Tomorrow's ghost

covered his snowy towel with lipstick and mascara - 'It'll look wicked, dear - it'll make my students think, and anything which makes them think cannot be bad.' And finally he presented her with a whisky even more outrageous than that which Isobel had given her once upon another time, which she wanted even less and needed not at all, a true Robbie-measure.

'Now - move up close to the fire - ' It was a fire like Isobel's too, generous with well-selected pieces of coal ' - take off that wet jacket, I'll put it in the airing cupboard - on a hanger, don't worry, so it won't lose its shape - it doesn't matter you've only a slip underneath: you won't lose your shape - hah! - and I'm practically old enough to be your grandfather, so if the incipient scandal doesn't worry you it won't worry me - there now, that's better! Drink your whisky, child ... there's plenty more where that came from -

see!'

Frances saw: it was a big new bottle of Glenfiddich from a tall cylindrical case, 86 per cent U.S. proof, out of the nearest duty-free air terminal or American base. It burned her throat as she sipped it.

At last he sank down into the chair opposite her, breathless from his exertions. So far as she could remember, she hadn't yet said a single coherent thing to him, least of all to ask where Paul Mitchell was - why the Dower House was Paul's new headquarters.

'Relief, my dear! The blessed relief of seeing you... And I know all about you now, too. All about you!'

That was a conversation stopper. Frances burned her throat again, speechless.

'I've been so worried about you. I haven't been so worried since the weather report they gave us before D-Day - 'Shall we go or shall we stay?' I never admired Ike more than then, that was'his moment. We'd discussed it, of course - every probability, every possibility. The state of the beaches, and so on. But I was to be one of his men on the spot, so I had to put my money where my mouth was, it was no problem for me - if I was wrong I wouldn't be there afterwards to worry about it. But he had to make the decision, and then sit around and wait to see how it turned out - I felt for him. But I really thought I'd guessed what that was like, but do you know I hadn't at all, not at all!

Not until I started to worry about you, young lady.'

In spite of the fire outside her and the malt inside her, Frances felt a chill shiver her.

'I'm sorry - ' she croaked, the chill and the Glenfiddich interacting.

'And so you should be. You told the Death Story!'

'The Death Story?'

'Yes. And then you didn't die. Such effrontery! When we strolled over to the pond -

and you were as cool and calm and collected as though you were about to feed those beastly birds with bread - -I was much more frightened than on Sword beach. I thought you were going to take me with you - absolutely petrified I was, I can tell you!'

'I'm - I'm sorry, Professor. You've quite lost me now,' said Frances.

'I suppose I should still be worried, for it's still on the end of your finger - ' He stopped suddenly. 'Unless you've killed somebody already, of course. Have you killed anyone during the last twenty-four hours, by any chance? You don't look as if you have, but one can never tell these days...'

'Killed anyone?' The chill was an ice-block now.

'Or presided over a death, perhaps?' Crowe looked at her hopefully. 'Or even seen a death? An accident would do, so long as you were nearby. Have you pointed at anyone?

Or touched anyone deliberately?'

Frances thought of Rifleman Sands. He was old enough, and frail enough. But he had done all the touching. And she very carefully hadn't pointed at the young man in the petrol station - Paul's inexplicable advice had been loud in her brain then.

'No.'

'Well, we'll have to leave it to Jack Butler. Perhaps that'll qualify.' He blinked at her uneasily.

The Death Story.

'I - am sorry. Professor. But just what is the Death Story?'

'My dear...' She watched the scholar take over from the old man with his memories of Sword Beach and Eisenhower '... your so-called fairy story - the ugly princess and the blind prince - have you no idea what you really did?'

She knew exactly what she had done: she had told a fairy story - Granny's creepy fairy story - to take the heat off herself in the Common Room of the new English Faculty Library. And although there had been a bomb just under her feet, no one had died after that -

Horrors, though: she had also told it to Robbie that last time, to get him searching for its origin among his books - to get his mind off going to bed with her.

Successfully, too.

And then Robbie had stepped off the pavement, and tripped over his big feet, three days later as the armoured pig was passing.

Was that success, too?

It wasn't possible. It was pure fancy - as accidental and coincidental as Sir Frederick's wild idea that she had some special wild skill in picking right answers. It was no more than some aberrant mathematical figuring by men who ought to know better.

All the same. 'The Death Story?'

Crowe nodded. 'Yes ... I've been checking up on it, as a matter of fact. A lot of fairy stories can be explained in terms of very simple psychology. For example, little girls like fairy stories because of their oedipal problems - they