We were travelling sideways over the town, with houses below us. Descent was very fast. 'Three minutes,' he said.

The sea lay ahead again, fringing the far side of the town, and for a moment it looked as if it was there we would have to come down after all. John Viking, however, knew better.

'Hang on,' he said. 'This is it.'

He hauled strongly on the red cord he held, which led upwards into the balloon. Somewhere above, the vent for the hot air widened dramatically, the lifting power of the balloon fill away, and the solid edge of Eastbourne came up with a rush.

We scraped the eaves of grey slate roofs, made a sharp diagonal descent over a road and a patch of grass, and smashed down on a broad concrete walk twenty yards from the waves.

'Don't get out. Don't get out,' he yelled. The basket tipped on its side and began to slither along the concrete, dragged by the still half-inflated silken mass. 'Without our weight, it could still fly away.'

As I was again wedged among the cylinders, it was superfluous advice. The basket rocked and tumbled a few more times and I with it, and John Viking cursed and hauled at his red cord and finally let out enough air for us to be still.

He looked at his watch, and his blue eyes blazed with triumph. 'We've made it. Five twenty-nine. That was a bloody good race. The best ever. What are you doing next Saturday?'

I went back to Aynsford by train, which took forever, with Charles picking me up from Oxford station not far short of midnight.

'You went on the balloon race,' he repeated disbelievingly. 'Did you enjoy it?'

'Very much.'

'And your car's still at Highalane Park?'

'It can stay there until morning,' I yawned. 'Nicholas Ashe now has a name, by the way. He's someone called Norris Abbott. Same initials, silly man.'

'Will you tell the police?'

'See if we can find him, first.'

He glanced at me sideways. 'Jenny came back this evening, after you'd telephoned.'

'Oh no.'

'I didn't know she was going to.'

I supposed I believed him. I hoped she would have gone to bed before I arrived, but she hadn't. She was sitting on the gold brocade sofa in the drawing room, looking belligerent.

'I don't like you coming here so much,' she said. A knife to the heart of things from my pretty wife.

Charles said smoothly, 'Sid is welcome here always.'

'Discarded husbands should have more pride than to fawn on their fathers-in-law, who put up with it because they're sorry for them.'

'You're jealous,' I said, surprised. She stood up fast, as angry as I'd ever seen her.

'How dare you!' she said. 'He always takes your side. He thinks you're bloody marvellous. He doesn't know you like I do, all your stubborn little ways and your meanness and thinking you're always right.'

'I'm going to bed,' I said. 'And you're a coward as well,' she said furiously. 'Running away from a few straight truths.'

'Goodnight, Charles,' I said. 'Goodnight, Jenny. Sleep well, my love, and pleasant dreams.'

'You…' she said. 'You… I hate you, Sid.'

I went out of the drawing room without fuss and upstairs to the bedroom I thought of as mine; the one I always slept in nowadays at Aynsford.

You don't have to hate me, Jenny, I thought miserably; I hate myself.

Charles drove me to Wiltshire in the morning to collect my car, which still stood where I'd left it, though surrounded now by acres of empty grass. There was no Peter Rammileese in sight, and no thugs waiting in ambush. All clear for an uneventful return to London.

'Sid,' Charles said, as I unlocked the car door. 'Don't pay any attention to Jenny.'

'No.'

'Come to Aynsford whenever you want.'

I nodded.

'I mean it, Sid.'

'Yeah.'

'Damn Jenny,' he said explosively.

'Oh no. She's unhappy. She…' I paused. 'I guess she needs comforting. A shoulder to cry on, and all that.

He said austerely, 'I don't care for tears.'

'No.' I sighed and got into the car, waved goodbye, and drove over the bumpy grass to the gate. The help that Jenny needed, she wouldn't take from me; and her father didn't know how to give it. Just another of life's bloody muddles, another irony in the general mess.

I drove into the city and around in a few small circles, and ended up in the publishing offices of Antiques for All, which proved to be only one of a number of specialist magazines put out by a newspaper company. To the Antiques editor, a fair-haired earnest young man in heavy-framed specs, I explained both the position and the need.

'Our mailing list?' he said doubtfully. 'Mailing lists are strictly private, you know.'

I explained all over again, and threw in a lot of pathos. My wife behind bars if I didn't find the con man, that sort of thing.

'Oh very well,' he said. 'But it will be stored in a computer. You'll have to wait for a print-out.'

I waited patiently, and received in the end a stack of paper setting out fifty-three thousand names and addresses, give or take a few dead ones.

'And we want it back,' he said severely. 'Unmarked and complete.'

'How did Norris Abbott get hold of it?' I asked.

He didn't know, and neither the name nor the description of Abbott/Ashe brought any glimmer of recognition.

'How about a copy of the magazine, for good measure?'

I got that too, and disappeared before he could regret all his generosity. Back in the car, I telephoned to Chico and got him to come to the flat. Meet me outside, I said. Carry my bag upstairs and earn your salary.

He was there when I pulled up at a vacant parking meter and we went upstairs together. The flat was empty, and quiet, and safe.

'A lot of leg work, my son,' I said, taking the mailing list out of the package I had transported it in, and putting it on the table. 'All your own.'

He eyed it unenthusiastically. 'And what about you?'

'Chester races,' I said. 'One of the syndicate horses runs there tomorrow. Meet me back here Thursday morning, ten o'clock. O.K.?'

'Yeah.'

He thought. 'Suppose our Nicky hasn't got himself organised yet, and sends out his begging letters next week, after we've drawn a blank?'

'Mm… Better take some sticky labels with this address on, and ask them to send the letters here, if they get them.'

'We'll be lucky.'

'You never know. No one likes being conned.'

'May as well get started, then.' He picked up the folder containing the magazine and mailing list, and looked ready to leave.

'Chico… Stay until I've repacked my bag. I think I'll start northwards right now. Stay until I go.' He was puzzled. 'If you like, but what for?'

'Er…'

'Come on, Sid. Out with it.'

'Peter Rammileese and a couple of guys came looking for me yesterday at Highalane Park. So I'd just like you around, while I'm here.'

'What sort of guys?' he said suspiciously.

I nodded. 'Those sort. Hard eyes and boots.'

'Guys who kick people half to death in Tunbridge Wells?'

'Maybe,' I said.

'You dodged them, I see.'

'In a balloon.' I told him about the race while I put some things in a suitcase. He laughed at the story but afterwards came quite seriously back to business.

'Those guys of yours don't sound like your ordinary run-of-the-mill rent-a-thug,' he said. 'Here, let me fold that jacket, you'll turn up at Chester all creased.' He took my packing out of my hands and did it for me, quickly and neatly. 'Got all the spare batteries? There's one in the bathroom.' I fetched it. 'Look, Sid, I don't like these syndicates.' He snapped the locks shut and carried the case into the hall. 'Let's tell Lucas Wainwright we're not doing them.'

'And who tells Peter Rammileese?'

'We do. We ring him up and tell him.'

'You do it,' I said. 'Right now.'

We stood and looked at each other. Then he shrugged and picked up the suitcase. 'Got everything?' he said. 'Raincoat?' We went down to the car and stowed my case in the boot. 'Look, Sid, you just take care, will you? I don't like hospital visiting, you know that.'