T SEEMED TO TAKE LONGER TO RECOUNT RICHARD AND KATE'S excellent adventure than it had taken to experience it. Asking the questions were Inspector Mellor from the Art Squad, who remembered me from our earlier encounter at Henry's, and Geoff Turnbull from the Drugs Squad, who thankfully owed me one on account of information received in a previous inves­tigation that had provided him with a substantial feather in his cap. Delia sat in on the interview, probably to make sure my brief didn't change my mind and persuade me to opt for the Trappist approach.

Even so, by the time I'd answered everyone's questions, it was past midnight. I'd come clean about all of my nefarious activities, on the advice of Ruth Hunter, my nonpareil crimi­nal solicitor and, incidentally, one of the tight-knit group of my female friends which Richard refers to as The Coven-ment- witches who run the world. "After all," she pointed out dryly, "all your lawbreaking took place outside their jurisdiction, and I rather think the Italian police are going to have enough to worry about without bothering you with such trivial charges as assault, kidnap, false imprisonment, burglary, data theft, con­cealing a body and failing to report a murder."

Ruth, Delia and I ended up eating steak in one of the city's half dozen casinos. The great advantage with them is that they stay open late and the food's cheap. It's supposed to act as an incentive to make people gamble. I don't know how effective it is; most of the gamblers that night were Chinese, and none of them looked like a juicy steak was on their agenda. Not as long as the roulette wheels were still spinning. "Cliff Jackson's still going to want to talk to you," Delia pointed out after we or­dered.

"I know. His goons were sitting on my doorstep this morn-ing."

Ruth groaned. "What now, Kate? Haven't you broken enough laws for one week?"

"That's not why Cliff Jackson's after me," I said stiffly. "It's just that I've been doing his job for him, and now I've tracked down his saboteurs, he probably wants to know who the real murderer is."

Delia and Ruth both choked on their drinks. "0 ye of little faith," I complained. "Anyway, I want to stay out of his way until I've got the whole thing done and dusted. If I leave the job half done, he'll only mess it up and arrest the wrong per­son. He's got form for it."

"Isn't it about time you went back to white-collar crime and left the police to deal with these dangerous criminal types?" Ruth demanded. "It's not that I think you're incapable of looking after yourself. It's just that you keep involving Richard, and he's really far too accident-prone to expose him to these kinds of people."

"I don't want to discuss Richard," I said. "Anyway, Delia, what have Mellor and Turnbull been doing for the last forty-eight hours with the info I handed them on a plate?"

"Luckily, Geoff's already had dealings with his opposite num­bers in Europe about organized drug trafficking, so he was able to cut through a lot of the bureaucratic red tape. It turns out his Italian oppos have been taking a long hard look at Gruppo Leopardi and its offshoots, so the info you brought out of there has slotted in very nicely. You were right, by the way. They've been organizing art robberies all over Europe, not just in the U.K., and using the artworks as payment for drug shipments," Delia said. "With the data you stole, it looks like they'll be able to set up a sting that will pull in some of the big boys, for a change."

"What about Nicholas Turner?" I asked.

Delia fussed with a cigarette and her Zippo. "They found his body in the van, where you left it. A couple of the lads went over to Leeds this morning and spoke to his wife. She's deny­ing all knowledge of anything shady, of course. She's going for the Oscar as the grieving wife of a legitimate art and antiques dealer. Grieving she may well be, but nobody believes for a minute she's as innocent as she wants us to think. Apart from anything else, there's evidence that she's accompanied him on several of his trips to the Villa Sari Pietro."

"He still didn't deserve to die," I said.

Ruth shrugged. "You take the money, you take the risks that go with it. How many lives have been destroyed by the drugs Turner was involved in supplying? Half the people I de­fend owe not a little of their trouble to the drug scene. I wouldn't lose any sleep over Turner, Kate."

I didn't.

Jackson's goons were on my doorstep again the following morning. I figured that by now he'd probably be staking out the office as well. I rang Shelley. "Have you got company of the piggy variety too ?"

"Of course, sir. Did you want to talk to one of our opera­tives?"

That told me all I needed to know. "Is it Jackson himself or one of his gofers?"

"I'm afraid our principal isn't in the office at present."

I'll say this for Shelley, nothing fazes her. "There should have been an overnight fax for me," I said. "Can you stick it in an envelope and have it couriered round to Josh's office? I'll pick it up there."

"That's no problem, sir. I'll have Ms. Brannigan call you when she comes back to the office. Good-bye, now."

Whoever said blondes have more fun obviously didn't garner the experience wearing a wig. I went through the disguise-for-beginners rigmarole again and made my exit through Richard's bungalow, pausing long enough to do a quick inven­tory of his wardrobe. If he'd been back, he hadn't taken any significant amount of clothing with him. His laptop was gone, though, which meant he was planning to be away long enough to get some work done.

