Portia watched Ned crossing the room towards her and an intense happiness rushed through her like wind through grasses and she shivered and rippled with so much pleasure that she almost believed it was pain.
‘Don’t ever leave me.
‘No fear,’ Ned whispered, climbing back into bed.
They heard Ashley’s voice calling up the stairs.
‘We won’t disturb you both. Something I had to fetch. You young people enjoy yourselves!’
The smothered laughter of Gordon and Rufus delighted them. How wonderful it was to be giggled about.
Ned sighed with the completest fulfilment and joy. Where in all the universe was anyone so unfathomably lucky? He was young, healthy and happy and without a care or an enemy in the world.
II. Arrest
Ned shivered and pulled the blanket closer around his shoulders.
‘Excuse me,’ he said. ‘Do you think it would be possible for someone to bring me my clothes?’
The policeman at the door shifted his eyes from the ceiling to Ned.
‘Not cold is it?’
‘No, but you see I’m only wearing…’
‘Middle of summer, isn’t it?’
‘Yes, yes it is, but. ‘Well then.’
Ned stared at the foil ashtray in front of him on the table and tried to force his mind to concentrate on what had happened.
At four o’clock he had seen Portia into the College, which is to say they had rung the bell for the fifth floor of a disappointingly ordinary doorway in a narrow street behind the Scotch House.
‘I’ll be outside,’ he promised, kissing her goodbye as if for the longest parting. ‘And when you come out we’ll go into Harrods for an ice-cream soda to celebrate.’
He had been waiting there on the pavement for nearly half an hour, trying to work out, in a cheerful sort of way, whether or not Portia taking such a time up there was a good sign. Being an optimist, he had naturally decided that it was.
A group of young Spaniards or Italians (he couldn’t really tell which) had come up to the door. They had been in the act of producing a key when Ned had decided, on an impulse, to be let in with them. The sight of a respectably dressed boyfriend might just tip the balance in Portia s favour.
‘Excuse me,’ he had said. ‘Would it be all right if I came in with you?’
They had looked at him in bewilderment. If this was the average standard of English here, then Portia was going to have a lot to do.
‘I… JUST… WONDER… IF…YOU…‘he had started to say, but before the words were out of his mouth it had all happened. Appearing it seemed from nowhere, two men had each seized an arm and bundled Ned towards a car. Too surprised to speak, the last thing he heard before a hand pushed him down into the back seat was the raucous laughter of a small group of people standing in the dimly lit doorway of the nearby pub.
‘W-what’s going on?’ he had asked. ‘What are you doing?’
‘You’d better ask yourself what
At the police station he had been more thoroughly searched. They had taken away for examination everything but his underpants and he had been sitting in this room now for over half an hour, wondering what could possibly be going on. The next time the door opened and someone came in, he decided, he would insist on being allowed to telephone his father. The police had no idea they were dealing with a cabinet minister’s son. Sir Charles was a gentle and scrupulously polite man, but he had commanded a brigade in the war and run a small pocket of Empire for six years. In the Sudan he had pronounced sentences of death and seen them carried out. As Secretary of State for Northern Ireland he had extended the limits of internment without trial and authorised all kinds of extreme measures – ‘strong medicine for a strong infection’ he had said to Ned once, without revealing details. This was not a man to be messed with. Ned almost felt sorry for the police. He would assure his father that he had been kindly treated and that he held no grudge.
At last, the door to the interview room opened.
‘Right then, son.’
‘Hello, sir.
‘My name is Detective Sergeant Floyd.’
‘If it’s all right, I’d like to ring …
‘Cigarette?’
Floyd dropped a packet of Benson and Hedges and a lighter onto the table as he drew up a chair opposite Ned and sat down.
‘No thanks. I don’t smoke.’
‘You don’t smoke?’
‘No.’
‘Half an ounce of hash and you don’t smoke?’
‘I’m sorry?’
‘Bit late for “sorry” isn’t it? One thing to have it for your own use. But selling to foreign students. Magistrates don’t like that.’
‘I don’t understand.’
‘Of course you don’t. How old are you?’
‘Seventeen and a half.’
‘Seventeen and a half?
The policeman at the door joined in the laughter. ‘Well, I am,’ said Ned, tears beginning to form in his eyes. What was wrong with saying that, when it was true?
Floyd frowned and bit his lip. ‘Let’s forget about the drugs, shall we? Tell me what “Interior, interior, interior” means to you.
Ned looked at him helplessly. ‘I’m sorry?’
‘Not a difficult question is it?
‘I don’t know what you mean.’ Ned felt as though he was drowning. ‘Please, I want to ring my father.’
‘Let’s start at the beginning, shall we? Name?’
‘Do be quiet, there’s a good fellow.’
Ned and the Detective Sergeant turned together. A neatly dressed man in his mid-twenties was standing in the doorway, a gentle smile on his face.
‘And just who the hell might you be?’ said Floyd, outraged.
‘A word, Sergeant,’ said the young man, beckoning with his finger.
Floyd opened his mouth to speak, but something in the young man s bland expression made him change his mind.
The door closed on Ned once more. He could hear Detective Sergeant Floyd’s voice raised in barely controlled anger in the corridor outside. ‘With respect, sir, I do not see the need …
‘With respect, that’s the ticket, Floyd. Respect. Just what’s needed. Now I’ll take those if you please. Thank you… paperwork will follow.’
The door opened again and the young man popped his head in, smiling. ‘Would you like to come with me, old chap?’
Ned jumped to his feet and followed the young man along a passageway, past an angry Detective Sergeant Floyd.
‘Can I use the telephone?’ Ned asked.
‘Ridiculous of them,’ said the young man, as if he hadn’t heard, ‘to strip you like that. Ah, here’s Mr Gaine!’ He indicated a broad-shouldered man in a denim jacket who was leaning against a fire door at the end of the passage bearing in his arms a pile of clothes, neatly folded with the shoes lying upside-down on top.
‘Those are mine!’ said Ned.
‘That’s right. We shan’t have time to put them on just now, I’m afraid, we must be off. All set, Mr Gaine?’
The broad-shouldered man nodded and pushed against the bars of the door. The young man escorted Ned down some steps into a courtyard and towards a green Rover parked in the corner, where the sunlight beat down on its roof.
‘You just hop in the back with me. We’ll let Mr Gaine drive shall we?’
Ned winced when his bare thighs touched the upholstery.
‘Scorched you a bit? Sorry about that,’ said the young man cheerfully. ‘Should’ve thought to park in the shade, shouldn’t we, Mr Gaine? All righty, then, cabin doors to automatic. Let’s not hang about.’
‘Where are we going?’ Ned asked, adjusting the blanket around himself to protect his legs and his modesty.
‘My name’s Delft,’ was the reply. ‘Like those ghastly blue and white tiles. Oliver Delft.’ He put out a hand for Ned to shake. ‘And you are…?’
‘Edward Maddstone.’
‘Edward? They do call you Edward, do they? Or are you an Ed, Eddie, Ted or Teddy?’
‘Ned, usually.’
‘Ned. Fair enough. I’ll call you Ned then, and you can call me Oliver.’
‘Where are we going?’
‘Well, there’s lots to talk about, isn't there? I thought perhaps we might go somewhere nice and quiet.’
‘Only, my girlfriend, you see … she doesn’t know where I am. And my father…’
