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"Snap," said Addis. "I can see why you think he may have gone away."

"Anything strike you as amiss at the house, sir?" asked Spooner.

"No."

"Didn't take a squinny through the letterbox, then?" Addis put in.

"No." I was clearly meant to infer they had.

"Why did you go there?" asked Spooner.

"He didn't use a ticket for the Wednesday evening performance I'd had put back for him. I wanted to find out why. I suppose a spur-of-the-moment trip away is the likeliest explanation."

"You're not worried about him?"

"No. Why should I be?"

"Why, indeed, sir?" Addis responded.

"About Mr. Maple ..."

"Yeah?"

"Are you really intending to charge him?"

"The circumstances don't leave us much choice. We've got him bang to rights. We'll be investigating every aspect of the case, of course.

Unless the Drugs Squad take it over. It was a big haul, I can tell you that. Unless you can back up Mr. Maple's version of events ... it looks bad for him."

"I'm sure whatever he did last night was motivated by a genuine concern for his' late brother. There'll have been no criminal intent."

"That's your opinion, is it, sir?"

"Yes."

"But you can't actually confirm this Oswin-Colborn-Sobotka connection?"

"No."

"That's our problem, you see." Addis interrupted his gum-chewing long enough for a fleeting smile. "Well, it's more Mr. Maple's problem, actually."

After they'd gone, I cadged a mug of coffee off Eunice, assured her I wasn't about to be carted off to the police station and stumbled upstairs for a shower and a shave. I kept telling myself I'd done the only thing I could in the circumstances. Letting Ian Maple down was redeemable. Defying Roger Colborn might not be. But I wasn't sure it was true. Exonerating Ian would mean daring Colborn to do his worst, this week or next. And that threatened Jenny, who mattered far more to me than Ian Maple or Derek Oswin. Colborn's ultimatum was even more effective than he could have hoped.

My first thought when I heard Eunice's by now familiar knock at the bathroom door was that Addis and Spooner had come back, a sufficiently disturbing possibility for me to tighten my grasp on the razor and nick my chin as a result.

"I'm sorry to disturb you again, Toby," Eunice called. "There's someone else to see you."

"Who the hell is it this time?" I shouted, wrenching off a length of loo paper to mop up the blood.

"A Mr. Braddock. Elderly gentleman. Most insistent. He says he won't leave till he's spoken to you."

Ray Braddock, come to my door, rather than me to his. I felt sick as I confronted my reflection in the mirror above the basin. This didn't sound good. "All right," I called back. "I'll be right down."

A few minutes later, I was back in the residents' lounge, struggling to assemble another and subtly different version of events for the benefit of my latest visitor.

Ray Braddock was a man of seventy or so, big-limbed and broad-shouldered, but bent and hollowed out by age and labour, white hair cut squaddy-short, as if to emphasize the hearing aid looped round one of his spectacularly large ears. His face was raw-boned and weather-worn. His rheumy eyes gazed out at me from beneath a hooded brow. The raincoat and flat cap I'd spotted hanging in the hall clearly belonged to him. They were of a piece with the baggy tweed jacket, patched jeans and slack-collared shirt. His solitary and taciturn nature was palpable. There was no Mrs. Braddock waiting at home, nor had there ever been. He was a man reliant on his own devices.

He rose from his chair and shook my hand, his grip carrying with it a memory of faded strength. "Good of you to see me, Mr. Flood," he said in a rumbling voice.

"You're a friend of the Oswin family, I believe, Mr. Braddock. Derek mentioned your name."

"He mentioned yours to me and all, Mr. Flood. That's what brought me here."

"Oh yes?"

"I'm worried about the boy, see."

"Let's sit down." I pulled up a chair for myself close to his, into which he stiffly lowered himself. "Why are you worried?"

"The police were at the house in Viaduct Road this morning, seemingly.

I had a call from the boy's neighbour, Mrs. Lumb. They'd been asking her what she'd seen of Derek lately. Well, she's not had sight of him since Wednesday. And it was Wednesday afternoon he came to see me. He was in a .. . peculiar mood. That's when he mentioned you. You're helping him with his book, apparently."

