Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 135, Nos. 3 & 4. Whole Nos. 823 & 824, March/April 2010

Password by Michael Z. Lewin

A husband and wife detecting team is hardly a new idea, but as with all the genres he tackles, Michael Z. Lewin manages to put a new spin on the form. Here, as the case begins, we find the team very much at odds, with the wife, Mallory, refusing to work on the investigation. There’s history behind it; we don’t know what. EQMM’s staff was intrigued not only by the mystery but by the characters, and glad when Mr. Lewin told us he intends to write more about them, in both short stories and novels.

“You must tell him, Charlie,” Mallory said.

“Tell me what?” Bertie Banfield’s bulky body slumped. He was not a young man and the loss of posture made him look even older. “It isn’t about Laura, is it?” He squinted uncertainly. “How could you know something about Laura already?”

“It’s nothing about the case,” Charlie said. “And it’s nothing, really, Bertie. Nothing that need concern you.”

“Honestly.” Mallory turned to Banfield. “Bertie, you’re here about our doing some work, right?”

“It may be work to you two, but to me it’s my life, my peace of mind.” Banfield rocked slowly from one foot to the other.

“Then there really is something you should know,” Mallory said.

“Oh dear.”

“It’s just that we don’t do this anymore.”

Banfield’s wrinkles clustered together to make his face look like a prune — apart from the bushy eyebrows. He tried to fathom what Mallory was getting at. “You don’t do what, please, Mallory, my dear?”

“When she says we don’t do it...” Charlie began.

“We don’t run the agency anymore, Bertie,” Mallory said. “Not like we used to.”

“What do you mean not run the agency?” Banfield turned to Charlie. “What does she mean ‘like you used to’? You’re still investigators, aren’t you? Detectives? Charlie?” The big man seemed close to tears in his confusion.

“Of course,” Charlie said. “It’s just—”

“He is still an investigator,” Mallory said. “But we aren’t, not anymore.”

“Why the hell not?” Bertie Banfield’s career, success, and fortune had been built on finding the right people to do the jobs he couldn’t do himself. He paid them well and worked them hard and everybody thrived. But to be resisted, and by people he’d often hired in the past... It made no sense to him.

“Charlie and I are rearranging our lives,” Mallory said. “That means I will not be working for Hayden Investigative Services anymore. He should have told you right off.”

Banfield gave his head several small sharp shakes. “Rearranging lives? It sounds like so much airy-fairy blather to me. Perhaps I’ve missed something, but I’ve got a problem here. I’m upset, damnit, and I just don’t seem to be able to...” He paused, trying to find a phrase. “That...” He waved his hands. “Thinking about two things at the same time. Whatever it’s called. So I can’t sort out your problems when I’ve got mine to deal with. And my problem is that Laura didn’t come back last night — which she’s never done before without telling me. And the police — for whom I’ve paid more bloody taxes than I could count — the police refuse to look for her because it’s only been a night and she’s over twenty-one. By fifty bloody years... And I thought, I thought that I could count on you two to find her. Only now when I get myself out and over here, you go and say you’re rearranging something. What the hell is it? Your furniture? No, don’t tell me. I don’t understand and I don’t really care.” Bertie Banfield looked from Charlie to Mallory and back to Charlie. The old man was fighting back tears. “I just want you to find Laura for me.”

“Honestly, Mal,” Charlie said. “Is this what you want?”

“Multitasking,” Mallory said. She took Banfield’s elbow. “Multitasking is the word you were looking for a moment ago, Bertie.”

“Yes, yes, of course.”

“Give Charlie and me a minute to talk in the next room, okay?”

“Of course.” Banfield nodded.

As Mallory and Charlie walked toward the piano room, they heard Bertie Banfield talking to himself: “Multitasking. Multitasking. Multi-bloody-tasking.”

Once the door closed, Mallory said quietly, “What is he doing here, Charles?”

“He’s made that pretty clear. Trying to get us to find his wife.” Charlie shrugged.

“He never comes here. We’ve always been summoned to his office, or to his limo...”

“Maybe he misplaced the phone number.”

Mallory shook her head slowly.

“You see how upset he is,” Charlie said.

“I also see how much older and more confused he is these days, poor bugger.”

“So let’s help him. It’s not like you’re doing anything else.”

“You have no idea what else I may or may not be doing, Charles.”

“Sorry. Sorry.” Charlie Hayden spread his hands. “I’m just aware that you’re around the house a lot and nobody seems to be coming to see you.”

“I repeat, you have no bloody idea what I may or may not be doing.”

“Well, whatever you’re spending your time on, are you making money at it?”

“Why? Do you need a loan?”

“My only point is that money coming in means it can go out again, and Bertie’s a solid paying customer.”

