been swallowed whole.
And here, suddenly, was another name that was instantly recognisable, now that Dirk was attuned to the sort of names he should be looking for. Roderick Mercer, the world's greatest publisher of the world's sleaziest newspapers. Dirk hadn't at first spotted the name with the unfamiliar '...erick' in place after the 'Rod'. Well, well, well. . .
Now here were people, thought Dirk suddenly, who had really got something. Certainly they had got rather more than a nice little house in Lupton Road with some dried flowers lying around the place. They also had the great advantage of having heads on their shoulders as well, unless Dirk had missed something new and dramatic on the news. What did that all mean? What was this contract? How come everybody whose hands it had been through had been so astoundingly successful except for one, Geoffrey Anstey? Everybody whose hands it had passed through had benefited from it except for the one who had it last. Who had still got it.
It was a hot potato. .
You better not have it when the big one comes. The notion suddenly formed in Dirk's mind that it might have been Geoffrey Anstey himself who had overheard a conversation about a hot potato, about getting rid of it, passing it on. If he remembered correctly the interview he had read with Pain, he didn't say that he himself had overheard the conversation.
You better not have it when the big one comes.
The notion was a horrible one and ran on like this:
Geo ffrey Anstey had been pathetically nave. He had overheard this conversation, between - who? Dirk picked up the envelope and ran over the list of names - and had thought that it had a good dance rhythm. He had not for a moment realised that what he was listening to was a conversation that would result in his own hideous death. He had got a hit record out of it, and when the real hot potato was actually handed to him he had picked it up.
Don't pick it up, pick it up, pick it up.
And instead of taking the advice he had recorded in thc words of the song...
Quick, pass it on, pass it on, pass it on.
... he had stuck it behind the gold record award on his bathroom wall.
You better not have it when the big one comes.
Dirk frowned and took a long, slow thoughtful drag on his pencil.
This was ridiculous.
He had to got some cigarettes if he was going to think this through with any intellectual rigour. He pulled on his coat, stuffed his hat on his head and made for the window.
The window hadn't been opened for - well, certainly not during his ownership of the house, and it struggled and screamed at the sudden unaccustomed invasion of its space and independence. Once he had forced it wide enough, Dirk struggled out on to the windowsill, pulling swathes of leather coat out with him. From here it was a bit of a jump to the pavement since there was a lower ground floor to the house with a narrow flight of steps leading down to it in the front. A line of iron railings separated these from the pavement, and Dirk had to get clear over these.
Without hesitating for a moment he made the jump, and it was in mid-bound that he realised he had not pickcd up his car keys from the kitchen table where he'd left them.
He considered as he sailed gracelessly through the air whether or not to execute a wild mid-air twist, make a desperate grab backwards for the window and hope that he might just manage to hold on to the sill, but decided on mature reflection that an error at this point might just conceivably kill him whereas the walk would probably do him good.
He landed heavily on the far side of the railings, but the tails of his coat became entangled with them and he had to pull them off, tearing part of the lining in the process. Once the ringing shock in his knees had subsided and he had recovered what little composure the events of the day had left him with, he realised that it was now well after eleven o'clock and the pubs would be shut, and he might have a longer walk than he had bargained for to find some cigarettes.
He considered what to do.
The current outlook and state of mind of tbe eagle was a major factor to be taken into account here. The only way to get his car keys now was back through the front door into his eagleinfested hallway.
Moving with great caution he tip-toed back up the steps to his front door, squatted down and, hoping that the damn thing wasn't going to squeak, gently pushed up the flap of the letterbox and peered through.
In an instant a talon was hooked into the back of his hand and a great screeching beak slashed at his eye, narrowly missing it but scratching a great gouge across his much abused nose.
Dirk howled with pain and lurched backwards, not getting very far because he still had a talon hooked in his hand. He lashed out desperately and hit at the talon, which hurt him considerably, dug the sharp point even further into his flesh and caused a great, barging flurry on the far side of the door, each tiniest movement of which tugged heavily in his hand.
He grabbed at the great claw with his free hand and and tried to tug it back out of himself. It was immensely strong, and was shaking with the fury of the eagle, which was as trapped as he was. At last, quivering with pain, he managed to release himself, and pulled his injured hand back, nursing and cuddling it with the other.
The eagle pulled its claw back sharply, and Dirk heard it flapping away back down his hallway, emitting terrible screeches and cries, its great wings colliding with and scraping thc walls.
Dirk toyed with the idea of burning the house down, but once the throbbing in his hand had begun to subside a little he calmed down and tried, if he could, to see things from the eagle's point of view.
He couldn't.
He had not the faintest idea how things appeared to eagles in general, much less to this particular eagle,
