"Message from the roof, sir," he began apologetically, crouching yet again to Brotherhood"s window. "Do you happen to know, please, the precise type and calibre of the weapon our friend is alleged to have in his possession?"

"Standard Browning three-eight automatic. An old one. Shouldn"t think it"s been cleaned for years."

"Any theories regarding the type of ammunition at all, sir? Only it would be nice for them to know the carry, you see."

"Short nose, I should think."

"But not a stopper, for instance, or a dumdum?"

"Why the h.e.l.l should he want a dumdum?"

"I don"t know, sir, do I? Information is gold dust on this one, the way it"s being pa.s.sed around, if I may say so. I haven"t seen so many tight lips in one room for, oh, a long time. How many rounds has our friend got, do you think?"

"One magazine. Maybe a spare."

Mary was suddenly furious. "For G.o.d"s sake. He"s not a maniac! He"s not going to start a--"

"Start a what?" said the superintendent, whose country manners had a way of slipping when he wasn"t spoken to respectfully.

"Just a.s.sume it"s one magazine and one spare," Brotherhood said.

"Well, then, perhaps you can tell us how our friend"s marksmanship is," the superintendent suggested as if stepping on to safer ground. "You can"t blame them for asking that, can you?"

"He"s been trained and topped up all his life," said Brotherhood.

"He"s good," Mary said.

"Now how do you know that, madam, if I may be allowed to ask a simple question?"

"He shoots Tom"s air pistol with him."

"Rats and that? Or something larger?"

"Paper targets."

"Does he now? And gets a high score then, does he, madam?"

"Tom says so."

She glanced at Brotherhood and knew what he was thinking. Just let me go in and get him, gun or no. She was thinking much the same herself: Magnus, come out of there and stop making yourself so b.l.o.o.d.y ridiculous. The superintendent was speaking again, this time to Brotherhood directly.

"Now there"s a query from our disposal people this time, sir," he said, as if it were all a little bit unreasonable but we must humour them. "Regarding this box device our friend is carrying with him. I"ve tried them in the Church Hall but they"re all a bit above the technicalities like, and they said to ask you. Our boys do appreciate they"re not allowed to know too much about it, but they would like the benefit of your wisdom regarding the charge it contains."

"It"s self-consuming," Brotherhood replied. "It"s not a weapon."

"Ah, but could it be used as a weapon, put it that way, if it got into the hands of one who might for instance have lost the balance of his mind?"

"Not unless he put somebody inside it," Brotherhood replied and the superintendent let out a mellow country laugh.

"I"ll tell that one to the boys," he promised. "They like a joke up there, the boys do, it gets the tension out of them." His voice fell and he spoke to Brotherhood alone. "Has our friend ever fired his gun in anger, sir?"

"It"s not his gun."

"Ah, now you didn"t quite answer the question there, sir, did you?"

"To my knowledge he"s never been in a shoot-out."

"Our friend doesn"t get angry," Mary said.

"Has he ever taken anybody prisoner, sir?"

"Us," Mary said.

Pym had made the cocoa and Pym had put the new shawl over Miss Dubber"s shoulders although she said she didn"t feel the chill. Pym had chopped up the piece of chicken for Toby that he had bought at the supermarket as a treat for him, and if she had let him he would have cleaned out the canary"s cage as well; for the canary was his secret pride ever since a night when he had found it dead after Miss Dubber had gone to bed, and contrived, unknown to her, to exchange it for a live one with Mr. Loring of the pet shop. But Miss Dubber wanted no more fussing from him. She wanted him sitting beside her where she could keep an eye on him and listen to him reading Aunt Al"s latest letter from distant Sri Lanka, which came in yesterday, Mr. Canterbury, but you never had the interest.

"Is that Ali the dhobi who stole her lace last year?" she enquired sharply, interrupting him. "Why does she go on employing him if he stole from her? I thought we"d seen the last of Ali long ago."

"I expect she forgave him," said Pym. "He had all those wives, if you remember. She probably couldn"t bear to chuck him into the street." His voice was very clear to him and beautiful. It was good to speak aloud.

"I do wish she"d come home," Miss Dubber said. "It can"t be good for her, the heat, after all these years."

"Ah but then she"d have to do her own washing, wouldn"t she, Miss D?" said Pym. And his smile warmed him as he knew it was warming her.

"You"re better now, aren"t you, Mr. Canterbury? I"m so glad. It"s got out of you, whatever it is. You can have a nice rest now."

"What from?" said Pym gently, still smiling at her.

"Whatever you"ve been doing all these years. You can let somebody else run the country for a while. Did he leave you a lot of work to do, the poor gentleman who died?"

"I suppose he did really. It"s always difficult when you don"t have a proper handover."

"But you"ll be all right now, won"t you? I can see."

"I will when you say you"ll take that holiday, Miss D."

"Only if you come."

"I can"t do that. I told you! I"ve run out of leave!"

His voice had lifted more than he intended. She looked at him and he saw the scare in her face, which was how he had caught her looking at him ever since the green cabinet had arrived, or when he had smiled and pampered her too much.

