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sat at the kitchen table drinking cup after cup of dark-brown tea and chain-smoking. Another thing Lance hated about the house was the all-pervading stink of cigarettes.

'There's a poky little place here,' said Uncle Gib, 'only two bedrooms, no garden, what they call a patio, which means a backyard, no scullery, couple of streets away in Elkstone Road, what d'you think they're asking?'

'I don't know,' said Lance. 'Might be five fucking million for all I know.'

'Don't you use that language here. This is a godly house. Of course it's not five million. Have a bit of sense. Be your age. Four hundred and fifty thousand, that's what.'

Lance tried to get his own back by making a fan out of one of the brochures and waving it briskly to clear the air.

'You don't like my fags the remedy's in your own hands. You don't have to stay here. I don't want you. You'll have to go when I sell the house.' Uncle Gib pointed a nicotine-stained finger at him. 'I'll tell you something. Our Lord would have smoked if there'd been any tobacco about in the land of Galilee. He drank, didn't he? It wouldn't just have been water into wine at the marriage at Cana, it'd have been Marlboro Lites for all the guests.'

But in need of fresh air, Lance had gone out into the garden, a very small trapezium-shaped plot where nature prevailed untouched and where grass, nettles and thistles, dock and the occasional large speckled fungus grew unchecked. A shed in the far corner, its roof long caved in, served as a winter store place for Uncle Gib's garden furniture, an iron table he had stolen from a pub and two kitchen chairs, one of them with a leg missing. Lance sat down on the intact chair – the other one had to be propped up with bricks – and began thinking carefully. She'd want to see him, whoever she was, she wouldn't just be content with him talking on the phone. Maybe she wouldn't even ask him for the right number between eighty and a hundred and sixty. He'd have to go to her place and have her question him. He went back into the house to consult Uncle Gib.

The old man had opened his laptop and was answering his letters. Immensely proud of his role as amateur psychologist and adviser, Uncle Gib never minded other people reading what he had written, though criticism wasn't allowed. Over his shoulder, Lance read: What you are doing, co-habiting with a man outside wedlock, is morally wrong and against God's law and you know it. Now, after nine years of sin, you say you have met another man and think of leaving your paramour. Leave him you must if he refuses to marry you. As for the other man you can never enjoy the glory of God's love if you persist in seeing him . . . Lance couldn't help admiring Uncle Gib's command of language, not to mention being able to spell all those words. He waited until Uncle Gib had finished the letter.

'I want to ask you something.'

'Can't you see I'm working? You don't know what that is, though, do you? Not just ordinary work either, God's work. Showing this bunch of sinners the error of their ways.' Uncle Gib's tone changed from droning piety to an aggressive bark. 'What is it, then? Come on, don't beat about the bush.'

Lance told him.

'She's got your measure all right, hasn't she? You and them as are like you. Want me to break the commandment, do you, teach you how to thieve, teach you the tricks of the trade?'

'I'm only asking what you think I ought to do.'

Uncle Gib was a very tall, very thin man whom prosecuting counsel had once described as looking like the famous statue of Voltaire. 'The resemblance is purely physical, my Lord,' he said to the judge and was reprimanded for irrelevance, misguided wit and trying to be clever. It was true that his piercing eyes, cadaverous face and emaciated body gave Uncle Gib an intellectual look. He had very good white teeth, which had miraculously survived years of prison food and only sporadic cleaning. These he bared now in what might have been a smile but was probably a snarl.

'You've lost a sum of money in Pembridge Crescent, have you? You was strolling down there with a hundred plus in your pocket when the wind blew, all them notes flew out and settled in a