wanted Elsie, and I wanted Danny, and they were all that I wanted. ‘Fuck you, Danny, I’m not going to sit around moping,’ I muttered under my breath.
‘
‘What?’ I frowned and looked round, startled out of my reverie. It was the man with the close-cropped head.
‘Your outfit. You’ve come as a character from
‘Never seen it.’
‘It was a compliment. You look like one of the characters who break into the houses of blindly respectable people and shake them up a bit.’
I surveyed the room.
‘You think this lot need shaking up?’
He laughed.
‘Call me a wet liberal, but after an evening like this, I start to think that the Khmer Rouge had the right idea. Raze all the cities. Kill everybody wearing spectacles. Drive the rest out into the fields and turn them into manual labourers.’
‘You wear spectacles yourself.’
‘Not all the time.’
I looked at the man and he looked at me. After thirty seconds’ acquaintance I would say that he was the most attractive man I had met since I had left London. He raised his glass in an ironic toast, displaying a wedding ring. Oh, well.
‘You’re a friend of Dr Michael Daley.’
‘We’re not exactly friends.’
‘The hunting doctor.’
‘What?’
‘You’ve heard of the flying doctor. And the radio doctor. And the singing nun. Michael Daley is the hunting doctor.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘What I say. He rides horses which ride after wild animals and sometimes catch them, and tears them apart. And the triumphant hunters then daub entrails on to each others’ faces. Another of those country traditions you were being lectured about.’
‘I didn’t know Michael did that. I can’t imagine him hunting somehow.’
‘I’m Frank, by the way.’
‘I’m…’
‘I know who you are. You’re Dr Samantha Laschen. I’ve read some of your very interesting articles about the construction of illness. And I know that you’re setting up the new trauma unit at Stamford General. The Stamford Trust’s potential new cash cow.’
‘That isn’t precisely its point,’ I said with as much asperity as I could express with a straight face. Frank’s ambiguously probing and humorous manner both attracted and unsettled me.
‘Well now, Sam, we must meet for a drink some time in a real place, and we can discuss subjects such as how the function and purpose of something like your trauma unit can be different from what it first appears.’
‘Sounds a bit abstract to me.’
‘How is the unit going?’
‘I’m starting in the summer.’
‘So what are you doing now?’
‘A book and things.’
‘Things?’
Frank took not a glass but an entire bottle of white wine from a passing tray and filled our two glasses. I looked ruminatively at his wedding ring once more, a feeling of recklessness that was just another way of being unhappy rising in me. He looked at me with narrowed, thoughtful eyes.
‘You’re a paradox, you know. You’re here at the house of Laura and Gordon Sims, but you’re not, thank goodness, a member of their circle of bridge players and tuft-hunters. You arrive at the party with Michael Daley but you claim not to be a friend. It’s all quite mysterious. Why would an expert in traumatic stress…?’
‘Hello, professor.’
Frank turned.
‘Why, it’s the hunting doctor. I’ve been telling Dr Laschen about your hobbies.’
‘Have you told her about your own hobbies?’
‘I have no hobbies.’
I turned to Michael and was surprised to see his jaw set in anger. He looked at me.
‘I should explain to you, Sam, that Frank Laroue is one of the theorists behind all the barn-burning and veal- protesting and laboratory break-ins.’
Frank gave an ironic bow of the head.
‘You natter me, doctor, but I don’t think that activists need instruction from a humble academic like me. You are far more effective on the other side.’
‘What do you mean?’
Frank winked at me.
‘You shouldn’t be so modest about your recreational activities, Dr Daley. Let me blow his trumpet for him. He is the adviser to an informal secret committee composed of academics and policemen and other stalwart citizens, which monitors the actions and publications of people like me, who are concerned with ecological issues, ensuring that we can be harassed occasionally,
Michael didn’t reply. ‘I’m afraid we have to go now, Sam.’
Michael had taken my arm, which in itself tempted me to resist and stay, but I yielded to the pressure.
‘See you,’ said Frank in a low voice as I passed him.
‘Was that true, what Frank said about you?’ I asked when we were back in the car. Michael started the car and we drove away.
‘Yes, I ride to hounds. Yes, I advise a committee which monitors the activities of these terrorists.’ There was a long silence as we left Stamford. ‘Is this a problem?’ he said, finally.
‘I don’t know,’ I said. ‘Something about it leaves a bad taste. You should have told me.’
‘I know I should,’ he said. ‘I’m sorry.’
‘It’s all so childish,’ I said. ‘People spying on each other.’
Michael veered sharply, braked and came to a halt. He turned the key and the car shivered and fell silent. I could hear the sea, softly, down below. He turned to me. I could only see his silhouette, not his expression.
‘It isn’t childish,’ he said. ‘Do you remember Chris Woodeson, the behavioural science researcher?’
‘Yes, I know about that.’
‘We all know that behavioural scientists put rats in mazes, don’t we? So somebody sent him a parcel bomb which blew his face off, blinded him. He has three children, you know.’
‘Yes, I know.’
‘Frank Laroue can be charming sometimes, the ladies love him, but he plays with ideas and sometimes other people put them into practice and he doesn’t take responsibility.’
‘Yes, but…’
‘I’m sorry, I should have told you this earlier. Baird told me not to tell you, but I’m going to tell you anyway. There’s a magazine published by animal activists, it’s illegal and underground and all that, and it prints the addresses of people who are claimed to be torturers of animals, as an obvious invitation to people to take action against them. In December, an edition of the magazine appeared with the home address of Leo Mackenzie, pharmaceutical millionaire.’
‘For God’s sake, Michael, why wasn’t I told about that? Baird just mentioned animal activists vaguely, as a possibility; he never told me about a direct connection.’
‘It wasn’t my decision.’
