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and yes, he did leave his first wife for me.’ She dared a judgement, but I had no problem with it. Why should I? ‘He was a good man, Mr Dismas, a little -‘ little was the kind of word where her ts went AWOL ‘- bit hard on me sometimes, but only when I’d done or said something stupid, especially when we were in company. Gerald never liked to feel foolish or embarrassed, especially if I was the one showing him up. He was a very proud man. A very… a very rigid man and, I suppose, old-fashioned in some ways.’
    ‘Children? D’you have any?’ Again I asked for no particular reason, just a way of getting her to open up, but the question stopped her dead. She glanced away and it was a relief to escape her carelessly veiled gaze at last.
    ‘No,’ she replied after a pause. ‘No kids. Gerald always thought it was me; y’know, that I was to blame. But it wasn’t me. I was sure of that, although I never let him know.’
    ‘You had tests?’
    ‘Didn’t need to,’
    I sensed we were finally getting to the point of her visit. (Yep, I’m good at that kind of thing too.)
    ‘It’s the reason I’m here, Mr Dismas,’ she confirmed.
    Ah, I thought. ‘I see,’ I said.
    Now she looked directly into my one good eye. Oddly she didn’t proceed; she had to be prompted yet again.
    ‘You do have a child, then,’ I ventured.
    She looked at the tip of her cigarette held in her lap and I pushed the ashtray across the desk towards her. She tapped ash into it, a hurried, jerky gesture.
    ‘I think so,’ she said quietly.
    She thought so… ‘I don’t understand, Mrs Ripstone.’
    ‘Could we… could we have the office door closed?’ she asked.
    ‘Of course.’ I lumbered round the desk, my limp not too bad at that time of day; it’d grow worse as the day wore on, depending on how tired I got. As I was closing the door Henry looked up from his desk and raised his eyebrows; I gave a small shrug. Clients were entitled to all the confidentiality they demanded, and then some; that was the first rule in the private investigation business. Henry’s balding head was already bowed over his accounts again before the door clicked shut.
    ‘Okay, Mrs Ripstone, we can’t be overheard,’ I assured her as I returned to my seat. This is strictly between you and me, although other members of my team will have to be brought in if I decide to take your case and if the subsequent investigation requires extra hands. Even then, any personal information will always be kept in a locked briefcase carried only by myself, or it will never leave the precincts of these offices.’ I indicated a row of four grey filing cabinets to my left. While on the premises, your file will be kept under lock and key as a matter of routine. If particularly sensitive, that file can be locked away in our multi-cylinder, combination-lock Stratford Clarendon safe which, incidentally, is bolted to the floor.’ I pointed to the big metal box against the wall behind her. ‘And only myself and my first assistant know the combination.’
    If she was impressed, she didn’t show it; I think her thoughts were too inward to pay attention to my blatherings. She needed another deep drag on the cigarette before she could proceed. A blue haze was beginning to fill the room, but that was okay - I enjoyed smoky atmospheres.
    ‘I had a baby two years before I met Gerald and I was single. A son. My name was Teasdale then. Shelly Teasdale.’ She blurted it out, as if it had to be said in a rush because she still felt some guilt, some shame even. ‘He never knew… I never told Gerald about the birth,’ she added. ‘I didn’t think it was necessary.’
    I nodded sagely; it seemed the right thing for me to do.
    ‘But now I want to find my baby,’ she said, leaning forward on the desk.
    ‘Well, hardly a baby any more. You said eighteen years ago…?’
    ‘He’s a young man now, I know that. But I only knew him as a baby.’
    ‘And you’ve had no contact with him