I was still sitting on the piano stool. Dixie laid the tip of his knife on the nape of my neck, pricking it just a little to add to his point. “Come on,” he said.

Pudd’n was standing back warily, out of my reach. I walked meekly back to the chair and sat down.

“Not so tight this time,” I said, as Pudd’n began to tighten the ropes around my forearms and legs. He nodded, but he was too experienced to allow me to create any slack as he worked.

“There,” he said, and stood back. “What are we goin’ to do about food for ’im, Dix? He’ll be ’ere all night.”

“Let him bloody well starve,” said Dixie . He looked disappointed, as though he had been hoping for some attempt at resistance. That knife of his looked well used, and not just on inanimate objects. He would like to have a go at more than my shirt.

“We can’t starve ’im,” said Pudd’n. “He’s not Foss, he’s ’is brother.”

“He still did for Jack and Des, didn’t he?”

“Well, yeah — but they’d have done for ’im if he ’adn’t.” Pudd’n looked at me. I had risen in his eyes since I sat down at the keyboard. “I could do yer eggs an’ bacon. All right?”

I salivated at the thought. I was starving, and I nodded.

“Well, I’m not having anything to do with it,” said Dixie . “Fuck him. He’s all yours.”

He strode out of the room, rapidly and light on his feet. Pudd’n hesitated, and I could see his problem. If he left me to get food, I’d be unguarded, and I had no doubt that Dixie would tell that to Scouse when he came back. I jerked my head down towards my wrists. “I can’t get away, you know. You could leave me here.”

He shook his head. “Not allowed to do that. If Dixie would come back…” He looked at the door for a second, then shrugged. “Well, only one thing for it. Hold tight.”

He moved behind me, and the chair began to skate backwards over the polished floor. We went on past the room where I had awakened, and on to a long landing with deep carpeting. I heard a little grunt of effort, then I was carried, chair and all, on down the stairs. I made a mental note never to argue with Pudd’n. He was even stronger than his height and build suggested.

On the way downstairs and into the kitchen I was still trying to register everything that I saw. It seemed impossible to get away, but I couldn’t afford to give up. Maybe it was Leo’s influence, but my pulse was steady, my head was clear, and I have never felt more alert and sensitive.

There was little enough to see. We were in an old house, with eleven or twelve foot ceilings, thick and solid doors, and deep skirting-boards. I guessed it was late Victorian, and when we came to it the kitchen was enormous, with a great range all along one wall. The range had been converted from coal to gas, and Pudd’n set my chair next to it while he cooked about a pound of bacon and eight eggs.

“Bread an’ tea?” he said. “I’m going to feed both of us. I don’t want you untied.”

He gave me food skillfully and quickly, cutting up everything into the right bite-sized pieces. I shook my head after the third egg and he went on to finish everything and then washed up the pans and dishes. I had some vague hope that I might reach a knife and hold it under my forearm, but I couldn’t stretch my hand that far and anyway Pudd’n was watching every move I made.

“Right,” he said when he was finished. “Now back upstairs. That’ll be the hard bit.”

He didn’t call on Dixie for assistance. I could guess what the answer to that request would have been, and anyway the less I saw of Dixie , the better.

“Why not leave me down here?” I asked.

He considered it for a moment. “Don’t think so,” he said at last. “There’s a lock on the music room, and none on the kitchen ’ere. We’ll get yer back up there in a couple of minutes. Sit still.”

We retraced our steps to the stairs and on up, Pudd’n huffing a bit but not under any apparent strain. We were at the top when Dixie appeared. He was scowling.

“Scouse called while you were feeding your face down there,” he said. “He wants you to go over there tonight.”

“What for? An’ what about ’im?” Pudd’n laid one big hand on the top of my head.

“Don’t worry about that.” Dixie smiled so wide I could see the top of his dentures. “You can leave him to me.”

Pudd’n shrugged. “All right. I’ll leave in an hour, an’ I’ll hand over to you when I go.”

He dragged me back along the landing and on through into the music room. All the way there I looked for a sign of anything that might be useful later. There was nothing.

“It’s a big house,” I said to Pudd’n, after he had moved me over near the piano and seated himself on the stool. He grunted noncommittally.

“How many bedrooms?” I went on.

He swiveled round to face me. “Look here, mate, I’m younger than you but I wasn’t born yesterday. Don’t try an’ pump me, all right? If you’re relyin’ on me to tell you, you already know all about this house that you’re goin’ to know. Talk about something else.”

I shrugged and leaned back in the chair. “All right. I was just interested, that’s all. I’m surprised that you don’t take piano playing more seriously. I could tell that you didn’t have any trouble playing for Dixie — it didn’t stretch you at all.”

“Ah, he just wants easy stuff — dance tunes, mostly.” He sniffed. “Fancies himself as Fred Astaire, silly old fart. He’s past it. I play anythin’ he asks me to, but it’s not real music.”

“So why not play real music? How are you in sight-reading and improvising?”

“I’m good — ’specially improvising.” His expression was interested, and he was getting into the conversation more. I didn’t see how it could lead anywhere useful, but I had nothing better to do.

“I’d like to hear you,” I said.

“Pick a tune.” He looked positively eager. So was I. It was one thing to meet a musical thug, but natural talent is hard to find anywhere and it’s intriguing when you meet it.

“How about a contemporary work?” I said. “How many late twentieth century piano pieces do you know?”

“Damn few — an’ that includes early twentieth century as well.” He struck a few sparse and dissonant chords that sounded like an extract from Webern, but not one I could place. “Hear that?” he said. “That’s not music.”

“So what is music?”

He thought for a moment. “This is.” He began to play a beautifully balanced piano transcription of the first movement of the Schubert String Quintet, nodding his head with the rhythm.

After about a minute he stopped.

“Go on,” I said. I was ready to hear more. “Who did the piano arrangement?”

He looked sheepish. “I did it myself, from listening to records an’ all that.”

“I’d like to see a copy.”

“Aw, I don’t bother to write much stuff down.” He sniffed. “If it’s any good you remember it anyway.”

“Could you improvise on part of that?”

He shrugged noncommittally, and began again. This time he took only the first subject and began to carry it through a series of variations and modulations. He was soon so far away from C Major that I wondered how he was proposing ever to get back. Finally he set up a mock fugato, in which successive voices began to move him elegantly through the different keys. When he finally landed back in the tonic he grinned at me in triumph, ran through a flashing display of double octaves, and added a jaunty little coda. I noticed that his left hand, in spite of its less smooth movement, was perfectly agile and made the wildest jumps accurately.

“You’re damned good,” I said when he paused. For a few minutes I had forgotten that I was tied to an uncomfortable chair, a prisoner in a strange house with an unknown tomorrow. No denying it: Pudd’n was a better improviser than I ever was or ever would be.

He was flushed with pleasure. “Bit of all right, that, eh? It had me really goin’ for a while with that fugue, but it came out not bad.”