"Well, I ... sent it to my agent, certainly. To see what she thinks of it."

The frown permanently fixed to Braddock's face deepened at that. "Read it, have you?"

"I glanced at the first few pages, nothing more. I ... wasn't sure what to make of it."

"I'll tell you what I make of it. A temptation to fate, that's what.

Bloody Colbonite. Why can't he leave it alone?"

"I don't know."

"No." He stared at me in silence for a moment, then said, "Reckon you wouldn't."

"Did Mrs. Lumb say why the police are looking for Derek?"

"They didn't let on. Now then, Mr. Flood, have you seen Derek since Wednesday?"

"Not as it happens, no."

"I was afraid you'd say that."

"Perhaps he's gone away."

"Where to?"

"I wouldn't know."

"No. And you wouldn't suggest it if you knew the boy as well as I do.

He'd not go far. Unless he was forced to. Mrs. Lumb heard some sort of a commotion Wednesday night. She couldn't make out what was going on. Anyhow, she's not seen Derek since. She thinks she saw a strange man leaving the house yesterday morning, but she's not sure. He might have been just turning away from the door. She didn't catch a clear sight of him, worse luck."

Au contraire, I thought to myself: it was my very good luck. "We are sure he's not at home, are we? I mean, perhaps he's just.. . lying low."

Braddock shook his head. "I have a spare key, Mr. Flood. I let myself in. I was afraid .. . well, you never know, do you, with someone like Derek? He hasn't the strongest of temperaments. Anyhow, he's not there, but there's been some damage done. Things turned over and such. I can't help but be worried about him. He's my godson, see.

With his mother and father gone, I feel.. . responsible."

"I wish I could help."

"From what Derek told me, he'd made a nuisance of himself to you.

Hanging around your wife's shop. To be honest, it occurred to me you might have set the police on him. I couldn't blame you. The boy's his own worst enemy."

"But essentially good-natured. There's no harm in him. I made no complaint to the police, I assure you."

"You felt sorry for him, I take it. Well, that's to your credit. A man in your position doesn't need to truck with Derek's sort. I know that. Mind, he did, er, mention your wife's .. . association .. . with Roger Colborn."

"Ah. Did he?"

"None of my business, of course. None of Derek's either, if it comes to it. But Colborn's not to be trifled with, any more than his father was. I don't say that lightly, Mr. Flood. If Colborn was seriously rattled by this blasted book of Derek's, he'd not be above ..."

Braddock's jaw muscles champed away during the wordless interlude into which the thought drifted. Then he said, "The boy's out of his depth.

That's what it amounts to. If he'd only leave it alone .. ."

"I know all about Colbonite, Mr. Braddock. And about the part Derek's father played in the death of Sir Walter Colborn. I do understand ...

your concern."

"Do you, though?"

"I'm glad to see you looking so well."

"For an old Colbonite hand, you mean?" Braddock grunted. "I got out early. Soon as I started to notice my skin turning yellow. Oh yes. It was as bad as that. I took a lower-paid job with the Co-op. I tried to talk Ken into leaving as well, but he said he needed the money, with Val and Derek to support. He reckoned Colbonite was the only place he could find a job for the boy. Well, he was probably right, at that.

And there were other reasons. I see that now. Ken played his cards close to his chest, even with me."

"Derek seems to think Sir Walter's death was an accident," I said, aware that I shouldn't in strict prudence be encouraging the old man's ruminations, but still eager, despite myself, to penetrate to the heart of the mystery.

"It was no accident," said Braddock, compressing his lips.

"You and Kenneth Oswin were close friends."

"We were. Since boyhood."

"Were you surprised .. . when he took such drastic action?"

"I was. I'd not have said he was the vengeful sort. Mind, he denied to me later that he'd done it for revenge."

"Why, then?"

"He wouldn't say. Except that it was for Val and Derek's sake."

"How could that be?"

Braddock shrugged. "He was a dying man. I've never been sure he knew himself why he'd done such a thing. There was no way Val and Derek could gain by it. He must have been .. . rambling."

