And Mr Hutton will soon be living up here. Hes buying Great-Aunt Muriels house.
The boy digested this.
Is Great-Aunt Muriel dead? he asked.
No, of course not! Shes just moving down into the village. Jay, if you can hang on till I finish with this monster, Ill see you out.
Jaysmith said, Ill use the bathroom if I may.
He went upstairs and swiftly checked the landing windows. They were double glazed and fitted with what looked like new security locks. He had already noticed an alarm box high up under the eaves. He opened a bedroom door at random. It proved to be Anyas. The straw handbag shed been carrying in Keswick was tossed casually onto the bed. He opened it and was amazed at the quantity of bric-à-brac it held. After a little rummaging, he came up with a key ring which he bore off with him into the bathroom. He locked the door and sat on the edge of the bath. Ignoring the car keys, he carefully made prints of the three others in a large cake of soap. It was a process he had seen used in television thrillers but not one hed ever had occasion to try for himself. Carefully he wrapped the soap in his handkerchief, removed all traces from the keys, flushed the toilet and unlocked the door. Swiftly he made for Anyas bedroom but stopped dead on the threshold.
Anya was standing by the bed in the process of shaking out the contents of her handbag onto the coverlet.
Hello, she said, becoming aware of his presence. Wont be a sec. I wanted my car keys and as usual they seem to have sunk to the bottom. I keep far too much rubbish in here.
She resumed her shaking. He stepped into the room, put his hands on her shoulders, and spun her round to face him. He drew her to him and kissed her passionately as he dropped the keys onto the bedspread. It was more successful than his attempt on the Crinkles in that she did not thrust him off but nor did she return the kiss and when he broke off she said calmly, Is it the sight of a bed which brings out the brute in you?
Im sorry, he said. I think I just wanted to assure you that Id be coming back.
Why should I doubt it? After all, you are buying a house up here. Oh, there they are.
She had turned away from him and seen the keys.
Am I moving too fast? he asked gently.
Not as long as the finance is in order, no, she said judiciously. Aunt Muriel wont want to hang about, you know.
You know what I mean.
Ive only met you three, no, four times, she replied passionately. How on earth should I know if I know what you mean? Or care for that matter?
She left the room and he followed her down the old creaking staircase. In the hallway he said lightly, Youre well protected, I see.
She glanced at him to see if he was being ironical, then followed his gaze to the alarm junction box on the wall behind an old-fashioned coat rack.
Yes, she said. Its a bit of a nuisance. I keep forgetting.
Idly he reached up and flicked the box open.
It looks pretty new.
It is. We got burgled a couple of months ago. They didnt take much, but they made a lot of mess and it was rather frightening, being so isolated. So pappy got a firm of security specialists in to tighten things up.
Still here, Hutton? Goodbye once more.
Bryant had come back into the house and was standing in the doorway of what looked like a study or office.
Mum, can I have my tea now? demanded Jimmy, appearing at the kitchen door.
Jaysmith looked at the three of them. They appeared as a formidable family group, each splendidly individual perhaps even to the point of willfulness, but very united too. He guessed that it was going to be hard to get one without the approval of the others.
Soon he might have to decide how much he really wanted that one.
But as he followed Anya out of the shady entrance hall into the ambered warmth of the autumn sunlight, and she turned and offered him her hand with a slightly crooked smile which mocked the formality of the gesture, he knew he had decided already.
Chapter 8
He set out for London early on Friday morning while the mists were still grazing the fellsides like the ghosts of old flocks. The pain he felt at leaving all this behind surprised him, but as hed sat and talked to Bryant the day before, he had known he had to go. Jacob was in London, and only Jacob could tell him why Bryant had been targeted and whether the instruction was still active since the deadline. Further than that, he could not think.
The journey down had a dreamlike quality. He drove with automatic ease, his body at rest in a soundproof cocoon, with soft upholstery, even-temperatured air and gentle music from the stereo cassette. He tried to fix his thoughts on the problems ahead but they kept on drifting back to the quiet joys of the land behind him. Four hours later, when he parked his car and stepped out into the din of Central London, it was like leaving a monastery cell for an iron foundry.
