Iain Banks - Whit

Zeb stared at me, frowning with incomprehension. Then he grimaced. 'Not broadcast ,' he said, sounding exasperated. 'Security. For flats. Private.'

I thought I understood and quickly turned back to the grille, blushing and flustered. 'I do beg your pardon, madam. I misunderstood. This is my half-brother, Brother Zebediah, another Luskentyrian.'

'I'm sorry?' said the female voice. Zeb sighed behind me and I caught him shaking his head out of the corner of my eye. 'Another what?

'Another Luskentyrian,' I replied, feeling my face colour again. Explaining these things to Blands could be time-consuming. 'It's complicated.'

'I'm sure. Well,' the voice said with an unmistakable note of finality, 'I'm very sorry I can't help you.'

'She left no forwarding address?' I said desperately. 'We just want to make sure she's all right.'

'Well…'

'Please.'

'… She did leave the address of her agent, or… manager or something, for anything urgent. But just the address, not phone or fax.'

'That would be wonderful!' I said. 'Oh, thank you!'

'Well, just hold on; I'll go get it.' There was a click.

I turned, feeling relieved, to Zeb, who was looking vaguely out at the trees between us and the road. 'There we are!' I said, and clapped him enthusiastically on the back. He stumbled forward, coughing, and had to jump down a couple of steps before he could regain his balance. He glared back at me.

'… Hello?' said the metallic voice from the wall.

Our journey from Finchley was relatively simple, taking the Northern Line south to Tottenham Court Road and then walking along Oxford Street and down Dean Street to Brewer Street.

The premises corresponding to the address we had been given for Cousin Morag's agent - a Mr Francis Leopold - did not look very encouraging.

'Dirty books?' Zeb said, and made another forlorn attempt to pull his hand through the topological - and trichological - nightmare that was his hair. We stood on the pavement looking at the oddly blank window of something calling itself an Adult Book Shop.

'Well,' I said, looking to one side. 'The number may refer to this establishment.'

Zeb glanced. 'Porn cinema.'

'Or here?'

Zeb stuck his head into the doorway. 'Peep show. Downstairs. Upstairs. Models. Girls.'

I must have looked blank.

'Prostitutes,' he said, sighing.

'Ah,' I said. 'Well, where shall we inquire first?'

Zeb's narrow face managed to display a breadth of dubiety. 'Inquire? Really? Wise?'

'Brother Zebediah,' I said, shocked. 'You're not embarrassed, are you?' I waved at the varied sexual emporia in front of us. 'Such places are stigmatised by a hypocritical society which is still frightened by the power of sexuality; nevertheless in their own admittedly somewhat sordid and avaricious way such places celebrate the physical communion of souls.'

(Actually, even as I was saying all this, I was feeling a bit dubious about it, but I was more or less quoting a certain Brother Jamie, a convert from Inverness who'd gone to Stirling University, the campus of which was only a few miles from the Community; for some reason this had all sounded more plausible when he'd said it. Now that I was actually confronted with the establishments he had been talking about, they didn't look celebratory at all. However, I'd launched into this mini-sermon so I supposed I'd better round it off, false signal or not.)

'Why,' I exclaimed, 'by our doctrine they ought to be accorded the status of churches!'

Brother Zebediah looked levelly at me through hooded eyes for a moment. He took a deep breath, then nodded slowly. 'Churches. Right. Yeah. Way. Go. Okay. Cool. Uh.' He nodded at the nearest door. 'After.'

Our inquiries at the various facilities of dubious repute met with no success. 'What's this abaht?', 'Who're you from?', 'Never 'erd of 'im.', 'Never 'erd of 'ur, neevir.', 'Look, I got a business to run, inn-I?' and 'Fack orf'. comprised the more helpful of the various replies we received. My attempts in the cramped foyer of the erotic picture house to explain that - despite the obvious squalidness of the surroundings and the primarily financial motive behind the pornographic concerns we found ourselves in the midst of - there was still a degree of common cause between such grubbily commercial exploitations of humanity's most holy instinct and the pure, sanctified expression of that urge to be discovered through our Holy Order was met initially with glazed incomprehension.

Then, quickly thereafter, the back of my jacket and shirt collar were gripped extremely firmly by the heavily ringed hand of a very large crop-haired gentleman in a suit - pushing my hat down over my eyes so that I could hardly see where I was going - and Zeb and I were given an undignifiedly rough escort past a variety of lurid posters to the doors, where we were ejected into the street outside with such force that I almost lost my footing and came within inches of colliding with a person on a motorcycle. This person then skidded to a stop, pushed up his helmet visor and informed me in no uncertain terms of my sexual activity, mental acuity and physical size, characterised me correctly by my genitals, then changed tack and insinuated that my hat was supported by a - presumably grossly enlarged - male sexual organ, and finally that my parents' union had not been sanctioned either by the state or an established church.

I tipped my hat and begged his pardon. He roared away, shaking his crash helmet.

Zeb joined me on the far pavement; his collar had been in the other fist of the man who had seen us off (who was now standing with his arms massively crossed, filling the doorway to the cinema). A few people in the crowded street were looking at us.

'Okay?' Zeb asked.

'Dignity a little tarnished,' I told him, adjusting the lapels of my jacket. 'Otherwise, uninjured. And you?'

'Fine,' Zeb said, shrugging his shoulders forward and pulling down on his jumper.

'Good,' I said, adjusting my hat properly. 'Time for a cup of tea, I think; what do you say?'

'Tea. Yeah. Right. Café. There.'

The Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, proved no more able to offer help, if rather more polite and stately in the manner of not providing it.

'Well, obviously, we are not really the sort of venue one would find a soloist at ,' said the young man who had been summoned by the box office to talk to us. He seemed quite pleasant and well dressed, though he appeared to be troubled by his hair, a length of which over his right temple continually fell over his right eye and had to be swept back into place. I was surprised to find somebody working for an Opera House who did not appear to open his teeth or make more than the most cursory of movements with his lips when he spoke.

'I see,' I said. Our surroundings now were rather at the other end of the scale from the pornographic picture house only a fraction of a mile away, though the amount of gilt and deep, vibrant colours gave the magnificent foyer a similar if more monumental feel. 'But you have heard of her; Morag Whit, the internationally renowned baryton soloist?'

'Baryton,' the young man said, sweeping his blond hair back and staring at the central chandelier high above us. 'Baryton…' He pursed his lips. 'Isn't that in Ireland somewhere?'

'It is a form of viola da gamba,' I said frostily. 'With extra resonating strings.'

'Yes,' the young man said, drawing the word out as though it was an extrusion. 'Yes.' He nodded. 'You know, I think I did see something about a concert once…'

'It would probably be my cousin who was soloist,' I told him.

'Hmm,' he said, crossing his arms and putting one hand up to his mouth. 'Apart from that, I really can't help you, I'm afraid. I can't imagine what your cousin was doing writing to you on our headed notepaper, but then I imagine it isn't something we keep under lock and key, exactly, and of course with photocopiers and so on these days, well…' He smiled, tipping his head to one side. His hair fell over his eye again; he swept it back once more.