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shade of blue darkened by grime and neglect.
    Paint was peeling from the sash window frames. The front door was not original, being plain and un panelled but it wasn't in much better condition than the rest of the house.

    I'd slowed nearly to a halt, my brain struggling with the problem of what to do next. I'd discovered where he lived. It was something. But it was a long way short of enough. Perhaps I should try the knocker, though if he answered I'd only have another problem to grapple with: how to explain myself.

    Then the door suddenly opened. And chummy stared out at me. "Do you want to come in, Mr. Flood?" he asked.

    "Well, I.. ."

    "You may as well, seeing as you've come this far."

    There was logic in that. There was also a hint of menace. But that could merely have been a symptom of guilt on my part. I felt more than a little foolish. "You know who I am?"

    "Yes."

    "You have me at a disadvantage, in that case."

    "My name's Derek Oswin." He pushed his glasses up on his nose again.
    "Are you coming in?"

    "All right. Thanks."

    I stepped past him into a cramped hallway. Steep, narrow stairs straight ahead led to the upper floor. To my right was a sitting room, with a kitchen at the end of the hall. The sitting room looked to be anciently furnished, but tidy. The condition of the exterior had prepared me for a scene of squalor, but what met my eyes was the complete reverse.

    The front door closed behind me. "Can I take your coat?" Oswin asked.

    "Er .. . Thanks." I took it off and he hung it next to his duffel-coat on one of three wall-mounted hooks. The hall wallpaper was some kind of anaglypta, in a pattern I seemed vaguely to recognize. It's the sort of thing one of my great aunts would have chosen and very possibly did.

    "Would you like a cup of tea?" Oswin enquired.

    "OK. Thanks."

    "I'll turn the kettle on. Go through." He flapped a hand towards the open door behind me. I turned and stepped into the sitting room while he padded off to the kitchen.

    The room was small and spotlessly clean, dominated by a sage-green three-piece suite. There was a television and video player in one corner and a bookcase in another, either side of a tiny tile-flanked fireplace. The walls were papered in the same pattern of anaglypta as the hall. Derek Oswin's parents or maybe his grandparents had obviously decided to keep it simple.

    "I'm afraid I've run out of biscuits," my host announced, reappearing in the doorway.

    "Don't worry about it."

    "I expect you're wondering ... how I know who you are."

    "And why you pretended not to back at the Rendezvous."

    "Yes." He grinned nervously. "Quite." Then the kettle began to whistle. "Excuse me."

    He vanished again and I took another look around the room, spotting the video of Dead Against lying on top of the bookcase. It turned out to be just the plastic cover, however. The video itself had been removed.
    The picture on the front of the cover showed Nina Bronsky in her black leather hit-woman's gear. I'd only been given a head-and-shoulders shot on the back.

    "Here we are," said Oswin, reappearing once more, this time with a teapot, two mugs and a bottle of milk on a tray. He set the tray down on the small coffee-table next to the sofa. "I hope you don't want sugar. I... never touch it."

    "Just milk is fine." I held up the video. "One of my questions is answered."

    "Not really."

    "No?"

    "I didn't need that to recognize you, Mr. Flood. I remember you as Hereward the Wake."

    This was a genuine surprise. My TV debut a quarter of a century ago in a studio-bound series about the legendary leader of resistance to the Norman Conquest is a vague memory even for me.

    "I've always been a fan of yours." Oswin broke off to pour the tea.
    "Won't you sit down?" He lowered himself into an armchair. I took one end of the sofa and added some milk to my mug. It was a Charles and Di wedding souvenir mug, I noticed, as was Oswin's. "I bought a dozen,"
    he explained, seeming to sense that he