A Prospect of Vengeance

Ian stared at the door. 'Phew!'

' Shit!' murmured the Honourable Miss Jennifer Field-ing-ffulke.

'What?' He hated to hear her swear.

'Did he really save your life?' She was angry.

Ian pressed his video-buttons, re-winding fast and trying not to see the reversal, which always reduced reality to comedy; but then, as he played forward again slowly, frame by frame, without sound, the reality became frozen into a succession of unrealities, turning the horror film he had lived through into single pictures, like the stills outside the cinema.

'I don't know.' He tried to add up Mitchell — Combat Jacket to Dr Paul Mitchell. 'But I think he thinks he did, Jenny.'

'He was lying.'

'What?' He couldn't complete the addition. But there were certain pictures he couldn't forget. 'I don't know. But ... I don't think so, Jenny — '

'I mean, he knows one hell of a lot more than he's saying, Ian.'

That was true! She hadn't been there, in the churchyard, or afterwards. But Paul Mitchell knew one hell of a lot more about Mrs Frances Fitzgibbon — that was true!

'About Audley — by God, he does!' She crossed over towards dummy2

the heavy curtains at the window. 'Never mind Philly—Audley

—!'

That was different — Audley was different. And ... she knew more about Mitchell, too — more even than she had let Mitchell himself see.

'What about him, Jenny — Mitchell, I mean — ?' He cursed their failure to communicate in the few minutes they had had, when they'd thrown away their advantages, so that they'd had to play the game cold just now.

'He's R & D from way back.' She touched the curtain, but then turned back to him. ''P. L. Mitchell' — doesn't the name mean anything to you, Ian? You're supposed to be the literary one — the literate one? Half of them are bloody authors, in their spare time — P. L. Mitchell?' She shook her head irritably. ' Or Neville Macready? You're not an economist, of course . . . but ' Hayek and Keynes' — you must have seen Macready's book reviewed in the FT, or the Sunday Times, or somewhere. Because even I did . . . even though I didn't read the reviews. But Macready is R & D —

he's their economist, actually. And Audley's their medieval historian ... for all the good that does them!' She touched the curtain again. 'And P. L. Mitchell — ' She peered into the gap

' — Dr Paul Mitchell—'

'What are you looking at?' What she knew, which he didn't know, needled him more than what she was doing — which was obvious, now he thought about it. 'A big silver Volvo, Jenny. And it's parked right outside the door, on double dummy2

yellow lines . . . But he could be back in the phone-box again

— '

He saw the curtain tighten sharply, almost convulsively, as she held on to it. And, for a foolish half-second, didn't understand why. And then he realized that she was holding on to it, as her knees buckled, to stop her falling —

' Jenny — ' In the next half-second he was holding her, and she was a dead-weight as she let go of the curtain, and he took the strain. And the weight was nothing — she was light as thistledown, with her hair in his face, and what little there was of her in his arms; much more than the childish weight, he could smell her — he had seen her sweat before, as all red-headed girls always did, with those dark patches under her arms, when she hadn't changed her dress in Lebanon —

when her dress had been sweaty and dirty, that time . . . But now, when she was in his arms and close to him — she might have been sweating before, but she was throwing it off like an animal now, mixed with her own additional expensive commercial smell, which was always with her ' — hold up, Jenny!'

She stiffened, her legs suddenly obeying her will again, pushing her body upwards and then letting him manoeuvre her sideways towards the nearest chair.

Then, without warning, she started resisting him, trying to throw off his arms. 'No! Let me go — '

That was more like her: Jenny never fainted — that was her own boast. But she'd never been closer to giving the lie to dummy2

that than just now, all the same.

'I want to look — let go, Ian!' She struggled weakly. 'I want —

'

'No!' He pressed down hard on her shoulder, thumping her into the chair. ' I'll look, damn it!' He twisted round her, to get his back to the wall as he parted the inside edge of the curtain, knowing simultaneously that he wanted to look, yet didn't want to — and that this was the wrong way to look, anyway — not extinguishing the light first, before he looked.

But the hell with that!

'Well?' She whispered the question.