"I thought good assassins used rifles," I said.

"Some do. Most don't. They pick their own way. Some use knives. Some garotte. I knew of one who used to wait at traffic lights along his victim's usual route to work. One day, the lights would be red, the victim would stop. The assassin tapped on the window, asking a question… or so it's supposed. The victim wound down the window and the assassin shot him point blank in the head. By the time the lights turned green and the cars behind started tooting their horns, the assassin had long gone."

"Did they ever catch him?" I asked.

West shook his head. "Eight prominent businessmen were killed that way within two years. Then it stopped. No one knows why. My guess is the assassin lost his nerve. It happens in every profession."

I thought of jump jockeys to whom it had happened almost overnight, and I supposed it occurred in stockbrokers also. Any profession, as he said.

"Or someone bumped him off because he knew too much," Malcolm said.

"That too is possible." West looked at the list. "After Mrs Joyce?"

Malcolm said sourly, "The lady you so artfully photographed me with at the instigation of, as you call her, Mrs Joyce."

The West eyebrows slowly rose. "Miss Alicia Sandways? With, if I remember, two little boys?"

"The little boys are now thirty-five and thirty-two," I said.

"Yes." He sighed. "As I said, I recently dug out that file. I didn't realise that… er… Well, so we have wife number three, Mrs Alicia Pembroke. And her children?"

Malcolm said, "The two boys, Gervase and Ferdinand. I formally adopted them when I married their motherand changed their surname to Pembroke. Then we had little Serena," his face softened, "and it was for her I put up with Alicia's tantrums the last few years we were together. Alicia was a great mistress but a rotten wife. Don't ask me why. I indulged her all the time, let her do what she liked with my house, and in the end nothing would please her." He shrugged. "I gave her a generous divorce settlement, but she was very bitter. I wanted to keep little Serena… and Alicia screamed that she supposed I didn't want the boys because they were illegitimate. She fought in the courts for Serena, and she won… She filled all her children's heads with bad feelings for me." The old hurt plainly showed. "Serena did suggest coming back to look after me when Coochie was killed, but it wasn't necessary because Moira was there. When Moira was killed, she offered again. It was kind of Serena. She's a nice girl, really, but Alicia tries to set her against me."

West, in a pause that might or might not have been sympathetic, wrote after Alicia's name:

Gervase. Illegitimate at birth, subsequently adopted

Ferdinand. The same

Serena. Legitimate

"Are they married?" he asked.

"Gervase has a wife called Ursula," I said. "I don't know her well, because when I see them they're usually together and it's always Gervase who does the talking. They too, like Thomas, have two little girls."

West wrote it down.

"Ferdinand," I said, "has married two raving beauties in rapid succession. The first, American, has gone back to the States. The second one, Deborah, known as Debs, is still in residence. So far, no children."

West wrote.

"Serena," I said, "is unmarried."

West completed that section of the list. "So we have wife number three, Mrs Alicia Pembroke. Her children are Gervase, wife Ursula, two small daughters. Ferdinand, current wife Debs, no children. Serena, unmarried… era fiance, perhaps? Live-in lover?"

"I don't know of one," I said, and Malcolm said he didn't know either.

"Right," West said. "Wife number four?"

There was a small silence. Then I said, "Coochie. She's dead. She had twin sons. One was killed with her in a car crash, the other is brain-damaged and lives in a nursing home."

"Oh." The sound carried definite sympathy this time. "And wife number five, Mrs Moira Pembroke, did she perhaps have any children from a previous marriage?"

"No," Malcolm said. "No previous marriage, no children."

"Right." West counted up his list. "That's three ex-wives… er, by the way, did any of them remarry?"

I answered with a faint smile, "They would lose their alimony if they did. Malcolm was pretty generous in their settlements. None of them has seen any financial sense in remarrying."

"They all should have done," Malcolm grumbled. "They wouldn't be so warped."

West said merely, "Right. Then, er, six sons, two daughters. Four current daughters-in-law, one son-in-law. Grand-children… too young. So, er, discounting the invalid son and Mr Ian here, there are fourteen adults to be checked. That will take me a week at least. Probably more."

"As fast as you can," I said.

He looked actually as if he had barely enough strength or confidence to get himself out of the door let alone embark on what was clearly an arduous task.

"Can I tell them all why I'm making these enquiries?" he asked.

"Yes, you damned well can," Malcolm said positively. "If it's one of them, and I hope to God it isn't, it might put the wind up them and frighten them off. just don't tell them where to find me."

I looked down at the list. I couldn't visualise any of them as being criminally lethal, but then greed affected otherwise rational people in irrational ways. All sorts of people… I knew of a case when two male relatives had gone into a house where an old woman had been reported newly dead, and taken the bedroom carpet off the floor, rolling it up and making off with it and leaving her lying alone in her bed above bare boards, all to seize her prize possession before the rest of the family could get there. Unbelievable, I'd thought it. The old woman's niece, who cleaned my flat every week, had been most indignant, but not on her aunt's account. "it was the only good carpet in the house," she vigorously complained. "Nearly new. The only thing worth having. It should have come to me, by rights. Now I'll never get it."

"I'll need all their addresses," West said.

Malcolm waved a hand. "Ian can tell you. Get him to write them down."

Obediently I opened my suitcase, took out my address book and wrote the whole list, with telephone numbers. Then I got out the pack of photographs and showed them to West.

"Would they help you?" I asked. "If they would, I'll lend them to you, but I want them back."

West looked through them, one by one, and I knew that he could see, if he were any detective at all, all the basic characters of the subjects. I liked taking photographs and preferred portraits, and somehow taking a camera along gave me something positive to do whenever the family met. I didn't like talking to some of them; photography gave me a convincing reason for disengagements and drifting around.

If there was one common factor in many of the faces it was discontent, which I thought was sad. Only in Ferdinand could one see real lightheartedness, and even in him, as I knew, it could come and go; and Debs, his second wife, was a stunning blonde, taller than her husband, looking out at the world quizzically as if she couldn't quite believe her eyes, not yet soured by disappointment.

I'd caught Gervase giving his best grade-one bullying down-the-nose stare, and saw no good purpose in ever showing him the reflection of his soul. Ursula merely looked indeterminate and droopy and somehow guilty, as if she thought she shouldn't even have her photo taken without Gervase's permission.

Berenice, Thomas's wife, was the exact opposite, staring disapprovingly straight into the lens, bold and sarcastic, unerringly destructive every time she uttered. And Thomas, a step behind her, looking harried and anxious. Another of Thomas alone, smiling uneasily, defeat in the sag of his shoulders, desperation in his eyes.

Vivien, Joyce and Alicia, the three witches, dissimilar in features but alike in expression, had been caught when they weren't aware of the camera, each of them watching someone else with disfavour.