I arrived at Josh's office ten minutes after the fax, and set­tled down at an empty desk to plow through the phone num­bers. It was a long, tedious process of cross-checking, made worse by the fact that Alexis's contact had come up with a more detailed breakdown of calls than the customer received. The fax she'd sent listed every call from all three numbers, even the quickies that don't cost enough to make it onto the customer's account. But at the end of it, I'd established that there were calls virtually every day between Desmond Halloran's office number and the private number of the Cob and Pen. There were also a couple of long calls from the Halloran's home number to the pub.

There was one other curious thing. A Warrington number cropped up on both bills. I checked the dates. Every Monday, a call a few minutes long was logged on one bill or another. It appeared most often on Desmond's office bill, but it was there half a dozen times on the Cob and Pen's account too. Of course, I had to ring it, didn't I?

"Warrington Motorway Motel, Janice speaking. How may I help you?" the singsong voice announced.

"I'm meeting someone at the motel today. Can you give me directions?"

"Certainly, madam, where are you coming from?"

"Manchester."

"Right. If you come down the M62 and take junction 9, you go left as you come off the motorway and right at the first roundabout. We're the first turning on the left, just after the bridge."

"Thank you," I said. "You've been most helpful." If I had my way, Janice was going to be a lot more helpful before the day was out.

There was nothing to mark out the Warrington Motorway Mo­tel from the dozens of others that sprang up round the motor­way network in the late eighties. A two-story, sprawling redbrick building with a low-pitched roof, a car park and a burger joint next door, it could have been anywhere between the Channel Tunnel and that point on the edge of the Scottish highlands where the motorways run out. Rooms for round thirty quid a throw, TV but no phone, no restaurant, bar or lounge. Cheap and cheerless.

Late morning wasn't a busy time behind the reception desk. Janice - or someone who'd stolen her name badge - looked pleased at the sight of another human being. The reception area was so small that with two of us present, it felt intimate. On the way over, I'd toyed with various approaches. I'd de­cided I was too strung out to try for subtlety. Besides, I still had a wad of cash in my bag that had no official home.

I dropped one of my cards on the desk halfway through Janice's welcome speech. Her pert features registered surprise, followed by an air of suppressed excitement. "I've never met a private detective before," she confided, giving me the wide-eyed once-over. I hoped I wasn't too much of a disappointment.

I followed the card with a photograph of Grail I'd persuaded Alexis to lend me. "This woman's a regular here," I stated baldly. "She comes here once a week with the same bloke."

Janice's eyes widened. "I'm not supposed to release infor­mation about guests," she said wistfully.

I leaned on the desk and smiled. "Forgive me being so per­sonal, Janice, but how much do they pay you?"

Startled, she blurted out the answer without thinking. "A hundred and seventy pounds a week."

I opened my bag and took out the five hundred I'd counted out on the way. I placed it on the desk and pushed it toward her. "Nearly three weeks' money. Tax-free. No comebacks. I don't even want a receipt."

Her eyes widened. She stared at the cash, then at me, con­sternation clear in her face. "What for?"

"All I want to know is how often they come and how long they stay. I want to know when they're due here next. Then I want to book the room next door. Oh, and five minutes in their room before they arrive. There's no reason why anyone should know you've helped me." I nudged the money nearer to her.

"It's for a divorce, isn't it?" she said.

I winked. "I'm not supposed to release information either. Let's just say this pair shouldn't be doing what they've been doing."

Suddenly, her hand snaked out and the dosh disappeared faster than a paper-wrapped prawn off Richard's plate. She tapped Gail's photograph with a scarlet fingernail. "She's been coming here with this bloke for about a year now. They always book as Mr. and Mrs. Chester. It's usually a Wednes­day. They arrive separately, usually about half past two. I don't know when they leave, because I go off at half past four."

I nodded, as if this was exactly what I'd expected to hear. "And when are they booked in next?"

"I think you've dropped lucky," she said, consulting her screen. "Yeah, that's right. They've got a room booked today." She looked up at me, smirking. "I bet you knew that, didn't you?"

Again, I winked. "Maybe you could let me into the room they'll be in, then book me in next door?"

Eagerly, she nodded. Funny how excited people get when they feel like they're part of the chase. "I'll give you their key," she said. "But bring it back quick as you can."

I picked up the key and headed for the lift. Boom 103 was a couple of doors down the corridor from the lift. The whole floor-was eerily silent. I let myself in, and gave the room a quick scan. I could have drawn it from memory, it was so similar- to every motel room I'd ever camped out in. Because I hadn't been able to get into the office to pick up proper surveillance equip­ment, I'd had to rely on what I could pick up from the local electronics store. A small tape recorder with a voice-activated radio mike hadn't made much of a dent in my payoff from Turner. I took out my Swiss Army knife and unscrewed the in­sipid seascape from above the bed. I stuck the mike to the back of the picture with a piece of Blastoplast, than screwed it back onto the wall. There was a gap of about a quarter of an inch between the picture and the hessian wallpaper, but I didn't think Grail and Desmond were there for the decor.