“And he’s a sweet old bear and I could cuddle him. But Hayden Investigative Services is not what I do anymore.”

“But it’s not like you’ve forgotten how.”

“Take the case on yourself.”

“And I will.” Charlie Hayden sighed. “But especially when it’s a domestic problem we’ve always worked best as a team.”

“The season’s over and the league has disbanded.”

“I only thought you might make an exception for Bertie because this is bound to be a people case. No money’s gone missing from a bank account. It’s a real person who’s gone missing. Someone’s going to have to get inside her head and understand what she’s up to.”

“Good luck.”

“Laura Banfield’s seventy-four,” Charlie said. “Bertie’s a few groats short of a guinea these days. Maybe Laura’s the same. Or worse. She could be holed up somewhere, confused, lonely, just waiting to be found and brought home. Chances are I will be able to find her, sure. How lost can an old lady get on her own? But she’ll be less frightened if you’re there to talk to her woman-to-woman.”

“Have you ever met Laura Banfield?”

“Well, no.”

“Any reason to doubt her mental acuity?”

“No, but why would she go walkabout without telling Bertie?”

“I’m not going to work on the case with you, Charles.”

“Despite the fact that we’ve got an old guy in the hallway who doesn’t understand why people who have helped him in the past won’t help him now?”

“I’m sure you’ll be able to explain it to him. Try talking man-to-man.”

When the Haydens returned to the hallway, Bertie Banfield was not to be seen. “Bertie?” Charlie called. “Bertie?”

“Yo,” came a voice from beyond the staircase.

“Yo?” Mallory asked quietly.

They heard something creak.

“Was that him or a chair?” Charlie said. Then Banfield came into view. “Bertie. There you are.”

“If it’s a matter of money, Mallory,” Banfield said.

“It’s not that,” Mallory said.

“I’ll pay you more. Whatever it takes.” Banfield stopped in front of them. “It was the only chair I could find.” He nodded to where he had come from. “Sorry if I’ve strained an antique.”

“We shouldn’t have left you standing,” Mallory said. “I apologize.”

“So what is all this about?” Bertie Banfield looked from one of the Haydens to the other. “Something about not doing it anymore? You said.” A nod to Mallory.

“We’re not running the agency the way we used to, Bertie,” Mallory said.

“But you’re good at it.” Banfield looked confused. He shook his head. “Chaps shouldn’t quit at what they’re good at.” He looked at Charlie.

“I’m with you on this one, Bertie,” Charlie said.

“Well chaps can be good at more than one thing,” Mallory said, “and when it’s time to move on, it’s time to move on.”

Banfield spread his hands. “So, finding my Laura. Will you help, or not?”

“Charlie will,” Mallory said. “I won’t.”

“You could hardly have been ruder,” Charlie said after he got back from walking Bertie Banfield to his waiting car and chauffeur.

“I was not rude to Bertie,” Mallory said.

“He comes here, for the first time. Pleads with you to your face. And still you turn him down.”

“Turning a bloke down constitutes rudeness, does it? Time to reread your Germaine Greer, dear.”

“I’m telling you how he felt.” Mallory raised her eyebrows but Charlie persisted. “I think I can empathise with that pretty well, considering...” He was referring to events and conversations that had triggered the recent “rearrangements.”

“So you reckon Bertie cheated on his wife too?”

“I did not cheat on you.” He faced her, hands on hips.

She shrugged. It was his story and he was sticking to it. But... “What base you did or didn’t get to is not the issue. You played the game — the ball game — with someone else. And that’s served to wake me up to the fact that you stole my youth.”

“You gave your youth voluntarily, as I recall, to help develop our business and to be the main care-giving parent for our twins.”

“Not anymore.”

When he said nothing to this, Mallory added, “Poor baby. Doesn’t understand when things don’t go the way he wants them to.”

“I remember days when you were considered to be a warm person,” Charlie said.

“Well, I’m off to warm up in my office.” Mallory turned to the stairs. “What are you up to now?”

“Finding Laura Banfield on my own. What else?”

The facts of the case as Bertie Banfield had explained them to Charlie on the phone were simple enough. On Monday morning Laura Banfield left their house at about nine-thirty. Penelope Halfpenny, the cook-housekeeper, said that she saw Mrs. Banfield leave carrying a small bag, like an overnight case. Mrs. Banfield had said, “I’m off out now, Penny.” She had not been seen or heard from since.

Monday night at about ten, Banfield had called the police. A man he described as “a pleasant enough chap named Orrel” came to the house. A constable, or maybe a sergeant. Some rank like that. Nobody top-flight. But civil, except for his refusal to commit either himself or the police force to do anything.

Orrel had asked a number of questions, like whether Laura Banfield was mentally incompetent.

She was not.

