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with it, but gents don’t find themselves sitting in public bars in their dressing gowns. Any road, I wanted to see how Roote would play it. But there weren’t time to make his play.
    The door opened again and another woman entered, this one a bit more to my taste. The way her gaze fixed on Clara and Roote, I guessed straight off this were the aunt. She were knocking on, sixties bumping seventy, but well preserved, and built like a buffalo, with an eye to match. If there weren’t enough meat on young Clara to make a Christmasstarter, there were plenty here for a main course with something left over for Boxing Day. Not bad looking for an old ’un, but in a very different way from her niece. No smooth pallor here, but weathered oak. Only thing in common were the determined chin that age had carved on her face into a bit of an icebreaker. This was a woman used to getting her own way.
    She said, “There you are, Clara. You’ve got the shopping? Good. No sign of Teddy? No matter, so long as he turns up in time to pay the bill. Time for a quick one here I think. Alan!”
    The landlord was ahead of the game again. There was already a G and T on the bar and an orange juice. No prizes for working out whose was which.
    â€œGood day, Lady D,” said Roote. “I hope you are keeping well.”
    â€œI am always well, Franny. I firmly believe most ailments are the invention of the medical profession to extort money from fools.”
    She brayed a laugh like it never struck her some poor sod in a wheelchair might not find this all that funny. Roote just grinned and said, “If Tom Parker wants a living testimony to the health-giving properties of Sandytown, he need look no further than you.”
    She preened herself and said, “Kind of you to say so, Franny. It’s true I have been blessed with a strong and lasting constitution. In fact, I do believe I never saw the face of a doctor in all my life on my own account, but only on the two unhappy occasions when I was told of the death of a husband.”
    Roote looked solemn for a moment, then said slyly, “But surely, Lady D, you have seen the face of Dr. Feldenhammer, very much on your own account, and on occasions not so unhappy?”
    She laughed archly, like a cracked hurdy-gurdy playing “The Rustle of Spring,” and I reckon if she’d had a fan, she’d have rapped his knuckles with it as she said, “You naughty boy, that tongue of yours will get you into trouble one day.”
    â€œThen I shall call on you for a character reference,” said Roote. “Can I introduce my old friend Andrew Dalziel?”
    I’d seen those buffalo eyes taking me in during all this byplay and I don’t think she much liked the look of me or mebbe it was just my outfit.
    I said, “How do, missus?” and in return she gave me a nod that would likely have broken my nose if she’d been close up, then turned to hoist herself onto a bar stool, showing off a pair of haunches a man would be proud to have the tattooing of. The landlord put her drink before her and she leaned forward to engage him in a low-voiced conversation.
    The lass gave Roote’s hand a quick sympathetic squeeze, then went to the bar to join her aunt.
    I took a drink of me ale. Didn’t taste as good as before. Nowt wrong with the beer, but. It were me. Should have stopped with the first and certainly skipped the scotch. I definitely weren’t feeling up to snuff. Mebbe that was what made me say, all surly, “You’ll not get anywhere there, lad. Rich aunts look after dependent nieces.”
    One thing for Roote, he may play games but he doesn’t play silly games, like pretending not to understand.
    â€œDependent nieces have wills of their own,” he said, giving me a stage wink.
    â€œAye, and so have rich aunts, and they make bloody sure anyone gets cut out of them who doesn’t toe the line,” I said. “Any