Descendant

caps. I grabbed a handful and put them in my coat pocket. Then I went to the stainless-steel trolley beside the examination couch and took two 5cc syringes.

Bullet barked excitedly as I returned to the car, and we pulled away from the Laurels with the Rover’s rear end sliding sideways in the grass.

I checked my watch. It was ten minutes of eleven already.

“Don’t worry,” said George. “If I keep my foot flat on the floor, we should get there in time.”

“OK, then,” I told him. “Try not to kill us, that’s all I ask.”

The sky began to grow increasingly thundery as we sped southwestward through Surrey and Hampshire. The clouds rolled in so quickly they looked like a speeded-up film, and by the time we reached the town of Havant, huge warm drops of rain had begun to patter on to the windshield of George’s Rover.

I had never been frightened by anybody’s driving before, not even during World War Two, when I was driven in a Jeep between Brussels and Nijmegen by a stogie-chewing marine sergeant who had drunk a bottle and a half of Napoleon brandy. But George drove so furiously that I found myself gripping the door handle to keep myself from sliding from one side of my seat to the other, and constantly jamming my foot on an imaginary brake pedal.

He hardly ever dropped below 50 mph. He drove the wrong way along dual carriageways. He even drove right over the middle of a traffic circle, leaving parallel tire-tracks in the grass. He ran countless red lights and blasted his horn at anybody who looked as if they might slow him down. All this time he smoked one cigarette after another, lighting a fresh one from the burned-down butt of the last.

“Do you know who I admire the most?” he asked me, as we slewed around the corner into Havant High Street. “Fangio. What a driver. The last lap of the German Grand Prix, he averaged ninety-one-point-seven miles an hour. Averaged.”

We reached the outskirts of Southampton at three minutes of twelve. It was raining hard and the Rover’s windshield wipers were having difficulty in coping, so that George had to drive more slowly. But as we approached the docks, I could see the Queen Elizabeth’s two red funnels over the rooftops, and as we turned the corner to the Cunard Terminal, and the sheer black wall of the liner’s sides came into view, it was clear that she wasn’t yet ready to sail.

George parked by the railings at the terminal entrance. A policeman in a raincape came up and knocked on the window.

“Can’t leave it here, mate.”

George produced his identity card. “I think you’ll find that I can,” he said, with public-school self-assurance. “Look after it for me, will you, constable?”

“Yes, sir,” said the policeman, grudgingly. “You’ll be wanting Chief Inspector Holloway, sir. He’s inside the terminal, at the information desk.”

We climbed out of the car. I turned my coat-collar up against the rain, which was hammering down all across the docks. “Come on, Bullet,” I urged him. “Let’s find Jill, shall we? Come on, boy.”

We crossed the wet, reflective asphalt. Close up, the Queen Elizabeth was enormous, over a thousand feet long and nearly two hundred feet high, its sides streaked with runnels of rain. Passengers were looking down on us from the upper decks and waving, even though the ship’s gangways were still down, and the dock was still cluttered with vans and trucks and luggage. The air smelled strongly of brine and diesel.

We went through the swing doors into the reception area, which was still noisy and crowded with passengers and relatives. We found Chief Inspector Holloway next to one of the stainless-steel counters, surrounded by detective constables and at least fifteen uniformed officers. Chief Inspector Holloway was very tall and lugubrious- looking, with a thin sallow face and a nose like a fire axe. His brown trilby hat was soaked with rain and the lapels of his flappy brown double-breasted suit were curled up.

“I don’t know why Hampshire Constabulary can’t be trusted to deal with this,” he said to George, even before George had introduced himself.

“It’s what you might call a specialist operation,” I put in.

“You’re American,” said Chief Inspector Holloway.

“That’s correct, sir. Captain James Falcon, seconded to MI6.”

“This is all very irregular.”

“Yes, sir. You’re right. It is irregular. Have you checked the passenger manifest?”

One of the detectives held out a clipboard. “Mr. Terence Mitchell made a telephone reservation early this morning and booked a middle-class cabin, M64. He hasn’t checked in yet. Cunard have promised to let us know as soon as he does.”

I said, “OK, officer, thanks.” Then I turned to George. “I need to get on board now. Duca’s here already, I can feel it.”

“But he hasn’t checked in yet.”

“It won’t. It doesn’t have to. It can get on board without anybody seeing it. Christ — it could climb straight up the side of the ship if it needed to. All it needs is a cabin for itself and Jill while it crosses the Atlantic.”

I looked down at Bullet. I think Bullet had picked up the scent, too. He was quivering, and staring toward the doorway which led out to the pier.

“Come on, boy,” I told him. “There’s one little thing we have to do before we go on board.”

I asked one of the uniformed girls behind the Cunard counter if there was a spare office I could use. Then I led Bullet into the back, and opened up my Kit. I took out two pots of white and black paint, and a paintbrush.

“What on earth are you doing?” asked George.

“Hold Bullet’s head still, would you? I’m giving him an extra pair of eyes.”

Duca at Bay

Bullet and I walked up the gangway with the rain drumming on the canvas awning above our heads. Two detectives came with us, so that we wouldn’t have any trouble getting on board. A smooth-faced Cunard purser greeted us at the top of the gangway and he looked down at Bullet with amusement.

“I’ve seen plenty of four-eyed people, but this is the first time I’ve ever seen a four-eyed dog.”

“Please,” I said. “He gets embarrassed very easily.”

“Yes, sir. Sorry, sir.” I guess the purser was experienced in dealing with eccentric passengers.

Once we were on board, I told the detectives to wait where they were.

“Can’t really do that, sir. We’re supposed to stick close, just in case you need us.”

“You’re that eager to die?”

One detective looked at the other detective. “If you put it that way, sir, we can wait here, yes. But call if you need us.”

The Queen Elizabeth was supposed to have sailed over twenty minutes ago, and her turbine engines were making the whole ship vibrate, but the decks and promenades were still crowded and chaotic. Passengers were saying tearful good-byes, pageboys in pillbox hats were hurrying about with messages and bunches of flowers, porters were carrying suitcases on board. As Bullet and I made our way down to M Deck, we shared the elevator with a strongly perfumed woman in a green Dior dress and a veiled hat, who was openly sobbing as if her world were coming to an end.

We hurried along the corridor to M64. Bullet’s claws pattered on the highly polished Korkoid flooring. “Come on, boy,” I encouraged him. “Find Jill for me, OK?”

A Cunard official had given me a pass key, but as it turned out I didn’t need it. The door to cabin M64 was unlocked. I put down my Kit, turned the handle, and cautiously eased it open.

There was nobody around. The bed was neatly made, the blinds were drawn down over the portholes. The only indication that anybody had been here was the pale blue overnight case in the corner, and the rucked-up throw on the floor.

I led Bullet into the cabin and let him sniff around. He trotted over to the overnight case, licked it and then turned to me and gave a high-pitched whine.

“Good boy, Bullet! Go find Jill!”