A Prospect of Vengeance

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the kitchen TV), waiting for their husbands to return from the high-return, high-risk fray — shit!

(Shit? That was what Jenny would say. But Jenny was extricating herself from her flat; and he had a rendezvous with her at Abdul the Damned's; which he had to keep — or face her father — )

He was right underneath the yew-tree now, where he'd been so few minutes before, in the age when he'd still believed himself clever as well as lucky. But it was as much the threatened prospect of having to explain himself to 'Daddy'

as his own desperation which turned him round, at the last—

Shit! He had increased the gap to the full width of the Village Green, but there were two of them now!

From being in trouble, he was in big trouble now, in his own high-return fray, which had also suddenly become as high-risk: the closest of the Georgian houses was away to his left, beyond the corner of the wall, with its manicured box hedge and holly tree, and its owner's wife's big silver Volvo Estate outside; but could he really knock at the door, and say:

' Excuse me, madam . . . but my name is Robinson — Ian Robinson, of Fielding-ffulke, Robinson . . . And I'm just researching Mrs Frances Fitzgibbon, who used to live here, just across the Green, in Gardener's Cottage — Captain Fitzgibbon's widow — perhaps you remember her — ?

Only . . . there are these two men, just on the other side of the Green — one of them is wearing a check sports jacket, and he's tall. . . and the other is short and plump, in a grey dummy2

suit . . . But I think they may have been following me. And now I think they may want to kill me—I know that sounds silly, but they may just have killed my associate, Mr Reginald Buller — formerly of the Metropolitan Police Force . . . So, do you think that I might use your telephone —

or your lavatory — ? Or could I please cower in one of your attics, perhaps? Can I take sanctuary with you — ?'

One of them was moving left, round the Green. And the little fat one was advancing across the grass, towards him—

Sanctuary — ?

He did know someone in Lower Buckland: the old priest, in his long black cassock — the Vicar? the Rector? — had spoken to him. And the church was right behind him — and the Vicarage — Rectory? — was just somewhere behind that, through the churchyard: he had glimpsed it round the back

— and the priest himself had indicated it at the end of their encounter, after he'd pronounced on the Fitzgibbons, beneath their stone in his churchyard, and very lovingly —

With Check Sports Jacket and Grey Suit converging on him purposefully, the thought of knocking on strange doors and seeking safety no longer embarrassed him: it was no longer a question of feeling foolish, but of which door — ? And Check Jacket decided that for him by accelerating towards the silver Volvo and thereby eliminating the door behind it (which might not, in any case, have opened up quickly enough). But Grey Suit (who was not so much short and plump as dummy2

menacingly thickset and powerful at close range) had already reached the furthest end of the churchyard wall, not far from the lych-gate in it.

Ian ducked under the overhanging yew-tree branches and sprang on to the top of the wall with an agility which surprised him — it was as though his arms and legs, once released from their brain's indecision, knew damn well what to do when it came to physical self-preservation —

He landed awkwardly in a pile of grass-cuttings, but the arms adjusted his balance and the legs kicked strongly, launching him out and away at immediate top-speed among the gravestones. At the same time, nevertheless, his brain cautioned him that perhaps even now he was piling up mistake on mistake: back there, on the edge of the Village Green, he had at least been out in the open, where there might have been watching eyes in the houses on its other three sides to see whatever might have happened next. But here, among the stones — Richard Glover, 1810-1894 —

Edmund Chapman, 1785-1847 — Martha Chapman, 1821-1867 — William Thomas Eden, 1712- 1790 — this could be where Ian Drury Robinson might end up — 1958-1987 —

and no one the wiser: this might even be where Check Jacket and Grey Suit had been quite deliberately driving him —

God!

He jinked round an ancient weathered gravestone, and skidded to a halt, steadying himself on its finial, the gritty surface of which sandpapered his hand —

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A grinning skull-and-crossbones, spattered with yellow-grey splodges of lichen, mocked him: George Wellbeloved, beloved husband —

They were both almost inside the churchyard now, so there was no question that he had been imagining persecution where there was none: he was their target, whatever their final intention — and, with this obscene confidence of theirs, half-hurrying, half wnhurrying, he wasn't going to wait to find out what might be on their minds, in this too-private graveyard.

He pushed himself away from George Wellbeloved's stone, twisting on one heel in the soft rough-cut grass, and took three strides. And stopped.

He was trapped —

He swayed, beginning to half-turn. And then stopped the turn as its purpose became irrelevant: he knew what was behind him, because he had assessed it only a moment before. So now he knew what it was in front of him —