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The words were like warm oil on a sore. It was more difficult now to withhold the tears so she merely nodded, then turned away. ; Janet and Robbie did not embrace, they just looked at each ; other, and he jerked his head at her, saying, "Well, I suppose I'll be seeing you the morrow night. Why the devil you can't make it a week is past me. All right, all right' he wagged his hand at her " I know.

We've been through it and I'm not capable of lookin' after me self yet.

Have it your way. Get in He pushed her unceremoniously into the car, and there was more laughter.

But before Harry took his seat he stood in front of Terry, and he said simply, "Thank you, son." And Terry no longer laughing and lost for words now, flushed red to his ears.

There was no verbal exchange between Robbie and Harry, but they looked at each other and their glance, full of under standing, cemented the partnership that was already between them.

When Harry took his seat behind the wheel, not one of them-vu. ^. u v. *_ t*>-tjii^'mo m'-"LAt.An.o, j.va L't-imiu ilia ailllllliy JLat-C

lie was feeling weak with relief. All during the short ceremony, even during the lunch, he had expected something to happen. What, he didn't really know, but something instigated by John. But now it was over. If he had intended doing anything he would have done it before this. He started up the car, then he and Janet called their final goodbyes.

The three of them waved the car along the drive and out of sight; then Robbie, stretching his neck out of his collar and buttoning his coat, said briskly, "Well, that's that." Then looking directly at Terry, he added jocularly, "The van's at your disposal, me Lord; I can drop you where you left your bike, right?"

"Right!" said Terry, laughing again.

"Fine." Then he turned to Gail, and she said, "I've got some shopping to do, I'll get the bus."

At this Robbie almost groaned aloud. God Almighty I she was still going to keep it up. After a lunch like they'd had, all jolly good pals together, she was going back into her shell. Well then, let her.

He hadn't pined because he hadn't seen her for months. He had been about to make some crack about tier-being his step-sister. God, it was just as well he hadn't, she would have swooned. Yet she had been all right with his mother, putting her arms around her and kissing her. It all went to prove what he had known all along: it wasn't his mother marrying her dad that had brought on the ice age, it was him. She couldn't stand him. Well, to hell with heri The feeling was reciprocated. Aye, and with interest.

"O.K. let's get going," he jerked his head at Terry as he walked away adding, 'the party's over. I've got a business to attend to. "

Terry watched him go towards the van, then in an undertone to Gail, he muttered quickly, "Why can't you come. He can drop you off before you can get anywhere near home."

"And have our John see us?" Her tone was equally low and when after a moment he nodded at her, she said, "Go on, don't keep him waiting."

Terry now made his way to the van and took his seat beside Robbie and within seconds they were Sashing down the drive, passing Gail as if she was a stranger.

felt in a vile mood, ready to go for the first one that crossed him, but he had to warn himself not to go for Sid because Sid had done him a favour in working through his dinner-hour, and he was going to ask a further favour of him. He wanted him to stay on until six o'clock, or to such time when he returned from the house. There were a number of pieces he wanted to take out to finish off the long room, besides which he had an appointment to view some pieces at a private house around three-thirty.

He felt mad at himself for feeling mad. He shouldn't be feeling like this, he told himself, not with Monday before him. So much could happen on Monday; it could be the beginning of big things, real big things.

Some weeks ago an American had come to the shop and bought three pieces and paid well for them. They had got talking and the American seemed to take to him; anyway, he had put some business in his way. He said he was looking for an eighteenth-century lowboy and one or two Louis XVI pieces, a secreta ire in particular, and a Louis XV commode.

Did Mr. Dunn think it possible he could come by them? Robbie didn't think it was possible not at short notice anyway, but be intended to have a damn good try.

He hadn't taken the man out to the house on that occasion, although he could have done because he had some attractive pieces there already, but his alert mind was, as usual, giving him the completed picture and he could see these French pieces lining the walls of the long room and the overall impression it c would have on the American. Ten to one he wouldn't take the 5 pieces he was after, but the lot.