"Do you think Sir Walter got what was coming to him, though, whatever the motive?"

Braddock weighed the question in his mind, then nodded. "You can't deny the natural justice of it. A lot of good men died young to line the Colborns' pockets. But that's the way of the world. You can't fight it."

"Maybe Kenneth Oswin was determined to try."

"Maybe. But that's for him to account for to the Almighty. What bothers me now is the thought that Derek might have tried his hand at the same game."

"What do you mean to do about it?"

"Nothing I can do. If I go to the police, it might only make things worse for the boy."

"Yes," I said, affecting reluctant agreement. "It might." It might also alert Addis and Spooner to how economical I'd been with the facts during our discussion. All in all, I had a lot of compelling reasons to steer Braddock away from the forces of law and order, at least for the moment. "But aren't they likely to come to you?"

"Only if someone points them in my direction. Mrs. Lumb knows better than to do that. She and I don't make trouble for each other." He cleared his throat. "I'm hoping you might .. . agree to watch what you say ... if they come a-calling on you."

It was just as well, I reflected, that Braddock hadn't arrived an hour earlier for both of us. "You can rely on me," I said. "I'm sure Derek will turn up soon, with no harm done."

"I wish I was sure."

"If I hear from him, I'll let you know straight away."

"I'd take that as a kindness, Mr. Flood. My number's in the book."

"Right."

"Well, I've taken up enough of your time. I'd best be on my way." He stood up, but made no move towards the door. It was apparent that he still had something to say. I rose and looked at him promptingly.

Several seconds passed during which he seemed to ponder the wisdom of his words. Then, in a gruff undertone, he finally unburdened himself.

"Derek's the nearest to family I have left. I must do what I can for him."

It was nearly noon by the time Ray Braddock made his plodding exit, leaving me with less than half an hour to get up to the station and meet Moira off the 12.27. I flung on a coat and hurried out into a cold, grey, mizzly midday. A glazier's van was parked outside and I could hear Eunice in conversation with its driver down in the basement area. He was one visitor to the Sea Air I didn't need to worry about.

On my way to the taxi rank in East Street, a thought suddenly came to me. It would have occurred to me sooner, but my own need to avoid the police was so well served by Braddock's similar reluctance that I hadn't bothered to question it. Yet the question was a good one. Why was the old man so leery of the boys in blue? What did he have to be frightened of? Like more or less everyone else mixed up in the misadventures of Derek Oswin, he was hiding something. But what? And why?

My brain was obviously suffering from anxiety overload, because it was only when I was halfway to the station in the back of a taxi that I remembered Moira's bizarre message of yesterday afternoon. I turned on my mobile and checked for further word from her, but there was none. My various tart responses had presumably dispelled the muddle she'd somehow got herself into. Ordinarily, I'd have looked forward to a boozy lunch with the gossipy guzzler herself, but, the circumstances being about as far from ordinary as conceivably possible, the prospect had lost its lustre. Even the opportunity to lay my hands on the manuscript of The Plastic Men had turned sour on me. If I couldn't use any ammunition it provided me with against Roger Colborn, maybe, I reflected, I was better off not knowing what that ammunition might be.

This reflection was about to recoil on me, however. The 12.27 arrived only a couple of minutes late and Moira was one of the first passengers through the barrier. Loud, red-haired and generously proportioned, she's never faded into any background I've ever seen. The faux leopard-skin coat and purple beret made sure the concourse of Brighton railway station on a dull December day hadn't a chance of being an exception. What I noticed, however, even before the mandatory hug and triple kiss, was that she was carrying nothing apart from her handbag.

"Where's the manuscript, Moira?" I asked, as soon as we'd disentangled ourselves.

"You don't have it, do you?" she responded bafflingly. "I was afraid of that."

"You were supposed to bring it with you."

"I was hoping your messages didn't mean what they seemed to."

"What the hell's going on?"

"That, Toby, is a very good question."

It was a question I only got some sort of an answer to once we were installed in a taxi, heading for La Fourchette in Western Road, Moira's choice of lunch venue.