coast of Ireland.
‘So you’re his father?’
Snood walked through to the kitchen but I wasn’t going to let it go.
‘So how is he? Where’s he living these days?’
The old man fumbled with the kettle.
‘I find it hard to talk about Filbert,’ he announced at length, dabbing the corner of his mouth with a handkerchief. ‘It was
‘He’s dead?’ I asked.
‘Oh no,’ murmured the old man. ‘He’s not dead; I think you were told he was unavoidably detained, yes?’
‘Yes. I thought he had found someone else or something.’
‘We thought you would understand; your father was or is, I suppose, in the ChronoGuard and we use certain—let me see—
He looked at me intently with clear blue eyes staring through heavy lids. My heart thumped heavily. ‘What are you saying?’ I asked him.
The old man thought about saying something else but then lapsed into silence, paused for a moment and then shuffled back to the main room to mark up videotape labels. There was obviously more to it than just a girl in Tewkesbury, but time was on my side. I let the matter drop.
It gave me a chance to look around the room. A trestle table against one damp wall was stacked with surveillance equipment. A Revox spool-to-spool tape recorder slowly revolved next to a mixing box that placed all seven bugs in the room opposite and the phone line on to eight different tracks of the tape. Set back from the windows were two binoculars, a camera with a powerful telephoto lens, and next to this a video camera recording at slow speed on to a ten-hour tape.
Tamworth looked up from the binoculars. ‘Welcome, Thursday. Come and have a look!’ I looked through the binoculars. In the flat opposite, not thirty yards distant, I could see a well-dressed man aged perhaps fifty with a pinched face and a concerned expression. He seemed to be on the phone.
‘That’s not him.’
Tamworth smiled. ‘I know. This is his brother, Styx. We found out about him this morning. SO-14 were going to pick him up but
He handed me some earphones and I looked through the binoculars again. Hades’ brother was sitting at a large walnut desk flicking through a copy of the
‘Hello?’ said Styx into the phone.
‘Hello?’ replied a middle-aged woman, the recipient of the call.
‘Do you have a 1976 Chevrolet for sale?’
‘Buying a car?’ I asked Tamworth.
‘Keep listening. Same time every week, apparently. Regular as clockwork.’
‘It’s only got eighty-two thousand miles on the clock,’ continued the lady, ‘and runs really well. MOT and tax paid till year’s end, too.’
‘It sounds
The woman agreed, and she read over an address that Styx didn’t bother writing down. He reaffirmed his interest and then hung up, only to call a different number about another car in Hounslow. I took off the headphones and pulled out the headset jack so we could hear Styx’s nasal rasp over the loudspeakers.
‘How long does he do this for?’
‘From SO-14 records, until he gets bored. Six hours, sometimes eight. He’s not the only one either. Anyone who has ever sold a car gets someone like Styx on the phone at least once. Here, these are for you.’
He handed me a box of ammunition with expanding slugs developed for maximum internal damage.
‘What is he? A buffalo?’
But Tamworth wasn’t amused.
‘We’re up against something
I took the clip out of my automatic and reloaded it and the spare I carried with me, leaving a standard slug on top in case of an SO-1 spot check. Over in the flat, Styx had dialled another number in Ruislip.
‘Hello?’ replied the unfortunate car owner on the other end of the line.
‘Yes, I saw your advert for a Ford Granada in today’s
Styx got the address out of the car owner, promised to be around in ten minutes, put the phone down and then rubbed his hands with glee, laughing childishly. He put a line through the advert and then went on to the next.
‘Doesn’t even have a licence,’ said Tamworth from the other side of the room. ‘He spends the rest of his time stealing Biros, causing electrical goods to fail
‘A bit childish, isn’t it?’
‘I’d say,’ replied Tamworth. ‘He’s possessed of a certain amount of wickedness, but nothing like his brother.’
‘So what’s the connection between Styx and the
‘We suspect that he may have it. According to SO-14’s surveillance records he brought in a package the evening of the break-in at Gad’s Hill. I’m the first to admit that this is a long shot but it’s the best evidence of
‘Has he demanded a ransom for the manuscript?’ I asked.
‘No, but it’s early days. It might not be as simple as we think. Our man has an estimated IQ of 180, so simple extortion might be too easy for him.’
Snood came in and sat down slightly shakily at the binoculars, put on the headphones and plugged in the jack. Tamworth picked up his keys and handed me a book.
‘I have to meet up with my opposite number at SO-4. I’ll be about an hour. If anything happens, just page me. My number is on Redial One. Have a read of this if you get bored.’
I looked at the small book he had given me. It was Charlotte Bronte’s
‘Who told me what?’ replied Tamworth, genuinely surprised.
‘It’s just… I’ve read this book a lot. When I was younger. I know it very well.’
‘And you like the ending?’
I thought for a moment. The rather flawed climax of the book was a cause of considerable bitterness within Bronte circles. It was generally agreed that if Jane had returned to Thornfield Hall and married Rochester, the book might have been a lot better than it was.
‘No one likes the ending, Tamworth. But there’s more than enough in it regardless of that.’
‘Then a reread will be especially instructive, won’t it?’ There was a knock at the door. Tamworth answered it and a man who was all shoulders and no neck entered.
‘Just in time!’ said Tamworth, looking at his watch. ‘Thursday Next, this is Buckett. He’s temporary until I get a replacement.’ He smiled and was gone.
Buckett and I shook hands. He smiled wanly as though this sort of job was not something he relished. He told me that he was pleased to meet me, then went to speak to Snood about the results of a horse race.
I tapped my fingertips on the copy of
‘Tamworth said you were a LiteraTec.’
‘Tamworth was correct.’