Did she need medication on a daily basis that she wouldn’t have access to elsewhere?

No.

Was there any reason to believe that she would be a danger to herself?

No.

A danger to others?

Preposterous.

Had Banfield contacted members of his wife’s family?

The only “family” was their fifty-year-old son and no one had heard from him for more than fifteen years.

Friends?

Who knew who his wife classed as a friend these days? He knew of no one she would confide in. Or spend a night with, voluntarily. Liked her own bed, did Laura.

Constable — or Sergeant — Orrel had suggested that ringing his wife’s acquaintances would be a good place for Bertie Banfield to begin. And at that point it was obvious to the abandoned husband that he was on his own.

On his own for Banfield meant hiring help. In this case, call Hayden Investigative Services.

But these details were not what occupied Charles Hayden when he visited Banfield House at noon on Tuesday. “There’s a bit of a problem with Mallory, Bertie,” Charlie had confided. “But if you wouldn’t mind coming to our house yourself, maybe we can get past it.”

Bertie Banfield didn’t understand what the problem with Mallory was, or why a visit to the Haydens’ home and office would help. But he was very tired from worrying about his wife, so he just agreed and called for his car. He’d known Charlie from when he was a lad — and his father before him. So if Charlie said it might help find Laura if he came out, then he’d come out. Charlie wouldn’t muck him about.

When Charlie entered Banfield’s study at four-thirty Tuesday afternoon, he saw that being back in familiar and comfortable surroundings had restored the old man to some extent. “So,” Banfield asked, “has this damn foolishness of your wife’s been sorted, then?”

“Not yet, I’m afraid. I’m sorry to have asked you to appear in person but it really was the best chance to get her on board.”

Banfield sighed and shook his head. “I’m disappointed in you, Charles. You and your missus have always worked well as a team.”

“I know that, Bertie. And I haven’t given up.”

“What is the bloody point of being married to a woman if she’s going to let you down?” Banfield held up his hands. “I know, I know. Mine has done the same. I don’t know what gets into their heads these days. Maybe for yours it’s because she’s a Yank, but I don’t know what Laura’s excuse can be.”

“I promise you, Bertie, I will give your case my full attention and I will find Laura.”

“Dead? Or alive?”

“Don’t talk like that.”

“Perhaps not.” Another sigh. “So are you and Mallory splitting up?”

Charlie was surprised that Banfield had asked such a thing. But in response to the question he just spread his hands to say, I don’t know. At this point he felt himself to be the victim of something that he couldn’t control. However much his thoughtless actions had triggered the situation. And perhaps his general thoughtlessness over the years. But if Mal had been unhappy with things for so bloody long, she should have said something. Or had she and he just hadn’t heard it?

“You shouldn’t let that one go without a fight,” Bertie Banfield said. “Jolly clever, your girl.”

“I know. But look, about Laura...”

Banfield sighed deeply. “Laura, oh Laura. I don’t know what I’ll do if she doesn’t come back. I rely on her.” He looked Charlie in the eyes. “Is this the way they tell you they’re breaking it up? Run off some damn place without saying?”

“Do you think Laura’s breaking up with you?”

“How would I know?”

“I have to ask, Bertie, did the two of you have a fight of some kind?”

“Not a fight. No, of course not.”

“But words?”

“We did have a disagreement. But it’s one we’ve had before.”

“About?”

“Winston — and don’t say ‘Churchill?’ just to be clever. You know damned well who Winston is.”

The Banfields’ only child. “Have you heard from him?” Charlie asked.

“After all this time? Certainly not. And if I had I wouldn’t bloody answer.”

Charlie knew little more than that Winston Banfield had rejected his parents’ lifestyle and values. But just as he was about to request a brief review of what had so alienated father and son, Banfield said, “Don’t ask. Blood’s blood and all that, but there are also times to cut your losses.”

Mallory would agree with that, Charlie thought. It sounded so cold when she said it. It sounded cold now, too, coming from Bertie Banfield. Getting back to the business at hand, Charlie said, “Could Laura’s departure have had anything to do with the disagreement about Winston?”

“As far as I’m concerned it could have had to do with just about anything, since I don’t know what it was about. But nothing new was said. And deciding it was about Winston won’t move you closer to finding her. Nobody knows if he’s even still bloody alive, much less where he is. They move their tepees all over the shop, don’t they, these hippy-dippy travellers?”

If Banfield had hired them to find Winston, chances were high that he and Mallory could have located him years ago, Charlie thought. But rather than persist with the subject of the missing son, he returned to the missing mother. “Have you looked in Laura’s effects for clues?”

“That’s your job, isn’t it?”

Delegation of tasks was all well and good, but if your wife is missing, doing a little looking for yourself seems an obvious step. Still. “So you don’t know for certain that she didn’t leave you a note.”

