His eyes sparkled darkly. With his neat moustache and beard, he looked like a well-groomed hamster.

"I'm looking for a lock. Mortise. With a big key. Only I've lost the key."

"You know what type? Union? Chupp?"

I shook my head.

"You don't know this? You must know. Otherwise impossible to replace it."

"It's for a back door."

"What it looks like? Can you describe?"

"I can't remember exactly. I think it's a bit like this one. Or that one."

I pointed randomly.

"In my country we have a saying, knowledge is the key. But you have no knowledge and no key." He sighed, fished in his trouser pocket, and handed me a small dog-eared business card-the sort you can get printed at the railway station.

HANDIMAN HANDIMAN Mr Al Ali Mr Al Ali Telefon 07711733106 Telefon 07711733106 No job too small No job too small

14.

Reindeer meat and dried fish The phone was ringing when I got home. I could hear it through the door as I fumbled with my key, but by the time I picked it up, they'd rung off. There was a message on the answering machine.

"h.e.l.lo Mrs Sinclair. This is Cindy Bad Eel from Social Services, returning your call."

I rang back immediately, but I just got another answering machine. I left a message asking her to ring as soon as she got back.

Next day, she still hadn't rung, so I tried Social Services again.

"Elder-lee!"

"Could I speak to Mrs Bad Eel please."

"It's Muz. Not Missis."

"Well, can I speak to her anyway?"

"Hold on a minute. ('Eileen, where's Muz Bad Eel?' 'She's just 'ere. 'old on. Who is it?') "May I ask who's speaking please?"

"It's Georgie Sinclair. I rang about the old lady going into a home."

('It's that woman about t' old woman.' 'She says she'll ring back in a minute.') "She's just in a meeting. She'll ring you as soon as she gets out."

"No-please tell her it's urgent. I need to speak to her now."

There was a lot of muttering and crackling in the background, then a new voice came on to the line-a low, smooth, sultry voice with a slight drawl in the vowels.

"h.e.l.lo-o. This is Cindy Bad Eel."

"Oh, h.e.l.lo Mrs Bad Eel. Muz. I really need your help-I mean, a friend of mine needs your help." I was gabbling, fearful that she would hang up. "Mrs Naomi Shapiro. She's in hospital. She broke her wrist. Now they won't let her go home. They want to put her in a home."

"Slo-ow down, please. Who am I speaking to?"

"My name is Georgie Sinclair. I left a message for you."

"So you did, Ms Sinclair. Slow down. Take a deep breath. Now, count one, two, three, four. Hold. Breathe out. One, two, three, four. Rela-ax! That's better. Now-would you describe yourself as her carer-an informal carer?"

"Yes-yes, a carer. Informal. That's definitely what I am."

Waves of calm engulfed me. I suddenly felt very caring.

"How old is the lady?"

I hesitated. "I don't know exactly. She's quite elderly, but she was getting along fine."

"But you say she had an accident?"

"The accident was in the street, not in her house. She slipped on the ice. It could have happened to anyone."

"And you say she had a home circ.u.mstances a.s.sessment visit?"

"It was someone from the hospital. Mrs Goodney. The house was a bit untidy, but it wasn't that that bad." bad."

There was a long silence. I started to antic.i.p.ate her response, her stock of excuses for doing nothing. Her phone-answering track record had not been impressive. Then she spoke again, slowly.

"It isn't for us to judge another person's lifestyle choices. I will visit the house, but I need her permission. Which hospital is she in?"

As soon as I'd put the phone down, I ran into my bedroom and stuffed a few things into a carrier bag-Stella's old dressing gown, a spare pair of slippers, a hairbrush, a nightie-and set off for the hospital. I wanted to forewarn Mrs Shapiro, and make sure she said the right things. I didn't want her to blow this chance on another bout of cussedness.

