconcerting. Lance belonged in a generation that feels uneasy unless there is a perpetual murmuring of voices or throb of pop in the background. But having come here and made his way in, he wanted to see Uncle Gib. He wanted to tell him the truth about where he had been that night for Uncle Gib had been a burglar himself once. He might be angry, he would call him a no-good sinner, but he would understand and he would know Lance couldn't have been responsible for burning his house down.

Someone must be at home. They wouldn't have gone out and left the place open like that. Lance put his hand to the knob on the door on his left and turned it slowly clockwise. The door opened silently and he crept in. Afterwards he hardly knew why he hadn't screamed but he hadn't. Perhaps he'd been fascinated as well as horrified by what lay on the table. He'd clapped his hand over his mouth and advanced – tiptoeing for some reason – up to the body of Reuben Perkins.

The former Shepherd of the Children of Zebulun lay in state, the lower part of his body covered by a white sheet, his head resting on a white pillow. His hands were folded across his chest. The third stroke he had suffered had killed him but the second had twisted his mouth, pulling down one corner. Death had erased this distortion and Lance saw a noble face, more like a Roman emperor than an old lag. This was his first corpse, the first he had ever seen. So this was what it was like when you were dead. The eyes were closed, the eyelids white as the rest of the