V 02 - Domino Men, The by Barnes-Jonathan Page B

tired, Henry Lamb.  I do hope that landlady of yours isn’t keeping you up nights.”
    “I beg your pardon?” I asked, starchily affronted that this half-naked ghoul should even know of Abbey’s existence, let alone be talking about her in such a way.
    Dedlock laughed and a thin trail of bubbles left his mouth, popping as they reached the surface.  “An old man’s joke,” he said, as a second stream drifted after the first.  “God knows we need something to laugh about now.”  In his arthritic doggy paddle, he swam close to the pane and grimaced.  “How’s your granddad?”
    I felt a trickle of sweat creep down my back.  “No change.  No change at all.”
    Jasper spoke up, all business.  “There is still a sliver of hope.  It is just possible that your grandfather left us a clue.  We need to see his home.”
    “You want to go to my granddad’s house?”
    “It’s what he would have wanted,” Dedlock said.  “Trust me, it’s really important that you give us your full cooperation.”
    I thought for a moment.  “There is a condition.”
    A spasm of irritation disrupted Dedlock’s face.  “What?”
    “I want you to tell me exactly what it was that Granddad did for you.”
    “Ignorance is a virtue in our business.  Relish it.  Believe me, you would not wish to know the truth.”
    “You owe me an explanation.”
    The old man banged the side of his tank, fury bulging in his ancient eyes.  “Just do your duty!  Time is running out.”
     
     
    Barnaby drove Jasper and me to 17 Temple Drive, where my grandfather had lived out a life far richer and more strange than I could ever have guessed.
    On the journey, I made myself unpopular by insisting we pull over at a corner shop to buy a couple of tins of cat food.  I’d been feeling profoundly guilty about the old man’s pet, terrified that we would arrive to find the poor animal with its ribcage poking through its fur, mewling at me in piteous accusation.
    At last, Barnaby pulled up outside the old bastard’s house.  “Doesn’t look like much,” he said.  “Not for him.”
    “You knew him?” I asked.
    Barnaby summoned up a look of astonishingly undiluted bellicosity.  “Thought you had a job to do.”
    We stepped out of the car, slammed the doors, and Barnaby sped into the distance.
    Once he was gone, Jasper looked up at the house and wrinkled his nose.  “After you.”
    I fumbled with the key, opened the door and walked inside.  Jasper, embarrassed, hung back, waiting by the threshold.
    “Are you all right?” I asked.
    “You need to invite me in.”
    “What?”
    Jasper looked at his feet.  “You need to invite me in.”
    “What are you talking about?”
    “Your grandfather was prudent.  There are snares here, too.  Psychic traps and etheric burglar alarms.  He’s made sure I can’t enter without permission.”
    I grinned.  “Like a vampire?”
    “Just ask me in, Henry.”
    “Very well.”  I shrugged.  “Come in.”
    Jasper stepped inside, looking agitatedly around him as though he expected at any moment to be perforated by a booby trap or tumble through a trapdoor.  “We don’t want to linger.  They’ll be watching.”
    Leaving him to his melodramatics and struggling against the memories stirred by the smell of burnt sausages, I began searching for the cat, scouring kitchen, bathroom and lounge.
    “Is there a safe?” Jasper asked.
    “Granddad hasn’t got a safe,” I said.
    “He’d have disguised it.  It wouldn’t necessarily look like a safe.  Probably more like a sheet of metal.”
    For a second, I wavered.  Then I made my decision.  “You’d better come upstairs.”
    The bedroom was just as before, mummified and changeless — the coffee-stained newspaper, the clock stopped at 12:14, the photograph of me as a child.  I expected Jasper to make some quip at the sight of it, some nugget of sarcasm about Worse Things Happen at Sea , but he was fizzing with nerves, glancing feverishly into