The carriage was still deserted. He wished there were someone there, even though it might have been embarrassing. Beyond the window at the end of the carriage, more seats lurched back and forth; beside him a blur of hedges raced by. He'd already forgotten what he had to do in the clearing in the jungle, and he was trying to forget his dream about Anna too, but there was one thought he couldn't avoid: the dream hadn't been entirely false to his feelings about her. He had to admit that he was relieved to get away from her.
At least, in a sense he was… But being away from her also allowed him to consider his feelings about her. He'd been uneasy whenever they were alone together, ever since he'd come back from Nigeria. All of a sudden she was getting on his nerves. Couldn't that be because his work was giving him trouble? Yes – but that wasn't the whole of it. Whenever he was alone with her, he felt that there was something he had to do, if only he could think of it. Perhaps he didn't need to think of it, just let his body act it out for him. For some reason he was remembering their last day on the beach, when he'd chased her and caught her, more and more roughly…
He found he couldn't think of that for too long. It made him feel guilty and nervous, exactly as the dream had made him feel. If only he could wake fully he might be able to deal with it, but his thoughts were blurred, like something left in an attic for years. Most frustrating was the notion that the dream should have made clear to him what the claw was.
He was still trying to grasp the impression, when the train pulled in at Liverpool Street. What was wrong with him, letting a dream bother him so much? God knows, he needed a clear mind for his meeting with Teddy, especially if he was going to break the news that the book might be late. He grabbed his briefcase and made for the taxi-rank.
By the time he arrived on Queensway it was almost lunchtime. London was crowded with tourists, and half the shoppers in Oxford Street had been wearing robes -it was almost like a continuation of one of his dreams of Africa. Yesterday he'd been fairly sure he'd know what to say to Teddy when the time came, but now he felt sure of nothing, except that he wanted to deliver the contents of his briefcase as soon as he could. He wished he'd arranged to go to the Foundation first.
Teddy was 'in a meeting'. Editors always seemed to be 'in a meeting' – when they weren't out to lunch. Alan sat on a leather sofa in the foyer, a high-ceilinged room elaborately decorated with plaster vegetation, and leafed through Publishers Weekly, glancing at a full-page advertisement for himself – 'Britain's leading thriller writer up there with Deighton and Le Carri.' A few years ago he'd never have dared dream that a publisher would spend that kind of money to advertise his books. He should have felt more pleased, but the sense of something to be done was still nagging at him.
Soon Teddy came up from the basement. He was a tall Canadian with a youthful face that always looked scrubbed as a schoolboy's at a prize-giving. Though he was thirty-two, Alan had seen barmen refuse to serve him because he looked under age. Today he wore jeans and a T-shirt printed with a marihuana leaf. 'I hope you're starving,' he said.
That and the T-shirt meant they'd be lunching at the pizza parlour. 'Pretty much,' Alan said. At least a leisurely meal might help him relax and choose his words.
Small chance. The moment they sat down at their table, decorated with a large American flag, the waitress bobbed over to them, a pert girl with a stars-and-stripes apron and a Cockney accent. She brought them a carafe of white wine as soon as she saw Teddy.
Alan had just ordered his pizza and taken a mouthful of wine when Teddy said, 'How's Out of the Past coming?'
'Not too well,' Alan said, bracing himself for the worst.
'Yes, I had that impression last time we spoke. You don't think you can deliver on time, am I right?'
'Not without rushing it.' Alan wished he knew what Teddy thought of him, but the editor's face was bright and blank as a poster. 'I'm sorry,' Alan said. 'I don't want to seem temperamental.'
'Nobody thinks that. You're one of our most professional writers. You take it at whatever pace feels right to you. It shouldn't take you more than a couple of months past the deadline, should it?'
Just now Alan didn't know, and wondered if Teddy was flattering him in order to make him commit himself. 'I hope not,' he said.
'Well, keep me up to date on how it's going. Just don't feel too pressured, that's the main thing. Anyway, I wanted to tell you, we're giving you an excuse for deliv- ering it late. You'll recall we're doing the first paperback of Spy on Fire in September, and we very much hope you'll agree to a signing tour.'
Alan should have been delighted. At the start of his writing career he'd often dreamed of one day being important enough to tour the country at his publisher's expense, signing his books. But now he felt he was agreeing only because he could think of no reason to refuse. As soon as they'd finished their pizzas and cheesecake and coffee, he declined another drink in Teddy's office and ran for a cab to take him to the Foundation for African Studies.
The Foundation was an elegant cream stucco building near Russell Square, with a pedimented doorway flanked by round windows, portholes of gleaming white plaster, and the air of a miniature country house. Lions the size of cats perched on the gateposts between black railings, and a man was clipping the lawns in front of the building with long-handled shears. Alan wondered vaguely if he could be a plain-clothes guard, then dismissed the idea as fanciful. Perhaps he could work it into a future book: he filed the image away in his mind.
The front door was open. The man, whose shears were almost as tall as himself, glanced up as Alan went in. Beyond the door was a foyer with a graceful staircase, at the foot of which a young woman with braided hair sat at a switchboard behind a desk. A small neat man with glossy black hair that almost hid his gleaming cranium scurried out of a room near the desk and frowning abstractedly at Alan, hurried upstairs. 'May I help you?' the young woman said.
'I'm supposed to see Dr Hetherington.'
'Why, there he is. Dr Hetherington!' she called – but already the small neat man had turned and was descending the stairs.
So much for Alan's image of a tall stooped white-haired professor. At least Hetherington seemed as fussy as he sounded on the phone. He gazed at Alan, then his frown cleared. 'Ah, yes, of course,' he said. 'You're bringing me the Leopard Men's claw.'
He led the way upstairs to his office, a sunny spacious room overlooking the lawns, and lined with books in glass-fronted bookcases, out of reach of the sunlight. Through the open window came the murmur of traffic, and from closer by, the sound of clipping. Flicking a switch on his intercom, Hetherington called for tea, while Alan sank into a leather chair that sighed. Now Alan could ask the question that had nagged him all the way upstairs. 'You said the Leopard Men. The Nigerian secret society, you mean?'
'Correct.' Hetherington was obviously glad of a chance to lecture. 'At least, they were last heard of in Nigeria,' he said. 'That was in the Forties, when they were simply killers, sometimes for hire. But the Leopard tradition was found across a wide belt of Africa, from Guinea through Sierra Leone and Liberia to Nigeria and Cameroon, on through Chad and the Sudan to Uganda and even Kenya – though there were only scattered reports there. Its influence was powerful while it lasted. One wonders if it has died out completely, even now.'
A secretary came in with a teapot, mugs and milk and sugar on a tray. Hetherington poured the tea himself, giving all his attention to the task. Alan felt that if he asked a question he wouldn't be heard. There was something he needed to know, but was afraid to ask. Hetherington brought him a mug at last – 'Do tell me if the tea isn't as you like it' – and Alan took it.