The head office of Mallard and Martin, Estate Agents, Auctioneers and Valuers, was at the far end of the main street in Fordham. The retail developers who have turned every British high street into undistinguished and indistinguishable shopping malls had not yet penetrated that far down the street, and the double-fronted office looked old-fashioned enough to appeal to the most conservative in the district. Lindsay, dressed to match the office in her new outfit, studied the properties in the window with curiosity. She noticed several houses in the vicinity of Brownlow Common were up for sale. But their prices didn't seem to be significantly lower than comparable houses in other areas. She pushed open the door, and as she entered, a sleek young woman in a fashionably sharp suit rose and came over to the high wooden counter.

"Can I help you?" she enquired.

"I'm due to see Mr. Mallard," Lindsay explained. "My name's Lindsay Gordon."

"Oh yes, he's expecting you. Do come through." The woman raised a flap in the counter and showed Lindsay through into Mallard's own office. He got up as Lindsay was ushered in and genially indicated a chair. Mallard was a short, chubby man in his fifties, almost completely bald. He wore large, gold-rimmed spectacles and tufts of grey hair stuck out above his ears, making him look like a rather cherubic owl. He smiled winningly at Lindsay. "Now, young lady," he said cheerfully, "you're a reporter, I think you said?"

"That's right. But I'm not just looking for stories. I believe Carlton Stanhope rang to pass on Superintendent Rigano's request?"

"He did indeed." He smiled. "Always delighted to help an attractive young lady like yourself. Mr. Stanhope tells me you've been able to give the police some assistance concerning dear Rupert's death? A dreadful tragedy, quite, quite dreadful."

Lindsay decided she did not care for this bouncing chauvinist piglet. But his seeming garrulity might be something she could turn to her advantage. She smiled at him. "Absolutely. I have been able to come up with some quite useful information so far. And of course, not all of it is passed directly to the police. I mean, a lot emerges in these affairs that has no bearing on the main issue. It would be a pity to cloud matters with irrelevant information, wouldn't it? So if people are open with me, I can often get to the bottom of things that would otherwise cause a lot of wasted police time. If you see what I mean?" She let the question hang in the air.

"So you want to find out how well I knew Rupert, who his friends were, if he made enemies through RABD, that sort of thing? That's what Mr. Stanhope said," Mallard replied hastily.

"Not exactly," Lindsay replied. "Though I would like to look through the RABD records. I think Mr. Stanhope arranged that with you?"

Mallard nodded vigorously. "They're all upstairs in a little office I put at the disposal of the organisation. You can take as long as you want, you'll have the place to yourself. We've got nothing to hide, you know, though obviously we don't want our future plans made public. That would put an end to our strategies against those... those harpies down there," he said, geniality slipping as he referred to the peace women.

"I rather thought there were one or two matters you'd prefer to keep to yourself, Mr. Mallard," Lindsay remarked idly.

"No, no we're not at all secretive. We're perfectly open, no conspiracies here."

An odd thing to say, Lindsay thought. "No conspiracies, perhaps, but one or two disagreements."

"Disagreements?" He looked apprehensive.

"Paul Warminster?"

"Oh, that," he muttered, looking uncomfortable. "Yes, that was a little unfortunate. But then, it only supports what I was saying to you about being open. We're not extremists in RABD, just people concerned about our local community and the environment our families live in. We don't want to be involved in anything at all violent. That's what Paul Warminster felt we should be doing. He wanted us to be some kind of vigilante band, driving these awful women away by force. We were glad Rupert had the strength to stand up to him. That sort of woman isn't going to go away because you throw them out physically. If we'd gone ahead and taken violent action, the next day there would have been twice as many of them. No, Rupert was right."

"And do you think Paul Warminster resented what he did?"

"No question about that, young lady. He was furious."

"Furious enough for murder?"

Mallard's smile this time was sickly. "I'm sure nobody in our circle, not even someone with Paul Warminster's views, would resort to murder." He made it sound like a social solecism.

"But someone in Rupert Crabtree's circle did just that."

Mallard shook his head. "No. Those women are to blame. It certainly wasn't Paul Warminster. He had nothing to gain. Even with Rupert out of the way, he'll never win control of RABD and its membership. He must know that. He's not a fool."

"I'm happy to take your word for it," Lindsay flattered. "Now, if I might see those papers?" She got to her feet.

"Of course, of course," he said, rising and bustling her out of the room. They climbed two flights of stairs, Mallard chatting continuously about the property market and the deplorable effect the peace camp was having on house prices in the neighborhood of the common.

"But houses at Brownlow seem about the same price as similar houses near by," Lindsay commented.

"Oh yes, but they used to be the most highly sought after in the area, and the most expensive. Now it takes a lot of persuasion to shift them. Well, here we are."

