She chose her time well, waiting until the kids were at school, Granny was away visiting, and I was at the shopping centre on the other side of the island. Probably she phoned first to check that no one was at home—no one human, that is. We had told Dorcas not to answer calls; though she’d done so in the early days, it had not been a success. A Superchimp on the phone sounds exactly like a drunk, and this can lead to all sorts of complications.

I can reconstruct the whole sequence of events: Christine must have driven up to the house, expressed acute disappointment at my absence, and invited herself in. She would have wasted no time in getting to work on Dorcas, but luckily I’d taken the precaution of briefing my anthropoid colleague. “Dorcas make,” I’d said, over and over again, each time one of our productions was finished. “Not Missy make—Dorcas make.” And.in the end, I’m sure she believed this herself.

If my brainwashing, and the limitations of a fifty-word vocabulary, baffled Christine, she did not stay baffled for long. She was a lady of direct action, and Dorcas was a docile and obedient soul. Christine, determined to expose fraud and collusion, must have been gratified by the promptness with which she was led into the garage studio; she must also have been just a little surprised.

I arrived home about half an hour later, and knew that there was trouble afoot as soon as I saw Christine’s car parked at the kerb. I could only hope I was in time, but as soon as I stepped into the uncannily silent house, I realized that it was too late. Something had happened; Christine would surely be talking, even if she had only an ape as audience. To her, any silence was as great a challenge as a blank canvas; it had to be filled with the sound of her own voice.

The house was utterly still; there was no sign of life. With a sense of mounting apprehension, I tiptoed through the drawing room, the dining room, the kitchen, and out into the back. The garage door was open, and I peered cautiously through.