Henry said.

'Maybe. Maybe they just wanted to see if I would lie about it.'

'Did you?'

'No. But if they'd asked me something a little touchier, and I was kind of scared… You don't realize what it's like. There are two of them, and only one of you, and you don't have much time to think… I know, I know,' he said despairingly. 'But it's not like the police. These small-town cops don't actually expect to find anything. They'd be shocked to know the truth, probably wouldn't believe it if you told them. But these guys…" He shuddered. 'I never realized, you know, how much we rely on appearances,' he said. 'It's not that we're so smart, it's just that we don't look like we did it. We might as well be a bunch of Sunday-school teachers as far as everyone else is concerned. But these guys won't be taken in by that.' He picked up his glass and took a drink. 'By the way,' he said, 'they asked a million questions about your trip to Italy,' Henry glanced up, startled. 'Did they ask at all about the finances? Who paid for it?'

'No.' Charles finished off the glass and rattled the ice around for a moment. 'I was terrified they would. But I think they were kind of overly impressed by the Corcorans. I think if I told them that Bunny never wore the same pair of underpants twice they would probably believe me.'

'What about that Vermonter?' Francis said. 'The one on television last night?'

'I don't know. They were a lot more interested in Cloke than anything else, it seemed to me. Maybe they just wanted to make sure his story matched up with mine, but there were a couple of really strange questions that – I don't know. I wouldn't be surprised if he's going around telling people this theory of his, that Bunny was kidnapped by drug dealers.'

'Certainly not,' said Francis.

'Well, he told us, and we're not even his friends. Though the FBI men seem to think he and I are on intimate terms.'

'I hope you took pains to correct them,' said Henry, lighting a cigarette.

'I'm sure Cloke would have set them straight on that account.'

'Not necessarily,' said Henry. He shook out his match and threw it in an ashtray; then he inhaled deeply on his cigarette.

'You know,' he said, 'I thought at first that this association with Cloke was a great misfortune. Now I see it's one of the best things that could have happened to us.'

Before anyone could ask him what he meant, he glanced at his watch. 'Goodness,' he said. 'We'd better go. It's almost six.'

On the way to Francis's, a pregnant dog ran across the road in front oi us.

'That,' said Henry, 'is a very bad omen.'

But of what he wouldn't say.

The news was just beginning. The anchorman glanced up from his papers, looking grave but at the same time very pleased. 'The frantic search – thus far a fruitless one – continues, for missing Hampden College student Edward Corcoran.'

'Gosh,' said Camilla, reaching into her brother's coat pocket for a cigarette. 'You'd think they'd get his name right, don't you?'

The picture cut to an aerial shot of snowy hills, dotted like a war map with pinprick figures, Mount Cataract looming lopsided and huge in the foreground.

'An estimated three hundred searchers,' said the voiceover, 'including National Guard, police, Hampden firefighters and Central Vermont Public Service employees, combed the hard-to reach area on this, Day Two of the search. In addition, the FBI has launched an investigation of its own in Hampden today.'

The picture wobbled, then switched abruptly to a lean, white haired man in a cowboy hat who the caption informed us was Dick Postonkill, Hampden County sheriff. He was talking, but no sound came from his mouth; searchers milled curiously in the snowy background, raising on tiptoe to jeer silently at the camera.

After a few moments, the audio lurched on with a jerky, garbled sound. The sheriff was in the middle of a sentence.

'- to remind hikers,' he said, 'to go out in groups, stay on the trail, leave a projected itinerary and carry plenty of warm clothing in case of sudden drops in temperature.'

That was Hampden County sheriff Dick Postonkill,' said the anchorman brightly, 'with a few tips for our viewers on winter hiking safety.' He turned, and the camera zoomed in on him at a different angle. 'One of the only leads so far in the Corcoran disappearance case has been provided by William Hundy, a local businessman and Action News Twelve viewer, who phoned our TIPS line with information regarding the missing youth. Today Mr Hundy has been cooperating with state and local authorities in providing a description of Corcoran's alleged abductors ' "State and local,"' said Henry.

'What?'

'Not federal.'

'Of course not,' said Charles. 'Do you think the FBI is going to believe some dumb story that a Vermonter made up?'

'Well, if they don't, why are they here?' said Henry.

This was a disconcerting thought. In the brilliant, delayed-tape noontime sun, a group of men hurried down the courthouse steps. Mr Hundy, his head down, was among them. His hair was slicked back and he wore, in lieu of his service station uniform, a baby-blue leisure suit.

A reporter – Liz Ocavello, a sort of local celebrity, with her own current-issues program and a segment called 'Movie Beat' on the local news – approached, microphone in hand. 'Mr Hundy,' she said. 'Mr Hundy.'

He stopped, confused, as his companions walked ahead and left him standing alone on the steps. Then they realized what was going on and came back up to huddle around him in an official-looking cluster. They grabbed Hundy by the elbows and made as if to hustle him away but he hung back, reluctant.

'Mr Hundy,' said Liz Ocavello, nudging her way in. 'I understand you have been working today with police artists on composite drawings of the persons you saw with the missing boy on Sunday.'

Mr Hundy nodded rather briskly. His shy, evasive manner of the day before had given way to a slightly more assertive stance.

'Could you tell us what they looked like?'

The men surged around Mr Hundy once more, but he seemed entranced by the camera. 'Well,' he said, 'they wasn't from around here. They was… dark.'

'Dark?'

They now were tugging him down the steps, and he glanced back over his shoulder, as if sharing a confidence. 'Arabs,' he said.

'You know.'

Liz Ocavello, behind her glasses and her big anchorwoman hairdo, accepted this disclosure so blandly that I thought I'd heard it wrong. Thank you, Mr Hundy,' she said, turning away, as Mr Hundy and his friends disappeared down the steps. This is Liz Ocavello at the Hampden County Courthouse.'

Thanks, Liz,' the newscaster said cheerily, swiveling in his chair.

'Wait,' said Camilla. 'Did he say what I thought he said?'

'What?'

'Arabs? He said Bunny got in a car with some Arabs'?'

'In a related development,' the anchorman said, 'area churches have joined hands in a prayer effort for the missing boy. According to Reverend A. K. Poole of First Lutheran, several churches in the tri-state area, including First Baptist, First Methodist, Blessed Sacrament and Assembly of God, have offered up their '

'I wonder what this mechanic of yours is up to, Henry,' said Francis.

Henry lit a cigarette. He had smoked it halfway down before he said: 'Did they ask you anything about Arabs, Charles?'

'No.'

'But they just said on television that Hundy's not dealing with the FBI,' Camilla said.

'We don't know that.'

'You don't think it's all some kind of setup?'

'I don't know what to think.'

The picture on the set had changed. A thin, well-groomed woman in her fifties – Chanel cardigan, pearls at the neckline, hair brushed into a stiff, shoulder-length flip – was talking, in a nasal voice which was oddly familiar.

'Yes,' she said; where had I heard that voice before? The people of Hampden are ever so kind. When we arrived at our hotel, late yesterday afternoon, the concierge was waiting for -'