A long pause, as if the subterranean memories had exhausted their flow. But no. He began to speak again, now in a mutter so low that Jenny caught only the odd word. It was about the drive back to London, with Colonel Matson still apparently in shock. “…like getting a drunk back into barracks past the guard…” she heard. Another, briefer silence, and a snorting laugh, and then, louder…
“We could do with a drink, Terry and me, after all that, so we took the first pub we came to. Fellow jostled Terry in the doorway, shoved him up against me, so I felt this great hard lump in his jacket pocket.
“Soon as we were settled I gave it a poke.
“‘What’ve you got in there, lad?’ I asked him. ‘Let’s have a look.
“Tell you the truth I thought he’d latched on to the Colonel’s revolver—there’d be a price for a gun like that among some of Terry’s plas—but when I reached in and pulled it out far enough to see without showing it around, I saw it was one of the old pistols. Terry’d been taking it over to the Colonel, remember, when I shot Stadding, so he just dropped it in his pocket and didn’t let on and I hadn’t thought to ask him.
“‘Shame on you, Terry,’ I told him.
“‘Just a bit of a souvenir,’ he says. ‘He’s not going to want to see it again.’
“‘No harm in asking,’ I told him. ‘I’ll take charge of it now.’
“I was meaning to take it up to Forde Place on my next forty-eight, but when I called about that Mrs. Matson said how the Colonel had had this stroke and wouldn’t be seeing anybody for a bit. I went up a couple of times before he died, but he wasn’t in a state to be bothered, so I let it be.”
Jenny glanced and saw him shaking his head gently, like any old man thinking about times long past and things long done with, but the movement must have startled him. When she next looked he’d pulled his shoulders back and was frowning and looking around, as if he had no idea why he should be in a car humming along the M25.
“Thank you for telling me that,” said Nell. “It’s a terrible story, but I’m glad to know about it.”
“You think I did wrong, then?”
“It’s a long time ago, Bert, a very long time.”
“Well, you’re right there,” he said. “Water under the bridge. Best place for it.”
“He is the true original, a superb writer who revitalizes the conventions of the genre… a master.” —P.D. James
“Each of his novels unfolds like an exotic night bloomer, transforming an ordnary bit of daylight greenery into something magical, rich, and strange.” —Washington Post Book World
“An author of sophisticated, witty, and learned detective mysteries, Dickinson has imagination and is also a sensitive writer. Every new book of his can be approached with anticipation.” —New York Times Book Review
“The works of Peter Dickinson are like caviar—an acquired taste that easily can become an addiction.” —TIME
“The whodunits of Peter Dickinson are exceptional.” —Newsweek