They entered a small office containing a battered desk, several upright chairs and a filing cabinet. "Here you are, m'dear," Mallard waved vaguely around him. He unlocked the filing cabinet. "Chairman's files and my files in the top drawers. Minutes in the second. Correspondence in the third and stationery in the bottom drawer. Look at anything you please, we've no guilty secrets."

"Will you be in your office for a while? I might come across some things I want to clarify."

"Of course, of course. I shall be there till half past twelve. I'm sure you'll be finished by then. I'm at your disposal." He twinkled another seemingly sincere smile at her and vanished downstairs.

Lindsay sighed deeply and extracted two bulging manila folders from the top drawer of the filing cabinet. They were both labelled "Ratepayers Against Brownlow's Destruction. Chairman's File." In red pen, the same hand had written "1" and "2" on them. She sat down at the desk and opened her briefcase. She took out a large notepad, pen and her Walkman. She slotted in a Django Reinhardt tape and started to plough through the papers.

The first file yielded nothing that Lindsay could see. She stuffed the papers back into it and opened the second file. As she pulled the documents out, a cassette tape clattered on to the desk. Curious, she picked it up. The handwritten label, not in Crabtree's by now familiar script, said, "Sting: The Dream of The Blue Turtles". Surprised, Lindsay put it to one side and carried on working. When her own tape reached the end, she decided to have a change and inserted the Sting tape. But instead of the familiar opening chords she heard an alien sequence of hisses, bleeps, and sounds like radio interference. Lindsay knew very little about information technology. But she knew enough to realize that although this tape was mislabelled, it was actually a computer program on tape. And fed into the right computer, it might explain precisely what it was doing in Rupert Crabtree's RABD file. She remembered the computers she had seen downstairs and wondered if that was where Mallard stored the real information about RABD's finances.

She worked her way quickly through the financial records, making a few notes as she went. It seemed to be in order, though the book-keeping system seemed unnecessarily complex. Finally she skimmed through the minutes and correspondence. "Waste of bloody time," she muttered to herself as she neatly replaced everything. The cassette tape caught her eye, and she wondered again if it might hold the key to the questions Crabtree had been asking about money. She threw the computer tape into her briefcase along with her own bits and pieces and headed downstairs for the confrontation she'd been geared up to since breakfast. As she rounded the corner of the stairs, she noticed a man coming out of Mallard's office. From above, she could see little except the top of his head of greying, gingery hair and the shoulders of his tweed jacket. By the time she reached the bottom of the stairs, he had gone.

Mallard's office door was ajar and she stuck her head round. "Can I come in?" she asked.

"Of course, of course, m'dear," he answered her, beaming. "I expect you've had a very boring morning with our papers."

"It has been hard work," Lindsay admitted. "I'm surprised you haven't got the lot on computer, with Simon Crabtree being in that line of business."

Mallard nodded. "Couldn't agree more, m'dear. But Rupert wouldn't hear of it. Lawyers, you see. Very conservative in their methods. Not like us. Our front office may look very traditional. But all the work gets done in the big office at the back - where our computers are. The latest thing - IBM-compatible hard-disk drives. I actually bought them on Simon's advice. But Rupert didn't trust them. He said you could lose all your work at the touch of a button, and he felt happier with bits of paper that didn't vanish into thin air. Typical lawyer - wanted everything in black and white."

"There was one other thing I wanted to ask you about."

"Ask away, m'dear, ask away."

"Why was Rupert Crabtree going to raise your handling of RABD funds at the next meeting?"

Mallard flushed but managed to freeze his smile in place as he replied, "Was he?"

"You know he was. The two of you had a row about it, and he said the association should decide."

"I don't know where you've got your information from, young lady, but I can assure you nothing of the sort took place." Mallard attempted to stand on his dignity. "We had a very harmonious relationship."

"Not according to my sources. Two separate people have told me the whole story, and I believe the police are aware of it. I already have enough to write a story. It's obviously doing the rounds locally. Hadn't you better put the record straight, and give me your version of events before your reputation gets shredded beyond repair?"

He dropped the geniality and looked shrewdly at Lindsay. "Young lady, even if you seem blissfully unaware, I'm sure your newspaper has lawyers who understand all about libel. If you are thinking of printing any sort of story about me, you had better be extremely careful."

"We don't have to print a story about you, for your reputation to be destroyed. Local gossip will see to that. All I have to write is that police are investigating alleged misappropriation of funds by one of the officials of a local organization in connection with Rupert Crabtree's death," Lindsay replied.

Mallard paused, sizing her up. Then, after a long enough pause to render himself unconvincing, he smiled again and said, "Really, there's no need for all of this. I've told you that we've got nothing to hide in RABD. That goes for me personally, too. Now, you've obviously heard some grossly distorted version of a conversation between Rupert and me. There's no reason on earth why I should attempt to explain to you, but because I'm concerned there should be no misunderstanding, I'll tell you all about it.