I quickly checked the mike was working, then I was out of there. I returned the key to Janice and went over to the burger joint for supplies. I settled down in my room with a giant cheeseburger, fries, a large coffee and a bag of doughnuts. I stuck the earpiece of the tape recorder in my ear and waited. I couldn't believe myself. I felt like I was playing the starring role in the worst kind of cliched private-eye drama: staking out the seedy motel for the couple indulging in illicit sex. All I needed was a snap-brim trilby and a bottle of bourbon to feel like a complete idiot.

While I was waiting, I rang Michael Haroun. "Sorry about last night," I said. "I was helping the police with their in­quiries."

"They arrested you?"

"Behave. They only wanted a friendly chat. They were just a little insistent about having it right that minute."

"My God, you like to sail close to the wind, don't you?"

"My yachting friends tell me that's where you have to be if you want to travel fast," I said. What was it about this man that brought out the portentous asshole in me?

"So is this a social or professional call?" he asked.

"Purely social. I wanted to offer you dinner tomorrow as a penance for canceling yesterday."

"You cook, as well as everything else?"

"I do, but that's not what I had in mind. How does the Mar­ket sound?"

"Fabulous. My favorite restaurant in town. What time?"

"I'll see you there about half past seven," I promised. To hell with Barclay.

The feeling of well-being that I got from talking to Michael didn't last long. There's nothing more boring than sitting round in a featureless motel room waiting for something to happen. Patience and I aren't normally on speaking terms, so I always get really edgy on jobs like this. It's not so bad doing a stakeout in the car; at least I can listen to the radio and watch the world go by. But here, there was nothing to do but stare at the walls.

The monotony broke around twenty past two. My earpiece told me that the door to the next room had closed. At once, I was on the alert, my free ear pressed to the wall. I heard the toilet flush; then, a few minutes later, the door closed again. There was a mumble of what sounded like greetings and en­dearments, irritatingly incomprehensible. At a guess, they were still in the passage by the bathroom, rather than in the room proper.

More mumblings, then gradually, I could make out what they were saying.

"... taking a risk," a man's voice said.

"You said what I told you to, didn't you?" Gail's voice. Un­mistakably.

"Yeah, I told my mother I needed some time on my own, that I was going for a drive and would she look after the kids."

"And did she act like she thought you were behaving oddly?"

"No," the man admitted.

"Well, then," Gail said. There was the instantly recogniz­able sound of kissing, the groans of desire. "I needed to see you," Gail went on when she next surfaced. "I wanted you so bad, Dessy."

"Me too," he said. More of the kind of noises you get in Tom Cruise movies. I half expected to hear "You take my breath away" swelling in the background.

"We did it, you know," Gail said exultantly in the next break. "We're going to get away with this. Nobody suspects a thing."

"What about that private eye? You sure she doesn't know anything?"

"Positive. She was just on a fishing expedition, that was ob­vious. If she'd had anything solid to go on, she'd have let me know. Cocky bitch."

I wasn't the only one who was cocky. Only I had better rea­son to be. I checked that the tape was still running.

"Have you seen the news?" Gail asked.

"What news?" Desmond said, sounding nervous.

"About the chemical company," she said. "It was all over the Evening Chronicle and the local TV news."

"We haven't had the TV on much. We're supposed to be in mourning," Desmond said cynically. "What's been going on? Are they admitting liability?"

"Better than that," Gail said. "Apparently, somebody's been trying to blackmail Kerrchem. Product tampering, they said it was. The police have arrested a man and a woman. Hang on, I've got the paper in my bag." There was the sound of rustling, then silence.

Then Desmond let out a low whistle. "Fantastic!" he ex­claimed. "The icing on the cake. Nobody's going to look twice at us now, are they?"

Famous last words, I thought to myself.

"Exactly. It's turned out even better than we planned. The police might think I had a motive for wanting rid of Joey, but they're not going to bother digging round in my life when they've got a perfect pair of scapegoats."

And even though his access to photographic chemicals meant Desmond Halloran could probably get his hands on cyanide without too much trouble, I reckoned the police weren't even going to think about suspecting him while they had Simon and Sandra behind bars. Besides, according to Alexis, the Hallorans were supposed to have had an idyllic marriage. No one had an inkling that Desmond Halloran's Wednesday afternoons were spent in a motel room near War-rington.

The smooching noises had begun again. Then Gail said, "In a year or so, when we've got to know each other because of the court cases we'll be filing against Kerrchem, no one will be sur­prised when we decide to get married. After all, we'll have had so much in common."

Desmond giggled, an irritating, high-pitched whinny. Never mind his murderous instincts, that giggle alone should have put any reasonable woman off him for life. "Talk about coinci­dence," he cackled. "I bet those two blackmailers are sweat­ing."

After that, things got a lot less interesting for me, though Gail and Desmond obviously thought different. There was a lot of kissing and groaning and embarrassing lines like, "Give it to me, big boy." Then they were grunting like a pair of Wim­bledon champions. I pulled out the earpiece in disgust. It's not that I'm a prude, but it felt like this pair were shagging in an open grave. I sat patiently on the bed, watching the winking red light on the tape machine that told me it was recording. Af­ter an hour, I reckoned I'd got more than enough to nail the scumbags.

It was time to go and play at good citizens.