I did as he asked and saw him wave from his usual spot between the compost heap and the laurels. Millon de Floss, it should be explained, was my official stalker. Even though I had long ago dropped to the bottom of the Z-class celebrity list, he had insisted on maintaining his benign stalkership because, as he explained it, “we all need a retirement hobby.” Since he had shown considerable fortitude during a sojourn into the Elan back in ’88, I now counted him as a family friend, something that he always denied, when asked. “Friendship,” he intoned soberly, “always damages the pest factor that is the essence of the bond between stalker and stalkee.” None of the kids were bothered by him at all, and his early-warning capabilities were actually very helpful—he’d spotted Felix8, after all. Not that stalking was his sole job, of course. Aside from fencing cheese to the east of Swindon, he edited Conspiracy Theorist magazine and worked on my official biography, something that was taking longer than we had both thought.

“So what’s the problem? You still up for the cheese buy this evening?” I asked him.

“Of course—but you’ve got visitors. A car on the street with two men in it and another man climbing over the back wall.”

I thanked him and put the phone down. I’d made a few enemies in the past, so Landen and I had some prearranged contingency measures.

“Problems?” asked Landen.

“It’s a code yellow.”

Landen understood and without a word dashed off toward the front of the house. I opened the back door and crept out into the garden, took the side passage next to the dustbins and slipped behind the summer house. I didn’t have to wait long, as a man wearing a black coverall and a balaclava helmet came tiptoeing up the path toward where I was hidden. He was carrying a sack and a bag of marshmallows. I didn’t waste any time on pleasantries; I simply whacked him hard on the chin with my fist, and when he staggered, momentarily stunned, I thumped him in the chest, and he fell over backward with a grunt. I pulled off the balaclava to reveal a man I recognized—it was Arthur Plunkett of the Swindon Dodo Fanciers Guild.

“For GSD’s sake, Arthur,” I said, “how many times do I have to tell you that Pickwick’s not for sale?”

“Uuuuh,” he said, groaning and wheezing as he tried to regain his wind.

“Come on, idiot,” I said as I heaved him up and rested him against the back of the summer house. “You know better than to break into my house—I can be dangerously protective of my family. Why do you think I’m the only one in Swindon able to leave my car unlocked at night?”

“Ooooooh.”