“If she’d left a note, she’d have put it where I’d find it, not in her knickers drawer. Mind you, I’m not so sure Laura even remembers how to write by hand nowadays.”

Charlie frowned. “I don’t understand.”

“It’s Internet this and Internet that. She spends all day at her bloody computer.”

“Ah, she’s one of those.”

“Yours is too, I expect.”

“Mallory is technologically pretty savvy, yes.”

“And there’s that chappie you keep in the basement too, isn’t there? I’d have thought if he never goes out he’d be good at the Internet and all that kind of thing.”

The Haydens’ huge house had basement rooms in which a reclusive lodger lived. “Spike is an old friend,” Charlie said. “And he came with the property. All very complicated.”

“Your father, rest his soul, never liked things simple,” Banfield said.

“Tell me about it.”

“But this Internet lark... Must be ideal for someone who never goes out.”

“Yes, Spike is a much better techie than either Mallory or I.”

“And he’s good on the phone too, isn’t he?” Banfield looked like he was remembering something. “Lovely voice, as I recall. Helps on your cases sometimes.”

“I’m impressed you remember,” Charlie said truthfully.

“I’ve got a few candles burning yet.”

“Look, Bertie, I’ll need to go through the parts of the house where Laura may have left a diary, or letters, or...” Charlie shrugged inclusively.

“Look anywhere you bloody like. Anything else?”

“She left yesterday morning?”

“Yes.”

“Did anything else happen before she left?”

“Meaning?”

“Did she get a phone call? Or something in the post?”

“The post doesn’t come till nearly noon these days. But I have no way of knowing about a phone call. She has one of those... those little... whatdoyoucallthems...” He waved a hand. “They vibrate...”

“Mobiles.”

“Mobile phones, that’s it. Take bloody pictures, too. Are they mobile cameras, now?”

“Did the disagreement about Winston happen in the morning?”

“The night before. Sunday, not long after that God-awful televisual thing she keeps track of.”

“What thing?”

But Banfield, tiring, had lost another word. He waved a hand around. “Something... something to do with the queen.”

“The queen?” Charlie wasn’t aware of any programming about the Royal Family that had been on recently. Unless it was a repeat of The Royle Family, but Laura Banfield wasn’t likely to enjoy watching a bunch of working-class oiks talk on a sofa and fart.

Mallory loved it, of course.

But Bertie Banfield was looking in some papers on his desk. From his “Hah!” it seemed that he had found what he was looking for. He withdrew a television guide from the stack. He flipped pages. “Bloody hell. How could I forget that?”

“What?” Charlie asked.

“That wretched soap opera. Coronation Street.”

Before heading for Laura Banfield’s part of the house, Charlie sought out Halfpenny, the cook-housekeeper. He found her in the kitchen. Sunlight was pouring through French windows, and she was sitting in it in one chair with her feet up on another. A cup of tea by her side, she was reading a newspaper and smoking a cheroot. Slowly she turned to take him in. “Yes?”

“I’m Charles Hayden. Mr. Banfield has asked me to look into his wife’s disappearance.”

“That must be tough.”

Charlie wasn’t sure what she meant. “Excuse me?”

“Looking into a disappearance. You’re attempting to observe something that isn’t there.”

“Penelope, isn’t it?”

“Ms. Halfpenny to strangers. Even the cute ones.”

“I hope that finding Mrs. Banfield will turn out to be a practical matter and not an existential one.”

“That would make it easier for you, I daresay. Though not necessarily more interesting.”

“I’m told you were the last person Mrs. Banfield spoke to before she left on Monday.”

“I believe I was.”

“Do you have any idea where she might have been going?”

Ms. Halfpenny took a puff on her cigar as she considered the question. “Hmmm, any... idea...”

“I’d be grateful if we could bypass a tour of semantic options, Ms. Halfpenny. Before Mrs. Banfield left, did she speak to you — either verbally or non-verbally — in a way that suggested where she might be intending to go?”

“I’ll give you a break, but only because you’re pretty,” Ms. Halfpenny said. “No, I don’t have a clue where the old lady went or where she might be.”

“Is she ever mentally vague?”

“That one? Hah! She knows exactly what she wants and when she wants it.”

“Do you get along with her?”

“Well enough. But I keep myself to myself.”

“You’ve been here a long time?”

“Forever. Are you married?”

“Excuse me?”

“That’s not a difficult question, is it? And I’ve been answering yours.”

“Okay. Yes, I’m married.”

“Pity. But I’ll bet it’s not been plain sailing. I can see that in your eyes.”

Despite himself, he was startled by the observation.

Ms. Halfpenny smiled. “I’m right, yes? And I bet it was triggered by something you did.”

