“Have you got a minute, Rob?” he said in a conspiratorial undertone. “I’d like to have a word with you.”

Hasson opened the door fully and gestured for Werry to enter. “What’s it about?”

“Can’t you guess?”

Hasson avoided the other man’s gaze. “I’m just passing through this neck of the woods, Al. There’s no need to…”

“I know, but it would help me if I could talk to somebody. How about stepping out for a couple of beers?”

Hasson glanced at his television set which, once again because of time zone differences, was failing to provide the sort of programmes he wanted. “Would the television shops, stores, be open? I need to buy some cassettes.”

“We can do that as well — no problem. What do you say to a beer?”

“I’m dry as hell after last night.” Hasson confessed, reaching for his topcoat. Werry slapped him on the shoulder with something like his normal bonhomie and led the way down the stairs, jigging noisily on his heels. A minute later they were in the police cruiser and swishing along a street whose wet black pavement gave it the appearance of a canal cut through a field of snow. As the car picked up speed thick chunks of snow which had encrusted its hood broke off in the slipstream and shattered on the windshield without making a sound. Hasson deduced that the snow was powder dry and light, unlike the variety he was familiar with in England. The car swung out on to the main road and topped a low rise, giving him a panoramic view of the city looking arctic-pure and idyllic in the generous sunlight. Colours had intensified in contrast to the pervasive whiteness and the windows of houses appeared as jet-black rectangles. Off to the south the fantastic pylon of the Chinook Hotel shone like a steel pin which was holding earth and sky together.

Hasson, already becoming familiar with the general layout of Tripletree, studied the aerial sculptures of the traffic control system and used them as a guide to pick out other landmarks. Among the latter jutting up from a conglomerate of lesser buildings, was the glassy brown bulk of the furniture store where Theo had guided him on to the ring road the previous afternoon. On its roof, and glowing powerfully in spite of competition from the sun, was a huge bilaser projection representing a four-poster bed. Hasson frowned as an amber star began to wink on the computer panel of his memory.

“Quite a sign that,” he said, indicating the building to Werry. “Yesterday it was an armchair.”

Werry grinned. “That’s old Manny Weisner’s latest toy. He changes the image two or three times a week, just for fun.”

“He hasn’t had it long then?”

“About three months or so.” Werry turned his head and regarded Hasson with some curiosity. “Why do you ask?”

“No reason,” Hasson said, trying to extinguish the amber star. Yesterday the sign had portrayed an armchair, and Theo Werry — who was blind — had said that it portrayed an armchair. The obvious explanation was that somebody had described the sign to him on a previous occasion when the image was the same and had not told him about the owner’s habit of switching it around. Armchairs were one of the most common sale items in any furniture store, therefore the degree of coincidence involved in Theo’s being right was not very great. Hasson dismissed the matter from his mind, irritated with its lingering habit of seizing on small shards of information and trying to build mosaic pictures with them. The question of what Werry wanted to talk to him about was of more immediate interest and importance. He hoped there were to be no confessions of corruption. In the past he had known other police officers to become too closely connected with men like Buck Morlacher, and none of the stories had happy endings. The thought of Morlacher brought back an associated memory of his own humiliating encounter with Starr Pridgeon, and it occurred to him that Morlacher and Pridgeon were a strangely assorted pair. He broached the subject to Werry.

“Fine example of an habitual criminal who has never done any time,” Werry said. “Stan’s been mixed up in everything from statutory rape to aggravated assault, but there was always a technical] flaw in the police case against him. That or epidemic amnesia among the witnesses. He has a repair business over in Georgetown — washing machines, fridges, things like that — but he spends most of his time hanging around with Buck.”

“What does Morlacher get out of it?”

“Company, I guess. Buck’s got a real hair-trigger temper specially when he’s had a few belts, and he’s got a habit of delicately hinting at his displeasure by kicking people in the crotch. If you see anybody walling around Tripletree with bow legs it doesn’t mean they’re cowhands — they used to work for Buck, that’s all. Most folks find reasons to stay out of his way as much as they can, but Starr gets on pretty well with him.”

Hasson nodded, mildly intrigued by Werry’s steadfast practice of referring to everybody, even men he had reason to hate or despise, by their first names. He gave the impression of regarding all human failings, from the trivial to the most serious, with the same kind of careless tolerance, and it was a characteristic which Hasson found difficult to square with the profession of law enforcement. He sat quietly, coping with minor aches in his back and hip, until Werry brought the car to a halt outside a bar near the centre of Tripletree’s shopping area.

“Ben’s Holotronics is just round the corner,” Werry said. “You go off and get your cassettes and I’ll set up a couple of halfs.” He went into the brownish dimness of the bar, walking with the jaunty lightness of a boxer in peak condition. He gave no sign of having anything preying on his mind. Hasson watched him disappear and made his way along the block through fierce sprays of reflected sunlight. Shadows flitted across his path every few seconds as fliers drifted down from the sky and landed on the fiat roofs of buildings all around. It was the standard arrangement in modern cities, because CG fields broke up when any massive object, such as a wall, intersected their lines of force. That was the reason there were no aircraft powered by counter-gravity engines, and it was also the reason for modem public buildings having flat roofs or being surrounded by wide landing strips. Any flier who went too close to a wall found himself to be a flier no longer, but an ordinary mortal, fragile and afraid, hurtling towards the ground at an acceleration of close to a thousand centimetres per second squared. The same effect occurred when two CG fields interfered with each other, which was the reason for Air Police Sergeant Robert Hasson taking the big drop over the Birmingham Control Zone, the endless screaming drop which had almost…

Wrenching his thoughts back into the present, Hasson located the store where he had bought his television set and went inside. The owner, Ben, greeted him warily, but brightened up on learning that he had not returned with a complaint. It transpired that he had a good selection of six-hour programme cassettes and was able to supply Hasson with a number of complete runs of British comedy and musical shows, some of which had been recorded only the previous year.

Hasson, like an alcoholic contemplating a well-stocked cupboard, felt a comforting glow within himself as he left the store carrying a bulging plastic bag. He was now self-reliant, self-sufficient, equipped to live his own life. The evocative scent of dried hops and malt reached his nostrils and an impulse made him glance curiously into the window of the next store along the block. The proprietor, the oddly named Oliver Fan, had been an interesting and sympathetic character with an unusual line of sales talk. You are not at ease within yourself. That part was certainly true, Hasson mused. As a snap diagnosis it had been a hundred per cent accurate, but perhaps it was one of those all- purpose pieces of patter such as used by fake fortune-tellers, designed to make the general sound like the particular. Perhaps it applied equally well to everybody who ever strayed through Oliver’s door. Believe me, I can help. Would a charlatan say that? Would he not be inclined to use a more ambiguous form of words which would give him latitude for twisting and turning under legal scrutiny? Hasson hesitated for a long moment and then, filled with a curious timidity, went into the health food store.