"We hold a substantial amount of money on behalf of our members. Most of it is for legal expenses and printing costs. As treasurer, I'm responsible for the money, and I know how important it is these days to make money work. Obviously, the more money we have, the better able we are to fight the good fight. Now, Rupert was checking something on the bank statements, and he realized there was far less in the account than he thought there should be. He was always prone to jump to conclusions, so he came round here in a great taking-on, demanding to know where the money was. I explained that I had moved it into the currency markets, an area I know rather a lot about. I was simply maximizing our returns. Rupert was perfectly satisfied with my explanation. And so he should have been, since I had succeeded in making a substantial profit."

"Then why was he raising the matter at the next meeting?"

"Why? So that I could pass on the good news to the membership, of course. Rupert felt it was a matter for congratulation, m'dear."

His glibness lowered his credibility still further in Lindsay's eyes. She was determined to get him on the run, and she racked her brains to find some leverage in what Stanhope or Alexandra had said. "But how did you move the money without Crabtree's knowledge? Surely that needed his signature?"

A momentary gleam of hatred flashed at Lindsay. "Of course, of course, my dear girl. But Rupert had actually signed it among a pile of other papers for his signature and had simply not registered what it was. Easy to do that when you're signing several bits of paper."

"I wouldn't have thought that was the action of a conscientious lawyer. But you seem to have an answer for everything, Mr. Mallard."

His smile was genuine this time. "That's because I have nothing to hide, m'dear. Now, if that is all, I do have work to do..."

"One more thing. Since you've nothing to hide, perhaps you could tell me where you were on Sunday night from about ten?"

This time, Mallard couldn't keep the smile in place. "That's none of your business," he snapped.

"You're right. But I expect you've told the police already? No? Oh well, I'm sure they'll be round soon to ask. Superintendent Rigano's very interested in who I've been talking to..."

Lindsay felt she was doing battle. Mallard gave in. "I was at home all evening."

"Which is where, exactly?"

He shifted in his seat. "Brownlow Common Cottages. Four doors away from the Crabtrees actually."

Lindsay smiled. "Convenient. Alone, were you?"

He shook his head. "My wife was in. She... she almost always is in. She has MS, you see, confined to a wheelchair."

Nothing's ever simple, thought Lindsay. Poor woman, stuck in a wheelchair with him. She waited, then he went on. He was clearly a man who felt uncomfortable with silence.

"I put her to bed about ten. So her evidence after that could only be negative - that she didn't hear me go out or come in, that she didn't hear my car. I have no idea why I'm telling you all this," he added petulantly.

"Haven't you, Mr. Mallard?" Lindsay inquired. "Thanks very much for your time." She abruptly rose and walked out. The woman in the front office looked up in surprise as she swept through. Lindsay marched down the main street to the car park where she'd left the MG, irritated that she hadn't broken Mallard's self-possession. She hadn't even thought to ask him who he thought the murderer was. But she knew deep down that the only answer she would have received was the utterly predictable one: "those peace women." And that would have made no difference to her own gut reaction to Mallard, namely that of all the people she'd spoken to so far, he was her favorite suspect. He had opportunity, she'd established that. He looked sturdy enough to cope with the means. And he had motive aplenty. A rumor with Rupert Crabtree behind it would be enough to terminate a man's career in a small town like Fordham when that career depended on trust. And Mallard clearly couldn't afford that, especially not with a wife whose disability gave him another pressing reason for maintaining a comfortable lifestyle.

She drove off, checking her mirrors for Rigano's blond SB man. There was no sign of the red Fiesta. She pulled into the traffic to keep the appointment she'd made with Paul Warminster and following his directions, left Fordham in the opposite direction to Brownlow. Surburban streets gave way to more rural surroundings. Chocolate-box countryside, thought Lindsay, struck as she was occasionally with a sharp pang of longing for the sea lochs and mountains of her native landscape. A couple of miles out of the town, she pulled off the main road into a narrow country lane. Soon she came to a thatched cottage attached to a converted cruck barn. The garden was a mass of daffodils and crocuses with occasional patches of bright blue scilla. A powerful motorbike was parked incongruously by the side of the barn. Lindsay got out of the car and walked up a path made of old weathered brick.

The door was opened by a tall spare man in his late forties. His gingery hair was lank and greying, his face weather-beaten to an unattractive turkey red and a network of fine lines radiated from the corners of his lively blue eyes. In his tweed jacket with the leather patches he looked more like a gamekeeper than a shopkeeper. With a sudden shock, Lindsay realized this was the man she had seen leaving Mallard's office a short time earlier. Covering her confusion, she quickly introduced herself and established her bona fides with her Press card. Warminster ushered her into a chintzy, low-ceilinged living room with bowls of sweet-smelling free-sias scattered around.