Gawd, am I that transparent? Charlie thought. “It’s not a simple story.”

“They never are. But I’m a good listener, you know, when I want to be.” She gave him a toothy grin.

“So am I, Ms. Halfpenny. Now, about Laura Banfield...”

“Please,” she said. “Call me Penny.” She put her feet on the floor and patted the chair they’d been on. “Sit down. Make yourself at home. Cup of tea?”

When Charlie got upstairs he found that Laura Banfield’s suite included a bedroom, a bathroom, a dressing room, and a study. He headed for the study, on the grounds that it was the only room he had a chance of being comfortable in. The others would be full of women’s things. In such places Mallory might see automatically what was important and what wasn’t, but for him it would be a confusing struggle.

The study was tidy and well-organised, which didn’t surprise him given Ms. Halfpenny’s — Penny’s — description of the lady of the house. The furniture was unexpectedly modern. Instead of the feminine equivalent of her husband’s heavy mahogany desk, Laura Banfield had an L-shaped computer table built from light wood and steel. Matching units bore an array of office machines that would put many a small business to shame. Mind you, Bertie Banfield had complained that for his wife everything was “Internet this and Internet that.”

Which made it all the more surprising to find a laptop in the centre of the main table. Wherever Laura Banfield had gone, she’d not taken the laptop with her. Was this consistent with her being organised, alert, and cyber-dependent? It didn’t seem to be a good sign.

A superficial examination of the drawers and surfaces in the room didn’t yield anything interesting, so Charlie opened the computer. It took the machine a few moments to boot itself up. Then Charlie moved the cursor to the e-mail program and clicked. But before the machine would display Laura Banfield’s e-mails, it asked him to enter a password.

Charlie leaned back in the chair.

Wasn’t it surprising that Laura Banfield felt the need to protect her mail with a password? Nothing he’d heard suggested that she took the computer out to places where it would be left unguarded. Which maybe only proved that he hadn’t been told about such things.

But was she, in fact, restricting access by people in the house? Defending her privacy against her increasingly doddery husband? Age was no longer the guarantee of technical incapacity that it used to be, but forgetfulness was.

Would anything be going on in Laura Banfield’s e-mails that would interest the philosophically inclined Halfpenny? Charlie had stayed twenty minutes with her and shared a pot of tea. He’d even let her pat his knee a few times, but nothing she said suggested she had any interest in or intimate knowledge of either of her employers’ lives.

So was something else going on with this password thing?

Someone new to the Haydens’ house might think it a place where only they lived, and that was wrong. Not only was Spike entrenched in the basement, the twins each still had a room at the top from which they came and went, if only occasionally. Heaven help the Hayden parent who suggested that either of these rooms — with their spectacular views over Bristol — might be used for any purpose other than being on-call for the children who’d grown up in them.

But there was no one resident in the Banfields’ basement. And their child, Winston, wasn’t a factor if they didn’t even know where he was.

Charlie looked at the screen in front of him. That a mature, confident woman, living where she had lived for decades, felt the need to defend her privacy with a password spoke of secrets and complications.

Of course, any marriage is incomprehensible to outsiders, perhaps in direct proportion to its duration. And Bertie and Laura Banfield had endured. She was, after all, a first wife. How many women of her age could say that, these days?

How many men of Bertie’s age were first husbands, if it came to that?

And then another thought occurred to Charlie. If there was no evident reason Laura Banfield would need a password routinely, then perhaps she didn’t. Perhaps the password defence was new.

Might it have been put there because of the situation that had led her to leave the house? Either because suddenly she’d received a new cyber-communication that was in some way compromising, or even — was this really possible? — because she knew that when she left the house her husband would bring someone in — himself, in all likelihood — to find her. Was the password block there specifically to obstruct him?

It was a tenuous chain of connections, but it felt possible to Charlie. And making unlikely connections was one of the things he was good at.

Okay, just suppose, for a minute, that’s what had happened. That Laura Banfield had put the password requirement in to obstruct him, as her husband’s representative. If that was so, then it hadn’t been there long. And might have been set up in a hurry. So what password would Laura Banfield possibly use? What would come rapidly to mind? Perhaps after the Sunday night disagreement?

In the password box Charlie typed “Winston” and hit Enter. The screen came to life and Laura Banfield’s e-mails were revealed. Bingo! He punched the air. It was a real result.

But then, to Charlie’s astonishment, he saw that the last e-mail Laura Banfield had received, on Sunday night at twenty-two minutes past nine, was from Mallory Hayden.

Mallory had been in contact with Laura Banfield?

Charlie stared at the line on the computer for seconds. Then he opened it. The message read, “Confirmed for ten. M.”

Mallory was making chili and enjoying herself.

