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pouring gin.
    ‘Ketschele,’ he chuckled, ‘you’re too young to be middle aged and far too independent to be middle class. But you’re worried. What’s been happening? In such a short time, too! I only saw you at seven.’
    ‘A lot can happen between seven and three,’ I said. I took a deep breath and told him all of it. He frowned over the names of the officers who had arrested Jason.
    ‘They’re known for harassing the street kids,’ he told me. ‘Jason was lucky that you stood up for him so fiercely.’
    ‘Luck didn’t enter into it,’ I said. ‘Everything I said was perfectly true.’
    ‘That ought to have rarity value,’ he commented. ‘And your mother — mothers are a problem.’
    ‘You said it,’ I agreed. ‘Where is yours?’
    ‘In Israel.’
    ‘Lucky you.’ I was feeling mistreated by fate.
    ‘You know what the real problem is, don’t you, ketschele? She’s come here for your help. You’ll have to give it or — to put it bluntly — she won’t go home.’
    ‘Oh, Daniel.’ I put down the glass and leaned into his embrace. ‘Surely …’ He held me gently as I worked it out. He was, of course, right. ‘So what do we do?’ I asked bleakly.
    ‘We have another drink,’ he said, kissing me. ‘Then we go and find Sunlight.’

    The man who was not yet a murderer went into the room and closed the door against the hated voice. He put both hands over his ears to shut it out.

CHAPTER THREE
    It looked like I was going to have to interview Starshine. Well, nothing to be gained by putting it off any longer. I wasn’t going to take Daniel with me — why expose him to insult? But he insisted.
    ‘I’m going to have to do a lot of this investigation,’ he told me gravely. ‘You’ve got a business to run. Bread to bake. Therefore I need to have the news straight from the shoulder.’
    ‘It isn’t her shoulder I’m worried about,’ I said. ‘It’s her tongue.’
    ‘She isn’t my mother,’ he replied. ‘I don’t mind what she says about me.’
    ‘But you won’t like what she says about me,’ I said. Even the frightful James, who had exploited me rotten in our far too long marriage, had taken offence at some of the things of which my biological parent had accused me.
    Daniel sighed. ‘Come along,’ he said. ‘Perhaps she won’t be so poisonous if she is worried about her missing husband.’
    ‘You’re such an optimist,’ I said. But I gathered up my possessions and Horatio and went down to my apartment, put on a respectable pair of trousers and a hand-knitted jumper which had been too big for Meroe. Daniel had a notebook and pen and a small tape recorder. We ascended, unspeaking, to confront Starshine in her mourning.
    I hadn’t got to know Therese Webb, really. All I knew about her was that she made tweed, liked hard crusted bread and preferred chocolate muffins to any other. And that she was polite to shop assistants but noticed when Kylie gave her the wrong change, something she is prone to do after a hard night on the sauce or periods of prolonged starvation. When she answered the door of Arachne, which had a large frieze depicting the Goddess Juno turning the young woman into a spider, she looked motherly and cheerful.
    ‘Corinna! Come in! I’ve just persuaded Jacqui to eat some lunch. I’m sure she’ll be all the better for telling you about what’s worrying her,’ she said. I doubted it.
    I was ushered inside, Daniel following. The layout of all the apartments was identical. I knew that at the end of the narrow hall was the parlour. There sat Starshine like a heap of old garments, but before her on the polished wooden table were a cup and a plate, and the plate had not only crumbs but apple cores. This meant that she had eaten fruit which had not fallen helpless from the tree and eaten bread which might even have been mine. With yeast in it. And — did I detect the scent of cheese? Any sign that the rigid boundaries were breaking down was welcome. Inside