old, he spends all his time on a ship in the middle of the sea, and by his own admission smells.
Ah yes, said the inner Jane, but if he didn’t smell he wouldn’t have to spend all his time in the middle of the sea. Don’t get me wrong, it added hurriedly, I’m not suggesting there’s anything in the grey eyes hypothesis as such, I’m just suggesting that it can’t be rejected as easily as all that. Are you doing all this because you want to help Captain Vanderdecker out of his predicament? Be truthful, and write on one side of the paper only. Yes, of course that’s part of the reason; but grey eyes needn’t enter into that at all. Then why did you bring them up in the first place?
Let’s leave the eyes on one side for a moment, as they say in the anatomy labs. Did you suddenly make up your mind to be a heroine because it seemed the right thing to do? Yes, mother, I did, of that I am sure. And because I hate being an accountant, and it seemed like a good idea at the time, and there might be good money in it. Because I wanted to.
Because it means that, whatever happens next, I will be a different Jane ever after, the sort of Jane who does that sort of thing. As for the realities of her situation, we will take a chance on the ravens feeding her. Talking of which, where is she going to sleep tonight? Even new Janes have to sleep and put on clean underwear in the mornings, and she is down to her last change of intimate garments. I may sympathise with Captain Vanderdecker, but I’m damned if I’m going to end up smelling like him.
But the voice of the new Jane had an answer to that, and told her that she would sleep in a hotel in Cirencester and first thing in the morning she would buy herself new underwear in the Cirencester branch of Marks and Spencer. Then she would go and see Montalban, and after that, who could say?
Feeling rather surprised and slightly frightened, Jane thanked her new avatar for its guidance and finished her tea. Whatever it was that had got into her seemed like it was going to stay there for some time, and on the whole she wasn’t sorry.
“Mrs Carmody,” the man said, “is everything ready?” The elegant woman nodded. “Please be so kind as to bring it through, then, we mustn’t keep our guests waiting.”
Shortly afterwards, Mrs Carmody wheeled in an old–fashioned trolley with a porcelain cake-stand and a silver tea-set on it. The man thanked her and asked her yet again for her opinion of the cat.
“No,” she said.
“Thank you so much,” said the man. “Would you just ask Harvey to show them in?”
The man inspected the cake-stand and tried a slice of the malt loaf. It passed muster. Then he closed the lid of the spinet and leaned against it, waiting for his guests to arrive.
The helicopter pilot was the first to enter. He had taken off his flying jacket and he came into the room backwards; not out of diffidence or perversity, but so that he could keep the muzzle of his gun pointed at Danny’s navel. Danny came next, and after him the camera crew. The co-pilot of the helicopter brought up the rear; he resembled the pilot very closely, except that his suit was navy blue and his gun was of a different make.
“Do sit yourselves down, gentlemen,” said Professor Montalban. “There should be enough chairs for you all. I’m sorry you had such a long wait, but apparently the malt loaf took rather a long time to rise.”
Danny, who had spent the last hour and a half in the cellar listening to the opinions of the camera crew, was not impressed. He hated malt loaf anyway. The barrel of the pilot’s gun suggested that he should sit down.
“Thank you. Harvey, Neville, please help our guests to some tea and cake,” said the Professor. The pilot gave him a severe look and picked up a plate, while the co-pilot took charge of a cup and saucer with his free hand. The Professor poured the tea and selected a slice of the malt loaf, and the two armed men delivered them to Danny, who accepted them with all the good grace he could muster, which was not much. Then Harvey and Neville repeated the same routine for the head cameraman, the assistant cameraman and the sound recordist. It all took a very long time, and more than a little tea ended up in the saucer.
When he judged that the polite thing had been done, the Professor introduced himself. “My name,” he said, “is Montalban. This is Harvey,” he said, indicating the pilot, “and this is Neville.”