"Well I"m not going," she replied tartly. "I don"t like putting Toby into prison and Toby doesn"t like going to prison and we"re not going to do it just to please you, are we, Toby? You"re very land but don"t mention it again. Is that all she says?"

"The rest is about the race riots. She thinks there are more on the way. I didn"t think you"d like it."

"You"re quite right, I would not," said Miss Dubber firmly and her eyes stayed on him as he crossed the room, folded the letter and put it in the ginger jar. "You can read it to me in the morning when I don"t mind so much. Why"s the square quiet? Why isn"t Mrs. Peel playing her television next door? She should be watching that announcer she"s in love with."

"Probably gone to bed," said Pym. "More cocoa, Miss D?" he asked, taking the mugs to the scullery. The curtains were drawn, but beside the window was an extractor fan that Pym had built into the wooden wall and it was made of transparent plastic. Putting his eye to it he quickly surveyed the square but saw no sign of life.

"Don"t be so silly, Mr. Canterbury," Miss Dubber was saying. "You know I never have a second cup. Come back and watch the news."

At the far end of the square, in the shadow of the church, a small light went on and off.

"Not tonight, Miss D, if you don"t mind," he called to her. "I"ve had nothing but politics all week." He ran the tap and waited till the Crimean war geyser caught before he rinsed the mugs. "I"m going to put myself to bed and give the world a rest, Miss D."

"Well you"d better answer the telephone first," she replied. "It"s for you."

She must have lifted the receiver at once for he had not heard it above the sobbing of the geyser. It had never rung for him before. He returned to the kitchen and she was holding the receiver out to him and he saw the scare in her face again, accusing him, as he reached out a steady hand to take it. He put the phone to his ear and said "Canterbury." The line went dead but he kept the phone to his ear and gave a quick bright smile of recognition to the middle distance of Miss Dubber"s kitchen, somewhere between the picture of Pilgrim slogging up the hill past the hookers, and the picture of the little girl in bed with her hair brushed, about to eat her boiled egg.

"Thank you," he said. "Well thank you very much indeed, Bill. Well that"s very handsome of you. And of the Minister. Thank him for me, will you, Bill? Let"s have lunch about it next week. On me."

He rang off. There was a lot of heat in his face and he was no longer quite sure, now that he looked at Miss Dubber, what her expression was doing, or whether she was aware of the pains he was getting around the shoulders and neck and in the right knee, which he had ricked when he was skiing at Lech with Tom.

"Apparently the Minister"s rather pleased with the work I did for him," he explained to her a little blindly. "He wanted me to know that my efforts hadn"t been in vain. That was his private secretary. Bill. Sir William Wells. Friend of mine."

"I see," Miss Dubber said. But she was not enthusiastic.

"The Minister"s not terribly appreciative as a rule, to be honest. Doesn"t let it show. Hard man to please. Practically never been known to hand out a compliment in his life. But we"re all rather devoted to him. Warts and all, as you might say. We do all rather tend to be a bit fond of him notwithstanding, if you follow. We"ve all rather decided to accept that he"s part of life"s rich pageant, and not some sort of monster. Yes, well I"m tired, Miss D. Let"s put you to bed."

She had not moved. He talked harder.

"It wasn"t Himself of course. He"s in all-night session. Liable to be there on and off for a long while. This was his private secretary."

"So you told me."

""That"s medal material, Pym dear boy," he said. The old man actually smiled." The old man, that"s what we call the Minister. Sir William to his face, but "the old man" behind his back. Be nice to have a gong, wouldn"t it, Miss D? Put it over the fireplace. Polish it at Easter and Christmas. Our own private medal. Earned on the premises. If anyone"s deserved it, you have."

He stopped speaking for a while because he was blurting a bit and his mouth was dry and he had the worst ear-and-throat thing he could remember. I really ought to go to one of those private health clinics and have the complete sheep-dip. So instead of speaking he stood over her with his hands dangling so that he could haul her to her feet and give her the old good-night bear-hug that meant so much to her. But Miss Dubber did not oblige. She did not want the hug.

"Why do you call yourself Canterbury if your name is Pym?" she demanded sternly.

"That"s my first name. Pym. Like Pip. Pym Canterbury."

She had thought for a long time about that. She studied his dried-up eyes and his cheek muscles that were writhing for no known reason. And he noticed that she didn"t like much what she saw, and was disposed to quarrel. But as he strained his smile at her, and willed her with all the life that was left in him, he was rewarded by a strict nod of acceptance.

"Well we"re both too old for Christian names now, Mr. Canterbury," she said. After which she did finally hold out her arms and he did gently take hold of them above the elbows, and he did have to remember not to pull too hard, because he was so keen to have her against him and get himself off to bed where he belonged.

"Now I"m glad about that medal," she announced as he led her along the pa.s.sage. "I"ve always admired a man who gets a medal, Mr. Canterbury. Whatever he"s done."

