nobody has called the Fire Department.'
'Nobody called...You mean my wife didn't call...' Hutchmeyer gaped at Greensleeves.
'Your wife? You mean you didn't have your wife with you out in the bay on board your cruiser?'
'Certainly not,' said Hutchmeyer, 'I've told you already I wasn't on my cruiser. My cruiser tried to ram me on my yacht and blew up and...'
'So where's Mrs Hutchmeyer?'
Hutchmeyer looked around desperately. 'I've no idea,' he said.
'Okay, take him down the station,' said the Police Chief, 'we'll go into this thing more thoroughly down there.' Hutchmeyer was bundled into the back of the police car and presently they were on their way into Bellsworth. By the time they reached the station Hutchmeyer was in an advanced state of shock.
So was Piper. The fire, the exploding cruiser, the arrival of the fire engines and police cars with their wailing sirens and finally the rapid machine-gun fire from the romper room had all served to undermine what little power of self-assertion he had ever possessed. As the firemen ran for cover and the police dropped to the ground he allowed himself to be led away through the woods by Baby. They hurried along a path and came out in the garden of another large house. People were standing outside the front door gazing at the smoke and flames roaring into the air over the trees. Baby hesitated a moment and then, taking advantage of the cover of some bushes, dragged Piper along below the house and into the woods on the other side.
'Where are we going?' Piper asked after another half mile. 'I mean we can't just walk away like this as if nothing had happened.'
'You want to go back?' hissed Baby.
Piper said he didn't.
'Right, so we've got to get some mileage,' said Baby. They went on and passed three more houses. After two miles Piper protested again.
'They're bound to wonder what's become of us,' he said.
'Let them wonder,' said Baby.
'I don't see that's going to do us any good,' said Piper. They are going to find out you deliberately set fire to the house and then there's the cruiser. It's got all my things on it.'
'It had all your things on it. Right now they're not on it any more. They're either at the bottom of the bay or they're floating around alongside my mink. When they find them you know what they're going to think?'
'No,' said Piper.
Baby giggled. 'They're going to think we went with them.'
'Went with them?'
'Like we're dead,' said Baby with another sinister giggle. Piper didn't see anything to laugh about. Death even by proxy wasn't a joke and besides he had lost his passport. It had been in the suitcase with his precious ledgers.
'Right, so they'll know you're dead,' said Baby when he pointed this out to her. 'Like I said, we have to make a break with the past. So we've made it. Completely. We're free. We can go anywhere and do anything. We've broken the fetters of circumstance.'
'You may see it that way,' said Piper, 'I can't say I do. As far as I'm concerned the fetters of circumstance happen to be a lot stronger than they ever were before all this happened.'
'Oh you're just a pessimist,' said Baby. 'I mean you've got to look on the bright side.'
Piper did. Even the bay was lit up by the conflagration and a number of boats had gathered offshore to watch the blaze.
'And just how do you think you're going to explain all this?' he said, forgetting for the moment that he was free and that there was no going back. Baby turned on him violently.
