A horrible thought struck him. He had forgotten to change. He was wearing his old, comfortable clothes, which were very old and very comfortable indeed. The girl seemed to be having enough difficulty in coming to terms with his invulnerability. As soon as she saw he was dressed in sixteenth century seafaring clothes, she would probably have hysterics.
Fortunately it was dark, too dark to see anything but silhouettes. Vanderdecker dusted himself off and started to back away. But he wanted to know, very much, why this girl couldn’t smell the smell.
“Are you sure you’re all right?”
“Positive,” he said. “Sorry to have frightened you. My own silly fault.”
“Can I give you a lift anywhere?” the girl persisted. Vanderdecker remembered that they have funny little lights inside cars that switch themselves on when you open the door. He refused politely and said that he was nearly there. She didn’t ask where, thank God.
“I still can’t understand how you aren’t hurt,” said the girl.
“Luck,” replied the Flying Dutchman. “Fool’s luck. Look, can I ask you a question?”
“Yes,” said the girl doubtfully.
“Can you smell anything?”
“
“That’s right,” Vanderdecker said. He hadn’t meant to ask, it had just slipped out. But now that it had, he might as well know the answer.
“No,” said the girl. “But I’ve got a really rotten sense of smell, so I’m not the best person to ask.”
“I see,” Vanderdecker said. “Sorry, I thought I could smell something. Can you tell me the way to Dounreay nuclear power station, by any chance?”
“I’m sorry,” said the girl, and Vanderdecker could tell she was staring at him despite the darkness. “I don’t come from around here, actually. I’ve got a map in the car…”
Vanderdecker remembered the little light. “That’s all right,” he said. “Well, I mustn’t keep you. Bye.” A moment later and the darkness had swallowed him.
Jane Doland stared a little more, realised that such an act was futile, and got back into the car. She still had twenty-odd miles to go, and it was late. She had missed her way at Lybster, or had it been Thurso, just before she had got behind the milk-tanker that was behind the tractor which had been trying to overtake the JCB ever since Melvich, and she knew that her obnoxious cousin Shirley went to bed at about half-past six. As she drove, she tried to work out what was really unsettling her; believe it or not, it wasn’t the fact that she had just run into a fellow human being at forty miles an hour, or even the remarkable lack of effect the collision had had on her victim. It was the vague but definite notion that she had met him before. Not seen him, heard him, a long time ago.
An hour later, she pulled up in front of Cousin Shirley’s bungalow in the picturesque but extremely windy village of Mey, put on the handbrake and flopped. She needed a moment to pull herself together before meeting her least favourite kinswoman again. She had hoped that when Shirley married the burnt-out advertising executive and went off with him to Caithness to keep goats and weave lumpy sweaters that they would never meet again this side of the grave. She remembered something from an A-Level English set book about something or other that made vile things precious, but she couldn’t remember what the something was and let it slip by.
She was just bracing herself to go in and have done with it when the door of the car opened. She looked round, expecting to see Shirley, but it wasn’t Shirley. Perhaps you are now in a position to judge the significance of the fact that she would far rather have seen Shirley than the person she actually saw.
“Jane Doland?” said the mystery door-opener. A tall, fat man with grey hair and a face that did nothing to reassure her. She looked round quickly at the passenger door, but that had been opened too.
“My name is Clough,” said the door-opener, “and this is my partner Mr Demaris. We want to talk to you about Bridport.”
The cat arched its back by way of acknowledgement to the sun, and curled up to go to sleep. It had had a long day chasing cockroaches in the shunting yard, and if it didn’t get forty winks now and again it was no good for anything. The live rail was pleasantly warm against its head, and the sleepers were firm under its spine. An agreeable place to sleep.
The 16.40 from Madrid is an express, and it doesn’t usually stop before Cadiz. It stopped all right this time, though. It stopped so much that all the carriages jumped the rail and didn’t stop slithering until they reached the foot of the embankment. It was a miracle nobody was seriously hurt.
