* * * *

  It was the week-end before Blanche could go to Blagdon. She had various appointments and meetings which could not be cancelled. It was a Saturday when she went. She said nothing to George. Whenever she wanted to see him she just turned up at the cottage, or dropped into the Red Lion to find him. And at the moment—since he was free of his Shoebridge enquiries for good—he was immersing himself in the arrangements for setting up Lumley’s Sunshine Gardens Limited. It might be very limited, Blanche thought, as she drove the sixty-odd miles west to Blagdon. George usually took off like a rocket on any new project and then gently fizzled out and came down like a burnt-stick. With burnt hands, too, often; ending worse off than he had started. Poor old George. She really hoped he would make things go this time. Maybe he would. It was at least a more promising idea than all the others. They had been get-rich-quick stunts that had never stood a chance. This one at least meant putting his back into some hard work. Though if he wanted the cottage to be any advertisement for his new venture he ought to do something about the garden there first. . . a wilderness of weeds and tall grass and those precious birds of his still hanging on. They were the last that remained of his previous grand scheme. Breeding cage and aviary birds. She smiled to herself as she drove, hearing him say ‘Every home needs a bird in a cage. What boy or girl doesn’t pester mother for a canary or budgerigar? Talking mina birds, parrots, African finches. In time I’ll put in electrically heated cages and runs, breed, import and sell retail and to the trade. It’s a gold mine!’ With George it was always a gold mine. But in the end it always came back to the same thing. George in his cottage with his monthly remittance cheque. He’d get older and older, shabbier and more untidy but the last thing to change would be his optimism. When he was seventy he’d be still having bright ideas.

  It was a fine morning. The sun cast a mildness over the windless day, and the sky was as blue as a hedge-sparrow’s egg. There was the faintest touch of green in places along the hedgerows and now and again in some village the pink and white explosion of cherry and almond blossom. Blanche liked driving. She liked travelling. She was after all the child of travellers. She’d come a long way from her early caravan and fairground life, but the countryside and the changing towns and villages still pulled at her as she passed through them. You never got it out of your blood, she thought. Her old Mum at home now, comfortably settled, wouldn’t think twice of going back even at her age. Breaking the ice on the water buckets. The town or village children staring at you, full of envy, as though you’d come from outer space. Dogs, horses, shining brass, painted wagon-sides and the smell of wood smoke. . . . They had posh jobs now, modern caravans and trailers. Shiny cars in the place of horses, but the life was the same. Bunching up wild daffodils and primroses to sell around the houses. Her old Mum with a red scarf drawn tight, gypsy fashion, over her head, big gold earrings, staring into the crystal ball or reading a palm. That’s where she’d got it, of course. She was one of the fascino people, right down the female line. She’d done well. Made herself what she was by her own efforts. Always reading and improving herself. Snotty-nosed Blanche Tyler, now Madame Blanche Tyler who was going to have the Temple of Astrodel and bring comfort, consolation and happiness to hundreds.

  She sat at the wheel of the small car, driving expertly and carefully, a large, amply-endowed woman wearing a small fur hat, sheepskin driving coat and gloves, and a red jacket and skirt, the string of pearls tight around her neck like a collar above the green silk blouse. On the back seat was a little zip-fastened plastic bag with her lunch in it. A leg of cold chicken and a slice of breast, salad, a roll, and half a bottle of vin rose. When she was out on her own she liked to find some picturesque spot where she could park and eat, feeling and seeing the countryside around her. George would head for the nearest pub. Not her. Just as the inner eye was rested and refreshed by the vast perspectives of eternity, so was the physical eye cleansed and awakened by the wide sweep of woods and downs.

  Somewhere Henry was watching her. Somewhere ahead in time destiny was shaping already the foundations of their Temple. People would flock to it to hear her services and to wait for the messages that would come flowing through her. ‘You Madame . . . No, the one on the outside of the back row. Yes, you. I have someone here. . . . I get the name Bert or is it Bill? . . . He passed over not long ago and he wants you to know . . . ’

  She came down the hill to the lake at Blagdon and pulled the car off into a small layby among trees where she could look across the wide stretch of the waters. Ahead of her the road ran across the dam. The village straggled on the steep hillside beyond. She put two or three tissues across her lap and began to have her lunch, watching the water. It was a trout fishing lake, she knew. All watchfully preserved. If her father had come down here in the old days he’d have had a few night lines out. Fat trout for breakfast. Rabbit, hare, pheasant and partridge . . . the flavour went from food when you cooked it under a roof. She was completely happy and relaxed. It was good to have a day out by yourself—even if she did have to do a little business. But that was no trouble. The moment she had found out a few things about Shoebridge she would know how to handle Miss Rainbird. She mustn’t overlook the fact, either, that if the circumstances were right this Edward Shoebridge might well be good for a contribution towards the Temple. . . . After all, the bearer of good news deserved some measure of thanks.

  A heron flapped lazily across the lake and Blanche poured herself some vin rose and watched the sun sparkle of the waters glow pinkily through the liquid as she raised the glass before her in a silent toast to a happy day.

