Tomorrow's ghost

'Utter nonsense.' She smiled up at Julian. 'Can you find a contemporary English novelist - British novelist - to put in the same class as Faulkner?'

'John Fowles.' The light of battle flared in Julian's eye.

'The Magus?' The last vestige of Miss Fitzgibbon fell away from Frances: Miss Warren was in charge, and she was as arrogant as Julian. 'Daniel Martin? You dare put them up against Sanctuary? Or The Bear?'

'Hah!' said Tom. 'Hah!'

'Not that Fowles isn't good,' said Miss Warren magnanimously. 'Some of the so-called critics need their heads examining. But to compare Faulkner with Fowles ... Do me a favour!'

'Do us all a favour,' said Tom. 'Start with The Bear, Julian.'

He smiled at Frances, cowlike eyes swimming joyfully behind the thick lenses. Gary had smiled at Marilyn like that, ready and hoping to die for her.

Forget Marilyn. Marilyn was with her useless father and her dying mother, somewhere in South-East London.

Detective-Sergeant Ballard was standing in the doorway.

'Well ... I'm not an expert in the hunting of bears with mongrel dogs in Yoknapatawpha County,' said Julian.

'It isn't about hunting bears,' said Tom.

'It's about slavery,' said Frances. 'Faulkner's got more to say about the negro problem in the South than all other American writers put together.'

'He has? I've always thought his approach was a bit Schweitzerish myself,' Julian prodded her gently. 'But then perhaps you have insights into slavery denied me?'

It was a pity that they were settling down to a good argument just when the expression on Sergeant Ballard's face suggested that the computer had choked on one of the names fed into it, thought Frances.

'No more so than any woman. We have some of the same problems the freed slaves had in searching for an identity...' But she could no longer ignore the Sergeant's signals.

'I'm afraid you'll have to excuse me...'

'An identity -?' Julian turned as she pushed past him. 'Oh, for God's sake - not again!

Hugo, do be a good chap and tell the fuzz either to arrest her or let her alone-

* * *

'Yes, Mr Ballard?'

'We have a suspicious object, madam.'

'Suspicious?' Frances repeated the word stupidly.

We're not expecting any trouble in the library!

'Yes, madam.'

'Where?'

'In the cloakroom. Almost directly under where we are standing.'

Frances looked at her wristwatch. Damn Paul Mitchell! And Colonel Butler. And the computer. She had six minutes.

CHAPTER FOUR

The click-clack of Frances's high heels echoed in the high open space of the entrance foyer as she descended the stairway alongside Sergeant Ballard. 'I have informed Colonel Butler, madam,' said Ballard.

Except for the two civilians on the desk, Dickson and Collins, the foyer was still empty. The three Special Branch officers were still in position outside the glass doors, but through the expanse of glass wall on the other side of the doors she could see that a large crowd of students and hangers-on had now assembled outside the entrance.

God! There was altogether too much glass, thought Frances with a swirl of fear.

'We'll have to get those people away from the front of the building. Sergeant,' she said.

Ballard cleared his throat. 'Instructions are to stand fast, madam.'

'Instructions?' Frances frowned at him.

'The moment we start clearing them away they'll know we're on to them,' said Ballard. 'Otherwise ... the odds are they won't detonate until they've got the targets into the blast zone.'

Frances realised that she had been foolish. If the suspicious object really was a bomb then detonation would be by remote signal, activated from some visual vantage-point in the surrounding campus, and not by any old- fashioned time mechanism. So long as the crowd didn't scatter they were theoretically safe until the Chancellor's party came through the doors.

Above the heads of the crowd and away across the open space between the new Library and the nearest great white tower she caught a momentary flash of academic scarlet.

'Colonel Butler will have to hold the Chancellor's party. Sergeant.' With an effort she kept her voice steady.