I was alone.
‘You’re awake then,’ a measured cheerful voice asserted. ‘You’re a good sleeper when you start.’
Reluctantly I peeped out of one eye. Margaret was bending over the cooker turning something in a frying pan. She had found a kettle, too, and a wisp of steam plumed merrily into the air. It was a scene of pleasing domesticity. I rechecked my memories of the night and clenched the eye shut again.
‘It’s a beautiful morning,’ she said. ‘The sun’s splitting the stones.’
I could hear the spatter of fat. Despite myself, my mouth began to water.
‘That can’t be bacon. Where would you have got it?’
Her laugh, like every sound and move she made, was music.
‘I found a little corner shop. There’s ham and eggs and coffee. And he had rolls. Do you like rolls?’
‘What could be nicer?’ I said, keeping my eyes shut.
‘There’s butter with them,’ she said coaxingly.
I put my forearm over my eyes.
‘Come on!’ she said. ‘It’ll spoil if it has to wait.’
If only, I fretted, she had thought about that during the night.
‘Chuck me over my clothes,’ I said.
‘In a minute. Do you like your eggs turned?’
Flesh and blood could stand no more. Resolutely I put back the blankets and stood up.
‘Sweet God!’ she said. ‘I hope you’re not one of those exhibitionists.’
With more awkwardness than grace, I progressed to where she had piled my clothes neatly on the edge of the table. Among her other virtues she seemed to be house-proud. I got into my underpants with difficulty. She could not resist another glance over.
‘No need to peek,’ I said. ‘It hasn’t recovered from the mauling you gave it last night.’
‘Oh, now,’ she said seriously, ‘don’t talk like that or I won’t think well of you.’
‘Turn them!’
‘What?’ she asked in fright.
‘The eggs – I like them done both sides.’
Fat hissed as she tipped them over.
‘I fried them in butter.’
‘You’ll give me a coronary one way or the other.’
Dressed, I came over and had a look.
‘You should fry bacon on a dry pan,’ I said.
‘Don’t be silly.’
‘It’s true. A dry pan – heat the bacon and slant the pan. Press the fat out as it fries. Makes the crispest bacon you could eat.’
‘I suppose you’ll manage this though.’
She sounded offended. I began to feel better. To tell the truth, I began to feel unreasonably cheerful. We had two eggs each as well as the bacon. She was a good eater. There wasn’t much talking until we had finished.
‘I’m going to be coarse again,’ I said.
She looked relieved when I scrubbed the plate with the buttery end of the last roll.
‘Run out and get the same again, would you?’ I licked pale flaky crumbs from the wet tip of my finger.
‘Are you still hungry? Would you like something else?’
There certainly seemed to be a hint there that she was ready to forage out again with her little shopping list. That was very compliant of her. She seemed to split her personality between the night and the daylight hours.
‘Don’t tempt me.’ A thought cracked my jaw in mid yawn: ‘Kilpatrick will be missed at his work. He told me he worked in an office somewhere.’
‘Oh, no. When he left the Army, he joined—’
She stopped abruptly, and though I waited she didn’t say any more.
‘Well, anyway,’ I said, ‘wherever he is, he’s not here.’
I wondered if the look in her eyes could be relief. If it was, guilt made her more emphatic.
‘I’m worried sick about him,’ she said.
‘I know, you lay awake all night worrying.’
She looked more seriously offended this time. I watched uncomfortably as she cleared away and ran water over the dishes.
‘That won’t clear the grease off them if the water’s cold,’ I said.
As a way of ingratiating myself, it didn’t work. She slammed off the tap.
‘What are you doing?’ I asked.
‘It’s obvious, isn’t it?’
She was cramming back into her shoulder sack all the odds and ends that had got themselves unpacked.
‘Going?’
‘And you,’ she said. ‘I’m going to lock up.’
‘No, Miss Briody,’ a voice said behind me. ‘I can’t let you do that.’
Without turning round, I knew who it was. Margaret stared over my shoulder wide-eyed with shock at the interruption. As Brond spoke, he moved into the room until I could see him.
‘If you would wait here, Miss Briody,’ he said, ‘it would only take us a minute to make sure.’
‘Sure of what?’ she asked.
He tilted his head and almost smiled: the whole effect seeming to say, If you want to pretend, that’s your business, of course.
‘Who are you?’ Her voice trembled.
But it was his name she had used when she brought me the parcel. She had met him at Professor Gracemount’s party – but, of course, that was weeks ago. Perhaps I was the only one who could not forget what Brond looked like.
At a movement of his hand, I followed him through the door into the passage that took us out into the yard. We left Margaret standing by the table, her ridiculously crammed shoulder bag swinging from her hand.
‘There’s no one in there,’ I told Brond as he crossed to the unpainted padlocked door.
‘You’ve looked?’
‘Both of us looked.’
‘Last night? I see. Miss Briody has a key then.’
‘You don’t need one – the padlock’s broken.’
I pushed it open with my finger and lifted it clear. He took it from me and examined it, then looked about as if searching for a place to lay it. There was a box round a standpipe and he stood the lock on top of it at a careful angle.
‘Didn’t you find it strange?’ he asked.
Without waiting for an answer, he opened the door.
‘Didn’t you find it strange that a businessman should go off on holiday and leave his property so badly protected?’
‘I didn’t give it a thought,’ I lied stubbornly.
‘Extraordinary,’ Brond said, looking at me with interest.
The store seemed smaller than during the night. Builders’ material was stacked everywhere. What I had taken for ladders were lengths of timber propped against the far wall. There were ladders as well, hung on hooks from a beam. Light drifted down from dirty skylights. Slowly Brond paced the length of the place.
He stopped in front of a pile of empty sacks in the corner farthest from the door.
‘Well?’ he asked.
I could see no reason for the question. It seemed to me he was playing another of his obscure games with me.
‘Well?’ he asked again and swung his forefinger like a pointer. I could see nothing.
‘Are you joking?’
‘What an odd impression you must have of me.’ The note of his voice was as solemn as a Sunday bell. ‘Doesn’t it seem strange that the floor here is so clean?’
There was a path through the dust.
‘Shift them away.’
The sacks were dirty. I lifted one and a shower of grime settled on my shoes. I held up my hands. Each was oiled with a sooty smear.
‘This is stupid.’
‘Don’t stop. It would look bad if you refused.’
The bewilderment he imposed on me and the fear I would never admit made me turn again to the task. I tugged at the next sack trying to slide it off to keep down the mess. It would not move. I pulled again but something was holding it. I was doing Brond’s bidding. What kind of man was I? In blind anger I took a double grip on the sack and, too excited to be careful, gave a great heave. It came with a sudden release and I staggered back in an uprising cloud of dirt as the body of Kilpatrick turned stiffly out from among the sacks and sprawled at my feet.