  * * * *

  As Blanche was having her early lunch, Edward Shoebridge and his wife were leaving their house. They travelled together in a small closed van which they had owned for a couple of years. Before they reached their destination they would stop and put false plates on the van. There was little talk between them. They both knew exactly what they had to do. In the past they had always had to use a stolen car as well as the van. This time there was no need. When the kidnapping had been done and the letter delivered to Sir Charles Medham there would be no alarm raised until Grandison had been spoken to. There would be no police checks, no road cordons. Only the very highest echelons of the police service would ever know what had happened. Their security lay first of all in Sir Charles Medham’s discretion, which they knew would not fail them, and then later in the official conspiracy to avoid all publicity. This time their operation could be simpler and would involve less risk. The victim had been studied for two years quietly and unobtrusively. Three times a year he spent a weekend with his old friend Sir Charles Medham and the visits were almost rituals, fixed by habit and accepted customs. No hunter could hope for success unless he knew the movements and habits of his prey. Habit dominated largely the life of man and beast, habit arising from need, from sentiment, from custom. The barn owl made its forays, and the fox worked field, down and woodland at night to a close set of patterns.

  * * * *

  It took Blanche some time to find Highlands House. It was about three miles from Blagdon, standing on the high rolling plateau of the Mendips with a view north and west to the Bristol Channel and the wide marsh plains below. From a small side road, a rough, stone-walled drive about two hundred yards long led to the house. On two sides it was surrounded by a narrow clump of elms through which the drive passed. On the other two sides the back quarters of the house looked out over a steep slope towards the east and south and the distant Blagdon and Chew Lakes. It was a red-bricked house with a stone stable and garage block to one side, these part of the older house which had once stood there. At the back of the house were two grass paddocks, enclosed by stone walls. In the front the driveway ran up between two long, wide strips of grass lawn, each with a rose bed in its centre. It was an ugly, unwelcoming house, isolated, wind-swept, and the two rose beds the only attempts at giving it any attraction. Nesting rooks were busy in the high branches of the elms.

  Miles from anywhere, thought Blanche. Perched on top of the world. Driveway and grass well-kept and the doorways and window-frames well maintained. It was a house which would not have appealed to many people. Perhaps only to someone who wanted to keep away from the modern world and its people.

  She drove past the front door and parked the car close to the garage block. In gathering information some of George’s best cover stories had been suggested by Blanche’s fertile imagination. She was working for a travel agency in Salisbury who were making a registry of landowners who would be interested in letting summer caravan sites to a very high class of clientele. She would not need more than five or ten minutes’ talk with Shoebridge to decide which line she would take with him eventually. But most certainly she would not divulge the real reason for her visit at their first meeting. All she needed at first was to know what kind of man she was dealing with. Before she got anywhere near the truth with him she would have to decide how she was going to handle Miss Rainbird.

  The front door was sheltered by a red-brick porchway with deep seat recesses at either side of it. She rang the doorbell but got no reply. She waited a while and then rang again. Saturday, she thought. It wasn’t the best of days to call. They were probably out shopping somewhere. Well, it was the first day she had been able to manage. She certainly wasn’t going back to Salisbury without talking to Shoebridge. She would have to come back later in the afternoon. She rang the bell a third time without any answer. She walked back to her car, past the stables and along a small path through a shrubbery to a large flagged yard at the far side of the house. There was no sign of life anywhere. Then, as she turned to go back to her car, a dog began to bark in the house. She went back to the front of the house and tried the bell again. Nobody came.

  Blanche shrugged her shoulders. It was a nuisance, but there it was. She consulted the map she had brought with her and saw that Cheddar with its gorge and famous caves was not a long way off. None of the attractions would be open at this time of year, but she decided to drive there leisurely, have tea and then come back again. During the drive, the temper of the day changed. A cold wind moved in from the north, the sky rapidly clouded and, while she was having tea, the first spots of heavy rain began to smack against the window panes. Blanche helped herself to a third cup of tea and a second slice of cake and resigned herself to the fact that she was going to have a rainy drive home.

  * * * *

  On the three occasions a year when he stayed at River Park with his old friend Sir Charles it was his habit after his afternoon nap to walk the few hundred yards down through the well-kept gardens to the large lake below the house and then along its banks to the Medham family’s private chapel. It was a very pleasing little chapel which had been built in the Regency period in a small rhododendron dell at the head of the lake. His walk was always the same. Around the lake as far as the chapel, then a few minutes’ visit to the chapel where he usually knelt before the altar rail and said a quiet prayer or, sometimes—since his visits to Sir Charles were rare oases in a very busy, appointment-ridden life—he just knelt and let his mind wander, soaking in the peace of solitude and quiet, his memory often going back nostalgically—he was now in his mid-sixties—to the days he had passed on vacation here when he and Sir Charles had been young men. He was far from being a recluse but such moments of escape from the world as these were rewardingly refreshing. Leaving the chapel he would move on round the lake, knowing that nothing would disturb him. Sir Charles knew his habit and, being Saturday, none of the estate staff were around. Halfway along the far side of the lake he would take the small paper bag of bread pieces from his pocket and feed the water fowl. The paper bag was always waiting for him on the hall table when he came down from his rest. He knew almost to the minute the time he would arrive back at the house, where Sir Charles would be waiting in the study and they would have tea and then play their game of chess . . . all part of a well-organised, unburdened weekend. There were few such in his life.

