Maybe the kid would have been alone, still traumatized, from his father's disappearance. The raincoats would have told him that kids couldn't handle secrets, that they blabbed, that he endangered himself and the kid if he made contact… They would have tracked Frank Perry's former footsteps, his one-time life, until they were convinced that the trail was broken. Fenton wouldn't have understood.

"You have to face facts, and facts dictate that you move on."

"And my new home, new family, new life, new friends?"

"Start again."

"Dump my new home, put my new family through the hoop?"

"They'll cope. There's no alternative."

"And in a year, or three years, do it all again? And again after that, and again. Do it for ever peer over my shoulder, wetting myself, keeping the bags packed. Is that a life worth living?"

"It's what you've got, Mr. Perry." Fenton rubbed his fingernail against the brush of his moustache. Despite the gloom, Markham could see the flush on his superior's cheeks. He didn't think Fenton was an evil man or a bully, just insensitive. He'd do a memo they liked memos back at Thames House to Administration, on the need for counselling courses in sensitivity. They could set up a sensitivity sub-committee and they could call in outside consultants. There could be a paper "Sensitivity (Dealing with Obstinate, Bloody-minded, Pig-headed "Ordinary" Members of the Public)'. There could be two-day courses in sensitivity for all senior executive officers.

Fenton beat a path between the toys and the embroidery.

"I won't do it."

"You're a fool, Mr. Perry."

"It's your privilege to say so, but I'm not going to run, not again." Fenton picked up his coat from the arm of a chair, and shrugged himself into it, covered his neatly combed hair with his hat. Geoff Markham turned and quietly opened the living-room door.