The stairs belonged to the houses of his childhood so he skipped up them lightly and forgot his aches and pains. The star-of-Bethlehem lampshade on the landing, though it shed a lousy light, was an old friend from The Glades. Everything is kind to me, he noticed. When he pushed open the door of his room, everything winked and laughed at him like a surprise party. The parcels were all as he had prepared them but it never did any harm to check. So he checked them now. Envelope for Miss Dubber, lots of money and apologies. Envelope to Jack, no money and come to think of it, precious few apologies. Poppy, how odd that you are such a distant sound at last. That stupid filing cabinet, I don"t know why I bothered with it all these years. I haven"t even looked inside. The burnbox, what a weight it is for so few secrets. Nothing to Mary but he"d really nothing much more to say to her: "Sorry I married you for cover. Glad I managed a bit of love along the way. Hazards of the trade, m"dear. You"re a spy too, remember? Rather better than Pym was, come to think of it. Cla.s.s will tell in the end." Only the envelope to Tom bothered him, and he tore open the sealed flap feeling that a last word of explanation was after all required.

"You see, Tom, I am the bridge," he wrote in a hand that was irritatingly sluggish. "I am what you must walk over to get from Rick to life."

Then he added his initials, as one always should with a postscript, and addressed a fresh envelope and put the old one in the waste-paper basket because he had been taught from early in his life that untidiness was the sister of insecurity. Then he hauled the burnbox from the top of the cabinet to the desk and with the two keys from his chain disarmed it and fished out first the files which were too secret to be cla.s.sified at all and which gave a lot of bogus information about the networks he and Poppy had so painstakingly composed. He chucked them in the waste-paper basket too. When he"d done that he pulled out the gun and loaded it and c.o.c.ked it, all rather swiftly, and set it on the desk thinking of the many times he had carried a gun and not fired it. He heard a sc.r.a.ping sound from the roof, and said to himself: must be a cat. He shook his head as if to say those d.a.m.ned cats, they get everywhere these days, don"t give the birds a chance. He glanced at his gold watch, a wide gesture, remembering that Rick had given it to him and that he might forget to take it off in the bath. So he took it off now and laid it on Tom"s envelope and drew a cheerful moon face right next to it, the sign they drew for one another to say "Smile." He undressed and laid his clothes neatly by the bed, then he put on his dressing-gown and took both his towels from the clothes-horse, the big one for the bath, the small one for hands and face. He slipped the gun into the dressing-gown pocket, leaving the safety catch in the "off" position because it was the laborious ethic of the trainers that a safed gun was more dangerous than a live one. He was only going across the corridor but it"s a violent world these days and you can"t be too careful. About to open the bathroom door he was annoyed to discover that the porcelain k.n.o.b had stiffened up and scarcely turned. d.a.m.ned doork.n.o.b. Look at that. It took him all the strength of both his hands to twist it and, more annoying still, some idiot must have left soap on it, because his hands kept slithering and he had to use a towel to get a grip. It"s probably dear old Lippsie, he thought with a smile: always living in that world inside her head. Placing himself for the last time before the shaving mirror, he arranged the towels around his head and shoulders, making a bonnet of the small one and a cape of the large one, because if there was one thing Miss Dubber hated above another, it was mess. Then he held the gun to where his right ear was, forgetting, as anybody might in the circ.u.mstances, whether the trigger of your Browning .38 automatic had two pressures or just the one. And he noticed how he was leaning: not away from the gun, but into it, like someone a little deaf, straining for a sound.

Mary never heard the shot. The superintendent was crouching at Brotherhood"s window again, this time to tell him that Magnus"s presence inside the house had now been positively confirmed by a ruse and that he had orders to a.s.semble non-combatants in the Church Hall without delay. Brotherhood was contesting this, and Mary still had her eye on the four men playing Grannie"s Footsteps among the chimneypots across the square. For half an hour now they had been reeling out rope to one another and adopting cla.s.sic postures of stealth, and Mary loathed the lot of them more than she could have imagined possible. A society that admires its shock troops had better be b.l.o.o.d.y careful about where it"s going, Magnus liked to say. The superintendent was confirming that there were no other male lodgers on the premises apart from the said Canterbury, and he was asking Mary whether she would hold herself in readiness to speak to her husband on the telephone in a conciliatory manner if this became necessary during the course of operations. And Mary was retorting: "Of course I will," in an overbold whisper intended to deflate all this theatrical nonsense. All those things in her later memory were taking place or had just done so as Brotherhood shoved open the driver"s door, sending the superintendent flying to one side, one boot for ever frozen in the window frame. After that she had a forward image of Jack pelting towards the house at a young man"s pace because sometimes she had a dream of him doing exactly that, and the house was always Plush and he was coming to make love to her. But with the clamour all around him he was standing still. Lights had come on, ambulances were racing to the spot without apparently knowing where the spot was, police and plainclothesmen were falling over each other and the fools on the roof were shouting at the fools in the square and England was being saved from things it didn"t know were threatening it. But Jack Brotherhood was standing to attention like a dead centurion at his post, and everyone was watching a dignified little lady in a dressing-gown coming down the steps of her house.

-end