A Prospect of Vengeance

He replaced the receiver, and disciplined himself to accept the world as it now was, both around him in Lower Buckland, and beyond it. Jenny was in her flat, and although she was dead-scared (and although she had been dead-scared she had waited quite deliberately for his call, in spite of that . . . either because she needed him, or because she wanted to warn him — either or both, it could be) . . .

although she'd been scared, she still thought she could beat the odds, and get away to Abdul the Damned's, where she reckoned they'd both be safe — where little Mr Malik could undoubtedly be trusted: that gave more credence to her present safety than anything else she'd said.

There was nothing to be seen outside. And nothing included Reg Buller, for evermore in the world as it now was: Reg Buller, with his noisome pipe and drink problem, and his bulbous nose, and his suburban semidetached villa, had moved from evermore to nevermore.

On that thought, he pushed open the door, and stepped out of the box, with Reg Buller at his back. Because Reg would have had no time for such futile sentiments, and he couldn't afford them either, now. The lane was empty.

Of course the fucking lane's empty, Reg Buller would have said. Just get to the fucking car and drive, like the Lady said

— right?

But it wasn't right. Because Reg Buller had been smart, yet not smart enough. Because Reg had believed in danger before anyone else had done, but Reg was dead now, even dummy2

though he'd been smart.

And the car was all that was left to him, whether he'd been as clever (or as lucky) as he'd thought, just a few minutes back: he just might have been clever enough (or lucky enough) . . .

but Lower Buckland was undoubtedly in the middle of its own commuter-belt nowhere, with a bus once-a-week if at all. So if he wasn't going to walk, then he had to drive —

It was different now, was Lower Buckland, as he progressed up the empty lane towards the Village Green: it really was Fin Bheara's kingdom, as briefly glimpsed in Mrs Frances Fitzgibbon's — now Mrs Champeney-Smythe's — Dictionary of Fairies: if you were still in the land of the living yourself, then all the people you met there were already dead. And he wished now that he hadn't read that —

Yet that wasn't so much not right as simply ridiculous: he had had a long day and if he hadn't been so frightened that he'd be dog-tired after all the unaccustomed leg-work and interviewing, never mind the driving; and, as this day — this evening, this night — was now very obviously far from over he had to cool his unfounded fears here, and summon his reserves, and pace himself.

Also, the Village Green wasn't empty now. There was a woman pushing a pram, with two children and a dog in tow, on the far side. And there was a car — two cars — two lovely, ordinary cars, with drivers and passengers in them — passing just ahead of him. And Fin Bheara surely wasn't into prams, dummy2

and children, and dogs, and cars full of passengers, to people his shadowy land.

He swung round the short stretch of road into the parallel lane where the car was, almost angry with himself for his over-fertile imagination. And then halted for an instant before reversing direction, to set off diagonally across the broad expanse of Village Green, towards the great old yew-tree, where he'd paused the first time, and the churchyard and the church behind it —

God! There had been a man bending over his car, while trying the door to see whether it was unlocked! And, as he'd paused fractionally, the man had looked up, and their eyes had met across fifty yards; but the man hadn't dropped his hand, he had gone on staring — ! God — !

He accelerated his pace, almost to the beginning of a run, not knowing where he was going, only that he wanted to put distance between himself and the man, his follower — his follower who had caught up with him, to become his pursuer

— ? Or, after Reg Buller, something more fearful than that

— ?

God! He hadn't been so clever, or so lucky, after all! He'd been stupid — stupid to blunder straight here, on the track of Marilyn Francis, without taking proper stock of the situation . . . stupid to delude himself that he was clever . . .

and stupid, more immediately, to have reacted as he had just done — to have halted for that fatal half-second, and then not shouted angrily like an honest man, but had acted dummy2

like a thief himself, and given the game away thereby —

damn, damn, oh damn — ! Stupid! Stupid!

But the yew-tree was marching towards him by the second, and he was only compounding his stupidity with self-recrimination. Because when he reached it he'd have to know what he would do next, where he would go next; because there were only two roads out of Lower Buckland, according to the map, and both of them were behind him now, on the wrong side of the Village Green, with maybe Fin Bheara himself in the way. And ahead of him . . . ahead of him was the churchyard wall again —

Damn it! All the citizens of Fin's kingdom would be waiting for him there with old Reg Buller grinning over Marilyn Francis's shoulder!

And he was there, now. And he must stop thinking this Fin Bheara nonsense before it reduced him to a helpless jelly: simply, he must turn round and face his pursuer. Because . . .

because — for heaven's sake! — he wasn't in some Beirut wasteland now, like last time: there were no half- smashed tenements full of hooded women and Kalashnikov-armed trigger-happy bandits from half-a-dozen different militias: these were elegant Georgian-Regency-early-Victorian English residences around him on the other three sides of the green, with elegant stockbroker-merchant-banking-high-tech-yuppie wives (with little boys and girls playing computer games at their backs as they started to prepare dinner, while watching the early evening BBC/ITV