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the body plump and cuddly in its knitted beige dress.
    â€œYou’re the Superintendent,” she said. Her voice had the sharp reasonableness of a career businesswoman in a B film. “I know I’ll have to tell at least six different people the same things before I’m done, so I shan’t mind if you ask exactly the same questions as the other bod. Couldn’t they do this part of detecting by computer, and save all the overlapping which we ratepayers cough up for?”
    â€œI suppose it might work,” said Pibble, “if you could program it for the rumness of people. Difficult to prepare in advance for a setup like next door, don’t you think? And that lot’s only unique in a rather exotic way on the surface—half the households in London turn out to be just as off-center once you do a bit of digging. Do you know them well?”
    â€œEve and her Kus? As well as anybody, I suppose, except Bob, though I’ve only known them for ten months. But it depends what you mean by know . I saw a lot of poor old Aaron, for instance, but I couldn’t’ve told whether he was happy or unhappy at any given moment. Do you think one of the Kus killed him?”
    â€œWhat do you think? Dr. Ku seems to regard it as anthropologically impossible.”
    â€œI simply can’t keep up with Eve on that sort of thing, but I thought they were mostly pretty fond of the old boy, and respectful as all getout. It was funny. My dad’s a fairly high-powered figure in the Navy, and the way the other Kus treated Aaron reminded me of the way the middies used to behave with Dad when he was a captain. But I’ve no idea what they felt individually—I still can’t tell one or two of them apart, and nor can Bob, though he’s known them twenty years.”
    â€œWell, what about Dr. Ku? D’you think she’d tell me if she knew who’d done it? Or if she knew of a motive?”
    â€œShe’s not much more scrutable, is she, Superintendent? I don’t think she would. I don’t want to be bitchy, and anyway Eve’s a sort of saint in some ways, but she’s funny about the Kus. Bob says she thinks they’re her own private stamp collection, unique, worth untold millions in auction rooms, not to be touched by ignorant hands. Besides, I’m sure she thinks their laws are as valid as ours. You’ll have to ask Bob. He ought to be back soon.”
    â€œWhere’s he been?”
    â€œOff on a business trip somewhere. He doesn’t always tell me where he’s going. He’s got some agencies for Swedish firms in the south of England, and has to go and persuade factory owners in Swindon that they’d be better off with his sort of industrial filter, or whatever it is. It makes for an unsettled life, rather, but it suits him.”
    â€œAnyway, he wasn’t in London last night?”
    â€œGood Lord, no, or he’d have been here. And Aaron wouldn’t have come round. They didn’t get on, though Bob will never tell me why. It wasn’t anything serious , Superintendent, not a mote . . .” The sharp voice became fainter and more urgent. “You’d better ask him; he’d tell you . Look, Superintendent, I must start getting him some luncheon ready, just in case he turns up. He never has any breakfast, you see, so he gets pretty famished by now. But carry on—I can answer questions while I cope.”
    Cope was the word. Pibble sat on a tall stool by the sink and watched Mrs. Caine tip her string bag of groceries onto the yellow Formica of the table in a sharp, practiced movement, like a coal heaver tipping his sackful down a manhole: a few tins, a green pepper, a hundred Senior Service, butter, soup packets, streaky bacon, macaroni. Without moving her feet, she took a knife from a drawer and a chopping board off the shelf behind her. She sliced the pepper into coarse strips, slowly, as though it were vital that every