These days she didn’t make it exactly the way her mother had made it, back in Kokomo, Indiana. Mallory used fresh chili peppers where Mom always used chili powder. And she used extra-lean minced beef. But most of the rest was the same and, in any case, making chili always reminded Mallory of childhood and home and comfort.

Who’d ever have thought back then that she’d end up in England. Not that she’d exactly ended up yet — that was what the changes around the house and business and, yes, even the marriage were about. But there was still a deep comfort for Mallory in the making of the chili, much as there would be in the eating of it.

And comfort was not the only pleasure she was getting from her cooking this day. It was particularly satisfying to feel free to put a lot of chili peppers into the pot. Making what the good ol’ boys call fire-house chili. And not just because that’s how she liked it but because Charlie didn’t like it that way.

She could hear his bleatings now. “What is the point of making it so hot you can’t taste the other flavours?” “Well, you may not be able to taste the other flavours but...” “Don’t pretend you do.” “Why on earth should I pretend?”

Or he would say, “What am I supposed to eat?” “There’s plenty of this for you.” “But it’s inedible.” “So don’t eat it.” “But—” “But but but...” She’d heard him “but but but” like an outboard motor for most of her adult life.

And it was “most.” Where did all that time go? How did she become as old as she was now, at forty... Forty-plus. Still, these days, forty was the new thirty, so it barely counted.

And she wouldn’t be making any rice. Rice with chili? No, no. Chili was for eating on its own. With a few crackers, crunched up on top of the bowl... Mmmm. It was hard to get proper saltines of the kind she was used to as a child, but water biscuits were pretty good.

Life was pretty good, too. And it would be getting better.

She heard the front door slam. Was it a slam? She stopped dicing peppers for a moment to think about what she’d heard. Yes, it was a slam. And that meant he’d probably worked it out. Well, not all of it, of course, but if there was a slam then he’d guessed the password. She felt herself chucking him under the chin and saying, “Who’s a clever boy then?” He would so love that... She smiled and resumed work with the sharp knife.

Clump clump clump. Oh yes... He’d worked it out, all right. She glanced at the clock. It wasn’t even six yet. And the chili was yet to simmer. A couple of hours would make it good. Or an hour, in this fast-food age.

Mallory scooped the sliced and diced chili peppers into the pot. No going back now.

She reached for the red wine. Most of it would go into the chili — another ingredient that her mother didn’t use. But first she poured two glasses. Holding one, she turned to face the kitchen door. She leaned against the counter and sipped.

The kitchen door slammed against the wall as Charlie pushed it open. “How dare you?” he raged. “How dare you?”

“Care for some wine?” Mallory said. “I’m cooking but I’ll be able to join you for a chat in a few minutes.” She didn’t say, “Who’s a clever boy?” but she thought it.

“It’s very simple,” Mallory said once she joined Charlie in the conservatory that overlooked the garden in the back.

Although his glass was nearly empty Charlie did not seem much less agitated than when he came in. “It doesn’t seem simple to me.”

“No?”

“You’re working, somehow, for Laura Banfield, are you not?”

“Well, yes.”

“You’ve taken on a case from one of our regular clients without the grace, business propriety, or even basic courtesy to tell me?”

“Only in a way.” She refilled his glass from a freshly opened bottle. “Do you like this? Montepulciano D’Abruzzo. It’s country-rough, but I like it.”

“What on earth are you playing at, Mal? Our private life is one thing, but business is business and not a place for games. You know how much work Bertie Banfield puts our way, above and beyond what he brings himself.”

“Bertie Banfield is not my client.”

“Of course he is.”

“He is not.”

“Whose name is on the checks?”

“Laura Banfield’s.”

“Same thing.”

“It is not the same thing, Charles, which even with your English education and stunted cultural background I’d have thought you’d understand. Laura Banfield is paying me for work that I am doing for her.”

“When did she hire you?”

“Before we get into details, I’ll need you to confirm that this is privileged information.”

“Oh, for crying out loud.”

“Off the record or no record at all. I need you to promise — one of the serious promises, not the ones like your wedding vows — that you will not tell your client anything about my client that I do not give you specific permission to tell him.”

“He just wants to know where his wife is,” Charlie said, ignoring the personal dig.

Mallory sipped from her wineglass. “I’d never cook with a wine I wouldn’t drink.”

“All right,” Charlie said. “Off the record. Even though I feel a right prat. Mind, I’ve had plenty of experience feeling that since I met you.”

“Decades of joy and delight,” Mallory said.

“We have had our moments.” He lifted his glass and saluted her. Mallory nodded and they both drank.

Then she said, “Laura Banfield wants her son to be reconciled with his father.”

