'I'm not going to do anything stupid, if that's what you mean.'
'You promise?'
'Promise?' Somehow he had to belittle the danger now, to get her moving. 'My darling Bel – you remember the verse Valentine put up over the bar in the Mess at Snettisham – the advice on when to eject –
Some lucky Thracian has my noble shield, I had to run: I dropped it in a wood, But I got clear away, thank God!
So f------the shield! I'll get another just as good.'
He tried to grin at her. 'We've both got to bale out – just do what I've told you. I've no ambition to die for my – '
He stopped as the answer to the question which had been dogging him earlier rose unbidden in his mind: Audley would certainly know what 'propositum' and 'taberna' meant – he must remember to ask him at the next opportunity.
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'Hugh?'
'It's nothing, Bel. I've just remembered something unimportant I've got to do. Now, off you go!'
The very irrelevance of what he was saying seemed to reassure her.
It even served to calm Roskill himself: it was somehow unthinkable that anything could happen to him until he had the answer to that ancient piece of Latin wit – probably lavatorial wit, too ...
Isobel gave him one final look, drew a deep breath and grasped her bag decisively. Then, with a firm, unhurried movement she opened the door, stepped gracefully on to the pavement – her entrances and exits were always elegant – and set off down Bunnock Street like a swan navigating the town drain.
Roskill watched her progress with one eye on the driving mirror, in which the entrance to St. Biddulph's churchyard was framed.
Ten paces and she was out of the street light's circle and into a patch of half-light... and then ten more and she was almost on the edge of the next circle, from the lamp on the other side of the street. Beyond that she was virtually out of reach of a danger and it was time for him to move.
With his hand on the door handle he risked turning to get one good, clear look at the churchyard entrance. There was the loom of something darker beyond the pool of light – something that was moving now. In that second it dawned on him that Isobel's door was the obvious one to use. He levered himself awkwardly across towards it, bumping himself painfully on the gear-lever as he did dummy2
so, and swung himself on to the pavement.
In doing so he had another glimpse of the churchyard: there was a figure, two figures now, there. But in the very instant that he saw them there was the roar of an engine from the other end of Bunnock Street and the glare of powerful headlights which swept over the nearside curve of the street and then over Roskill – and then on to the men themselves.
They threw up their hands across their faces and broke left and right away from the beam of light as though it was a death-ray, leaving Roskill rooted in the shadow of his own car.
The car behind the headlights hurtled the last few yards of the street – a big maroon Mercedes – lurching to a stop within inches of the Triumph, obliquely across its bows.
The rear window slid down smoothly and a swarthy, scarred face peered out of it.
'Squadron-Leader Roskill?'
A plump, good-humoured face he had seen before earlier in the evening – the fat Arab.
The door swung open and a pair of beautifully polished shoes glinted momentarily as the Arab levered himself out. Beyond him Roskill glimpsed Isobel standing irresolutely halfway down the street.
'Forgive me for arriving so – so rudely, Squadron-Leader,' said the Arab, limping towards him slowly. 'But I don't think your car is fit to drive any more.'
'I wasn't intending to drive it.'
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'You weren't?' The fat man cocked his head in curiosity, and then nodded it. 'How very wise of you! Then I can only presume that you are already aware that it's been – is nobbled the word? One nobbles racehorses, so I think one might nobble cars, don't you?'
He patted the Triumph's bonnet appreciatively.
'And those two gentlemen who didn't like the headlights,'
continued the Egyptian, 'I suppose we'd better see them on their way.'
He snapped his fingers at his driver and the driver's mate and pointed towards the churchyard. Wordlessly the men obeyed him, like the well-trained gun-dogs they were.
The Arab patted the car again. 'One of your little electronic gadgets was upset, I suppose,' he said conversationally. 'Or would that be telling?'
He smiled, and the only thing Roskill could think of doing to hide his doubts about the whole situation was to smile back.
'Nothing so elaborate, I'm afraid,' he replied self-deprecatingly.
'Let's say I'm just suspicious of cars these days.'
'So my journey was really unnecessary after all?'
'Not at all. It's very reassuring to know I've got unexpected friends watching over me.'
The fat man chuckled. 'You are a most popular person, Squadron-Leader. No sooner had my man settled down to follow you, than he noticed that someone else was doing the same thing. And as that made it very difficult for him to follow you, he followed
