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is that nice kiddie from next door, but by Heavens they worry when it's the nice kiddie upstairs.' We thought that we had done everything for her. She went to the best schools, when she went onto heroin we sent her to the best withdrawal clinic.
    Just a waste of money. We cut her allowance, so she sold everything we'd ever given her. She moved out, then came back and stole from us. Can you imagine that, officer, stealing from her own parents . . . of course, you can imagine it, you are accustomed to the misery caused by this addiction. The last thing we did was have the Ministry's own security system in our own house changed. I mean that's coming to something, isn't it, when the Secretary of State for Defence has to have his own alarm system changed because his own daughter might want to break in . . . Her mother will want to know, can't hide much from her mother, would she have been in pain?"
    "Coma first, sir. No pain." The detective was past shock, past sympathy, and way past apportioning blame. He could be matter of fact. "She had the stuff. It's if she hadn't had the stuff that she would have been in pain."
    "How much would it have been costing her?"
    "From what we've seen, anything between a hundred and two hundred a week - when it's got that bad."
    The local detective wondered how the politician would survive it. He wondered whether he would shut himself away from public life once the storm blew, the headlines tomorrow and the Coroner's Court reporting. Whether he would carry on as if his public and private lives were separate compartments. He wondered if the pursuit of his public life could have so damaged a private life that a lone, lost child took to a syringe for companionship, for love.
    The Secretary of State had a good grip on himself, his voice was clear. Nothing staccato, nothing choked. "A colleague of mine said recently, 'This abuse brings hardened criminals and indulgent users together in a combination that is potentially lethal for good order and civilised values - the price of ultimate failure is unthinkable.' That was before Lucy had her problem, I didn't take much notice of it then. What are you doing about it, officer, this lethal combination?"
    The local detective swallowed his first thoughts. Not the moment to spit out his gripes about resources and priorities, and bans on overtime payment which meant that most of his squad clocked off on the dot of office hours. He said, "Gather what evidence we can, sir, try and move our investigation on from there."
    "Do you have children, officer?"
    "Yes, sir."
    "What age?"
    "About half your Lucy's age, sir."
    "Could it happen to them, what happened to her?"
    "As long as the stuff's coming in, sir, flooding in like it is
    - yes, sir."
    "What would you want done, officer, if she had been yours?"
    "I'd want to get to the fuckers . . . excuse me, sir . . . to the people who made the stuff available to your Lucy."
    "You'll do what you can?"
    "Bluntly, sir, that's not a lot. Yes, we will."
    The bodyguard had flicked his fingers, a small gesture close to the seam of his trousers. The local man had the message.
    He moved around and behind the Secretary of State, to the head of the staircase. The bodyguard was already warily descending. There was music playing on a lower floor. The detective had had one session with the other residents of this terraced house, and he would have another later that afternoon when he had got himself shot of the big man. He hadn't been heavy with them, the others in the squat, not once he had discovered who Lucy Barnes' father was. Counter productive, he would have said, to have leaned too hard on them right now. He wanted their help, he needed all they could give him.
    From the top of the staircase he looked back. The Secretary of State was staring down at the mattress, and the bag of clothes, and the junk litter that might the previous week have been important to a nineteen-year-old girl.
    He paused at the bottom of the stairs.
    "What does