“Winston? I thought he was lost in the mists of rebellion against his parents and hadn’t been heard of for years.” He raised his eyebrows. “Decades.”

“Laura hired me to find him.”

“The hell you say. When was that?”

“About three weeks ago.”

“Why you?”

“You were out.” She tilted her head in a way that was as good as saying, with that woman.

Charlie said, “And you kept this from me for three weeks? Honestly.”

Mallory shrugged.

“And you managed to find Winston?”

“People leave tracks. And he wasn’t really hiding. Just denying. Finding him was not the hard part.”

“Then what was?”

“Setting up circumstances in which father and son will be willing to meet, forgive, and form some kind of bond.”

“You’re not talking about some New-Agey rebirthing thing, are you? Bertie wrapped up in a blanket with his grown-up son while you pour a bottle of Evian on them to recreate their respective mothers’ waters breaking?”

“Calm yourself, Charles.”

“What, then?”

“It hasn’t been easy. Winston is not the kind of man a committed capitalist like Bertie Banfield would warm to naturally or understand. Winston is highly political, anarchistic, and anti-materialistic.”

“A terrorist?” Charlie frowned. “Sorry. I don’t mean to be Bushy.”

“Winston’s a militant hippie. He lives on a communal site — not far from here, in fact — in Wales. But he shares his father’s bull-headed stubbornness — and that’s Laura’s phrase, not mine.”

“So establishment-father and anarchist-son are chalk and cheese. Why try to mix them now?”

“Because Bertie is running out of time.”

“Is he ill? He never said.”

“He’s running out of time in which he’ll be able to understand. You’ve seen his lapses of memory for yourself. They’re not just old age.”

“Chili. Great, Mal,” Spike said. “Thanks for bringing some down.”

Spike, the son of Charlie’s father’s gardener, had grown up in the house and alongside Charlie. In Charlie’s father’s will it was stipulated that Spike could live in the basement for as long as he wanted, but the provision was meant to keep Spike from ever feeling obliged to move. Which was just as well, because over the years he had become agoraphobic.

With Spike’s telephone and Internet skills, the disease wasn’t much of an obstacle to most elements of ordinary life. He was happy to receive visitors and a covered area outside the basement door meant that post, packages, and takeaway food could be left easily. Over the twenty years during which Mallory had lived in the house, Spike had also become a help as Hayden Investigative Services grew and blossomed.

“We do have a favour to ask,” Mallory said.

“Ask away.” Spike took a chopstick that happened to be out on his oak table and dipped it in. His face lit up through his bushy beard. “Mmmmm, it’s got zing this time.”

“A couple of favours, actually. It has to do with a case.”

“Take a pew, guys.” Spike had an actual pew for visitors. “Not something to do with your splitting up, I hope,” he said as they sat. “I don’t intend to make that any easier for you.”

“It’s nothing to do with dissolution of our various unions. In fact it’s a matter of bringing some people together.”

Spike found a soup spoon in a recess that wasn’t visible to his guests. He wiped it on his sleeve. “Fire away.”

“We need you to help end the estrangement of a father and a son.”

After swallowing a mouthful, Spike managed an “Uh-huh.”

“We need you to make a couple of phone calls for us,” Mallory said, “using your gift for imitating voices.”

Spike found a bottle of water and drank. Then he said, “I am rather good at voices,” sounding very like Charlie.

“That’s nothing like me at all,” Charlie said.

“That’s nothing like me at all,” Spike said. He and Mallory laughed. So did Charlie, eventually.

“The script will be roughly the same for each call. You’ll tell the son that the father is ill. The son already knows it, because his mother’s told him, but he’s too stubborn to do anything unless he believes that his father wants to make peace before it’s too late. And you’ll also tell the father that the son is ill. Such a terrible tragedy in one so young. Well, not so young.”

“Won’t the father find out he’s been lied to?”

“Not really — because the father is ill. Anyway, this is the scenario that the client believes will work. And she knows them better than we do.”

“Mmm,” Spike said.

Mallory took a CD from her bag. “The client has recorded samples of each of the voices for you. Track one is Dad, track two is Sonny. The phone numbers and scripts are here too.”

“I get to eat first, though, right? While it’s hot?”

“Oh yes,” Mallory said. “While it’s hot.”

“You guys staying? Cup of tea?”

“I will, thanks, in case you have any questions,” Mallory said. “Charlie has a visit to make.” She turned to her husband. “Here’s your script...”

“Have you found her, Charlie?” Bertie Banfield said. The old man seemed agitated but excited.

“She’s ill, Bertie. That’s the problem.”

“Ill? Laura? No! What’s wrong with her? She’s not dying, is she? She’s not going to leave me, is she?”

“She could be back tonight, Bertie. But she has a serious neurological condition.”

