Somehow she survived the rest of the day and took the train home as normal. Every few minutes, in the intervals of looking over her shoulder for murderers, she tried telling herself that this was just some poor fool who’d finally flipped after doing too many bank reconciliation statements, but the name Vanderdecker was too big and too noisy to ignore.
She packed everything she thought she could possibly need, plus a pot of marmalade and her hot water bottle with the woolly tiger cover, into her car and drove. At the first National Lombard cash dispenser she saw, she stopped and withdrew all the money the machine would let her have. If only she’d been sensible, she told herself, and not been put off by all those idiotic white horses in their advertising campaigns, she could have had a bank that wouldn’t betray her whereabouts to Slough every time she made a withdrawal.
The question was where to go, but the answer wasn’t easy. She thought of her parents’ house, but the thought made her shudder; her father had succumbed to National Lombard Unit Trust propaganda nine months after retiring to the Sussex coast. Surely they wouldn’t do anything to hurt her parents? Better not to think about that.
Where else, then? Her sister had a National Lombard Home Loan, so that was out. Ever since she had left the world behind and taken to accountancy she had alienated all her friends by boring them to tears with accountancy stories. That only left…
No.
Yes, why not? It’s a long way from London. Even idiots have their uses. Even obnoxious, repulsive, pathetic little gnomes. She found a call-box and fished out her diary. Fortunately, the local vandals had spared the dialling codes section and she located the code for Wick. The phone started to ring. It was answered.
“Is that you, Shirley?” she asked. Shirley said yes, it was.
Jane took a deep breath. Even when her life was quite possibly at stake, this was extremely distasteful.
“Look, Shirley,” she said—the very words were like a live worm in her mouth—“I’m going to be up near you for a week or so, can I come and stay?”
Shirley said, “Well, it’s a bit short notice, isn’t it?” Jane’s fingernails were hurting the palm of her left hand. She fought herself and won.
“Look, Shirley, I’m in a call-box, I haven’t got much change. Will it be all right? I’ll be with you tomorrow afternoon some time. See you.”
She slammed down the receiver quickly and jumped back into the car.
Maybe being murdered would be better after all.
♦
Fair stood the wind for Scotland, which made a pleasant change. Indeed, it was nice to be going somewhere, as opposed to just going, and Vanderdecker found the crew rather less tiresome than usual.
The first mate climbed up onto the quarter-deck. He was going to ask the captain a question. Vanderdecker could hear his brain turning over like a coffee-mill before he so much as reached the foot of the stairway.
“Captain,” said the first mate, “we aren’t going to land, are we? When we reach wherever this place is we’re going to.”
“Yes,” said Vanderdecker, cruelly. As he had expected, this was beyond the first mate’s understanding. Antonius stood very still for a while as the coffee-mill approached maximum revolutions.
“Yes we are,” he finally asked, “or yes we aren’t?”
“Yes we are,” Vanderdecker said. “We’re going to land.” Antonius considered this reply and then looked at his watch, just to make sure. “But captain,” he remonstrated, “we can’t do that, it isn’t time yet.”
“So what?” Vanderdecker said, “we aren’t going to have a good time and get drunk. We’re going to see if we can find that blasted alchemist.”
“But won’t they just run away?”
“Possibly,” Vanderdecker admitted. “But it’s worth a shot, isn’t it? If we wait another five years we may be too late. They may all have gone away anyway by then.”
“Oh,” said Antonius, relieved to have been given an explanation even if he couldn’t understand it. All he needed to know in order to feel reassured was that there was a reason and that somebody was in control of it. Vanderdecker envied him.
“After all,” Vanderdecker went on, “we’ve got absolutely nothing to lose, have we?”
“I don’t know, do I?” said the first mate truthfully. “That’s why I asked.”
“Take it from me,” said Vanderdecker firmly, “we’ve got nothing to lose. If we’re lucky it could be the answer to the whole mess. If not, well, it makes a change, doesn’t it?”
