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By Root 2086 0

had ceased except for a dripping of foliage. The gravel glittered like the bottom of a stream. The coach he’d heard arriving—an old private coach spattered with mud—was parked across the rear of his car, so close it practically touched the bumper. He could never maneuver out of that trap. He almost knocked on the window of the television lounge, but instead limped over the gravel and into the street, towards the quiet hotels. He had no idea where he was going except away from the house. He’d hobbled just a few paces, his slippers growing more sodden and his feet sorer at each step, when headlamps sped out of the town.

They belonged to a police car. It halted beside him, its hazard lights twitching, and a uniformed policeman was out of the passenger seat before Shone could speak. The man’s slightly chubby concerned face was a wholesome pink beneath a street lamp. “Can you help me?” Shone pleaded. “I—”

“Don’t get yourself in a state, old man. We saw where you came from.”

“They boxed me in. My car, I mean, look. If you can just tell them to let me out—”

The driver moved to Shone’s other side. He might have been trying to outdo his colleague’s caring look. “Calm down now. We’ll see to everything for you. What have you done to your head?”

“Banged it. Hit it with, you wouldn’t believe me, it doesn’t matter. I’ll be fine. If I can just fetch my stuff—”

“What have you lost? Won’t it be in the house?”

“That’s right, at the top. My shoes are.”

“Feet hurting, are they? No wonder with you wandering around like that on a night like this. Here, get his other arm.” The driver had taken Shone’s right elbow in a firm grip, and now he and his partner easily lifted Shone and bore him towards the house. “What’s your name, sir?” the driver enquired.

“Not Thomson, whatever anyone says. Not Tommy Thomson or Tom either. Or rather, it’s Tom all right, but Tom Shone. That doesn’t sound like Thomson, does it? Shone as in shine. I used to know someone who said I still shone for her, you still shine for me, she’d say. Been to see her today as a matter of fact.” He was aware of talking too much as the policemen kept nodding at him and the house with its two lit windows—the television lounge’s and his—reared over him. “Anyway, the point is the name’s Shone,” he said. “Ess aitch, not haitch as some youngsters won’t be told it isn’t, oh en ee. Shone.”

“We’ve got you.” The driver reached for the empty bellpush, then pounded on the front door. It swung inwards almost at once, revealing the manager. “Is this gentleman a guest of yours, Mr. Snell?” the driver’s colleague said.

“Mr. Thomson. We thought we’d lost you,” Snell declared, and pushed the door wide. All the people from the television lounge were lining the hall like spectators at a parade. “Tommy Thomson,” they chanted.

“That’s not me,” Shone protested, pedaling helplessly in the air until his slippers flew into the hall. “I told you—”

“You did, sir,” the driver murmured, and his partner said even lower, “Where do you want us to take you?”

“To the top, just to—”

“We know,” the driver said conspiratorially. The next moment Shone was sailing to the stairs and up them, with the briefest pause as the policemen retrieved a slipper each. The chant from the hall faded, giving way to a silence that seemed most breathlessly expectant in the darkest sections of the house. He had the police with him, Shone reassured himself. “I can walk now,” he said, only to be borne faster to the termination of the stairs. “Where the door’s open?” the driver suggested. “Where the light is?”

“That’s me. Not me really, anything but, I mean—”

They swung him through the doorway by his elbows and deposited him on the carpet. “It couldn’t be anybody else’s room,” the driver said, dropping the slippers in front of Shone. “See, you’re already here.”

Shone looked where the policemen were gazing with such sympathy it felt like a weight that was pressing him into the room. A photograph of himself and Ruth, arms around each other’s shoulders with a distant mountain behind, had been removed from his drenched suit and propped