A Prospect of Vengeance

'Funny that — putting his picture in.' Buller nodded. 'Like . . .

careless? But then, they're all a law unto themselves, they are, in 'R & D'. They make their own rules, it seems.'

'He's supposed to be finding a safe house for us at the moment, Reg.' Jenny had also been reading the signals. 'He said we weren't safe here.'

'He did?' Buller almost seemed preoccupied. 'Well, I'd say he's right there. If I thought of here . . . when you didn't go to your dad's place — as maybe you ought to have done . . .' He crossed over to the door and applied a big blunt finger to the bell, leaning on it unmercifully. 'He couldn't have touched you there.'

Ian didn't look at her. 'What d'you know about Mitchell that we don't know, Reg?' But then he looked at her. 'Or what do you know, Jen?' He struggled for an instant with his own knowledge. 'He's a colleague of Audley's — or maybe a friend, even?'

She was staring at Reg. 'He's up-and-coming — isn't he? Jack Butler and St John Latimer . . . isn't he one of their blue-eyed boys?' Now she turned to Ian. 'I rather think we should be flattered — or, you should be, anyway, darling: they put one of their top men on your tail today.'

' Huh!' Buller chased down the last of his beer with one hand, and then stabbed the bell again. 'Top Gun' is more like it, Lady! Come on! Come on!' He edited his face as he returned dummy2

it to them. 'You'd think little Abdul 'ud be glad to see the back of us!' He gave Ian a mildly inquiring look. 'An' what

'appened to this Irish bloke — Paddy MacWhats-it — ? Did you actually set eyes on 'im, then?'

'Yes.' Where Jenny sweated, he felt cold, contrariwise. And now he was freezing. 'But only at a distance — '

'An' now 'e's playin' 'is Irish 'arp — like on the Guinness labels — ?' The inquiry became harder. 'But you don't look that scared, I must say!'

The door opened before Ian could reply, just as what Reg Buller was plainly implying and what had actually happened at Lower Buckland began to diverge confus-ingly, and Buller himself sprang away from it to one side, with surprising agility.

'Madam — ' Mr Malik addressed Jenny, and then flinched from Reg Buller as he became aware of him ' — Madam —

you come, eh?'

'We come.' Buller gestured at them both. 'Double quick, we come!' And double-quick, they came, with Reg Buller's urgency transmitting itself to them, into the warm happy curry-smells on the landing, and round the banisters, and down the stairs.

'Your coat, sir — your hat . . . your — ' The false whiskers baffled Mr Malik ' — Mr Buller, sir — !'

'A lady'll come for them — ' Buller was already pushing them

' — which way — the back-way — ?'

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'The lady's coat — it is raining — damn cats-and-dogs — '

The little man shouted something in his own language, suddenly no longer despairing but commanding.

One of his smaller waiters, who had been smiling encouragingly at the bottom of the stairs, stopped smiling and began to search feverishly among the coats hung above him.

'Your dinner, sir — ' Another waiter presented Ian with two large plastic bags, one after another, with a similar smile firmly in place. 'Three extra-special — double hot lime, double chilli — ' He offered the bags to Ian ' — you come this way, please — '

'Where's the beer?' From behind Reg Buller had sorted out his priorities, grabbing the bag which had clinked from Ian.

'Lady — just take the next coat — they're all the same — '

Ian lost the rest of the exchange as he entered the kitchen, half in a daze as its heat and steam and concentrated smells-and-sizzling overwhelmed him: and bright light and stainless-steel and great bowls and frying pans — and there was a door open down the end, offering escape — but what was he escaping from — ?

'Go on, Ian lad.' Buller's voice shouted from behind him, urging him forward down the aisles between the huge tables and the cooking ranges, even as the question answered itself, but then still left itself unanswered: he was running away from Paul Mitchell — from Paul Mitchell, who was worried about his safety — ?

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He issued out of the kitchen, past a series of rough-painted doors into a small yard lit by a single bulb which seemed all the dimmer for the huge canopy of darkness above it. A thin drizzle shimmered in the yellow light, far removed from Mr Malik's cats-and-dogs' rain.

Then he saw the 'damn great wall': it was certainly well-furnished with broken glass set in concrete, but otherwise it had been even more exaggerated than the weather, being only waist-high to the waiter who was even now draping sacks over the jagged glass topping it. Behind it, through a thin screen of bushes, he could see the lights of the houses backing on to the opposite side of the invisible railway track.

'This is ridiculous, Mr Buller.' Jenny caught his own unspoken thought exactly. 'Why do we have to go grubbing around in the dark out there — ?' She waved at the wall and their latest grinning waiter, whose white teeth shone yellow in the light of the single bulb on the side of the house above them. 'What's so terrible out there in front, for God's sake?'

'You tell me, Lady.' Reg Duller sounded cheerfully unrepentant. 'I've been up the street once all the way, with my kind lady-friend on my arm, an' kissed her goodnight at the bottom, whiskers an' all. And then come half-way