Tomorrow's ghost

make a nothing of the otherr - he's a trricky one, this fella'...'

'Happen you're right too, major - ' Colonel Butler had smiled at him, and it was that rare and private change in his own expression which purged his ugliness; and at the same time the Lancashire which Paul had noticed peeped through the Sandhurst accent, so that for a moment it was like speaking with like ' - so you get yoursel' over to t'other, an'

doan't let that young chap Pirie lay a finger on it. He wants t'be a hero. I rely on you not to let him make his wife a widow -'

* * *

The other

and

t'other

had confused her for a moment, but then she had disentangled them:

There had been a second bomb.

* * *

'Oh sure. Princess, there were two of them ... hold on a sec while I fix the seat for you... James's legs aren't as pretty as yours, but they are somewhat longer... Because that's Comrade O'Leary's

modus operand!

when he's expected. And the trick is... There! I think that will do nicely... the trick is to distinguish which is the diversion and which is the real killer. Is A intended to set you up for B? Or is

B

intended to divert you from

A

?'

(Under his Chobham-armoured assurance Paul was still angry, but there was something odd about that anger after Colonel Butler had made such a fool of him; and therefore, while one part of her wanted to slip away in the car's nicely-adjusted seat, as far and as fast and as quickly as possible from the University of North Yorkshire, there was another part which wanted to stay and find out why Paul was still angry when he should be humiliated; because, to give him his due, Paul was usually ready to admit when he was wrong.)

'Well, I suppose I should be glad that Colonel Butler got it right.' (She had to find the chink in the armour to make him say more.)

'Well ... that we don't really know, do we? And now we'll never know, because he changed the rules.' (He had looked at her curiously then, and she knew she had found the chink: there was always something which Paul knew that no one else knew, and which he shouldn't have known.) 'But I tell you this. Princess - there's something very odd going on, and that's a fact.'

'I wouldn't dispute that.' (After swapping British-American for the new Library, and Mr Cavendish's letters for O'Leary and The Land of Faerie that was an understatement of the truth.)

'I don't mean your little bomb, duckie -'

'It wasn't little.' (She had shivered at the memory; even duckie was a painful reminder of things best forgotten.) ('And don't call me... that.'

'Okay, Princess. But I mean ... they hauled you off a job to come up here, didn't they?'

'So what?'

'So I've got news for you. They took me off a job too.'

'I thought you were Colonel Butler's Number Two?'

'His Number Two? That's a laugh.' (But he hadn't laughed.) 'More like his errand boy. He didn't know what to do with me - he didn't want me under his feet, but he didn't trust me out of his sight either.'

'He sent you to collect me.'

'Oh sure. And to brief you. So I was safely away from the stake-out here, and he knew exactly what I was doing. An errand boy's job ... And when you got here he didn't know what to do with you either - right?'

(She had had no answer to that: it had been no less than the truth.)

'Come on, Frances - don't be dim! This isn't our scene - you weren't selected and trained at great expense to carry bombs from one place to another, and I'm not a glorified taxi-driver-cum-public-relations-man. Forty-eight hours ago I was all packed for Washington, to be David Audley's Number Two - packed and briefed. And I don't know what you were tarted up for, but I'll bet it wasn't for a fancy-dress ball. But whatever it was, it was bugging you when I picked you up, so it has to be bugging you a lot more now - what the hell we're supposed to be doing here?'

(Of course, it had been bugging her. So now it was all the more important to find out what he made of the nonsense.)

'I thought we were here to catch O'Leary, Paul.'

'Is that what you've been doing? All I've been doing is watch how Fighting Jack does his thing - I know a lot more about him than Comrade O'Leary, as of now, Princess.

Which may be highly educational, but hardly makes up for not being in Washington, I tell you.'

'Well, don't look at me, I don't know - ' (He had been doing just that: looking at her narrowly, really looking at her, not so much to check whether she was saying less than she knew but rather as