strength. Dilutes the inner fluids.'
'Could I have another pint of milk?'
'Jesus, lad! Is there no end to the harm you're willing to do yourself?' But he went out to fetch the milk, and when he returned he swapped the bottle for the empty glass in Jonathan's hand.
Jonathan pulled off the metal lid and drank half the pint down without taking the bottle from his lips. 'Good. I'm feeling a lot better.'
'Maybe. But not good enough, my boy. There's no way in the world you could go along with me tonight. Not with your shoulder like that. Say! They got your beak too, did they?'
'No, I did that myself. Falling from a mantel.'
'...a mantel?'
'Yes. I climbed up there to keep awake.'
'Oh, yes.'
'But I fell off again.'
'...I see. I'll tell you one thing, Jon. I'm glad I'm not in academics. Too demanding by half.'
'Look, Mac. You're sure you can get into the Gallery tonight?'
MacTaint looked at him narrowly. 'You ain't in no condition to come along, I tell you. And I ain't having you put sand in my tank.'
'I know. I recognize that.' Jonathan reached over and poured milk into his tumbler, then he put in a good tot of whiskey. 'Tell me how you're going to get the Chardin.'
MacTaint looked around for a glass for himself and, not finding one, he dumped the toothbrushes out of a cup on the sink and used that. Then he made himself comfortable on the lid of the toilet seat. 'I go right up the outside of the building. They got scaffolding up for steam cleaning the facade. All part of 'Keep London Tidy.' And no chance of being seen, what with the canvas flaps they got hung on the scaffolding to keep the dirt and water from getting on blokes below. The window latch is in position, but it doesn't do nothin'. I've had a lad working on it with a file, bit by bit, for the past two months. I just nip up the scaffolding, in through the window, and do the dirty to the national art treasures.'
'Guards?'
'Lazy old arseholes waiting for their pensions to come through. It'll only take a couple of seconds to swap my Chardin for theirs.'
Jonathan turned on the hot water with his toes and felt the warmth eddy up under his legs, stinging afresh his scuffs and cuts. 'Tell me, Mac. How much do you expect to make from the Chardin?'
'Five, maybe seven thousand quid. Why?'
'There's something I want in there. Just one chamber away. I'll give you five thousand for it.'
'You've got that much?'
'A man gave me ten thousand to do something for him. I'll split it with you.'
'A painting?'
'No. Several reels of film. They're inside a hollow bronze horse by Marini that's on display in the next chamber.'
MacTaint scratched at the top of his head, then studiously regarded a fleck of scruff on his fingernail. 'And you were going to get it while you were along with me?'
'Right.'
'Even though that might have fucked up my business?'
'That's right.'
'You're a proper villain, Jonathan.'
'True.'
'A bronze horse, you say? How do I get away with it? I mean, I might attract a little attention running through the streets, dragging a bronze horse behind me.'
'You'll have to break the horse with a hammer. One big blow will crack it.'
'I can't help feeling the guards might hear that.'
'I'm sure they will. You'll have to move like hell. That's why I'm offering you so much money.'
MacTaint clawed at the flaky whiskers under his chin meditatively. 'Five thousand, eh?'
'Five thousand.'
'What's on the film?'
Jonathan shook his head.
'Well, I suppose that was a mug's question.' He wiped the sweat from his face with the cuff of his overcoat. 'It's hot in here.'
'Yes, and close too.' Jonathan had been trying to breathe only in shallow oral breaths since MacTaint had entered. 'Well?'
MacTaint scratched his ear meditatively, then he squished his bulbous, carmine-veined nose about with the palm of his hand. 'All right,' he said finally. 'I'll get your damned film for you.'
'That's great, Mac.'
'Yes, yes,' he growled.
'When will you get back here with it?'
'About an hour and a half. Or, if they catch me, in about eleven years.'
'Can you drop the film off at my place in Mayfair?'
'Why not?'
'I'll give you the address. You're a wonderful man, MacTaint.'
'A bloody vast fool is what I am.' He shuffled off to find some clothes as Jonathan rose to get out of the bath. Jonathan was temporarily arrested by a bolt of pain in his shoulder, but it passed off and he was able to dry himself one-handedly, with some stiff acrobatics.
'Here you go,' MacTaint said, returning with a pile of rags. 'They're me own. Of course, they ain't my best, and they may not fit so well, but beggars and choosers, you know. And take those frigging cannons with you. I don't want them laying about the place.'
Getting into the clothes was an olfactory martyrdom, and Jonathan promised himself another shower directly he got to his apartment.
He got to his apartment later than he would have guessed, having to walk all the way, despite the five pounds MacTaint had given him. A few late-prowling taxis had come within sight, but they had not stopped at his signal; indeed they had accelerated. The clothes.
As he got his key from the ledge over the door, he heard his phone ring within. He fumbled at the lock in his haste because all the way home he had been thinking of calling Maggie to tell her it was all over and he was safe.
'Yes?'
Yank's phony American accent was a great disappointment. 'I've been calling everywhere for you. Where have you been?'
'I've been busy.'
'Yes, I know.' There was a flabby sound to Yank's voice; he had not fully recovered from his booze-up on Vanessa's whiskey during his self-indulgent crisis of disgust. 'I'm calling from The Cloisters.'
'What are you doing there?'
'We just raided the place, figuring you might be in hot water. You left quite a mess behind you. The place is deserted—that is, there are no living people here.'
'I assume Loo is going to cover all that up for me?'
'Oh, sure. Look, I'm on my way out to the Vicarage. Want me to drop by and pick you and the films up?'
'I don't have the films yet.'
There was a pause. 'You don't have them?'
'Don't panic. I'll have them in an hour, then I'll pick up Miss Coyne and meet you at the Vicarage.'
'Miss Coyne's already on her way. I called her to find out if she knew where you were. She didn't, of course, so I told her we'd meet her there.'
'I see. Well, don't bother to pick me up. If we drove out together, you'd talk to me. And I don't need