The rain had stopped, but there were still puddles in the road as I raced to the bus stop, and big damp clouds were hanging just above the rooftops like billowing grey washing. I was the only person on the top deck of the Number 4 bus as it lurched and swayed along the now familiar roads, brushing against the dripping trees, so close to the houses I could see right into people's bedrooms. I recalled my lonely afternoons wandering the streets peering enviously into other people's lives. What had all that been about? It seemed an age ago. Now Mrs Shapiro and Canaan House were keeping me so fully occupied I hardly had time to think of anything else.

In the bus shelter outside the entrance to the hospital there was the usual little knot of people huddled over their cigarettes. I'd pa.s.sed them before without really noticing, but this time, a voice called out to me.

"Hey! Georgine!"

I had to look twice before I recognised Mrs Shapiro. She was enveloped in a pink candlewick dressing gown several sizes too big for her, and so long that it trailed on the ground. Beneath it, just peeping out in front, was a pair of outsize slippers-the sort that children wear, with animal faces on the front. I think they were Lion Kings Lion Kings. Ben has a similar pair. Her companion was the bonker lady with whom she'd been arguing last time. Now they seemed to be getting on like a house on fire. They were sharing a cigarette, pa.s.sing it between them, taking deep drags.

"Mrs Shapiro-I didn't recognise you. That's a nice dressing gown."

"Belongs to old woman next to me. Dead, isn't it?" She grabbed the cigarette from the bonker lady, who'd had more than her fair share of puffs. "Cigarettes was in the pocket."

"Nice slippers, too."

"Nurse give them to me."

"She give me these," said the bonker lady, lifting up the hem of her dressing gown to show off a pair of fluffy powder-blue wedgie-heel mules. Her toes were protruding out of the ends, with the most horrible thick crusty yellow toenails I'd ever seen.

"Them should heff been for me," said Mrs Shapiro sulkily.

We left the bonker lady to finish the cigarette and made our way back to the ward, where I handed over my carrier bag of things; she took only the hairbrush, and gave the rest back to me.

"I have better night doth-es in my house. Real silk. Not like this shmata. You will bring one for me, next time, Georgine? And Wonder Boy. Why you didn't bring the Wonder Boy?"

"I don't think they'd let him in. He's not very..."

"They heff too many idiotic prejudices. But you are not prejudiced, are you, my Georgine?" she wheedled. "You are so clever mit everything. I am sure you will find a way."

"Well, of course, I'll try my best," I lied.

The ward was busy with visitors, so I pulled two chairs by the window in the day room. It was a square featureless room near the entrance to the ward, with green upholstered chairs dotted randomly around, a television fixed too high on the wall, and a window that looked out on to a yard. It smelled of disinfectant and unhappiness.

"Mrs Shapiro, I've asked for another a.s.sessment from Social Services. Someone's going to come and visit you. She's called Ms Bad Eel."

"This is good. Bed Eel is a good Jewish name."

This surprised me, but what did I know? We didn't have any Jewish people in Kippax.

"Tell her I've got the key and I'll meet her there to show her around. She has my phone number but I'll write it down for you again." I wrote my number on a sc.r.a.p of paper, and she stuffed it into the pocket of the candlewick dressing gown. "If anyone says anything to you about going into a residential home, just tell them you're having another a.s.sessment. That should keep them quiet."

She leaned across and clasped my hand.

"Georgine, my darlink. How can I thenk you?"

"There is one problem. She's certain to ask how old you are."

She looked at me-a clear, canny look. She knew I knew she wasn't ninety-six.

"What I should say?"

"Mrs Shapiro, I'll help you if I can. But you have to tell me the truth."

She hesitated, then leaned up and whispered close to my ear, "I am only eighty-one."

I didn't say anything. I waited. After a moment she added, "I told them I am more older."

"Why did you tell them that?"

"Why? I don't know why." She shook her head with a stubborn little flick. "I heff never met anybody asking so much questions, Georgine."

"I'm sorry-it's because I come from Yorkshire. Everybody's nosy up there."

I tried to recall the picture of the two women in front of the house. Highbury 1948 Highbury 1948. I did a quick calculation She would have been about twenty-three when it was taken.

