Bush read his first report through. It was a factual analysis of the two Trader kidnappings which had taken place in the last eighteen months. A comparison of the two kidnappings, both of prominent political figures, revealed very little of real information or of any progress on the department’s part. There was a great mass of unco-ordinated police facts. The police didn’t like the department because it sat on top of them, using a power that came straight from the Prime Minister. Officially they had no knowledge of it. But in practical terms they knew it and resented it. There was rivalry between them which occasionally caused volcanic upheavals at near-Cabinet level. But there was no denying the logic behind the department’s secret formation. It was anonymous, unidentifiable, and could use methods and take actions at home and abroad which no police department could risk—though it might be sorely tempted at times. The justification for its existence lay in the highly organised development of much modern crime which called for an uninhibited counter force unhampered by conventional police ethics. Over the last eight years it had achieved many quiet, ruthless successes that had never had any publicity.

  Bush’s second report was the projection which Grandison had asked for.

  There have been two Trader abductions. Organised by one person with not more than two, possibly three people involved. Moderate ransoms have been demanded. Victims prominent political—male—personalities. Maximum publicity has been ensured by Trader messages to the Press. Publicity has embarrassed police and Government, leading to heavy criticism of police and other establishments, and also of prominent individuals in the political, security and police fields. The pattern of these two abductions leads to the following projections:—

  a) The next abduction is the main operation. The other two have been carried out to establish the right climate for it.

  b) The next victim will be someone much more highly placed than either of the last two.

  c) No publicity will be given. Trader will insist on complete secrecy, except, say, for a press handout that the victim is ill, confined to bed, to cover any embarrassment publicly.

  d) Authority will accept this condition to protect the victim and, more pertinently, the reputations of individuals in Government and in the police echelons. These reputations are already at risk because of the public’s growing anger at the way Trader has made a laughing stock of authority already.

  e) The ransom asked will be high. Half or a quarter of a million pounds?

  f) If it is not paid the victim will be killed. The character reading on Trader and the pattern of the last two make this clear. Trader is not playing a game.

  g) His victim will be of such eminence that Government and police will, in my opinion, agree to all terms and pay up, and the whole affair will never reach the domain of public knowledge.

  h) Trader will carry out his final kidnapping within the next six months. The closer it occurs to this last one the more anxious will be authority’s wish for a complete news media blackout.

  i) Trader when successful will retire from the kidnapping scene.

  j) At the moment we have no information whatsoever which shows any promise of giving a lead to Trader.

  Who wouldn’t retire, thought Bush, if he had half a million to live on? He wondered what line Grandison would take at his conference tomorrow. Grandison was unpredictable. He might say they were to sit and let the third kidnapping happen, or that they had to go all out to get Trader before he could act again. Already he had made the projection for himself, and he might have discussed it with those above him and already have had his instructions. Personally Bush hoped that they would be told to go for Trader now. Somewhere among the mass of information they already had there surely had to be something, no matter how small, which would give them a lead. He stood now at the window with his drink, watching the tree-and-building-framed section of river. The tide was flowing in, a brown, lusty flood with great squalls of March rain sweeping across its surface. If he could find something, if he could get Trader, then Grandison would give him the credit and make it known where it counted. He was a generous man like that. . . . Get Trader and he could climb high. Not with this hybrid department necessarily. There were other spheres. Golden ones. . . . He saw the woman coming up the steps with her scarf-wrapped face. He saw the man climbing them, grotesquely masked, and he fervently hoped that Grandison would not be instructed to close the case for them. He wanted to go on.

  CHAPTER TWO

  IT WAS A still, mild morning. The gales of the last two days had gone. From the tip of the great Wellingtonia across the driveway a blackbird finished a brief recital. Through the window of her sitting-room Miss Rainbird watched the cloud shadows move slowly across the green lawns studded with long sweeps of early daffodils. Spring was coming again. Spring would keep on coming, and humans would keep on going— and she with them after a handful more of years. It was a detached thought and had no personal significance for her. At seventy-three she had long ceased to be concerned with death. Most of her faculties were still strong. Moping and worrying was for the weak. She couldn’t imagine either that this Madame Blanche, sitting across from her, was given to moping or worrying. The woman seemed to radiate cheerfulness and life. She was what Sholto—who had been vulgar at times—would have called ‘a big, busty number’. Thirty-fivish, glowing almost with vitality, anything less like a medium or one concerned with the spiritual world she couldn’t imagine. Sholto would have eyed her admiringly and patted his thin hands together gently, as though in applause, at the splendid sight. She hadn’t been fond of Sholto, but at least there had been nothing hypocritical about him. He just openly said and did what he had to say and do. That was the trouble, too. There had been no turning him away from what he had to do.

  Miss Rainbird, who wasn’t always aware of her own frankness, said primly, “I must make some things very, very clear to you, Madame . . . Blanche.”