  As he went down to the chapel the rain started to fall. It gave him no concern for he was wearing his overcoat against the cold wind. The afternoon was darkening quickly. As he entered the chapel he was sorry there was no sunshine outside. The stained-glass windows were very beautiful. Today he would not see them at their best. He walked slowly up the aisle and knelt on the carpet in front of the altar rail. Oddly, as he knelt and before he began to pray, he remembered one of the few disagreements he and Sir Charles had had in their long friendship. Three years ago one of the staff had been approached by a London journalist who had wanted material for an article on how he spent his weekends here. The man had outlined his routines. There was nothing offensive or unpleasing in the way the journalist had handled his material. In fact he’d done it very well. But Sir Charles had been furious at the breach of confidence by one of his staff. He had dismissed the man. Nothing he could do would make Sir Charles alter his mind. Well, well, that had been Charles . . . proud of him, joying in their friendship and always ready to protect him. He had been touched when the dismissed man had written him a letter of apology and said that Sir Charles had been quite right to dismiss him. He stayed a few minutes, head and hands resting on the rail, and then got up and left the chapel. As he entered the gloomy porch he was surprised to see a man and woman standing in it. Their backs were to him and they were examining a marble memorial plaque let into the wall. There was a pathway at the side of the church which led for a few yards through a clipped yew garden to the road-bordered estate wall. The gateway to the road was usually kept locked unless there was a service in the chapel to which the neighbourhood and villagers had been invited. Moving past the couple, who seemed unaware of him, he presumed the gate had been inadvertently left unlocked and that they had wandered in. At the precise moment that he was just past the two, he felt himself gripped powerfully from behind. The collars of his coat and his jacket underneath it were pulled roughly backwards and, before he could turn or protest, he felt something prick him through his shirt in the upper part of the arm.

  The wooden doorway in the estate wall leading to the small country lane outside had not been unlocked by any key. It had been forced.

  Although he was a big man they carried him easily and quickly between them the few yards to the van outside. He was put in the back on a couple of blankets, the door closed and they drove off.

  Shoebridge’s wife drove. She took the van down the road, following the line of the estate wall, turned left into a larger road, waiting for a car—its sidelights on against the late afternoon gloom and rain—to pass and then drove three hundred yards along the wall to the main drive entrance. The tall iron gates were open. To the left of them stood a small greystoned lodge house. Fifty yards past the gate the van stopped. Shoebridge got out, wrapped his scarf around the lower part of his face, pulled up his coat collar, and went quickly back to the lodge house. With his gloved hands he pushed the letter to Sir Charles through the letter box and gave the bell a quick ring. There was a light coming through the curtains of the room to the right of the door. He pressed the bell once more and then turned and ran back to the car. By the time the lodge-keeper had come to the door to pick up the letter, the van was a quarter of a mile away.

  His wife drove in silence for ten minutes. There was an unspoken understanding between them. They had been under strain for a long time. Now, for a little while, the tension had slackened.

  She said quietly, the words a breath of relief from her, “He’s got a very fine face.”

  Shoebridge nodded. “This is the true beginning. All the rest was setting the trap. It’s taken time and patience. I couldn’t have done it without you.”

  She smiled. She was content. He had no need to say it, but she was glad to hear it. His words of love were always disguised. The boy was like him, too. Their affection and love were rare gems, hard to mine at first, but now, polished in her hand, were more than any other treasure life could show. She wanted what he and the boy wanted, wanted it not because there was a lust in her for it herself, but simply because it was his dream and the boy’s. The man in the back was civilised. The man at her side was a savage. Mad the world would call him—and without knowing it would be right, but it was a madness that rested on logic and a true compassion for the life and beauty of this world. The world was overwhelming itself with its own litter and lunacy. To save some small part of it was a beginning, a holiness in which he believed and for which, if the fates decided against him, he would willingly die. If he went, she told herself, then she would go too. They were nothing without one another.

  It was a very dark afternoon. He said, “Watch for the wood. It’s coming up soon. Run in and I’ll change the plates.”

  Sitting in the car, lights out, the engine silent, she waited for him to change the plates. He worked in the gloom silently, swiftly and surely—as he did most things when his heart as well as his brain was with. them.

  They had an hour and more of driving before them. She drove all the way. Only now and again did they speak.

  * * * *

  Fifteen minutes after its delivery to the lodge house, the letter was brought by his butler to Sir Charles. When the butler had gone he read it. He had served in the diplomatic corps too long to let his face show any surprise, even when he was alone. He got up and went to the telephone. As he dialled he was already working out how he would discreetly cover the absence of his guest. There would be little trouble in a bachelor household. His butler had been with him for thirty years at home and abroad.