“It was a dump when we bought it. Looked as if a bomb had hit it.”
“Hard to believe.”
“Then it caught fire. That improved things a bit.”
“You said that we bought it. Would that be…”
“The drunk who had a fight with a bridge, yes.”
She showed him the rest. Small sitting room full of a big sofa and wallpaper dotted with tired roses that couldn’t wait for winter to come and end it all. Stairs to a bedroom with, surprisingly, a four-poster. “Wedding present,” she said. Bathroom, with no bath and no shower.
“Don’t tell me you stand in the rain,” he said.
“Nearly right. I run a hose from the kitchen to the garden.”
“In the buff?”
“Stark naked. Sometimes the dog joins me.”
“You should sell tickets.”
“You can watch for a fiver.” She didn’t smile. “I need the cash. Reminds me: you said you want a cello.”
They went downstairs, and she pulled an old, scarred cello from under the baby grand. “There’s a case for it somewhere.”
He looked it over. “This one’s been around the block a few times, hasn’t it?”
“Another wedding present. My father-in-law was a collector. You’ve heard of Stradivarius? He had a nephew called Cabrilloni, taught him all he knew. This cello is a Cabrilloni. Three hundred years old.” She gave it to him.
Silk blew the dust off it and looked inside. “There’s a label here,” he said. “Joseph Parrish, Instrument Maker, Wolverhampton 1937.”
“That’s to keep it from getting stolen. Under the label it says Francisco Cabrilloni of Naples, 1667. In Italian, of course.”
Silk took the bow and pulled it across the strings. “Christ Almighty,” he said. The noise was like a bad cough. “Is it difficult to learn?”
“What do you care? You didn’t come here to learn it in the first place.” She took the cello and propped it against the piano. “Let us go and test the four-poster. It is by far the best thing in this house.”
Silk paused on the stairs. “This is a good idea,” he said, “as long as you know I’m not madly in love with you.”
“That’s a relief,” she said. “For myself, I find you somewhat attractive. That’s okay, isn’t it? Or do you want to go for a long walk and think it over?”
“Definitely not.”
He stayed for supper. When he left, he took the cello with him.
“Since you don’t want to learn to play it, there are much smaller things you could learn not to play,” she said. “I’ve got an old clarinet somewhere. Or a fiddle.”
“I told Zoë I’m learning the cello. I’d better stick to what I said.”
“Five pounds for the first lesson,” she said. He paid.
Quinlan’s crew, and two other Vulcan crews, were sitting in one of the briefing rooms in the Ops Block, when Skull came in.
“I have never been totally persuaded by the story of David and Goliath,” he said. “It implies that bulk, because it is big, must be vulnerable. The ant beneath the elephant would not agree. And suppose Goliath, not David, had the slingshot? Or suppose David had a squint and he hit, not Goliath, but his own mother-in-law, watching from the side?”
“Moses supposes his toeses are roses,” Dando said. “But Moses supposes erroneously.”
“Which confirms my point,” Skull said. “Trust nobody, check everything. Above all, know your enemy.”
“France,” a squadron leader said confidently. “That’s our natural enemy. So my old dad used to say, anyway.”
Mild amusement.
“May the good Saint Émilion forgive you both,” Skull told him. “I see the enemy as a tall, fair-haired, athletic figure, cleanshaven, with a typically Slavic face. Married, two children. Brave – he flew Stormoviks and strafed German tanks in the Great Patriotic War, as they call it. Plays the flute. Not now, of course. Now he is a junior general in the Soviet air force, commanding a missile base at Dukhovskina Vyazma, which is near Smolensk. He has just pressed the red button to complete the firing sequence for an intercontinental nuclear missile. His job is done. So is his life, and that of his wife and their two children, whose names I can’t pronounce, but it matters not because they will soon be pronounced dead, thanks to your pluck and courage. These remarks are in bad taste, but then so is nuclear annihilation. Any questions so far?”
“You’re very chirpy today, Skull,” Silk said.
“My back pay has come through. I hope I didn’t offend you with that strictly factual recital of your duties.”
“It was a bit stuffy,” a flight lieutenant said.
“That was irony,” Skull explained. “The mustard that excites the meat. It costs so little, yet it means so much.”
“You’re in a very pissy mood today, Skull,” Quinlan said.
“The Lagonda’s got a nasty cough. Probably the exhaust. Bang goes my back pay.” A flight-sergeant came in with a bundle of files. “At last,” Skull said. “Luncheon is served.” They got down to the serious business. Each crew was given a Soviet strategic bomber base as their supposed target. Quinlan’s crew got Tartu, easy meat because their Blue Steel could be released while they were still over the Baltic Sea. Silk noticed that Tartu was in Estonia. Rough luck on the poor bloody Estonians. First the East fucked you over, then the West blew you to buggery. But he said nothing.
The Vulcan climbed steadily across the North Sea. It reached the mouth of the Baltic at fifty thousand feet, still well below its operational ceiling, and going flat out, a little below the speed of sound. The plan was to make a dash towards the target, and get in and out while still over the Baltic.
The anti-flash blinds were up but there was nothing to see except a few thousand cubic miles of violet-tinged stratosphere. Scandinavia was off to the left, lost under cloud. Even the cloud was out of sight.
Silk was making his routine check of instruments – altimeter, artificial horizon, air speed indicator, machmeter, compass – when Quinlan shouted: “Christ! What was that?” Silk looked and saw nothing. “What was what?” he said. Foolish question. He shut up. Quinlan was questioning Tucker about radar signals. Tucker said: “What signals? Nothing showed here.” The others in the back agreed. Quinlan said, “We just got bounced. Some bastard just bounced us.” His voice cracked slightly.
Silk leaned forward and searched. A speck of silver streaked, diving across the sky, almost faster than his eyes could follow, and was gone. “Delta fighter,” he said. “I think.”
“They’re playing silly-buggers with us,” Quinlan said. “Running rings round us. Look…” Before he could point, another tiny triangle shot past and soared and was lost in the sun.
“Mach two,” Silk said. “At least Mach two.”
After a couple of minutes, a formation of three delta-wing fighters dropped from considerably higher and escorted the Vulcan at what seemed a lazily sedate speed. “Swedes,” Quinlan said. “We’re being seen off the premises by a bunch of Swedes.” He turned for home.
At debriefing, Silk made a sketch and Renouf, the Operations Officer, confirmed that it was a Saab 35 Draken. “That’s Swedish for dragon,” he said. “Very supersonic. Designed specifically to intercept blokes like you.”
“They left us standing,” Quinlan said. “They made us look like cold treacle.”