I came out an hour later feeling almost human. Richard was only five minutes late in collecting me, which approaches an all-time record. Back home, I called the garage who had towed the remains of my Nova away, and my insurance company. Next, I left a message on the office answering machine asking Shelley to sort out the best possible deal on a mobile phone for me first thing Monday morning.

Finally, I rang Brian Chalmers of PharmAce. 'Sorry to bother you at home, Brian, but have any of your vans been in an accident over the last twenty-four hours?'

'I don't think so. Why do you ask?'

'I thought I saw one in a crash on the motorway last night. I reckoned you might need a witness. Can you check for me?'

He obviously wondered why on earth I was so interested, but I'd just plugged a leak that was costing him a fortune, so he decided to humour me.

He got back to me ten minutes later. 'None of our vans has reported any accidents last night,' he said. 'However, one of our Transits was stolen from the depot on Thursday night. So I suppose it's possible that was the van you saw.'

Thursday night. Just after I'd talked to Chalmers at PharmAce's office. The only thing I needed now was proof. Perhaps after we'd fronted up the errant lab technician, we could persuade him to confess. By then, maybe I'd be fit enough to make his kidneys feel the way mine felt.

We were just about to leave when the phone rang again. 'Leave it,' Richard shouted from halfway down the hall. But I can't help myself. I waited till the answering machine clicked in.

This is Rachel Lieberman calling Kate Brannigan on Saturday…' was broadcast before I got to the phone.

'Mrs. Lieberman?' I gasped. 'Sorry, I was just walking through the door. Did you manage to go through those details?'

There is a pattern, Miss Brannigan. All but one of those properties are now or have been on our books. They are all rented out on short-term leases of between three and six months. And in every case, the tenants have shared the surname of the real owners.'

I nearly took a deep breath to calm my nerves before I remembered that wasn't part of my current repertoire. Thank you very much, Mrs. Lieberman,' I said. “You have no idea how much I appreciate it.'

'You're welcome. I enjoy a challenge now and again,' she replied, a warmth in her voice I hadn't heard before. 'It may not mean much, however. These are common names – Smith,

Johnson, Brown; it's not such a big coincidence. By the way, I don't know if you're interested, but after I'd worked through these details I checked out recent rentals. There are three other properties where the same pattern seems to be repeated. One was rented three months ago, the other two months ago and the third three weeks ago.'

I closed my eyes and sent up a prayer of thanks. 'I'm interested, Mrs. Lieberman. I don't suppose…'

She cut me off. "Miss Brannigan, I like to think I've got good judgement. I faxed the addresses to your office overnight. I'm not happy with the idea that my business is being used, however innocently, in any kind of fraud. Keep me posted, won't you?'

Keep her posted? I could find myself sending Chanukah cards this year!

10

I didn't get much chance to mull over what Rachel Lieberman had told me. I find I have some difficulty in concentrating when Edward the Second and the Red Hot Polkas are being played at a volume that makes my fillings vibrate. I know this is a measure of my personal inadequacy, but we all have to live with our little weaknesses. And it was keeping the chauffeur happy. I decided to put my new information in the section of my brain marked 'pending'. Besides, until I'd been to the Land Registry, and collated all the information from there, from Ted's records and the material Josh's Julia had faxed to the office the previous afternoon, I didn't want to fall in love with any theories that might distort my judgement.

We made it to Buxton before lunch with only a couple of wrong turnings. I'm not quite sure what I expected, but it wasn't what I got. There's a grandiose little opera house with a conservatory that some spiritual ancestor of Ted Barlow's had installed. I'd have loved to have heard the salesman's pitch. 'Now, Mr. and Mrs. Councillor, if I could show you a way to enhance the touristic value of your opera house for less than the product of a penny rate, I take it that would be something you would be pleased to go along with?' There's also a magnificent Georgian crescent that ought to blow your socks off, but it's been allowed to run to seed, rather like an alcoholic duchess who's been at the cooking sherry. Frankly, I couldn't see what all the fuss was about. If this was the jewel in the crown of the Peak District, I wasn't keen on seeing the armpit. I guess growing up in Oxford spoiled me for any architecture in the grand style that isn't kept in tip-top condition.

Like Oxford, Buxton is a victim of its own publicity. Everyone knows Oxford because of the university; what they don't realize is that it's really much more like Detroit. It's the motor car that puts money in the pockets of Oxford's shopkeepers, not the privileged inhabitants of the colleges. Walking round Buxton, it didn't take me long to figure out that it isn't culture or the spa that keeps the wheels of commerce turning there. It's limestone.

Richard was as enamoured of the place as I was. Before we'd walked the length of the rather dismal main street, he'd already started grumbling. 'I don't know why the hell you had to drag me here,' he muttered. 'I mean, look at it. What a dump. And it's raining.'

'I think you'll find the rain isn't just falling on Buxton,' I said.

'I wouldn't bank on it,' he replied gloomily. 'It's a damn sight colder than it was in Manchester. I don't see why it shouldn't be a damn sight wetter too.' He stopped and stared with hostility at the steamed-up window of a chip shop. What the hell are we doing here, Brannigan?'

'I'm just doing what you told me,' I said sweetly.

What I told you? How d'you figure that one out? I never said let's go and find the most horrible tourist attraction in the North West and spend the day wandering round it in the rain.' He does a good line in outrage, does Richard. Before he got into his stride and started ranting for England, I relented.

I slipped my arm through his, more for support than to show solidarity. The guy who ripped off Alexis and Chris has some connection with Buxton,' I explained. 'He used a hooky name to pull off the scam, and the only clue I've got on him is that his bank account is in Buxton.' Richard's mouth opened, but I carried on relentlessly. 'And before you remind me that your bank account is still in Fulham, let me point out that this guy is supposedly a builder and the account in question appears to be a business account.'

'So what do we do? Wander round Buxton asking people if they know any iffy builders who might have ripped off our friends? Oh, and here's the big clue. We know which bank he keeps his overdraft in! I mean, do we even know what this guy looks like?'

'Alexis says he's in his late twenties, early thirties. Wavy brown hair, medium height, regular features. According to another witness, brown hair, big muscles, fancies himself, drives a white Transit,' I said.

'A white Transit?' Richard interrupted. 'Jesus! You don't think it was him that tried to run you off the road last night?'

'Behave,' I told him. 'Half the tradesmen in the world drive Transits, and half of them are white. You can't go round suspecting every plumber, joiner or glazier in Greater Manchester. Whoever this guy is, he hasn't got the remotest notion that I'm even interested in him, never mind that I'm after him for fraud.'

'Sorry,' Richard said. 'So what do we do, then?'