"So, you're writing about what local people are doing to put a stop to that so-called peace camp," he said, settling himself in a large armchair.

Lindsay nodded. "I understand you've been quite actively involved in the opposition."

Warminster lit a small cigar as he replied. "Used to be. Probably will be again soon."

"Why is that?" Lindsay asked.

"Had a bit of a run-in with that chap, Crabtree, the fellow who was murdered at the weekend, so I hadn't been doing too much lately. Blighter thought he ran Fordham. Perhaps now we'll get to grips with those left-wing lesbians," he said.

"You weren't happy with the policies of Ratepayers Against Brownlow's Destruction, then?" Lindsay probed.

He snorted. "Could say that. Policies? Appeasement, that's what they were about. And look where that got us in the thirties. We should have been taking the war into their territory, getting them out of their entrenched positions instead of pussyfooting around being nicey-nicey to those bloody communists harridans." Warminster was off and running in what were clearly not fresh fields. As she listened to the tirade, trying to control her feelings of disgust and anger, Lindsay gradually began to understand why violence so often seems a solution.

She pretended to take extensive notes of his speech. There was no need to interrogate Warminster. The only difficulty was getting him to stop. Eventually, he ended up with a rabble-rousing peroration. "Very stirring, sir," Lindsay muttered.

"You think so? That's exactly what I told them on Sunday night in Berksbury. I was speaking there, you know, at the instigation of the local Conservative Party. They staged one of those debates about the issues. Had some woolly vicar in a woolly pullover from CND, the local candidate and me. Well worth the trip, I can tell you."

Lindsay's mind had leapt to attention as soon as Sunday was mentioned. "That was Sunday night just past?" she asked. "The night Crabtree was killed, you mean?"

"That's right. Round about when he bought it, we were having a celebratory drink in the Conservative Club. An excellent night. Didn't get home till the small hours. I must say the hospitality was excellent. Good job I'd taken my wife along to drive me home or I'd never have made it. Sorry she's not in, by the way, gone to visit her sister in Fordham. Now, anything else you want to know."

It all seemed so innocent. And the alibi appeared sound. But Lindsay didn't like what her instincts told her about Paul Warminster. "I see you've got a motorbike outside. Have you ever come across any of those yobs that have been attacking the peace camp?"

He looked startled. "Of course not," he said. "Why should I have?"

Lindsay shrugged. "I just wondered. I thought since you were into direct action they might have made contact with you."

Warminster shook his head violently. "Absolutely not. Ill-disciplined rabble."

"How do you know that?" Lindsay demanded, pouncing on the inconsistency.

"How do I know what?"

"That they're ill-disciplined. If you've got nothing to do with them, how do you know that?"

He looked angry and flustered. "Heard about it, didn't I? Small place, Fordham, you hear things. Absurd of you to think I'd have anything to do with them. Nearly as incompetent as the RABD softies."

"But you obviously maintain contact with some of your friends in RABD," Lindsay probed.

"What d'you mean by that?" He was now deeply suspicious. His hostility was tipping him over the borderline of rudeness.

"I thought I saw you this morning coming out of William Mallard's office," she said.

"So? The man runs a business. I do business in Fordham. Hardly surprising that we do business together, is it? I can't turn my back on every liberal I meet just because I don't agree with their way of going about things."

Lindsay shook her head. "There's no need to get so het up, Mr. Warminster. I just wondered if the business you were doing with Mr. Mallard was anything to do with the funding of your direct action group."

Her barb hit home to Warminster, leaving high spots of colour in his checks. "Rubbish," he blustered, "absolute rubbish. Now, if you've nothing more to ask me, I'd be obliged if you'd let me get on. I'm a very busy man." He got to his feet, leaving Lindsay little choice but to follow suit. Standing in the doorway he watched her into her car then turned into the house as she drove away.

An interesting encounter, thought Lindsay. Warminster might have a rock-solid alibi for Sunday night but a tie-in between himself, Mallard, and the bikers looked suspiciously probable. It seemed likely to Lindsay that someone had put those bikers up to their attacks on the camp. If it had been only a single incident, it could have been written off as drunken hooliganism. But the concerted attacks of fire-bombing, blood-throwing, and damage to the benders looked like something more sinister. And youths like that wouldn't take those chances without some kind of incentive. Money was the obvious choice. The destination of Mallard's funny money now seemed clear too. Driving thoughtfully back to Brownlow Common, Lindsay wondered just how much it would cost to persuade a bloodthirsty biker to make the escalation from fire-bombing to murder.