Quickly he made his way to his flat on the west side of Soho. It was twenty years since he had come to live here. The sixties were just beginning to swing. Then, the districts aura of urban picturesque with hints of Bohemian low-life had seemed a perfect match for the times; the old inhibitions were dying and the age of openness, freedom, and guiltless joy was being born. Not that Jaysmith had been very receptive to such optimism then, but now, for the first time, he was aware with more than just his eyes and ears of the squalid side-channels all that flood of high promise had been diverted into.
What had seemed Bohemian was now Babylonian; what had begun as openness was now exhibitionism; the porn merchants had worked out that there was more money in joyless guilt than guiltless joy, and the only freedom celebrated in these littered streets was the one civil liberty that civilized societies never denied their citizens their right to seek degradation and self-destruction any which way they liked.
His flat occupied the top floor of a building which had once had a Greek restaurant at street level. Now there was an Adult Video shop. He turned into the doorway leading onto the narrow stair which ran up the side of the building. At the foot of the stairs squatted two youths with their arms round each other. One had his head shaved smooth except for a spikey orange-dyed coxcomb; the other had lank black hair and the ten oclock shadow of an Arafat beard prickling his jowels and jaw. The Coxcomb had his face in a plastic bag, held tight around the neck. He was breathing in with pig-like snorts and when he raised his face, the glue in the bag was running like mucus round his nostrils and lips. Arafat took the bag, while he stared vacantly at Jaysmith. Neither made any attempt to move out of his way.
Holding back his anger, Jaysmith stepped over them and made his way up the stairs. At his door he paused and looked back in case the glue-sniffers had ambitions to become muggers too. All was quiet. He opened his door. It had two deadlocks on it and the windows had internal steel shutters so that the flat was in complete darkness despite the smokey sunshine outside.
He flicked on the light and glanced at the strip of lightsensitive photographic paper which he always placed on the floor near the door immediately before leaving. As he watched, it turned black.
He poured himself a drink and looked round, horrified at what he saw. There was no shortage of comfort hed been given a good start, and the money had come pumping in, thick and regular as arterial blood, after that. But what he had constructed was a prison.
He poured himself a drink and looked round, horrified at what he saw. There was no shortage of comfort hed been given a good start, and the money had come pumping in, thick and regular as arterial blood, after that. But what he had constructed was a prison.
He pressed the rewind-and-play button on his answering machine. There was very little on it. Few people had his number, and fewer of those were likely to be making social calls. In fact only one message caught his attention, not really a message at all, but readable as one.
A mans voice exclaimed Jaysmith! That was all.
He checked the timing of the call. It had come through less than an hour after he had phoned Enid to cancel his contract on Bryant.
He listened to the word again.
Jaysmith!
The word was distorted in anger, bitten off short as though there was much else to follow but the speaker had recognized the folly of committing it to an answering machine.
Despite the distortion, despite the brevity, he had no difficulty in recognizing the voice. It was Jacob, no doubt of that. That precise, rather nasal accent was unmistakable, even though the usual drily ironic inflexion had been replaced by something approaching rage. Any emotion which brought Jacob so close to breaking his own security must have been extreme indeed.
The flat had two bedrooms, or rather a bedroom and a boxroom. This last contained a small workbench with a vice and various metal working tools. The kind of repairs and modifications Jaysmith occasionally wanted to make to his equipment were not to be doled out to some jobbing craftsman. Now he carefully unwrapped the soap taken from the bathroom at Naddle Foot and set about producing keys which matched the imprints in the cake.
He worked swiftly and with tremendous concentration and ninety minutes later he was satisfied. Carefully he wrapped up the three keys with a small tungsten file for on-the-spot modification and put the resulting package into his inside pocket.
Now he relaxed and realized he was hungry, not having eaten anything since his breakfast at the Crag Hotel. The freezer held a selection of made-up meals. He selected one at random and put it in the microwave oven. It turned out to be lasagna. He ate most of it, washed down with a half bottle of his best Chablis. Suddenly he felt rather restless and looked at the telephone and thought of ringing Anya in Cumbria. It was a crazy notion, instantly dismissed. He then thought of ringing his Enid number, to let them know he was here. But that would be a mistake too. He had retired. He must not seem to have any desire to make contact. And in any case he guessed that they would know he was back by now and if they wished to contact him, eventually theyd get round to it.
