8

I spent much of Thursday morning on a reasonably fruitful journey to Oxford.

Banbury Drive was in Summertown, a northern suburb of the city, and number twenty-six was one of a row of 1950s-built semidetached houses with bay windows and pebble-dash walls. Twenty-six Banbury Drive was the supposed address of Mrs. Jane Philips, my mother, which Roderick Ward had included on her tax return.

I parked my Jaguar a little way down the road, so it wouldn't be so visible, and walked to the front door of number twenty-six. I rang the bell.

I didn't really know what to expect, but nevertheless I was a little surprised when the door was opened a fraction by an elderly white-haired gentleman wearing maroon carpet slippers, no socks and brown trousers that had been pulled up a good six inches too far.

"What do you want?" he snapped at me through the narrow gap.

"Does someone called Mr. Roderick Ward live here?" I asked.

"Who?" he said, cupping a hand to his ear.

"Roderick Ward," I repeated.

"Never heard of him," said the man. "Now go away."

The door began to close.

"He was killed in a car crash last July," I said quickly, but the door continued to close. I placed my false foot into the diminishing space between the door and the frame. At least it wouldn't hurt if he tried to slam the door shut.

"He had a sister called Stella," I said loudly. "Stella Beecher."

The door stopped moving and reopened just a fraction. I removed my foot.

"Do you know Stella?" I asked him.

"Someone called Stella brings my Meals-on-Wheels," the man said.

"Every day?" I asked.

"Yes," he said.

"What time?" I asked. It was already nearly twelve o'clock.

"Around one," he said.

"Thank you, sir," I said formally. "And what is your name, please?"

"Are you from the council?" he asked.

"Of course," I said.

"Then you should know my bloody name," he said, and he slammed the door shut.

Damn it, I thought. That was stupid.

I stood on the pavement for a while, but it was cold and my real toes became chilled inside my inappropriate indoor footwear.

Of course, I had no toes on my right side, but that didn't mean I had no feeling there. The nerves that had once stretched all the way to my toes now ended seven inches below my knee. However, they often sent signals as if they had come from my foot.

In particular, when my real left foot was cold, the nerves in my right leg tended to confuse the situation by sometimes sending cold signals to my brain or, worse, as now, hot ones. It felt as though I had one foot inside a block of ice while the other was resting on a red-hot griddle plate. The sensation from the truncated nerves may have been from only a phantom limb, but they were real enough in my head, and they hurt.

I took shelter from the cold in my car. I started the engine and switched on the heater.

Consequently, I almost missed the arrival of the old man's meal.

A dark blue Nissan came towards me and pulled up in front of the house, and a middle-aged woman leapt out and almost ran to the old man's door carrying a foil-covered tray. She had a key and let herself in. Only a few seconds later she emerged again, slammed the door shut and was back in her car almost before I had a chance to get out of mine.

I walked in the road so she couldn't leave without reversing or running me over. She sounded the horn and waved me out of the way. I put up a hand in a police-style stop signal.

"I'm in a hurry," she shouted.

"I just need to ask you a question," I shouted back.

The driver's window slid down a few inches.

"Are you Stella Beecher?" I asked, coming alongside the car.

"No," she said.

"The old man said Stella delivered his meals."

She smiled. "He calls all of us Stella," she said. "Someone called Stella used to do it for him, but she hasn't been here for months."

"Is her name Stella Beecher?" I asked.

"I don't really know," the woman said. "We're volunteers. I'd only just started when she stopped coming." She looked at her watch. "Sorry, I've got to go. The old people don't like me being late with their food."

"How can I contact Stella?" I asked.

"Sorry," she said. "I've no idea where she is now."

"What's his name?" I asked, nodding at the house.

"Mr. Horner," she said. "He's a cantankerous old git. And he never even bothered to wash up his plate from yesterday." I could see his dirty plate lying on the front seat beside her. "Must dash."

She revved the engine and was gone.

I stood there, wishing I'd asked her name or for her contact details, or at least for the name of the organization for whom she acted as a volunteer. Perhaps the council would know, I thought. I'd ask them.

I walked back up the driveway of number twenty-six and rang the bell.

There was no reply.

I leaned down and called through the letter box. "Mr. Horner," I shouted. "I need to ask you some questions."

"Go away." I could hear him in the distance. "I'm having my lunch."

"I only want a minute," I shouted, again through the letter box. "I need to ask you about your post."

"What about my post?" he said from much closer.

I stood up straight, and he opened the door a crack on a security chain.

"Do you ever receive post for other people?" I asked him.

"How do you mean?" he said.

"Do letters arrive here for other people with your house address on them?"

"Sometimes," he said.

"What do you do with them?" I asked.

"Stella takes them," he said.

"And did Stella take them today?" I asked, knowing that the lady he called Stella hadn't taken anything away from here except the dirty plate.

"No," he said.

"Have you got any post for other people at the moment?" I asked.

"Lots of it," he said.

"Shall I take it away for you?" I asked him.

He closed the door and I thought I had missed my chance, but he was only undoing the security chain. The door opened wide.

"It's in there," he said, pointing to a rectangular cardboard box standing next to his feet.

I looked down. There must have been at least thirty items of various shapes and sizes lying in a heap in the box.

"I've been wondering about it," he said. "Most of it's been there for months. Stella doesn't seem to take it anymore."

Without asking again, I reached down, picked up the box and walked off with it towards my car.

"Hey," old Mr. Horner shouted after me. "You can't do that. I need that box to put the next lot into."

I poured the contents out onto the front seat of the Jaguar and took the empty box back to him.

"That's better," he said, dropping the box back onto the floor and kicking it into position next to the door.

"Don't forget your lunch," I said, turning back towards my car. "Don't let it get cold."

"Oh," he said. "Right. 'Bye." He closed the door, and I was back in my car and speeding off before he had time to rethink the last few minutes.

I spent the afternoon in my bedroom, first impersonating a government official and then knowingly opening other people's mail. I was pretty sure that both actions were dishonest, and, even if they weren't against the letter of the law, they would certainly be in breach of Values and Standards of the British Army.

First, using the local Yellow Pages directory, I started calling nursing homes, claiming to be an official from the Pensions Office inquiring after the well-being of a Mr. George Sutton. I told them that I was checking that Mr. Sutton was still alive and entitled to his state pension.

I had never before realized there were so many nursing homes. After about fifty fruitless calls, I was at the point of giving up when someone at the Silver Pines Nursing Home in Newbury Road, Andover, informed me in no uncertain terms that Mr. George Sutton was indeed very much alive and kicking, and that his pension was an essential part of the payment for his care and I'd better leave it alone, or else.