"Leave hold of my friend or I'll call the police."
"It won't be you needing their services, it'll be me. Trespassers. Thieves. Nasty vultures."
"He means harpies, but he's not educated."
"Leonora, please. "
"I'm waiting for an explanation, Miss Bailey."
"Not here, not now, Oh please."
"What does he want explaining, Maud?"
"Nothing important. Oh, surely you can see this isn't the moment, Sir George?"
"I can indeed. Take your hands off me, you vulgar woman, go away. I hope I never see either of you again." Sir George turned smartly, parted the small crowd that had gathered, and hurried away.
Leonora said, "What does he want explaining, Maud?"
"I'll tell you later."
"You certainly will. I'm intrigued." Maud felt near to complete despair. She wished she was anywhere but here and now. She thought of Yorkshire, the white light on the Thomasine Foss, the sulphurous stones and glimpsed ammonites at the Boggle Hole.
A jingling warder, her black face severe, gestured at pale Paola.
"Phone," she said. "For Ash editors."
Paola followed the sound of keys and the solid jacketed hips down carpeted tunnels to a telephone at a security point which the Ash Factory was allowed, as a great favour, to use in emergency.
"Paola Fonseca."
"Are you the editor of The Collected Poems of Randolph Henry Ash?"
"His assistant."
"I have been told I should speak to a Professor Blackadder. My name is Byng. I am a solicitor. I am speaking on behalf of a client, who would like to enquire about the-well-the market price of certain-certain-possible manuscripts."
"Possible, Mr Byng?"
"My client is very unclear. Are you sure I can't speak directly to Professor Blackadder?"
"I'll fetch him. It's a long walk. You must be patient."
Blackadder spoke to Mr Byng. He came back to the Ash Factory white and sharp and in a state of highly irritated excitement.
"Some fool wants a valuation of an unspecified number of letters from Ash to an unspecified woman. I said, are there five or fifteen, or twenty. Byng said he didn't know, but was instructed to say in the region of fifty or so. Long ones, he said, not dentist's appointments and thank yous. Wouldn't name his client. I said how could I set a price on something potentially so important, sight unseen. I've always hated that phrase, haven't you, Paola, sight unseen, it's a tautology or something near, it simply means unseen, doesn't it? So Mr Byng says he believes there is already an offer in the region of six large figures. An English offer, I asked, and Byng said no, not necessarily. That sod Cropper has been there, wherever it is. I said, may I know where you're talking from, and he said Tuck Lane Chambers, Lincoln. I said, can I see the damn things, and Byng said his client was very opposed to being disturbed, very irascible. Now what do you make of that? I get the impression if I made a guesstimate of a generous kind, I might just be allowed a look. But if I do that, we'll never get the funds to back the guess, not if that sod Cropper's involved with his bottomless cheque book and Mr Byng's client is already asking questions about money and not about scholarly value.
"I tell you what, Paola, all this has something to do with the funny behaviour of Roland Michell and his visits to that Dr Bailey in Lincoln. Now what has young Roland been up to? Where, for that matter, is he? Wait till I get a word with him…"
"Roland?"
"No. Who is that. Is that Maud Bailey?"
"This is Paola Fonseca. I don't sound remotely like Maud Bailey. Val, I have to speak to Roland, it's urgent."
"I'm not surprised, he doesn't go into the library any more, he sits here writing… "
"Is he there now?”
“Always so urgent, you and Maud Bailey."
"What is this about Maud Bailey?"
"She's a telephone heavy breather."
"Val, is he there? I'm in an open corridor, I can't hang on long, you know about these silly phones-"
"I'll get him."
"Roland, this is Paola. You're in big trouble. Blackadder's in a fearful rage. He's looking for you."
"He can't have looked far. I'm here. Getting on with my article."
"You don't understand. Listen-I don't know if this means any thing to you. He had a call from someone called Byng, wanting to price a collection of about fifty letters from Ash to a woman."
"What woman?"
"Byng didn't say. Blackadder thinks he knows. He thinks you know too. He thinks you're up to things behind his back. He says you're treacherous-Roland, are you there?"
"Yes. I'm thinking. It's terribly nice of you to phone, Paola. I don't know why you bothered, but it's nice."
"I hate noise, that's why."
"Noise?"
"Uh-huh. If you come in he'll roar. And roar and roar. It makes me sick to the stomach. I hate shouting. Also, I'm quite fond of you.
"That's nice of you. I hate shouting too. I hate Cropper. I hate the Ash Factory. I wish I was anywhere but here, I wish I could disappear off the face of the earth."
"A fellowship in Auckland or Yerevan."
"A hole in the ground, more like. Tell him you don't know where I am. And thanks."
Val seems cross.
"That's endemic. That's one reason I hate shouting. It's mostly my fault.”
“Guard's coming back. I'm going. Look after yourself.”
“Thanks for everything."
Roland went out. He felt wholly helpless and desperate. Telling himself that any intelligent man in his position should have foreseen these possible developments made things worse, not better. He had been emotionally wholly convinced that the letters would remain his private secret, until he chose to reveal it, until he knew the end of the story, until-until he knew what Randolph Ash would have wanted done. Val asked him where he was going, and he didn't answer. He went along Putney High Street in search of an unvandalised telephone box. He went into an Indian grocery and provided himself with a telephone card and a stack of change. He walked over Putney Bridge and into Fulham, where he found a cardphone box that had to be functioning because it had a long queue. He waited. Two people, a black man and a white woman, exhausted their cards. Another white woman played some complicated trick on the phone box with her car keys and talked interminably. Roland and his co-queuers looked at each other and began to circle the box like hyenas, threatening eye-contact and then occasionally slapping the glass with casual palms. When, finally, looking neither to right nor left, the woman flounced out, Roland's predecessors were courteously brief. He was not unhappy in the queue. No one knew where he was. He got through. "Maud?”
“She isn't available right now. Can I take a message?”
“No. It doesn't matter. I'm in a call-box. When will she be back?”
“She isn't exactly away. She's bathing.”
“It's kind of urgent. There's a queue behind me.”
“Maud. I was just calling her. Will you hang on, please, until I see what she- Maud. " When would they tap on the glass? "She's just coming. Who shall I say?”
“It doesn't matter. If she's coming." He imagined Maud, wet, in a white towel. Who was the Ameri can? Must be Leonora. Had Maud said anything to Leonora. Could she say anything to him, in front of Leonora…? "Hullo? Maud Bailey speaking.”