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question.
    “No, I don’t suppose you have. I went to Hampstead. Just like you wanted. Found the house. Spoke with the girl.”
    “And?” Winston produced a rumpled handkerchief and passed it over his moist brow.
    “And we did business.”
    “You got the photographs?”
    “Er—yes, that’s right.” He’d done bleeding brilliantly considering the circumstances.
    “Where are they?”
    Rupert patted his jacket.
    “Have you looked at them?” Winston sweated more freely. “Can you see anything?”
    “I’ve been a bit busy. The girl wasn’t easy to deal with.”
    Winston’s eyes rested on Rupert’s jacket. “You couldn’t have been dealing with her from last night until nine this evening.” He’d grown redder and he breathed hard. “Everything depends on this. What’s the matter with you? Something’s gone wrong, hasn’t it? You’ve dashed well balled it up, you monume ntal ass. I warned you that—”
    “Better calm down, Winnie, or you’ll pop a vein.” He should be so lucky, Rupert thought. “She did a bunk afterwards, and I had my hands full making sure I knew where she’d gone. Just in case.” And that hadn’t been easy. Rupert had snoozed in his waiting taxi. If the taxi driver hadn’t been alert, he’d have missed seeing FitzDurham take off in her mangy mini-cab.
    “ Just in case what? ” Winnie asked slowly.
    That tore it. He couldn't say he’d decided he ought to know where Miss FitzDurham was just in case she tried to use the actual prints, or make a second set of negatives. And he wasn’t ready to reveal his sickening mistake with the money. He shrugged. “You never know what might come up. We could want to talk to her again.”
    “No, we couldn’t. The last thing we want is to have any further contact with the woman at all. Where have you really been? Not with Kitty. Please say you haven’t been with Kitty.”
    “I haven’t seen my dear wife for days.” He had seen Nonie at her flat in Shepherd’s Bush—warm, welcoming Nonie, who was always ready to help him feel like a man again—had been since Rupert’s own days of living and working in the same area . “I don’t even know where Kitty is.” Nonie knew Rupert was unappreciated by some people and spent every minute of their time together appreciating him enough to make up for the rest.
    “ Kitty can’t know anything. Understand? If that woman finds out we’re valuable, she’ll find a way to take advantage.”
    “She won’t find out we’re vulnerable, Winston.”
    “Give me the photographs.”
    Shit. He slid the envelope of negatives from his inside breast pocket and handed it over.
    Winston’s hand, the hand that held the envelope, trembled. He backed up to an eighteenth-century chair upholstered in a fine example of Genoa velvet, and sat down with a thump that raised dust. What height Winston had was in his torso. His feet swung clear of the ground. He opened the envelope and stared inside. Rupert sniffed, and laughed, and made for the back room. “Come here.” Winston sounded querulous and unlike himself.
    “Just need to see to Soames.”
    “ Back—here— now. ”
    Rupert broke into a trot and scooted into the cluttered sanctuary he and Winston shared. Here they were out of sight of customers, while any customers could be viewed through one-way glass. Winston was very fond of one-way glass—he used it elsewhere, too.
    “Rupert?” Through the glass, Winston’s frightened expression seemed magnified. “Come here at once or I shall get very angry with you.”
    In the end, Winston always became muddled and foolish. Good. The time had come to cause a diversion.
    Rupert took Soames from his cage and held the creature’s face close to his own. “Good boy, beautiful boy. You go and say hello to dear Winston.” With that he kissed the ferret’s nose, put him on the floor, and hurriedly returned to the showroom.
    “What are these?” Winston held the negatives in one hand.
    “ The negatives. I