"So do you know your date of birth?" I probed. "She's bound to ask you that."

"Eight October nineteen hundert twenty-five." A quick, precise answer. But was it the truth?

I wanted to question her more, but I didn't want to confess that I'd already searched beyond the bureau in the study and that I'd found the photos in the Harlech Castle tin hidden in the workshop. I had questions to ask about Lydda. Who was she? When did Artern marry her? What had happened to her? And I was aching to know who'd hidden the tin, and from whom.

We were the only ones in the day room, but the television was blaring away in the corner. I looked for a remote control to turn the volume down, but I couldn't find it, so I switched it off and settled myself into an armchair in listening mode.

"You didn't finish telling me about Artem"

"You heffh't told me about your running-away husband. Why he was running away?"

"It's your turn, Mrs Shapiro. I'll tell you my story next time."

"Ach, so." She laughed. "Where heff I gotten to?"

"The pony..."

"Yes, the pony that was trotting on the ice. But you see it was not a pony, it was a reindeer. The reindeer people took him away mit them."

The Sami men who had hitched up Artem's sleigh were from Lapland. Part traders and part bandits, they made forays down across the ice to exchange smoked fish, reindeer meat and furs for wheat or tobacco or vodka or whatever they could find. When they discovered him under the wolfskins, they debated whether to kill him; but as he opened his eyes, he smiled to find himself still alive, and started to sing a Russian peasant song.

"Ochi ch.o.r.n.ye, ochi strastnye..." Mrs Shapiro's voice quavered. "It is a beautiful song about the loff for a woman mit black and pa.s.sionate eyes. He used to sing it often."

The song saved his life. The faint croaky voice of the wounded soldier made the men laugh, so they took him with them to their settlement in a vast snowy wilderness beyond the Arctic Circle, where the white horizon merged into the long pale sky. He was treated first as a prisoner, then as a curiosity, and finally as a great source of entertainment.

He stayed with them for several months living on a bed of skins in the corner of a fishy, smoky, snow-covered hut, eating reindeer meat and drinking some horrible herbal concoction which they also poured on to his wound. When he had drunk a few cupfuls, he would start to sing-Jewish songs from his childhood in Orsha, partisan songs from the time in the woods, Russian folk songs, even a few arias. The men slapped their thighs and threw their heads back with laughter. The women giggled and retreated into their furs, watching him curiously with their strange cat-like eyes. At night he studied the mysterious coloured lights playing across the sky and tried to work out his position from the stars. When he was fully recovered, and smudgy light broke into the sky on the southern horizon for a few hours each day, the Sami people offered to take him back to Russia. He explained with gestures that he wanted to go the other way, towards Sweden. So they took him to a place where he could see the next Sami settlement over the Swedish border, gave him a small sleigh and a bag of dried fish, and sent him on his way.

"He was looking for his sister. But she was already gone. Maybe she never was there. In that time Sweden was full of Jews who were running away from the n.a.z.is. Everybody was looking for somebody or pa.s.sing on the news of somebody."

"So when did you meet him? Did you go to Sweden, Mrs Shapiro?"

She started to say something, then stopped. A sad-looking lady attached to a drip tube had just walked into the day room, trailing her bag of fluid behind her. We watched her for a few moments in silence, then Mrs Shapiro whispered, "That is enough for today. Now is your turn, Georgine. This your husband-why he was running away? There was another woman?"

The drip lady was searching for the television remote control. I hesitated. I didn't want to go into details about the rawplugs and the toothbrush holder, but I found myself saying, "I don't think so. He said there was no one else. He was too obsessed with his work."

Mrs Shapiro was looking at me quizzically. She obviously preferred the 'other woman' hypothesis.

"Why you think this?"

"He was always full of big ideas. He wanted to change the world. I think he was just bored with domesticity."

There, I'd said it. Even putting it into words made me feel better. Mrs Shapiro wrinkled her nose.