“Lucas Hutchman!” Her voice was surprised, but with undertones of pleasure. “Of course I remember… I’ve seen you lately at Jeavons, but you didn’t speak to me.”
“I wasn’t sure if you would know who I was.”
“Well, your not even saying hello to me wouldn’t help my memory, would it?”
“I guess not.” Hutchman felt his face grow warm and he realized with mild astonishment that he and this virtual stranger were, within seconds, making contact on a sexual level. “I always seem to miss my chances.”
“Really? Then why have you rung me? Or shouldn’t I be so bold?”
“I was wondering…” Hutchman swallowed. “I know this is very presumptuous, but I was wondering if you would do me a small favor.”
“I hope I can, but I should warn you that I’m leaving for Moscow tomorrow and won’t be back for three weeks.”
“It’s in connection with your Moscow trip that I’m ringing. I have an article on microwave radiation that I want to get to the editor of Soviet Science rather quickly. I could send it through the ordinary mail, but it’s quite a fearsome-looking thing — you know how maths papers are — and there’s so much censorship and red tape that it might take months before it got through, so I wondered…” Hutchman paused to regain his breath.
“Do you want me to deliver it by hand? A sort of transSiberian Pony Express?” Andrea laughed easily, and Hutchman felt he had cleared a hurdle.
“No need for anything like that,” he assured her gratefully. “It’ll be in an addressed envelope. If you could simply shove it in a postbox or whatever they have over there.”
“I’ll be happy to do that for you, Lucas, but there’s a problem.”
“A problem?” Hutchman tried not to sound too concerned.
“Yes. I haven’t got the envelope to deliver. How do I get it?”
“That shouldn’t be difficult. May I bring it round to you today?”
“Well, I’m still in the throes of packing, but I’ll be free this evening if that’s convenient.”
Hutchman’s heart began to pound steadily. “Yes, that’s fine. Where shall I… ?”
“Where do you usually meet women?”
“I…” He checked himself from saying that he did not usually meet women. You asked for this, Vicky. “How about the Camburn Arms? Perhaps we could have a meal?”
“I’ll look forward to that, Lucas. Eight o’clock?”
“See you at eight o’clock.” He set the phone down and stepped out of the confines of the kiosk into the noonday bustle feeling bewildered, as if he had swallowed several strong gins on an empty stomach. He gazed blankly at the unfamiliar scene for a second before realizing that he was in Aldershot at the beginning of a grand tour of the southern counties. That plan would have to be modified for a start. As he walked back to the car Hutchman decided that posting the first envelopes in a single batch in one town could be less informative to an investigator than an elaborate itinerary. There was something faintly disturbing about the fact that his modified plan for the journey, which had not been considered until a moment ago, seemed better than one he had thought about for days; but there was no denying that it would be wise to ensure a smooth trip for at least one envelope to Moscow.
On the west side of Aldershot he swung south from the Bath road and made the shorter trip to Salisbury where he mailed a sheaf of envelopes. It was not until he was almost back in Crymchurch again that he appreciated the significance of having consigned the antibomb specification to Her Majesty’s mails. Until that moment he had retained the option of backing out and returning to sane, normal life.
The first irrevocable step had been taken.
CHAPTER 7
Andrea Knight came slowly into the bar, her black hair caught inside the collar of her suede coat, a sling-type handbag almost trailing on the floor. Hutchman, who had arrived a little early, watched as she walked the length of the room. He asked himself what it was about her which caused the male drinkers to fall silent as she passed by. Did the slinky-slovenly gait, that chalky and pouting lower lip, suggest something to their minds? The archetypal woman of the streets, composite of Dietrich and Signoret and Hayworth? He gave up the attempted analysis as she reached his table, sat down, and shrugged off her coat without speaking.
“Good to see you.” He spoke quickly. “Glad you could come.”
“Hello, Lucas. My God, this takes me back more years than I care to remember.”
“I guess it does,” he said, wondering what she was talking about.
“Yes. Did you know the Pack Horse has been demolished to make room for a motorway?”
“No.” Hutchman felt a growing unease.
“Of course, we only had one drink there.” She smiled reproachfully.
Hutchman smiled back at her as the ground seemed to shift below his feet. The Pack Horse was a pub he had used when at university and he had vague memories of having taken girls there — around the time he met Vicky — but surely Andrea had not been one of them. And yet she must have been. It dawned on him that his years with Vicky had conditioned his very thought processes. (A full year of marital hell-heaven had passed before he had learned always to put his briefcase beside him on the front seat of the car when going home from the office. Vicky, watching like a sniper from the kitchen window, assumed if she saw him remove the case from the rear seat that he had had a passenger. And on the days when he had given a lift but forgot to mention it she spun the delicate but ever tightening webworks of questions, culminating in ghastly midnight confrontations.) He had learned to blot out other women from his memory. A new thought: Could it be that the monogamous, slightly undersexed person I always imagined myself to be is not the real Lucas Hutchman? Am I a creation of Vicky’s? And, in this revenge kick that I’m on, how big a part is played by coincidence and how big a part by subconscious motivation? I saw Andrea at the Jeavons while I was working on the machine. I read about her in the Newsletter and they say the subconscious never forgets details. Details such as the dates of her Moscow trip. Dear Jesus, could it be, could it really be, that the deadline for the operation of my sacred megalife machine was timed to bring me to this table to meet this woman?
“…quite thirsty after the walk,” Andrea was saying. “My car’s in for repairs.”
“Forgive me.” He signaled to the waiter. “What would you like to drink?”
She asked for a Pernod and sipped it appreciatively. “A girl with my socialist convictions has no right to order such an expensive drink, but I think I’ve got a capitalist stomach.”
“That reminds me.” He took the envelope from his inside pocket and handed it to her. “It’s addressed, but you’ll need to put a stamp on it for me over there. Do you mind?”
“I don’t mind.” She dropped the white rectangle into her handbag without looking at it. Her careless acceptance of the envelope pleased him, but he became worried in case she should be too casual and forget to bring it with her.
“It isn’t really vital, but it is rather important to me, personally, to have the article delivered soon,” he said.
“Don’t worry, Lucas.” She placed her hand on his reassuringly. “I’ll look after it for you.”
Her fingers were cold and he instinctively covered them with his free hand. She smiled again, looking directly into his eyes, and something threw a biological switch in his loins, producing a small but distinct thrill as if she had touched him there. Time itself seemed to distort from that moment — individual minutes were fantastically drawn out, but the hours flicked by. They had several drinks, a meal in the adjacent dining room, more drinks, then he drove her to her flat which was the top one in a four-storey building. As soon as the car had crunched to a halt in the graveled drive she swung out of it and walked to the door, searching in her handbag for a key. At the steps to the door she turned and looked back at him.