He had, after much searching, managed to get hold of all the pieces except the commode, but he'd had to pay through the nose for them. Yet what he lost on the roundabouts he'd gain on the swings on this deal, he told himself, or his name wasn't Robbie Dunn.

The visit to the private house proved disappointing and he came out thinking. They've got a nerve; I wouldn't put that stuff in the market. So his frame of mind hadn't lightened when he entered the lane and first smelt the smell of burning.

^. Aw *^"-*<- * *- v *a i- r- n- ^.fjujL

He didn't see the smoke until he rounded the pit head And there it was before him, spiralling up into the sky and spreading along the horizon, and filling the world, his world. He hadn't been conscious of bringing the car to a stop; he wasn't conscious of his hands gripping the wheel while his chest was pressed against it. One minute the car and he were still, the next minute they both seemed to be flying through the air.

When he tumbled out of the car in front of the house he became still again; not only his body now but his mind seemed incapable of movement.

No thought penetrated the stupor as he gazed up at the flames licking out of the upper window; the floor of the house was a complete red glow that hissed and crackled. He didn't see the man in the tee-shirt and the two policemen come towards him. When the constable said, "I'm sorry about this, Mr. Dunn," he turned a slow gaze towards him and his mind begain to move again, but not around the enormity of the situation. What he thought was, He's one of the fellows that was on patrol the night the shop was done; he's a Jonah.

"The Fire Brigade should be here any minute but I'm afraid it's a bit late. You see, we knew nothing about it until this'-he nodded to the man in the tee-shirt--'this gentleman phoned in."

"Well, it wasn't me that phoned, it was me son, Tony." The man was gesticulating now.

"He must have run a mile and a half along the road to the phone. And to think I saw the bloke do it. But it didn't dawn on me at the time.

You see, Mister." He was bending his head down from his six-foot-four to Robbie's level.

"You see, Mister, I'm from Wallsend and it just happened I had the feeling that I wanted to show me lad where I used to fish when I was a nipper, in the burn yon side of the sugar

empty in those days. We used to run in and out of it, build fires |

in that room there. Not as big as this one though. " He stopped S on an embarrassed " Huh! " then went on, " Well, as we was i| passin' on our way down the burn I stopped an' had a look. | There seemed nobody about an' I was interested like, so we climbed on the wall round there just near the stables. I wasn't goin' to come over, just have a look, as I said. An' then, as I i told the polis here, up comes this car.

Not right up; it- stops | along the road there'--he pointed back--'an'

this fellow comes | carrying a can, a petrol can. He passed us within two arms i length. Me and Tony saw him as plain as I'm seem' you, but

;

you see at that time I thought he was the boss, the owner like. , When he disappeared round yon side of the house we scarpered :1 along by the wall, but as we was passin' the gate there, or the < place where the gate was, I saw him opening the windows, so | naturally I took him to be the owner. Well . we went on to | the burn but there wasn't any fish, not like there used to be-- | the chemicals have poisoned the pool down there--an' so we| came back, 'cos I had a fancy to sit on top of the hill, there and | eat me bait like I did as a nipper, as I said.

An' then when we| rounded the old mine we saw the smoke, an' like lightning I" put two and two together. That fellow was carryin' a petrol dn, | I said to our Tony. God, did we run! But when we got here alljl the bottom was ablaze and even if I could have found the stop-^^B cock and a hose I couldn't have done anything, so I sent TonA^

flyin' for the polls. But, Mister, I'll pick that fellow from out a million for you."

Robbie still hadn't moved. He didn't move even when the engine came jangling into the yard. When someone sbou' "Where's the stopcock?" he Just pointed.

