Tomorrow's ghost

really.'

If she'd ever had a chance of asking the real Paul what in particular scared him about the operation, other than the actual prospect of encountering Comrade O'Leary round some unexpected corner, she'd lost it now, realised Frances irritably. At the best of times he disliked admitting human weaknesses, and he certainly wasn't going to do so this time.

'But then neither are you, Frances dear.' The grin broadened. 'So it didn't exactly cheer him this morning when they told him you were coming, believe me...' He trailed off.

Whereas now... thought Frances, contemplating the plastic mac and the platform shoes... whereas now he'd probably burst a blood-vessel at the sight of her. The memory of the Colonel's reaction to her proper mousey self, casually encountered in the corridor, was vivid enough. She blanched at the prospect of his reaction to Marilyn.

'I can't possibly turn up like this at the University,' she snapped.

'Very true,' agreed Paul. 'Not that there aren't some proper little dollies among the students, and you could still pass for one, believe me, with your looks ... Except we're not infiltrating the delectable student body on this one - so your station this afternoon is inside the new Library, and that's out of bounds to students today. Which means we've got to do a quick respectability job on you at the Crossways Motel - a de-tarting process, one might call it in the circumstances.'

'What d'you mean?' The prospect of another cover identity alarmed Frances. Covers were not to be taken lightly, they required detailed and careful preparation. Even Marilyn, who had been a rush job, had been allowed a week's cramming.

'Oh, nothing elaborate,' Paul reassured her. 'Nothing you can't do with your eyes closed. And they've supplied me with a suitcase full of your own clothes - I picked it up twenty minutes before I picked you up. You'll be playing yourself, near enough.'

They had been to the cottage, thought Frances. Some stranger had gone to her wardrobe and the big old chest-of-drawers, and the dressing table, and had sifted through her belongings, choosing her own personal things. She shivered involuntarily at the thought.

You'll be playing yourself, near enough.

There was something creepy about that, too. After the last three years that was a role she was no longer sure she wanted to play ever again, always supposing she could recall the character and the lines clearly.

'You can wash that muck off your face at the motel,' went on Paul. 'We can't do anything about that ghastly hair-do except put a wig on it - there'll be a selection waiting at the motel by now. There isn't time to do anything else, but you'll be wearing an academic cap anyway - and a gown, because it's full academic battle-dress this afternoon. Perhaps a pair of spectacles to make you look a bit more scholarly, instead of your contact lenses. Then you'll pass all right.'

'Pass for what?'

'Post-graduate research fellow. There are a couple of dozen new ones in the English faculty, and as term's only just started they hardly know each other - and you are an English graduate yourself, Frances, aren't you? Bristol, was it? Or Durham?' Paul's Cambridge superiority surfaced momentarily. 'You should be able to speak the language.'

'That was seven years ago.' Frances ignored the gibe.

'So long? Well, your supervisor will vouch for you - Professor Crowe. He has full clearance and knows the score.' Paul gave her another reassuring look. 'Don't worry, Frances. All you're doing really is releasing one of Fighting Jack's blue-eyed boys for a more sensitive job. We're not expecting any trouble in the library.'

Famous last words, thought Frances. Apart from being male chauvinist pig patronising words. Obviously Colonel Butler and Paul Mitchell had mentally relegated her to Kirche, Kinder and Kuche, as being sexually equipped for nothing else.

But she would not give him the satisfaction of observing her anger. Not so long as there was a chance of catching him out.

'I see ... And might an English post-graduate research fellow know what she is supposed to be researching? That's the first thing she'll get asked.'

Paul nodded. 'Ah... now as it happens I had a hand in that little detail, as I've been a research fellow myself in my time, you see.'

There was nothing more insufferably pompous than an insufferably pompous young ex-Cambridge male pig, decided Frances.

'Indeed? And your research included me, did it?'

'Let's say, I know where your special interest lies in literature. That one time you invited me down to that little cottage of yours I took a look at your bookshelves, Frances.'

'My - bookshelves?'

'That's right. You can tell a lot about a person by the books on their shelves. Their books don't lie about them.'

'But - ' The words dried up on Frances's tongue.

'You've got all the books I'd expect an English graduate to have - Chaucer to Hemingway, by way of Fielding and Hardy. And the usual spread of poetry.' He paused. 'But you've also got three full shelves of folk-lore and fairy stories ... La Belle au Bois Dormant in the original French, and a nineteenth-century German copy of Domroschen... right down to The Lord of the Rings and a first edition of The Hobbit. All well-thumbed and dust-free - a dead give-away.'

All well-thumbed and dust-free. Frances stared at him helplessly.

Of course they were well-thumbed and dust-free. Dusting Robbie's favourite books was one of her compulsive habits. Once she'd decided not to throw them out it had seemed obscene to let them gather dust.

He took her silence for speechless admiration, or something like. 'So all I did was to tell Professor Crowe about your collection, and he jumped at. the idea. By now he'll have put it around that the title of your thesis is 'The Land