'Groxbourne. You said you'd do everything possible to find poor Peregrine and I'm holding you to it.'
Mr Clyde-Browne hung onto the door sill. 'But I can't drive all that way in my condition.'
'Possibly not,' said Mrs Clyde-Browne, 'but I can. And since we haven't unpacked, we can leave straight away.'
Mr Clyde-Browne climbed submissively into the seat beside her. 'I just hope to hell you know what you're doing,' he moaned, 'and you'd better be prepared to stop fairly frequently.'
'I do and I am,' she said with a terseness he'd never heard before.
An hour later, his experience of the three motorway toilets his wife had allowed him to use had been so revolting that he was half disposed to think more highly of Italians. 'If further proof were needed that this country's gone to the dogs...'
'Never mind about the country,' snapped Mrs Clyde-Browne, hurtling past a petrol tanker at ninety miles an hour, 'What I want to know is where Peregrine has gone to. You don't seem to realize our son is lost.'
Mr Clyde-Browne checked his safety belt again. 'Not the only thing we'll lose if you continue to drive...Mind that flaming motorbike! Dear God!'
All in all it had been a hair-raising journey and by the time the car skidded to a halt outside the school office Mr Clyde-Browne was in a state of shock and his wife wasn't to be trifled with.
'I'm not trifling with you,' said the School Secretary indignantly, 'I am simply telling you that the Headmaster is on holiday.'
'Where?'
'On the Isle of Skye. I can find the address of his cottage if you like. He's not on the phone.'
But Mr Clyde-Browne had heard enough. To ward off the terrifying possibility that his wife might insist on driving through the night to the West Coast of Scotland he interposed himself between them. 'Our son Peregrine is missing,' he said, 'He was supposed to go on the Survival Course in Wales. He has not returned home. Now since Major Fetherington was in charge of the course he's in loco parentis, and...'
'He's not,' said the secretary, 'he's in the Sanatorium. If you ask Matron nicely she may let you see him. It's across the quad and up the steps by the chapel.'
'Impudent hussy,' said Mrs Clyde-Browne when they left the office. Her husband said nothing. As they marched across the grim quad and past the looming chapel, he was praying that Peregrine hadn't been left in Wales. The notion of being driven there was almost as bad as Scotland.
'Is there anyone about?' Mrs Clyde-Browne shouted when they found the Sanatorium and had tried several empty rooms in vain. At the end of the passage a door opened and a woman peered out.
'We want to see Major Fetherington,' said Mr Clyde-Browne.
The woman looked doubtful. 'I'm just giving him a bed-bath,' she muttered, 'If you'll just wait a minute...'
But Mrs Clyde-Brown wasn't waiting for a second. Pushing past her husband, she bore down on the Matron. For a moment there was a confused scuffle and then the Matron managed to shut the door and lock it.
'Bed-bath indeed!' said Mrs Clyde-Browne, when she had got her breath back. 'If you'd seen what I saw...'
'Which, thankfully I didn't,' said her husband, 'now for good ness sake try and get a grip on yourself...'
'Grip on myself? I like that. If you ask me those two were...'
'I daresay,' snapped Mr Clyde-Browne, 'but if we're to get the Major's co-operation you're not going to help matters by intruding on his private affairs.'
