He regularly sees this particular relative and coerces Paul to drive him to Ardoch, her establishment. Paul and Martha hire a private detective to investigate Pitman's visits; the plotting pair wants to uncover the real goings-on in their superior's life. Ardoch is not at all what it appears to be, for Auntie May is really a madam for a unique group of call girls specializing in satisfying their customer's baby fetishes. The private detective records Jack's activities in Auntie May's nursery: "His hips pushed upwards and Sir Jack Pitman shat spectacularly in his nappy- (157-163). Ironically, Barnes' depiction of Jack's personal life reveals a submissive infantile creature underneath a stern fazade of managerial might. He is not the all powerful, no-nonsense leader he longs to be. Jack's duality of his appearance and his real inner world help develop his dishonest, two-faced way of living his life. .
Martha Cochrane disguises the sensitive young girl within with hard cynical shell. Jack hires her as a consultant because he feels her derisive insight might add a new dimension to the island project. One can trace Martha's pattern of behavior back to her childhood. Barnes scars his main character early in life with the departure of her father. Together, Martha and her Daddy had a ritual of doing a jigsaw puzzle of England, and he would sometimes steal a piece containing a county so that she could not complete it. One day, her father and mother separate, and he never returns with the missing county: .
As winters passed, it slowly became clear to Martha that neither Nottinghamshire nor her father were going to return. She still believed they might as long as her mother wept, used one of the bottles from the high shelf, hugged her too tightly and told her that all men were either wicked or weak and some of them were both. Martha cried as well on these occasions, as if their joint tears would bring her father back (17).