  Blanche said, “It’s better right now if you just call me Miss Tyler. The other’s professional.” She smiled, knowing she had to take things easy here. This old girl was as sharp as a needle. “We haven’t reached that stage yet. In fact I think you’ve half decided already that you have made a mistake. That Mrs. Cookson perhaps over-persuaded you?”

  Miss Rainbird considered this. Big and busty she might be, but this woman had a brain . . . understanding, too. Briefly she was impressed.

  “It might be so, yes. However, I would, as I said, like to make some things clear. I have an instinctive distrust of the . . . the philosophy you represent. Although I’m a practising Christian it really is only a conventional performance. At heart I’m an agnostic. And, yes, I am beginning to regret asking you to come.”

  Blanche nodded. “It doesn’t surprise me, Miss Rainbird. A lot of people begin that way. If you would like me to I’ll go now. But before I do—and I’m sure you’ll appreciate this— I’d like to say that. . . well, it cuts both ways. I very soon know whether I can be of help to people. If I know I can’t . . . then I go. I’m not a performer, asking a fee. My vocation is to help people. Some, after a very short time, I know I can’t help. You could be one of those, Miss Rainbird. I don’t know yet.” She laid it down in her good voice, the voice for houses and people like this. The voice and acceptable speech forms had come years ago from elocution lessons, a good ear, and an instinctive regard for the use of words. But they weren’t natural. Blanche had been born in a fairground caravan at Nottingham. Alone with George or close friends she liked to relax.

  Watching the faint expression of surprise on Miss Rainbird’s face she knew that she was not going to be allowed to go. They were all the same. They wanted something—and she genuinely could and wanted to give them something, but they always put up the barriers first. Perhaps to hide their own embarrassment until they had got used to the idea.

  Suddenly Miss Rainbird found herself liking this woman. There was no apparent cant about her. She spoke her mind and was unintimidated. Although she had meant to be far less direct, she found herself saying, “You really believe deeply and sincerely in your . . . your vocation?”

  “Of course. My calling is full of . . . well, doubtful types. Performers only interested in money. Read any authoritative work on psychic research and you’ll find plenty of evidence for trickery and faking. If I had wanted to be a performer, Miss Rainbird, I would have found some other profession. But it just so happens that I have a gift, a precious one. Not for making spirits appear or silver trumpets float about a darkened room—I don’t do that. I just happen to have been born with some extra little faculty for communication and, far more important, for understanding the human personality and its eternal nature.” It was a set speech, but she really did believe it. George could pull her leg and, okay, she did give herself a little help now and then to get things going but beyond that. . . well, like it or not, it was just there and she had to do it.

  “But this help you give, Miss Tyler. It is concerned with the spirit world, is it not?”

  “Mostly, yes. But the spirit world covers all spheres of life. We, in a sense, are spirits—earthbound spirits. Sometimes people come to me, not because they want to know about their loved ones who have passed over, but because they have their own immediate problems. I’m not sure at the moment, Miss Rainbird, what you fancy you need from me in the way of help. But I would be a stupid person not to know you hope for something. My presence in this house at your request makes that clear. Let me say, Miss Rainbird, that if you want any crystal-ball gazing you won’t get it from me.”

  The slight hint of a reprimand or warning sharpened a natural tendency to quick temper in Miss Rainbird. She was an autocrat, used to being obeyed and, if conditions had to be imposed, she did it. So now she said, “But surely that is what you did for Mrs. Cookson? I know she’s a rather impressionable person. In many ways a complete fool. But she tells me that you got in touch with George Washington for her. Now, surely that is ridiculous—even if she is distantly related to the family?”

  Blanche smiled. She had the old girl going. Miss Rainbird had expected a ‘Yes, ma’am—No, ma’am’ type. Miss Rainbird, given a chance, could be a bully. Well, so what? Let ’em all come. All you had to do was to keep your nice voice on, smile, and never let them score an advantage.

  “Mrs. Cookson, Miss Rainbird, as you would be the first to admit, no doubt, is a very different person from you. She is a simple soul basically. But her need for comfort is as strong as anyone else’s. I must explain that those who have passed over don’t lose their human characteristics. My control—a really quite remarkable man called Henry—is a person with a sense of humour and also one who respects men and women of great achievements. Naturally he wouldn’t bother a man like George Washington with some small problem like Mrs. Cookson’s. All she wants to know is which of three or four men she shall marry—if any. But she needs that help and she got it through Henry who did what so many of the good ones who have passed over do. He merely put the problem back in Mrs. Cookson’s lap only in a different form. She will have to make the decision by herself. The spirits don’t communicate with us to make life a bed of roses here, Miss Rainbird. We must all deal with our own human problems. Mrs. Cookson will make a decision for herself before the end of the year. She will think George Washington helped her. Well, there is no harm in that. He did—through Henry. George Washington has more important things to do in his new life.” Blanche chuckled, a rich, earthy sound.

  Miss Rainbird found herself chuckling, too.

  “But, Miss Tyler, if one admits their existence—what kind of advice or help do they give?”

