The meanest Flood

opened the door. But no one answered the man’s knock.
    He knocked again, louder, and then he left the door and looked through the window. Maybe he knocked on the window as well, Marilyn couldn’t be sure. He seemed certain that someone was inside the house, ignoring him. And he was right, of course, because Danny was inside the house. Marilyn had watched him go in only a few minutes earlier. More questions building up inside her head. Soon there would be more questions than space.
    The big man gave up and walked back along the street the way he had come. Marilyn was tempted to go after him, ask him what he wanted, why he was knocking on the door of the house. She could ask him who lived there, at least he would know the answer to that. But she stayed put. She didn’t want to get distracted. While she was doing something else Danny might come out of the house and disappear.
    A few moments after the big man turned the corner into Clarence Street another figure approached the house. A woman.
    Green wellingtons and a black duffel-coat, a long scarf wrapped around her neck. A small woman, white-faced, one of those who look vulnerable but it’s a designer look. Marilyn reckoned she was strong underneath it all, someone who got whatever she wanted.
    Danny answered her knock almost immediately. He had his charming magician’s smile on his face and held the door open for her while she ducked under his arm. Marilyn reached for the handle of the car door, her impulse to go to the house and confront the two of them. But she held her breath and counted to ten. There could be another explanation. She didn’t immediately have to let her jealousy dictate her next move. She’d never suspected Danny of having an affair with another woman. When she thought about it, she’d never seen him with another woman.
    On the other hand he was a man.
    But today was a day of strange events. Since Danny had called her this morning there had been one thing after another. Now it was late-afternoon and she was no closer to a reasonable explanation for anything. The world became curiouser and curiouser.
     

41
     
    When Marie collected him from Market Weighton that morning they talked about Diamond Danny Mann. When she told him where the magician lived the rusty old cogs that made up Sam’s mind went into action. They began to grind out an image.
    First there was a woman. It was a long time ago, during that period when it seemed to Sam that everything was shrouded in mist. He couldn’t give her a name. He remembered hair parted in the middle and drawn to each side in a Madonna braid. He knew she was married and that she might be good for a drink if he was nice to her. But the woman wanted more than nice. She wanted out of a marriage that had turned her to stone. A lady on the lookout for a knight in shining armour, or any other kind of illusion.
    But what did this woman have to do with obliterating his past partners? She was so far back in time that his memory could not give him a reliable image. What had he done to her to release this avalanche of violence?
    The road into York was passable but on either side of it the fields were deep in water. It was like travelling along an endless jetty, a surreal landscape after being holed up in a container for thirty-six hours. The surface of the standing water reflected the sun and captured the sky and the clouds like a giant mirror. The treetops and the roofs of farm buildings were still and silent in their sodden surroundings, as if in fear of their own engulfment. Or perhaps they were mourning the loss of all around them, everything they had regarded as fixtures in their lives? ‘Nottingham’s a problem,’ Sam said.
    ‘Say again.’
    ‘I understand how he got me to Leeds and to Oslo,’ Sam said. ‘And I can see how he’s got me back to York. But how did he get me to Nottingham?’
    ‘You were working on a case there?’ Marie asked. ‘Yes, I was following a woman. But it’s possible she wasn’t connected with the client. Can you check it out? The records are in the office.’
    ‘Could be,’ Marie said. ‘I mean, if this guy has been watching you, it could be that he waited for you to turn up somewhere he needed you to be. Only after Nottingham did he begin manipulating you.’
    Sam shrugged. ‘Whatever,’ he said. ‘I want to check all the possibilities.’
    Marie took him to the Mount Royale Hotel where Angeles was waiting for him. She had booked one of the rooms that