Hearing the yowl, he lifted his head and looked at the cage. He put down the lid of the musical instrument and walked across the room, stopping about halfway to pick up a dead mouse by the tail from a cardboard box of the kind that cream cakes come in.
“Here, pussy,” he said, in a rather embarrassed voice, for he was not used to addressing cats, small children or any of the other forms of sentient life who have to be spoken to in a silly voice. In truth, he wasn’t accustomed to talking to anyone who didn’t have a first-class honours degree, and it showed. “Pretty pussy like a nice mouse, then?”
Pretty pussy yowled, and the man dropped the mouse down through the bars of the cage. The cat ducked and thereby avoided being hit on the head; it didn’t look particularly grateful for the kind thought either. The man made a selection of cooing noises and poked a finger at the cat, apparently by way of a friendly gesture. The cat appreciated that all right; it bit it, hard. The man winced slightly and withdrew the finger. It was undamaged. Heartened by this minor reprisal, the cat ate the mouse. The man stepped back and looked at his watch. Five minutes later, he stepped out of the room and called up the elegant Queen Anne staircase.
“Mrs Carmody!” he said. “Could you come through into the study for a moment?”
A tall, grey-haired woman appeared in the doorway. She was wearing an apron over a fiendishly expensive Ralph Lauren original, and her hands were covered in flour.
“Well?” she said.
“Mrs Carmody,” asked the man. “Does that cat smell?”
The woman sniffed carefully. “No,” she said. “Should it?”
“No,” said the man. “Thank you, you’ve been most helpful.”
The cat looked at them both in astonishment, but they took no notice. The woman asked when she should expect the guests.
“I think they said about half-past six,” said the man.
“Then they’ll have to wait,” the woman said firmly. “You can’t expect me to produce malt loaf out of thin air, you know.”
The man bowed his head, acknowledging his fault, then turned and sat down again at the spinet and began to play, as quietly as before. After about ten minutes, the telephone rang and someone read out the results of an experiment involving platinum isotopes. The man thanked him, said goodbye and put the receiver down.
Half an hour later, the man summoned Mrs Carmody again.
“Now does it smell?” he asked.
“No,” she said.
“Excellent,” said the man. “You don’t mind helping me like this, do you?”
Mrs Carmody thought for a moment. “No,” she said. Then the man thanked her again and she left.
What the cat thought about all this is neither here nor there.
“Excuse me,” Danny asked, “but aren’t we going the wrong way?” The pilot leaned back and grinned reassuringly. Obviously he couldn’t her a word, what with the roar of the engines and the earphones he was wearing. But he was going the wrong way.
“You see,” Danny shouted, “we’re going inland, and we should be going out to sea.”
The pilot removed on earphone. “You what?” he shouted.
“Inland!” Danny shouted. The pilot nodded.
“Yes!” he shouted back.
“No!” Danny replied. “Wrong way. Should be going out to sea.”
The pilot shook his head firmly. “No,” he replied. “Inland. Much better. Right way.”
All right, Danny muttered under his breath, even if you’re hell-bent on going the wrong way there’s no need to talk like a Red Indian. He shook his own head equally firmly and shrieked back, “No.
He pointed at the English Channel but the pilot didn’t even bother to look. He had put his earphone back on and was busily flying the helicopter. Danny tapped him on the shoulder.
“What is it?” shouted the pilot, irritably, like a man who can take a joke if necessary but who’d really rather not have to prove it every five minutes. “You’ll have to speak up,” he added.
“We are going the wrong way,” Danny yelled slowly—it’s not easy yelling slowly, but Danny managed it somehow—“we should be going out to sea.”
Equally slowly, the pilot yelled back, “No we shouldn’t. Please sit down and stop talking.”
Then he leaned forward and switched on the wireless set; full volume, so that it would be audible above the ear-splitting noise.
“The Financial Times One Hundred Share index,” said the wireless, “closed at nine hundred and seventy-six point eight; that’s a slight fall of two points on yesterday’s close. Government stocks were also down on the day, following a late flurry of activity shortly before the close of trading. The Dow Jones…”
The pilot grunted happily, switched off the wireless and leaned back. For the first time, Danny noticed that he was wearing rather a natty lightweight grey suit and a shirt with a button-down collar under his flying jacket. “Now,” he said, “what were you saying?”
“Nothing,” Danny replied, “nothing at all.” He sat down, looked out of the window and tried to remember the little geography he had learned at school.
Leigh Delamere service station is unquestionably the Xanadu of the M4. Bring us, it seems to say, your weary and oppressed, your travel-sick children, your knackered and your bored stiff, and we will make them a strong cup of tea and a plate of scrambled eggs. If only it had a cinema and some rudimentary form of democratic government, no-one with any sense would ever want to leave.
As she felt the vigour of the tea flowing through her bloodstream like fire, Jane began to take stock of her situation. It was all very well saying “I will arise and go now and deliver Vanderdecker’s message to Professor Montalban,” but there were imponderables. He might not be in. He might not wish to see her. She might not be able to find High Norton, let alone Greathead Manor. There might be danger, or at least profound embarrassment. In other words, she summed up, why am I doing this?
Good question, Jane girl, very good question indeed. As usual when faced with a thorny problem, Jane wondered what her mother would say. That was relatively easy to extrapolate; are you sure you’re eating properly, Jane dear? Jane finished the last mouthful of her jam doughnut, and her conscience was clear. Yes.
Unfortunately, that left the original good question largely unanswered. Why are you doing this, Jane dear, and is it really terribly sensible? What are your employers going to say? Do you still have employers? What will become of you, you reckless, feckless child?
I used to be a bored accountant, she said, until I discovered Bridport. Then I got caught up in the destiny of mankind, and I became a sort of knight-errant for the Sock. Quite by chance. I tracked down the wholly improbable person I was sent to find, and I offered him the deal I was sent to offer him. He turned it down. I should now report back to my superiors and get back to doing some accounts. Except that my superiors have turned out to be rather spooky people, and I’ve got myself into such a mess now that it doesn’t seem terribly prudent to go back. Don’t ask me how this happened; it was none of my doing, and I suspect that I’m not cut out for this sort of thing, but it wouldn’t do to think too closely about it for fear of suddenly going completely mad. Besides, I don’t really want to be an accountant any more.
I am therefore going to a place called High Norton to see a very old alchemist and give him a rude message. What then? If I do all right, and whatever Captain Vanderdecker has up his sleeve works out, what then? When I suddenly decided to be on Vanderdecker’s team, what was going on inside my silly little head?
Well, Jane said to herself, Captain Vanderdecker has lots and lots of money, in a rather peculiar way. If he manages to get what he wants from Professor Montalban, no doubt he could be persuaded to express his immense gratitude in fiscal terms. Then Jane can live happily ever after and won’t have to go to work ever again. Provided that Vanderdecker really exists, of course, and this whole thing isn’t the result of an injudicious bed-time cheese sandwich. And if it is, why then, we’ll wake up and go to work as usual. Fine.
But that’s not the reason, is it? Jane frowned at the space where the doughnut had been, and was forced to confess that it wasn’t. So what the hell was? Could it possibly be Captain Vanderdecker’s grey eyes? We consider this point, said Jane hurriedly to ourselves, only out of thoroughness and to dismiss it. Captain Vanderdecker is very
