I made a brief mental pause, as other old memories began to wake inside my head. AM who is Nutty, who is tough to crack. Nuts in May; who speaks like Mr. Dass and has a new telephone in his car. The memories stirred, ordered themselves, and were set aside to wait their turn.
I took up a sheet of yellow legal pad, crumpled by Emma and unfolded by myself. Provenance: her kneehole desk at Honeybrook.
Emm. Vital. I'm seeing Nutty at 10 tomorrow in Bath. CC has sent the shopping list by bearded friend, and it's awaiting my collection IN LONDON, at the Royal Automobile Club in Pall Mall. Call the Club. Tell them you're my secy. and they must mail the letter EXPRESS to me here, for tomorrow. These are the best days of my life. Thank you for the days, thank you for life. Nutty says we have to calculate around twenty percent in bribes. Auden says we must love one another or die.
L.
A fresh folder of reports from the BBC monitoring service, this time intact, and the marked extracts like the crematorium music of every border war across the globe:
Combat operations in
Tim Cramner, you prize, prizer, prizest fool, I thought.
How about your purblind innocence—you who used to pride yourself on never missing a trick?
Perhaps it was this anger with myself that made me lift my head in such a hurry. I lifted my head and listened, and what I heard I don't know, but I heard it. Clutching the wall, I embarked on another laborious cripple's tour of my six arrow slit windows. The thunderclouds had fled. A half-moon draped with cloud cast a grey glow over the surrounding hills. Gradually I made out the shapes of three men placed at intervals around the chapel. They were fifty yards apart and eighty yards away from me. Each stood like a sentry halfway down his own hill. As I watched, the man at the centre took a stride forward and was imitated by his comrades either side of him.
I looked at my house. By the porch light I saw a fourth man standing by my car. This time I didn't panic. No rushing upstairs or forgetting telephone numbers. Panic, like the pain in my back, was a thing of the past. I glanced at the turmoil of papers on the floor, at my trestle table, at my makeshift archive in disarray, my school tuckbox spilling over with files. Resisting a ridiculous impulse to tidy them, I made a swift collection of essential documents.
Bairstow's escape briefcase stood open beside the door. I stuffed the documents into it, together with some spare ammunition, then slipped the .38 into my waistband. As I did so, an instinct reminded me of Zorin's letter nestling in my pocket. Returning to the tuckbox, I delved until I came upon a folder marked PETER. I removed Zorin's personal particulars sheet and added it to the essential documents in the briefcase. I switched off my light and took a last look outside. The men were converging on the chapel. Briefcase in hand, I groped my way down the spiral staircase to the vestry. Closing the cope cupboard behind me, I grabbed a box of matches and stepped into the church.
I was ahead of them. With the moonlight to help me, I unlocked the south door, then made swiftly for the pulpit, which is Norman and finely carved. I climbed the four creaking wooden steps and set the briefcase out of sight against the front panels, where a preacher's feet would be if one were standing there. I went to the altar and lit the candles. Calmly. No shake. Choosing a pew on the north side, I knelt down, put my face in my hands, and, for want of a closer definition of what was going on inside my head, prayed for my deliverance, if only so that I could deliver Emma and Larry from their insanity.
In good time I heard the throaty