He forced himself to relax, and went through to the bedroom, and lay on his bed, and waited for Jacob.
The first time he ever saw Jacob, he had been lying on his bed.
He swam out of a drug-filled sleep into a world of physical pain and then burst through that into a world of mental and emotional agony, more bitter by far, and finally opened his eyes in desperate search of a physical image to blot out the horrors in his mind.
And there was Jacob.
Just a man in a dark double-breasted suit totally unsuitable for the hot, humid climate of South-East Asia, yet there was no sign of discomfort as he sat by the bed, still as a lizard on a wall, his squashed-up face wearing its customary expression of weary puzzlement at the foolishness on display before him.
Youre awake, are you? he asked. Can you move?
He tried. The pain in his body shifted around a bit but didnt get much worse until he tried to speak. Then he realized that the left side of his face must have been badly cut. A long strip of plaster covered perhaps a dozen stitches.
Wheres Nguyet? he managed to whisper.
The dark-suited man shrugged.
I should think shes dead, wouldnt you, Mr Collins?
I saw her, she was alive His voice tailed off as he recalled his last glimpse of that golden body, supine among a forest of dusty boots.
The civil police say she was a taxi-girl picked up under Madame Nhus morality laws. The secret police say she was a communist sympathizer fomenting unrest at the university. The Special Force say she was a Buddhist saboteur. They cant all be right, can they? But they all agree that she died resisting arrest, and Im afraid they cant all be wrong either.
Its not true! She cant be dead!
His voice spiralled high, but not out of conviction. The other did not even argue.
And you, he said. Youd have been dead too, wouldnt you? If those Americans hadnt happened to come along. What did you think you were doing?
The tone was one of polite curiosity. He closed his eyes and let the memories come rushing back. Flung out into the street in front of Nguyets apartment, he had staggered half-demented with rage and terror into the nearest bar. Here he had emptied his wallet in front of the barman and demanded a gun. Saigon, under President Diems repressive regime, was a city where it was said you could get anything for money. The barman said nothing but removed the money and five minutes later a newspaper-wrapped package was put into his hands. It was not a bar used much by Westerners, but as he left, two Americans came in. They were attached to their Embassys Cultural and Educational Mission and Jaysmiths British Council teaching contract at the university had brought them in touch. He ignored their greeting and rushed past them, tearing at the newspaper package. Alarmed by his appearance, the Americans followed.
As he arrived back at Nguyets apartment block, the street door opened and the dog-faced colonel and his entourage came out.
Screaming with hate he had ripped the last of the paper from the package and leapt forward brandishing the ancient revolver it contained. Thrusting the weapon into the colonels face, he squeezed the trigger. It fell off. A soldier smashed the useless weapon from his hand. Another drove him to the ground with a savage blow to the head. Then they were all at him with rifle butts and boots. Only the arrival of the Americans had saved him from being beaten to death in the street.
I was going to kill that bastard, he said with savage hate. I still am.
Are you? This is the man, I believe, isnt it?
A photograph was held in front of him. The dog-face of the colonel stared down at him. He nodded, unable to speak.
Colonel Tai. A very nasty piece of work. Directly answerable to Tran Van Khiem who, as you may know, is Madame Nhus brother and head of anti-subversion forces. And youre going to kill him, are you? Youll have to be quick, Mr Collins.
What do you mean?
The dark-suited man pointed at an envelope by the bed.
Youre persona non grata, Mr Collins. Theres a plane ticket in there, valid for this evenings flight only. If youre not on the flight, you will be arrested on a charge of attempted murder, subversion, sabotage, it hardly matters what as youre not likely to survive arrest, are you? I should catch that plane if I were you, even if it means crawling to the airport, naked.
The superior tone got to him at last.
Who the hell are you? he demanded. Are you official? From the Embassy? Youve got the look of one of those smooth bastards!
The man laughed drily, apparently genuinely amused by the comment.