“We close at six, you know.” He held the notes out tentatively.
“Those are yours,” Hutchman told him.
“What for?”
“Overtime payment. I have an urgent copying job which must be done right now. I’ll pay for it separately, but that tenner’s for you — if you’ll do the work.”
“Oh! Oh, well then. You’d better come in.” The youth gave a baffled laugh and opened the door wide. “Christmas is early this year, I must say.”
Hutchman unfolded one of his street maps. “Can you handle a sheet this size?”
“With ease.” The youth activated a gray machine and watched with perplexity as Hutchman took out the typist’s correcting pencil and, working at careless speed, obliterated all the street names. When he had finished he handed the map over. “Do me… mmm… a dozen copies of that.”
“Yes, sir.” The young man stared solemnly at Hutchman as he worked.
“I’m in advertising,” Hutchman said. “This is for a marketresearch project.”
Ten minutes later he was back out on the street with a warm roll of sheets under his arm. He now had all the equipment needed to carry out the type of memory blitz he had perfected in his university days, but there was still the problem of finding a quiet and secure place in which to work. The soothing effect of constructive activity abated slightly as it came to him that he was going to a great deal of trouble to get out of Bolton without having checked that it was really necessary. He saw a small newsagent’s shop on the opposite side of the street and crossed over to it. While still in the middle of the roadway he read the billboard which was leaning against a window sill.
It said: “POLICE CORDON SEALS OFF BOLTON!”
A number of copies of the evening paper were clipped to a wire rack in the doorway. He approached the shop and saw that a large photograph of himself was featured on the front page, with splash headlines which read: “BOLTON SURROUNDED BY POLICE CORDON. Mystery mathematician traced here today.” Hutchman decided not to risk going in and buying a paper — he had learned all he needed, anyway. He was turning away from the shop when a white Porsche drew up beside him and the passenger door was pushed open. The driver was an Oriental-looking girl in a silver dress.
“It’s warmer at my place,” she said, showing no trace of embarrassment over the fact that she sounded exactly the way a prostitute was supposed to sound.
Hutchman, who had been poised to flee, shook his head instinctively then caught the edge of the door. “Perhaps I am a little cold.” He got into the car, which smelled of leather and perfume, and was accelerated smoothly and expensively into the clustered lights of the town center.
He turned sideways to face the girl. “Where are we going?”
“Not far.”
Hutchman nodded contentedly. He was satisfied as long as she did not try to take him out of town, through a roadblock. “Have you any food at your place?”
“No.”
“Aren’t you hungry?”
“Starving — but I don’t run a soup kitchen.” Her neat face was hard.
Hutchman snorted, took a ten-pound note from his pocket, and dropped it on her lap. “Stop at a take-away and get us some food.”
“I’m a working girl, mister.” She flicked the note back at him. “The rate is exactly the same for companionship.”
“That’s understood — your name isn’t Melina Mercouri. How much for the night?”
“A hundred,” Her voice was defiant.
“A hundred it is.” Hutchman peeled off ten more notes, amazed at the fact that they still held value for other people. “Here’s the hundred, plus the food money. All right?”
For an answer she put her hand on his thigh and slid it into his crotch. He endured her touch without speaking. I could kill you, Vicky. The girl stopped at a snack bar, ran into it, and emerged with an armful of packages which smelt of roast chicken. She drove him to a small apartment block about ten minutes from the town center. Hutchman carried the food while she let herself in, and they went to a first-floor flat. It was simply furnished with white walls, white carpet, and a black ceiling in the main room.
“Food first?” the girl said.
“Food first.” Hutchman spread the packages on the table, opened them, and began to eat while his hostess was making coffee in a clinically bright kitchen. He was tired and nervous — pictures of a human eye rolling in the dust flickered before him — but the heat was helping him to relax. They ate in near silence and the girl cleared the remains into the kitchen. On her way back she slipped out of the silver dress with a single lithe movement, revealing that she was wearing a crimson satin bikini suit which, along with a certain muscularity of thighs, gave her the air of a trapeze artist. Her spice-coloured body was trim and taut and desirable. Hutchman’s groin turned to ice.
“Listen,” he said, lifting his roll of ammonia-smelling sheets. “I have some very urgent business to attend to for my firm, and I won’t be able to relax until it’s out of the way. Why don’t you watch television for a while?”
“I haven’t got television.”
Hutchman realized he had made a mistake in suggesting it — he was bound to be in the news more than ever. “Play music or read a book, then. All right?”
“All right.” The girl shrugged unconcernedly and, without dressing again, lay down on a couch and watched him.
Hutchman spread out a street map, the one which still showed the names, and began memorizing it, starting with the major roads and filling in as much as possible on side streets. He worked with maximum concentration for one hour, then took a blank copy, and tried filling in the names. This gave him an accurate indication of the areas in which he was doing well and of the ones — still a great majority at this stage — where his performance was poor. He returned to the named map, spent a second hour on it, did another progress check with a blank map, and started the process all over again. Some time during the course of the evening the girl fell asleep and began snoring gently. She woke with a start around midnight, gazing at Hutchman without recognition for an instant.
He smiled at her. “This is taking longer than I expected. Why don’t you go to bed?”
“Do you want coffee?”
“No, thanks.”
The girl got to her feet, shivering, gathered her silver dress from the floor and walked into the bedroom with a curious glance at his array of maps. Hutchman went back to work. It was almost three o’clock by the time he finally managed to fill in a complete map, and by then he too was shivering. The central heating had been off for hours. He lay down on the couch and tried to sleep, but the room was becoming intensely cold and his head was bursting with hundreds of street names. Each time he closed his eyes he saw networks of black lines, and occasionally a redblotched eye rolled across them. After half an hour he went into the bedroom. The girl was asleep in the center of an outsize bed. Hutchman undressed, got in beside her, and placed one hand on her up-thrust hip, feeling the edge of the pelvic basin and the belly warmth under his fingertips. In that respect, in the darkness, she could have been Vicky.
He fell asleep instantly.
At the first light of morning he got up without disturbing the girl, dressed quickly, and went back to the table in the main room. As he had expected, when he tried to fill in a map there were several new areas of uncertainty. He spent several minutes revising them and quietly left the apartment. It was a gray, dry morning, surprisingly mild for the time of year. He decided to walk into the town center, amusing himself as he went by accurately predicting the names of the streets he reached. The crammed knowledge of the town’s layout was of the most transient kind and would be virtually gone inside a week, but he would have it long enough to get him through any quiz which might take place that morning. He reached the taxi company’s headquarters without seeing any police. This time he went into the outer office and spoke to a bespectacled girl who had several telephones and a microphone on her desk.