telephone number. This should be marginally easier than finding the source of the Nile, always supposing that she had remembered to bring her address book.
She found a telephone box and tried Directory Enquiries instead. Then she called Peter’s number, which was engaged. Enough of this, she said to herself. Food.
By far the best way to get something to eat in West Bay is to go to Bridport, where they will gladly sell you a sandwich if you show them enough respect. Jane discovered this eventually, and over her sandwich and a cup of pale brown oil in the Cherry Tree cafe she considered her next move. Phone Peter, get Montalban’s co-ordinates, go there, see him, deliver the message, be back home in time for the afternoon repeat of “Neighbours”. It could be that simple. On the other hand, it might be a lot harder, and it would be wise to give some thought to possible complications. But Jane’s mind was starting to wander, and she found herself thinking about something quite other.
What would it have been like to spend four hundred years on a boat? The same boat? The same small, rather uncomfortable and inconvenient boat? Would she have liked it? A lot would depend, she decided, on the company. It was hard to imagine anyone, however brilliantly entertaining, that you could cheerfully spend the post-Renaissance era cooped up on a boat with without going stark raving mad, but from what little she had seen of the Flying Dutchman’s crew, it wasn’t very likely that they had helped much in keeping Vanderdecker from losing his grip on sanity. And yet he had managed it, somehow. Remarkable, in itself. A fairly remarkable person, in a woolly, harassed sort of way. Or had he done something rather similar to what she and everyone else did in order to keep themselves going through a generally dull and bleak existence? Accountancy, in a way, is rather like sailing endlessly round the world, in that it offers few bright spots and those widely separated by broad, blue expanses of tedium. In order to get across those, you try not to think about them. You think about the weekend instead. Now in Vanderdecker’s case, the bright spots came once every seven years rather than seven days, but once one had got used to it the principle was probably the same. Jane shuddered. It was depressingly similar to he own situation, only worse.
At least all Vanderdecker had to do was find Montalban, reverse the alchemical process and render himself marginally less smelly, and he would be fine. In order for her to get out of her own vicious circle, she was going to have to do something immeasurably more clever, like win on the Premium Bonds or marry a millionaire. Vanderdecker, once he was adequately sanitised and had come to a grown-up understanding with the House of Fugger, would be able to live out the rest of Time in peace and luxury. She hadn’t even got around to organising her pension scheme yet. Some people, she said to herself, have all the luck. And if I had been able to persuade him to come to that grown-up understanding with the Sock, perhaps I’d be out of it and free too. But she let that thought go. If the Flying Dutchman did decide to cash in his policy, then good luck to him. He’d earned it, in a way, and she wasn’t going to be the one to bounce him into anything.
Jane dragged her mind back from its reverie and considered the crust of the sandwich and the gritty residue of her cup of coffee. That more or less wrapped up the nutritional side of things for the time being. It was time to try phoning Peter again.
“Hello, Peter,” Jane said. “Where can I find Professor Montalban?”
“Hello, Jane” said a rather surprised voice; rather as one would expect Rip Van Winkle to sound if someone had woken him up in the early 1830s and asked him the time of the next bus to San Bernardino. “Is that you?”
“Yes,” said Jane. “Montalban. Where?”
“
“No, Archbishop Montalban. Where can I find him?”
“It’s been ages since I heard from you,” Peter said. “How have you been keeping, anyway?”
Jane wanted to scream, but it was one of those phone-boxes that aren’t closed in. “I’ve been keeping nicely, thank you Peter. I put it down to the formaldehyde face-packs. Professor Montalban. What’s his address? Where does he live? You do know, don’t you?”
“No.”
Then why the hell didn’t you say so, you furry-brained clown? “You don’t?”
“No,” Peter said. “Sorry.”
“That’s a pity, Peter, really it is. You have no idea how great a pity that is.”
“I could always look it up, I suppose.”
“Could you?”
“Oh yes.”
Give me strength, dear God. Not the strength to move mountains, perhaps; just enough to see me through the rest of this telephone call. “What in, Peter?”
“Well, the faculty directory, of course.”
Of course. How silly of me not to have known. That sound you can hear is me slapping my wrist. “And do you have a copy of it handy, Peter?”
“Naturally.” Peter sounded a trifle offended. “It’s right here on my desk now.”
“That’s good, Peter, I think we’re getting somewhere at last. How would it be if you opened it at the letter M.” She counted five under her breath, to give him time. “You there yet, Peter?”
“Yes.”
“Montalban, Peter. At a guess I’d say it was somewhere between Mellish and Moore. Any luck?”
“Hold on, I’ve dropped it. Ah yes, here we are. Montalban. You want his address, you said?”
“That’s right,” Jane said cheerfully. “You must be a mind reader.”
“Well,” Peter said, “It’s…”
“Hold on,” Jane squawked. “I’ve got to get a pencil.”
The pips went. Just in time, Jane crammed a pound coin into the slot, then unearthed a pencil and the back of an envelope. “Ready,” she said. “Fire away.”
“It’s Greathead Manor, High Norton, near Cirencester.”
“Thank you.”
“Gloucestershire.”
“Oh,
“Not very well, I’m afraid,” Peter said. “I keep having to go back and change the beginning.”
“Very difficult things, beginnings,” Jane said. “Almost as difficult as middles and ends, in my experience. Stay with it, Peter. Remember Robert the Bruce and the spider. It’s been lovely talking to you, must dash, bye.”
She retrieved her car, adjusted the rear-view mirror, put on her seat-belt and pulled out the choke. According to her AA book, you could get to Cirencester by way of the M4 and a number of other reputable main roads, and although it was her experience that road-maps generally tend to speak with forked tongue, particularly when dealing with the location of motorway service stations, it was certainly worth a try. As she turned the ignition key, something moved her to look out of the window and take one last glance at the little town of Bridport, where so much of such consequence had happened; the initial discovery at the bank, the visitor’s book in the hotel, the curious ruined cottage, culminating in the dramatic meeting outside the boatyard and her irrational, as yet undissected decision to involve herself deeper still in this improbable but magnetic adventure. The sun gleamed on the windows of the Town Hall, and the traffic lights seemed to wink at her like old friends. Perhaps she would come back again one day, perhaps not. Perhaps she would never pass this way again, and this was to be the last time.
“Yippee!” she said aloud, and let out the clutch.
The cat woke up, uncurled its tail, and decided it would be nice to go for a walk. It got about three feet and discovered there were bars in the way.
Pleasant enough bars, as bars go. Quite probably there for its own good, to keep it from wandering too far and falling the short distance to the floor. If there were wolves about, it might keep them out for at least thirty seconds, provided they were not too hungry. The cat considered all these possibilities and rejected them. It yowled.
At the other end of the room, a man was playing a tall, elegant musical instrument, something halfway between a spinet and a harpsichord. It must be noted that he was doing so absolutely soundlessly, unless you counted the clattering of the keys under his rapidly-moving fingertips.
