Well, Jane said to herself, Captain Vanderdecker has lots and lots of money, in a rather peculiar way. If he manages to get what he wants from Professor Montalban, no doubt he could be persuaded to express his immense gratitude in fiscal terms. Then Jane can live happily ever after and won’t have to go to work ever again. Provided that Vanderdecker really exists, of course, and this whole thing isn’t the result of an injudicious bed-time cheese sandwich. And if it is, why then, we’ll wake up and go to work as usual. Fine.
But that’s not the reason, is it? Jane frowned at the space where the doughnut had been, and was forced to confess that it wasn’t. So what the hell was? Could it possibly be Captain Vanderdecker’s grey eyes? We consider this point, said Jane hurriedly to ourselves, only out of thoroughness and to dismiss it. Captain Vanderdecker is very 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.
