* * *
A picture postcard. Torn once vertically. Addressed to Sally Anderson in Cambridge Street and showing a dressed couple lying in a field. Postmark: Macclesfield. The artist: one David Macfarlane. The description: "Silent Noon 1, 1979, mixed media 18" x 24"." Provenance: Emma's wastepaper , basket.
Emm. Crucial. AM needs 50,000 in his account by Friday noon. Miss your beautiful eyes. L. PS. Henceforth he's Nutty as in f' cake, nuts-in-whenever, tough Nutty to crack.
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 Prigorodnyi raion continued 1 November.... The fire points of the Ingush irregulars are being suppressed.... Many casualties, both killed and wounded, have been registered in many villages.... Exchanges of fire continue in conflict zone.... Airborne regiments meeting stiff resistance.... Rocket artillery used against Ingush villages.... Russian premier rules out review of existing borders.... Russian armoured column moves into Ingushetia.... Ingush refugees take to mountains.... Onset of winter fails to temper conflict....
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 clunk of the south door as it was opened from outside; then the screech of the hinges that I had always been careful not to oil since they provided such an excellent early warning system for anybody working in the priesthole. And after the screech I heard one pair of feet—wet boots, rubber soles—advance a couple of steps and pause; then splash towards me down the aisle.
* * *
There is a protocol about praying in such circumstances, and I must have thought about that too. You don't, simply because somebody has barged into your private church at two o'clock in the morning, ask him what the devil he thinks he's doing here. But neither do you behave as if worship has rendered you stone deaf. My best course, I decided, was to fidget my reborn back, draw up my shoulders, and bury my face more deeply in my hands to show that I was striving for greater piety in the teeth of boorish behaviour.
But such fineness was wasted on my intruder, for the next thing I knew was a heavy weight descending unceremoniously onto the kneeling board at my left side and a pair of raincoated elbows thumping onto the ledge next to my own, and Munslow's truculent face glowering at me from just a couple of inches away.
"All right, Cranmer. What's this God bit suddenly?"
I sat back. I allowed a sigh to escape me. I passed a hand across my eyes as if the intensity of my meditations were still upon me.
"For pity's sake," I whispered, but this only annoyed him further.
"Don't give me that crap. I've checked. There's not a whiff of God on your file. What are you cooking up? Got someone tucked away here, have you? Pettifer? Comrade Checheyev? Your little lady friend Emma that nobody can find? Six hours you've done down here so far tonight. The bloody Pope doesn't do that much."
I preserved my weary, inward tone. "I've got things on my mind, Andy. Leave me alone. I won't be interrogated about my faith. By you or anyone."
"Oh, yes you will. Your old employers would like very much to interrogate you about your faith and a few other things that are troubling them. Starting tomorrow eleven a.m. and continuing for as long as it takes. Meanwhile you've got yourself a few houseguests in case you take it into your head to do a runner. Orders."
He stood up. His knees were close to my face, and I had a ridiculous urge to break them, though I am sure I had forgotten how. There was some hold they had taught us at training camp, a kind of rugger tackle that bent legs the wrong way. But I didn't break his legs or try to. If I had done, he would probably have broken mine. Instead I dropped my head, passed my hand across my brow again, and closed my eyes.
"I need to talk to you, Andy. Time to get it off my chest. How many are you?"
"Four. What's that got to do with it?" But there was greed in his voice, and excitement. At his feet he saw the kneeling penitent who was about to make his reputation for him.
"I'd rather talk to you here," I said. "Tell them to go back to the house and wait for us."