That, it seemed, was all the explanation that Danny was going to get, at least until the Professor had cleared his mouth of malt loaf. Danny waited, urging himself to stay calm and not do anything that could be construed as hostile or threatening. That wasn’t too hard, in the circumstances; a Mongol horseman would find it difficult to make a threatening gesture with a cup in one hand and a plate in the other. He would also be hard put to it to eat the cake or drink the tea.
“And this,” said the Professor at last, “is my personal assistant, Mrs Carmody. I trust you had a reasonable journey here.”
Danny nodded cautiously. His arms were aching from holding up the teacup and the plate, but Harvey’s gun was still pointed at him.
“Mr Bennett,” went on the Professor, “I must apologise for troubling you like this, but to a certain extent you did bring it on yourself. You see,” he explained, “you did mention that you knew something about Cirencester.”
Danny’s hand wobbled, spilling tea. “Cirencester?”
“Exactly. And Harvey here felt that he had no option but to bring that fact to my attention.”
This time, Danny dropped his cup. “
“That’s right, Danny,” said Harvey sheepishly. “We meet at last.”
Now that he came to think about it, of course, Danny never had met his superior in the flesh, however many telephone conversations they had shared. Nor had he ever asked what the H stood for. He had invariably asked the switchboard for Mr Beardsley, and prefaced his remarks with “Look…” It only went to show.
“I thought you were probably only bluffing,” Harvey went on, “but you can’t be too careful, and maybe you had finally managed to nose out something important, instead of all that crap about the Milk Marketing Board. So…”
“Look,” Danny said, probably out of sheer habit, “just what is going on?”
“You should know,” said Harvey, grinning. “You’re the ace investigative producer, you started it.”
“For crying out loud…Harvey,” said Danny, “put that bloody thing away and explain what all this is about. Are you trying to muzzle my story, or what?”
“What story?” Harvey asked. “Oh, that load of old cock about nuclear dumping; no, not at all, but you were the one who dragged Cirencester into it, remember.”
“Actually,” said the Professor.
Harvey turned his head and looked at him. “What?” he said.
“I’m sorry, Harvey,” said the Professor apologetically, “there wasn’t time to brief you in full. It was Mr Bennett’s film of the Old Ships Race that made it necessary to bring him here.”
“Now wait a minute,” Harvey said, and Danny saw that he wasn’t taking any notice of him any more. To be precise, the gun was pointing at the floor. Similarly, Neville had one hand full with a rather sticky slice of malt loaf, and was using the other to hold his plate under his chin to catch the crumbs. It was now or never, Danny decided. He sprang.
There was suddenly a great deal of movement, and we shall do our best to cover it sector by sector. Then we will join up the various parts to form a concerted picture.
The cat woke up, arched its back, and started to sharpen its claws on the piece of chair-leg thoughtfully provided for that purpose.
The assistant cameraman hit Neville with a small padded footstool. Neville dropped his plate and fell over, and the assistant cameraman sat on him and removed his gun from his inside front pocket.
Mrs Carmody lunged for the trolley, retrieved the cake-stand and carried it out of harm’s way. A slice of malt loaf toppled off it into the carpet and was ground into the pile by Danny’s heel; but that comes later.
Danny grabbed Harvey’s wrist and tried to bring it down on his knee to jar the gun out of his hand. Unfortunately, Danny wasn’t nearly as strong as he thought he was, and a rather undignified tussle followed, during the course of which Danny slithered on the slice of malt loaf, lost his balance and fell over. In doing so, he nearly dislocated Harvey’s wrist, to which he was still clinging, and jolted his trigger finger, firing the gun. The bullet hit Professor Montalban just above the heart.
Danny, sitting on the floor surrounded by the wreckage of a chair, stared in horror and relaxed his grip on Harvey’s arm. Suddenly everyone was looking at the Professor, who did something very unexpected. He didn’t fall over.
“Please, Mr Bennett,” he said, removing a flattened bullet from the lapel of his jacket for all the world as if it
