I couldn't find the damn key. Perhaps my mother had become more security-minded over the years. There had been a time when she would have left the house unlocked completely. I tried the handle. Not anymore.

I sat down on the doorstep and leaned back against the locked door.

My mother would be home later.

I knew where she was. She was at the races-Cheltenham races, to be precise. I had looked up the runners in the morning paper, as I always did. She had four horses declared, including the favorite in the big race, and my mother would never miss a day at her beloved Cheltenham, the scene of her greatest triumphs. And while today's might be a smaller meeting than the Steeplechase Festival in March, I could visualize her holding court in the parade ring before the races, and welcoming the winner back after them. I had seen it so often. It had been my childhood.

The sun had long before given up trying to break through the veil of cloud, and it was now beginning to get cold. I sighed. At least the toes on my right foot wouldn't get chilblains. I put my head back against the wood and rested my eyelids.

"Can I help you?" said a voice.

I reopened my eyes. A short man in his mid-thirties wearing faded jeans and a puffy anorak stood on the gravel in front of me. I silently remonstrated with myself. I must have briefly drifted off to sleep, as I hadn't heard him coming. What would my sergeant have said?

"I'm waiting for Mrs. Kauri," I said.

Mrs. Kauri was my mother, Mrs. Josephine Kauri, although Josephine had not been the name with which she had been christened. It was her name of choice. Sometime back, long before I was born, she had obviously decided that Jane, her real name, was not classy enough for her. Kauri was not her proper name, either. It had been the surname of her first husband, and she was now on her third.

"Mrs. Kauri is at the races," replied the man.