The man in the tee-shirt was speaking again, he said, "@ thought I'd be able to save some bits. I went round the back| but that was worse than the front, everything was burning like matchwood. He must have set half-a-dozen places goin'j at once. He knew what he was doin* leaving the windows open.5 They all began to cough as a cloud of smoke enveloped them,3 and the policeman, taking Robbie by the arm, said, "

Come ov here. Sir. "

-z^aL ol. ^ ul. u LU break through the shock and return him to life, for he startled both the policeman and the man by racing away from them and round to the back of the house, and there, dragging a coil of hose from a shed, he dashed with it to a tap on the side of the stable wall and, having attached the nozzle to it with hands that shook as if they had palsy, he ran with the end of the hose through the smoke towards his bedroom window.

Just that morning he had left three paintings stacked against the wall in there. He bad learned a bit about paintings during the past three years, and about one of these paintings he bad a feeling. He had picked them up from among the contents of an attic he had bought and the feeling told him he might have a find in the picture that showed the face of the Madonna and Child under the dirt and grime of years.

Oh the back of the picture was a torn label with a few words discernible, indicating that it had at one time been hung in a gallery.

Even when one of the firemen, coming up to him, shouted, "I don't think you can do much there. Sir," he still kept the hose directed through the window.

Coughing and choking and almost overcome by the smoke, he staggered back across the yard and leaned against the wall and there standing sightless for a moment, he cried from deep within him, "Oh, God 1 Let me die. Let me die."

"Come away. Sir; there's nothing you can do." When the man went to help him he shrugged him off and picked his way over the tangle of pipes, through a patch of hissing steam and to the front of the house again, where the policeman met him, saying, "This gentleman's given me a full description of the man. Do you know anyone like this?" He looked at his notebook.

"About six foot tall, fair. Very fair, you said?" He looked towards the man again, and the man nodded and said, "Yes, unusually fair, sort of silvery like."

"About twenty to twenty-three years old," went on the policeman.

"His clothes I suppose wouldn't be of much help, but he was wearing a conventional suit and collar and tie. That's so, isn't it?"

"Aye," said the man.

"He was dressed as if he was going into the town, Newcastle or some such place. That's why I thought

ne was me owner ukc.

Tall, six-foot, fair, silvery like, twenty to twenty-three. He didn't need any description, he knew. He had known since he had smelt the smoke. Like a dam breaking, the rage swept through him, sundering the remaining stupor and the shock into fragments.

Once again he startled the policeman and the man by running but now towards the van. Once inside he threw the gear into reverse but his backward move towards the gate was immediately impeded by the rear end of the fire engine. The policeman was shouting to him.

"Where can we contact you, Sir?"

What? "

"I said, where can we get in touch with you?"

Til be back shortly. Yes'--he nodded to him"--I'll be back shortly."

"Very good, Sir." The policeman continued to look at him, then he beckoned him forward and indicating to him to turn his wheel hard down right. This done, the road clear, the car shot backwards and within seconds it was bounding over the road towards the mine, past it, then along the lane and on to the main road.

During the journey to Holt Avenue Robbie wasn't conscious of forming any plan as to his actions once having arrived there, yet when he drove the car to a grinding halt outside the gate he didn't make for the front door, but ran along the road and entered by the gate marked

"Tradesmen'. The lonicera-hedged path led to the square of cement outside the kitchen door and it wasn't until he had his hand actually on the knob of the door that he paused. Lifting his hand gently off it again he sidled towards the window and looked into the kitchen. It was empty. They'd be at a meal. The dining-room window looked on to the side of the house to his right, but he didn't make for it. Instead, he went back to the kitchen door and, slowly opening it, he stepped inside and stood taut as he looked about him. Everything was neat, clean and prim--a portrait of Esther Blenheim. He wanted to see Esther Blenheim.

Oh yes, he wanted to see Esther Blenheim. But after he had seen her son. And he wanted to see her son now when he was still feeling like this, mad, crazy, wanting to kill. This feeling, once it had subsided, would never

happen to make him feel like this again, for every fibre of his being demanded that he should get his fingers into the flesh of John Blenheim and tear that flesh, rend it, scar it, leave it so that the six-foot silvery blond bastard would not be recognisable, even to his mother.