But he's not in uniform, so I haven't let him in. But he says he knows you.'
So it would be Detective-Sergeant Geddes. The delivery of the Chinese take-away had been a constable's chore. But what would Geddes want?
'All right, dear. I'll see him.'
'Okay. I'll tell him you're just coming.' Sally ducked out obediently, sisterly-step-daughterly.
Frances looked at Paul. 'I'll take him into the sitting room.'
'Don't take long.' From his expression Paul's patience with the hard-to-get Fitzgibbon was close to exhaustion. 'I'd like to know what you're intending to do, Frances.'
What she intended to do.
What she was doing was also all a dream, thought Frances. Ever since the bomb everything had had an insubstantial quality, fuzzed at the edges, as though she was living out an alternative version of a life which had actually ended beside the duck-pond in a spray of blood and muddy water and feathers.
'I shall be here tonight and in Blackburn tomorrow ' she said.
* * *
The door was open, but on the chain. She could smell the wet November darkness through the gap, beyond the area of the porch light.
Through the side window of the mock-Tudor porch she saw a long strip of light where the curtains in one of the mullioned windows of the library hadn't quite met. As she watched, the light went out and a second or two later the curtains moved: Paul was observing her policeman.
'Yes?' she addressed the gap.
'Mrs Fitzgibbon?'
'Yes.' She peered through the gap. Whoever it was, it wasn't Detective-Sergeant Geddes. The moustache was there, and the rather swarthy complexion too; but this was a stockier and an older man.
'Special Branch, madam. My warrant card.'
Frances accepted the card - Detective-Superintendent Samuel Leigh-Hunter. That certainly made him top brass, on a level with their own formidable D. S. Cox in the department; and he had the same heavy-lidded seen-it-all- but-still-learning-from-it look which the best of them had, and which was frightening and reassuring at the same time
- that much one glimpse through the gap registered.
Caution, though: she still didn't know him.
'Yes, Superintendent?' The chain remained in position under her hand.
'I'd like a word with you, madam. Inside the house, if you don't mind.' The eyes were opaque. 'With reference to Dr David Audley.'
Frances's legs weakened at the knees. 'I beg your pardon?' she heard herself say, in Mrs Fitzgibbon's haughtiest voice.
'Let the man in, Frances,' said Paul from behind her.
'What?' she swung round.
'Let him in, you crafty little bitch - or I should say something complimentary really, I suppose!' Paul grinned broadly at her.
'What?'
'Then I'll let him in.' He reached past her towards the chain, lifting the knob out of the slot. 'Come in. Colonel Shapiro - join the club!'
CHAPTER TWELVE
The Israeli wasn't pleased. Frances sensed his displeasure the moment he stepped inside, it was like a tiny movement of air setting one leaf quivering on a still day.
'Captain Mitchell.' The leaf no longer moved, but it had told its tale: Paul had touched it with his unexpected presence.
'Not 'Captain'.' Paul's grin faded to a self-deprecating smile. 'The highest rank I ever aspired to was lance- corporal in the Cambridge University OTC, I'm afraid. Colonel.'
'Of course. But the first picture we ever took of you was as a captain - France in '74.
In an RTR black beret. And first impressions last longest.' Shapiro traded smile for smile.
'And you are something of a tank expert, 1918 and all that, I believe?'
'But not on your level - 1967 and all that ... the Jebl Libni counter-attack, was it?'
They were crossing swords as well as smiles, and asserting themselves and exchanging professional credentials at the same time.
'And that gives us something in common with David Audley,' Paul moved forward smoothly, choosing his ground. 'Wessex Dragoons, wasn't he - '43-'44?'
'Well, well!' Shapiro conceded a point. ''Not a lot of people know that.''
Paul accepted the Michael Caine claim. 'He doesn't dine out on it - 80 per cent casualties in Normandy, maybe. But then, David plays a lot of things close to his chest...' He turned towards Frances. 'Like you, Frances. Though the chest is much more worth playing close to, I must admit.'