  “They exist all right, Miss Rainbird. Chiefly they give the ones they have left behind the comfort of knowing there is survival after death and the comfort of communicating with them. And sometimes they help with earthly problems where the persons concerned are in no position to help themselves.”

  “I see. And can you call for their help at will?”

  “No, I can’t. I can try always. Sometimes it happens and sometimes it doesn’t. To them we are children. In this world, Miss Rainbird, much as parents love their children they do not always drop everything they are doing to answer their call. Unless it is one of alarm.”

  “Could you try here and now? I mean, do you have to have special effects or conditions. A dark room, people holding hands and so on?”

  Blanche laughed. “No, I don’t need special effects. They help sometimes when we do group work. But, anyway, I can’t try here and now. That’s right out of the question.”

  “But why?”

  “Because, Miss Rainbird—you have to want me to try and help you. How can I when for the moment you are a long way from deciding whether to treat me seriously? You are a highly intelligent, practical woman. You live in a world which is socially and economically far above mine. Madame Blanche Tyler—the medium. You mustn’t be offended if I say that I know you must have had many a private little giggle to yourself about the very idea of such nonsense as you imagine I deal in. You can’t imagine what possessed you to let Mrs. Cookson persuade you to make an appointment with me.” Blanche stood up. This was the moment and she had known a hundred similar ones. “I think it is best if you think it over for a few days and then let me know what your decision is. You’re sceptical about all this. That I don’t mind. You don’t know whether you want to give it a try. I can’t help you until you sincerely do hope that I can help you and are prepared to accept disappointment if I can’t.”

  “You really are a most unusual person, Miss Tyler.” Although Miss Rainbird’s voice was tart there was an undertone of admiration in it. Blanche caught it and scored it up in her favour. She would be coming back here, she knew.

  She said, “Perhaps you’ll be kind enough to let me know in a few days what you decide, Miss Rainbird? In the meantime, if it will comfort you, I can tell you that you won’t be having any of your disturbing dreams, not, at least, for a few nights.”

  Controlling herself, no sign of her surprise showing, Miss Rainbird said, “What an extraordinary thing to say.”

  “I didn’t say it, Miss Rainbird. I merely passed it on. Henry’s etheric presence has been in this room for the last few minutes and he’s been saying it to me. Which means, of course, that someone has asked him to pass the message through.”

  When Blanche had gone, Miss Rainbird poured herself a glass of dry sherry and sat with it in her favourite chair by the window. She was a small, neat woman. She had been pretty once, but now her cheeks were lean, the flesh of her face wrinkled and stretched without curve or softness over the bone structure. Her hair was grey and her eyes large and brown. There was about her an elfish quality, an ageing elf, a timeworn sprite, a little old lady who was used to having her own way and had very seldom been thwarted. And at this moment she was completely puzzled by Blanche. It was true that Ida Cookson, a fool if ever there was one, had persuaded her to see Madame Blanche. But that had arisen originally because she was always teasing Ida about her belief in spiritualism. Only when the dreams had started did she ever begin to think about it and even then not seriously. In fact, looking back, she found it hard to decide when or why she had made the decision. Dreams were commonplace enough and there was a perfectly logical explanation for hers. The particular ones about Harriet upset and disturbed her. They would pass or she could live with them. She really couldn’t understand why in the end she had made the appointment with Madame Blanche. The woman talked well with only the faintest hint of her real class echoing in her speech. She was amusing, and she didn’t crucify the Queen’s English. But what she was and where she came from were only too evident. Ida had told her something about Madame Blanche’s early life. All that she must in fairness discount. But she wasn’t going to be taken in. Madame Blanche, she was sure, had treated her to a routine approach for people of her nature. The woman was sharp-witted, intelligent and quick to adapt herself. But how could she have known about her dreams? Nobody but herself knew. The woman certainly couldn’t have gleaned the information from anyone else.

  Miss Rainbird sat with her thoughts and her very dry sherry, her eyes absently on the gardener who was forking through a rose bed. Harriet was a fool, of course. Always had been. She and Sholto were both gone. If there were any truth in being able to communicate with the other world then Sholto was the one to answer—and that was the last thing he was likely to do. Sholto had never gone back on anything he had said or done. A stubborn brute. Still, she smiled to herself, perhaps she ought to give it a try. Harriet might know more now that she had ‘passed over’. It would be ironical if Harriet could do it, with Sholto standing by unable to stop her. . . . No, the whole thing was a nonsense. How on earth had Madame Blanche guessed she was having bad dreams? Harriet whining every night, wringing her hands and talking about ‘the right thing to do for the family’. Harriet who had caused all the trouble in the first place by being such a spineless creature! Although she had loved Harriet, really deeply loved her, she had to say it— Harriet had been really quite a useless person. No guts, no backbone . . . those big blue eyes always filling with tears. Why was that fool of a gardener forking the bed over before he’d done his pruning? She reached out and rang the bell for Syton, the butler.