Tomorrow's ghost

'I thought so, yes.' She knew it wasn't going to be enough.

Thought?'

'After what you've said - '

'Forget what I've said.' He cut her off quickly. 'I haven't said anything.'

'But you have.'

'Then you must consider the possibility that you may have misinterpreted it.' He paused. 'You were very impressed with Colonel Butler's performance under stress.

That's understandable - he's an extremely competent man. He wouldn't be where he is, doing what he's doing, if he wasn't. You're only telling me what I already know, Frances.'

'What else do you want?' She heard her voice sharpen defensively. 'What else do you expect?'

'From you - I don't want sentences beginning 'I suppose you could say'. I know what I'd say. I want to know what you can say. I want to know what you felt.'

Now he was spelling it out, what she had already sensed. And now she could also sense the urgency beneath his patience, like blast-furnace heat through thick asbestos.

But how did he know that she had felt anything about Colonel Butler? And even if he thought he knew - he couldn't know a thing like that, it wasn't possible to do more than think it - why did he want to know what she felt? Of what conceivable value would that be to him?

'Come on, Frances - ' the voice out of the dark was gentle, but inexorable ' - just tell me what you felt about him. It's quite simple.'

'It isn't simple - ' Her own voice sounded harsh and uncertain by comparison. 'No, I don't mean that - it's very simple. But it isn't rational. I mean, I can't explain it rationally.'

'Then don't explain it. Just describe it.'

'But it's too fanciful.'

'So ... you wouldn't put it in a report to Brigadier Stocker - I accept that. But you are not reporting to Stocker now, you are reporting to me. And I want an answer.'

Frances felt a stirring of fear again, but this time it was a fear she could handle.

Indeed, it was almost - or not almost, but actually - a sensation she found pleasing: if fear was a habit-forming drug then there were some varieties of it to which she was immune, like the briefcase fear; but this variety was indistinguishable from pure excitement, like the recurrent dream of bird-flight she had had in the old days - in Robbie's days - when she had not understood how she could fly, or why she was flying, but only that the ground was falling away from her and she was free of it.

So now she was in the middle of something she didn't understand, something which was very perilous - to be off the record with Sir Frederick must be altogether perilous: if she was flying, then it was as Icarus had flown, towards the sun - but at least for a moment she was free of restraint, and of the shyness which always clogged her opinions. 'You want me to be - you require me - to be fanciful?'

'Require? Oh yes, I see - 'require' according to David Audley - is that it?' The smile was there in the darkness again. 'Well, then -

yes. I require it, Frances.'

'All right. Then I had a feeling - a fancy - about Colonel Butler. If you like ... an instinct.'

'An instinct ... Yes?' 'I said I thought he was good.' She hesitated.

'So you did.' 'It was a Freudian choice of words. I didn't mean simply good at his job

- efficient, formidable - I meant good.'

This time she understood his silence. It was an awkward word to digest, even an anaconda might think twice before trying to swallow it whole.

'Good .. . meaning virtuous?' He surprised her by not even attempting to belittle the word down to manageable size with an easier one.

'Yes.'

'I see. Which accounts for your disquiet - whatever side a virtuous man is on, that's the right side. Do you think that is invariably the case?'

'Of course not.' 'But in this case you hope so - even if it makes your other guess wrong?'

'Is it wrong?' 'A good question. Do you often have instincts like this about people?'

He was playing with her, thought Frances bitterly. And yet she could have sworn that a moment before, when he had required her to tell him what he felt about Colonel Butler, he had been deadly serious.

But that moment was over. 'Why are you so interested in my so-called instinct. Sir Frederick?'

'Not only yours, my dear.'

'But mine in this instance.'

'True ... Then for two reasons.' He paused. 'You see, everyone has the faculty of instinct, more or less - it's a survival from our animal past. Our pre-prehistoric legacy, if you like.'

'And I have a special legacy, do I?'

'As it happens, we think you do, Frances. Unfortunately, however, it's a legacy in a very doubtful currency. Because in modern human beings it is heavily devalued -