Thoughtfully I asked Priam, as if I’d forgotten I’d asked him before, “How well do you know Rose Payne?”
“I don’t know her,” he replied at once, and then, more slowly, revised the assertion and watered it down. “I’ve seen her around.”
“How well does she know Adam Force, would you say? Do you think Doctor Force would be foolish enough to lend her a cylinder of gas from a nursing home he visits?”
Priam looked as shocked as if I’d run him through with swords, but unfortunately from my own point of view he didn’t actually flag-wave any signs of guilt. He didn’t feel guilty; almost no one did.
Bon-Bon’s “early supper” proved to be just that, slightly to Priam’s disappointment. He preferred grandeur, but everyone sat around the big kitchen table, Marigold, Worthington, the children, Bon-Bon, me and Priam himself. I also acted as waiter, as I often did in that house, though Daniel, the elder boy, carried empty dishes sometimes.
“Gerard,” he said, standing solidly in front of me between courses, to gain my attention, “Who’s Victor?”
I paid attention very fast and said, “He’s a boy. Tell me what you’ve heard.”
“Is it still the same?” Daniel asked. “Do we get the gold coins?”
“No, of course not,” Bon-Bon scolded. “That was a game.”
“So is this,” I promised her, “so do let’s play the same way.”
I dug in a pocket and found some loose change, surprised I had any left after the twenty or more coins they’d won several days earlier.
“What about Victor?” I asked. I put a coin flat on the table and Daniel said, “There are two things,” so I put down a second coin.
“You’re teaching these children all wrong,” Marigold berated.
Theoretically I might agree with her but Daniel unexpectedly spoke up. “Gerard told Worthington and a friend of his that you have to pay for what you get.”
Marigold’s disfavor spread to her chauffeur, but Daniel, not understanding, simply waited for me to listen.
“Go on,” I said. “Two pieces of treasure. And they’d better be worth it.” I grinned at him. He put his chubby hand flat over the coins and said directly to me, “He wants to tell you a secret.”
“When did he say that?”-I took him seriously, but the other adults laughed.
Daniel picked up one of the gold coins. Mercenary little devil, I thought.
Daniel said, “He phoned here. Mommy was out in the garden, so I answered it. He said he was Victor. He didn’t want to talk to Mommy, but only to you. You weren’t here, but I told him you were coming for supper so he said to tell you he would try again, if he could.”
Daniel’s hand hovered in the air over the second coin. I nodded philosophically and he whisked it away in a flash.
“That’s disgraceful!” Marigold told me severely. “You’re teaching my grandson all sorts of bad habits.”
“It’s a game,” I repeated, and one for eleven-year-olds. Bright though he was, I thought Daniel had done a good piece of work.
“Early supper” ended at seven-thirty, an hour before the younger children’s bedtime. Marigold, her mercurial spirits restored, gave Daniel a forgiving good-night hug that swallowed him in caftan, and after coffee, three large slugs of Grand Marnier and a giggly chat on the telephone with Kenneth Trubshaw involving the sponsorship of gold trophies, Marigold floated out to the Rolls in clouds of goodwill and let Worthington solici tously install her in the backseat and drive off to her home.
Priam Jones felt less than decently treated. He let Bon-Bon know, while thanking her for her hospitality, that as a racehorse trainer of prestige, and especially as her husband’s ex — chief employer, he would have enjoyed more attention and consideration. He bestowed an even cooler farewell nod to me and in irritation gave his new tires a harsh workout in his departure across the gravel. Poor Priam, I thought. It couldn’t be much fun being him.
Victor kept me waiting a long time. Bon-Bon, going upstairs to read stories to the children, gave me a kiss good night and waved me to the den for the evening; but it was after eleven o’clock when the fifth caller on the line spoke with the familiar cracked voice of Taunton.
“Gerard? I’m in a public phone box. Mom thinks I’m in bed. She threw away your mobile number. I can’t use the e-mail. Auntie Rose has taken my computer... I’m absolutely sick of things. I want to see you. Tell me where. I’m running out of money.”
There were indeed too many time-over warning clicks. He was feeding small coins, I supposed, because he hadn’t any others. In a short period of peace I said, “I’ll come to Taunton station. Same train, on Sunday.”
“No. Tomorrow. Please, tomorrow.”
I agreed, and the line went dead.
You’re raving mad, that’s what you are,” Tom Pigeon said at seven in the morning, when I told him. “Today’s Friday. The boy should be in school.”
“That’s probably why he was so insistent. He could skip school without his mother knowing.”
“You’re not going,” Tom said positively; and then, a few seconds later, “We’ll get Jim to drive us; he’s got an estate car for the dogs. Where are you?”
“At the Stukelys’. Can you pick me up here?”
“Last Sunday, five days ago,” Tom said with mock patience, “dear Rose tore your face open in Taunton with the tap end of a garden hose.”
“Mm,” I agreed.
“And the day before yesterday, I hear, you nearly got yourself killed.”
“Well...”
“How about staying at home?”
I smiled at the silly idea.
10
By Friday Jim’s wife had told him I was accursed by demons and he should no longer drive me. Our lateness on Wednesday had burned her risotto.
Jim and I however came to a mutual understanding and shook hands on it. He would drive when I needed him in bodyguard status, there would be no radio, and I would pay him double.
Despite this slightly crabby start, Jim drove Tom, me and the dogs cheerfully to Taunton and stopped in the no-parking zone outside the station. I remembered too late that the weekday timetable was different from Sunday’s, and the expected train had come and gone, leaving Victor stranded.
He wasn’t on the platform.
Giving Tom the news and receiving a promise to sit and wait, I hurried along the road until 19 Lorna Terrace was in sight. No Victor. Back to the station — and I found him there, cold and anxious, in the waiting room.
He stood up looking thin and stressed, my arrival not enough to bring out smiles. I’d spent part of the journey adding Victor into every event that Blackmask Four could have attended without disguise, and feeling I was nowhere near as good as George Lawson-Young at this factor-X stuff, I couldn’t make X fit Victor anywhere.
“I’m late because I didn’t come on the train,” I briefly explained. “What’s the matter?”
“I want...” He sounded as desperate as he looked. He began again. “Auntie Rose has moved into our house... I hate her. I can’t bear her, and Mom won’t speak to me unless I do what Auntie Rose says; because Mom’s that scared of her. And my dad, when he gets out, won’t come home while she’s there. I know he won’t, so where can I go? What can I do? I don’t know anyone except you to ask, and that’s a laugh really, considering your face...”
“Did you try your grandfather?”
Victor said hopelessly, “He’s shit scared of Auntie Rose. Worse than Mom.”
I said, “Last Sunday...” and he interrupted.
“I’m sorry. I’m really sorry about your face. I thought you wouldn’t come today... I thought you hadn’t come.”