Wayne peered at him. 'We haven't met before, havewe?' he said. 'I go to most of the collectors' meetings.Were you at the Blenheim Record Fest and Auction?'

I DON'T RECALL. I GO TO SO MANY THINGS.

'That was the one where the auctioneer had a heartattack.'

OH. YES. I SEEM TO REMEMBER POPPING IN, JUSTFOR A FEW MINUTES.

'Very few bargains there, I thought.'

OH. I DON'T KNOW. HE WAS ONLY FORTY-THREE,

All right, inspector. Maybe six drinks. Or maybe itwasn't the drinks at all. But sometimes you get thefeeling, don't you, that you can see a little way intothe future? Oh, you don't. Well, anyway. I might nothave been entirely in my right mind but I was beginningto feel pretty uncomfortable about all this. Well, anyonewould. Even you.

'Wayne,' I said. 'Stop right now. If you concentrate,he'll go away. Settle down a bit. Please. Take a deepbreath. This is all wrong.'

The brick wall on the other side of me paid moreattention. I know Wayne when he meets fellow collectors,They have these weekend rallies. You see them inshops. Strange people. But none of them as strange asthis one. He was dead strange.

'Wayne!'

They both ignored me. And inside my mind bits of mybrain were jumping up and down, shouting and pointing,and I couldn't let myself believe what they weresaying

OH, I'VE GOT THEM ALL, he said, turning back toWayne, ELVIS PRESLEY, BUDDY HOLLY, JIM MORRISON,JIMI HENDRIX, JOHN LENNON...

'Fairly wide spread, musically,' said Wayne. 'Have yougot the complete Beatles?'

NOT YET

And I swear they started to talk records. I remember MrFriend saying he'd got the complete seventeenth-, eighteenth-and nineteenth-century composers. Well, hewould, wouldn't he?

I've always had to do Wayne's fighting for him, eversince we were at primary school, and this had gone farenough and I grabbed Mr Friend's shoulder and went