The Memory Trap

bring him in, then Henry Jaggard will have something to bargain with tomorrow. You tell him that: tell him to tell General Voyshinski that Dr Audley and Major Richardson have been talking together about the old days. That might spark a bit of much-needed glasnost in him.'

4

Everything depended on memory now.

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First, there were the old precautions, even though he was tolerably certain that, of all cars, Mitchell's ridiculous pride-and-joy would not be bugged for easy following as the office Rover had been. But here, in the darkness and solitude of this deep Cotswold countryside of tiny roads and rolling hills, he had the advantage, anyway: no vehicle could move in it without lights, and from each crest the undisturbed night behind reassured him.

His only fear was that he wouldn't find the place again, after so many years: here, the darkness was not his friend, forcing him to drive by the map, squinting at every signpost, noting the mileages he had memorized, and finally counting off the side-roads in the maze until he found the track on its hillside at last.

But then, quite suddenly, he was sure, against all doubt.

There were dangers out there — all the old horrors, and the negotium perambulans in tenebris — the Foul Fiend himself, if not General Lukianov. But they were far away. And this was the place. Because, in a world of untruth and half-truth, Her Majesty's Ordnance Survey maps and his own memory never lied.

Even . . . although the track was narrower than he remembered, and the hedges higher ... he was prepared for the unavoidable potholes, including the boggy stretch where the spring on the hillside above oozed out of the bank and crossed the track without the luxury of a culvert.

Everthing depended on memory —

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The cottage comforted him even more, it was so photographically exact. The years had added a few feet to the slow-growing holly-trees, and to the magnolia which had struggled bravely annually with the English winters and the late spring frosts, just as his own did at home. And the Porsche's fiercely-glaring headlights yellowed the Cotswold stonework and turned the moss black on the slates of the roof while taking out all the colour from the autumn flowers by the porch. Yet every difference served only to confirm his memory of the place.

For a moment after he extinguished the car's lights the darkness engulfed him again, and the newly-loosened knot in his stomach tightened again. Then the porch-light snapped on before he reached the door.

As he stepped into the circle of light he heard a chain jangle on the other side of the door, then the snap of a bolt. Then the door opened as far as the chain would allow.

'Can I help you?'

'I hope so, Mrs Kenyon.' She had spoken so softly that he didn't even try to recall the voice. And she was standing at such an angle to the porch-light that he couldn't see her face while she could see his. 'Is it Mrs Kenyon?'

'What d'you want?'

The relief which came after certainty was almost an anti-climax. 'You remember me, Mrs Kenyon. I came here once, with a friend of yours — one morning long ago. We stayed for dummy1

lunch. Your husband was in hospital at the time. You were busy planting the garden — begonias and petunias. It was in May . . . My name's Audley — David Audley. You remember me, don't you?'

She breathed out: it was as though she had held her breath as he had re-created his day in May long ago for her. 'I remember you, Dr Audley.'

'Then you know what I want, Mrs Kenyon. Can I come in?'

Sophie Kenyon chewed on that for a moment. 'I remember you. But I'd still like to see your identification.'

'Of course.' He waited patiently. 'Very sensible.'

'Thank you.' But she remained unmoving. 'Is there anyone with you?'

'No. I am quite alone, Mrs Kenyon. I have been very careful, I do assure you.' He smiled at her. 'Quite alone. Quite unarmed. And quite cold.'

She unchained the door. One step down, he remembered.

And then mind the beams (although that did not call for any special memory-trick: the old English had been a stunted race, and he had learnt to stoop automatically in parts of his own home from his fifteenth year onwards).

The smell of the house refined remembrance further. Every house had its smell, but old-house smells were more individual and distinctive, mostly derived from the working of damp on their building materials. And in this house the damp had been memorable; although now there were hints dummy1

of wood-smoke and hot cooking added to it, as one might expect in October. And also, just possibly, dog (he wrinkled his nose at that: dog he couldn't recall from that last time, as he surely ought to if there had been one: it would have barked its way into his memory then; and, as an after-dark visitor now, it ought to have barked even louder at his arrival this evening).

'You know where to go?' There was a curious intentness in the question.

'It's this door, isn't it?' There damn-well was a dog-paw scratch mark on the lowest corner of the door, all the same —

he caught himself staring at it.

'Yes. What's the matter?'