“Oh God. It’s not... not... what’sitsname... with the memory?”

“It’s a kind of depression.”

“Oh, that’s all right. There are pills for that.”

“It’s not all right, Bertie.”

Banfield frowned.

“It’s why she left,” Charlie said. “And it’s serious.”

“You said that. But you haven’t told me what it’s about.”

“It’s about being cut off from her child, Bertie. From Winston.”

Banfield stiffened. “That’s not a subject for discussion.”

“And from her grandchildren.”

Banfield’s silence confirmed that this was the first he’d heard of the fact that he was a grandfather. “What grandchildren?” he said when he realised that staying silent wouldn’t get Charlie to volunteer the information.

“There are two. A boy three and a girl who’ll have her first birthday in a couple of weeks.”

“Winston’s a hypocrite now too, is he?” Banfield shook his head. “He swore he’d never bring children into this imperialist, capitalist hell-hole of a world.”

“Winston’s changed, Bertie. And, maybe more to the point, Winston isn’t married to the same woman now. Tulip, the new wife, wanted children.”

Banfield looked on in silence. His face was wrinkled in thought.

“Laura has stuck with you all these years, Bertie.”

Banfield continued to stare.

“But she says she will not come back.” Charlie waited for the words to sink in. They did. “Unless you make space for Winston, and his family.”

“Space?”

“In your life. She wants them to visit. She wants you to be involved with them. She wants you to be at Zinnia’s birthday party.”

“Why now? After all this time?”

“Winston’s not well, Bertie.”

“What’s wrong with him?”

“I don’t know exactly. I don’t know if he knows exactly either. There’s not much access to medical treatment out where he lives. Not conventional medical treatment.”

Banfield sighed. Then sighed again. “Even if I were willing, Winston’s not in my control. He would never acknowledge us — me — any more than I have him.”

“Suppose he did, though, Bertie.”

“He wouldn’t.”

“Suppose he’s changed enough to make the first move. Suppose I could get him to ring you.”

“Get him to ring me? Climb down off that bloody high horse of his? I’ll believe that when I see it. Hear it, I mean. Hear it.”

“Suppose I could get him to ring you tonight. Suppose he were willing to agree to some kind of peace. Wouldn’t you do that? For Laura’s sake? And because that’s the only way you’re going to get her to come back home?”

“We should do something for Spike,” Mallory said two nights later as she and Charlie sat in their belvedere sipping wine and watching the sun go down.

“We should? You’re the one with the big check coming in.” Charlie took the bottle. “More?”

“I did more work for Laura than you did for Bertie, so naturally I earned more than you.” She held out her glass.

“So Spike’s gift will be paid for proportionally?” He filled her glass and topped up his own. “Of course, if we were a team, we’d split it fifty-fifty.”

She sipped. “Nothing’s black and white, Charles. Any more than that sunset is.”

For a few moments they admired the sky and enjoyed the wine. Whatever the problems in their lives, they could be a whole lot worse off.

“What are you saying?” Charlie asked.

“I am going to pursue my own interests. I’ve got an idea for a business I want to set up. A business of my own.”

“What? A ladies’ detective agency?”

“A talent agency. It’ll be mostly for young musicians, but also for actors and other talent, if I find I can help them.”

“Starting from scratch? By yourself.”

“Yes.”

“Great.” He sighed. “Good bloody luck.”

“We’re neither of us ever going to go hungry. You don’t have to continue with Hayden Investigative Services if you don’t want to.”

Charlie said nothing.

“Although of course you will.”

“Of course.” Charlie didn’t feel he knew any other business. And besides, he liked it.

“And since that’s the case, I am willing to consider doing some agency work with you.”

“Really?”

“But nothing that’s boring or whoring. I won’t serve papers or do endless surveillance, and I won’t try to flog security systems to paranoid haves who are petrified of the world’s have-nots.”

“But when things come up that are more complicated, less routine?” And more girlie, he thought. But he decided not to say it.

“I’ll consider anything interesting, if I’m not too busy. But I’m past selling my time just so I can wear a Rolex rather than a Swatch. Beyond a certain amount, money costs too much.”

They both drank.

Mallory said, “I’m not telling you what to do. I’m just saying what I will do. If you’re willing for me to work on that basis. And if you’re not just going to carp at me all the time because I’m fed up advising people about window locks and cameras to spy on their nannies with.”

“Carp? Moi?”

“Don’t go all koi.”

After a moment, Charlie said, “Okay.”

“Okay?”

“Okay.”

“Okay then.” She held out her wineglass. “Unless or until you become too insufferable.”

“You already are insufferable. Good thing I’m such a flexible, forgiving soul. You could learn a lot from me, you know.” Charlie clinked his glass against Mallory’s. “To the future. May it be interesting.”