* * * *

  Driving back to Stockbridge to pick up George, Blanche was placidly pleased with herself. Miss Rainbird would call for her. The thing which would get the old duck most was the challenge. She’d as good as told her that she wasn’t up to facing something new. A starchy old biddy like Miss Rainbird wouldn’t take that lying down. George had done a good job. To begin with, anyway. Most of it had come from the church and the sexton. There were half a dozen Rainbird headstones in the churchyard. The two latest were for Harriet Rainbird and Sholto Harold Rainbird. Sholto had been the only brother, unmarried, and had died at the age of seventy-six two years previously. Harriet Rainbird had died at the age of sixty-five two years before her brother. Both their parents were buried in the churchyard. Three children, all born with silver spoons in their mouths. Reed Court, a large Georgian country mansion, had been in the family for donkey’s years. Once the Rainbirds had been big landowners. Now they held only about ten acres around Reed Court, but clearly no money had been lost in the process. Everything in and around Reed Court pointed to wealth; the gardens well kept, the house in good repair, a butler, two maids, a gardener and boy, a chauffeur, and a Rolls-Royce and a small station wagon in the garage. What a number George was for ferreting things out. Clever bastard . . . too clever sometimes for his own good. Idle, too, unless he was prodded hard. But nice. Nice old George. If she could have made him over a bit she would have married him. But as he was—no thank you. She had other things in her sights . . . and they might be on their way because of this Rainbird woman. All the money in the world, the middle child, probably sat on by this Sholto (they’d said a thing or two about him in the pub), and then inheriting everything when the bachelor tyrant died. Miss Rainbird had real freedom now, Blanche guessed. She would be generous if you really did something for her . . . something big, something that meant everything in the world to her.

  And that’s what Henry had told her, lying there in bed after George had gone off to Chilbolton. He’d been filling the room and she’d just opened up her mind and spirit to him and it had all come through. Just like he’d been in the room at Reed Court a little while back. That bit about the dreams. She was no fool. Henry didn’t always make things easy. Sometimes he came as clear as a bell, speaking right through her. The old girl had little dark bags from bad sleeping under her eyes. She looked otherwise as fit as a flea. Nothing wrong with her health, nothing wrong with her circumstances—bit mean, though, she could have offered a sherry seeing that it was half-past eleven on a sunny morning—so she probably had been sleeping badly because of dreams. And right then, Henry had said clearly, ‘Dead right, me old dear. Bad dreams. Tell her I’ll fix it for a few nights.’ Sometimes Henry sounded just like George. Great joker Henry. Did it on purpose to tease her. But Henry, before he had passed over, had been a qualified railway engineer in the nineteenth century. He’d worked with someone called Brunei. She’d looked him up in a book she had, and there he was; and what’s more there were a couple of lines about the work of his assistant—Henry Rees Morton. Her Henry.

  The old girl had covered her surprise when she had told her about the dreams. She’d seen too many people put on a poker face when she said something that shook them. Specially this kind. The-don’t-think-you-can-fool-me-Madame Blanche-type, all-done-by-mirrors-and-snooping-around-for-gossip. Well, why not? Henry wasn’t going to help her to find things that were right under her nose. Henry and the others only came in when you really needed them. Bad dreams? What kind of bad dreams would Miss Rainbird have? She was a spinster and so had been Harriet. Probably thought that every man was after their money. And the old boy, Sholto. Bachelor, too. But with an eye for the girls. Probably decided that he could have all he wanted without the trouble of marriage. What had she been dreaming about? Henry would know. But he wouldn’t break a confidence. He would have to know that Miss Rainbird wanted it revealed before he would come over. Perfect gentleman. He must have been like that down here and the fineness of character had naturally passed over with him.

  Anyway, there was no doubt about one thing. Henry had made it clear that through wealthy Miss Rainbird she was going to have the Temple of Astrodel . . . a splendid, real church. My God, not like some of the crumny places she sometimes went to, wedged between the pub and the public lavatories and as tatty inside as a third-rate whore’s parlour. No wonder they got bad results or had to fake ’em a bit. What would anyone who had passed over to the shining glory of the other shore want to come back to joints like that for? The Temple of Astrodel, a blaze of purple and white and gleaming gold and well endowed. No counting the collection with a gloomy heart after the service.

  George was waiting in the saloon bar of the Grosvenor Hotel at Stockbridge, sitting at a table with a glass of beer. He greeted her with his big grin, put an arm around her and gave her a hug. Nice, big, warm George.

  He brought her a glass of stout and she took off her hat and gave her red hair a shake. She’d dressed soberly for Miss Rainbird. None of the bright colours she liked. But the plain brown dress and brown coat barely dimmed the splendour and glowing fruitfulness of her ample body. Rubens would have stripped her in haste, his eyes filling with tears of joy.

  George said, “Well, how did it go?”

  “We made some progress.”

  George winked. “Got her on the hook?”

  “I don’t like that kind of talk.”

  “Upstage, eh? Professional etiquette. You don’t fool me, love. You’re in—or at least you will be soon. Good for you. Well, you must say I did a good job for you.”

  Blanche finished her stout in a long, relishing swallow that made her creamy throat pulsate. She put the glass down and said, “The job’s not finished, Georgie-love. Get me another of those and I’ll tell you what I want you to do.”

  George groaned. “Christ, no.”

  “Christ, yes. And don’t blaspheme.”

  * * * *

  There were three of them in the room. The curtains drawn against the night. Outside a strong north-west wind was blowing with an occasional grenade-like burst of rain in it. Now and then a squall made the windows rattle. The storm swept down across Hyde Park and Green Park, ragging at the leafless trees, swirled across St. James’s Park, ruffling and disturbing the roosting wildfowl, and broke with a noisy turbulence against the solid block of the Houses of Parliament at the riverside. Grandison could hear it, wind and rain, and he liked the sound. He paused now and then in his talking, not to gather words for fresh speech, but just to catch the sound of the wind. The wind was power, undiluted power. It could lay a liner over on its beam-ends. He liked power. Unashamedly. But he made no display of it unless forced. He was an arrogant man, too. But he displayed that never. He moved a little about the bare, almost monastic room as he talked and the dress medals and decorations on his evening clothes made a small metallic sound now and then. After he left here he was going to a banquet sponsored by the Foreign Office for an Oxford-educated African Head of State whose father for tribal and often personal reasons had conducted many a human sacrifice. Many of the activities which were co-ordinated in this room had the same purpose. Plus ça change . . .

  Sangwill and Bush watched and listened.

  “The projection we’ve made—” That was being generous to Bush, “—has been examined, considered, disputed and all the other official jargon. Tossed about and kicked about—and accepted. From there on everyone had to have their little say and then it was all wrapped up and said for them again by the Big Man himself. The third kidnapping must not happen—because if it did they would have to accept all the terms for the sake of. . . well, I don’t have to spell that out. Quite simply—and this is for you, Bush, because I’m dropping it in your lap—Trader has got to be scotched. Find him and those with him and we’ll deal with them.” He smiled, scratched at his beard, and added, “Very quietly, very unofficially, and permanently. And by the way, I think your projection is slightly wrong on one point. I don’t feel that you will have six months to do it in. More like three at the most. Trader has no need to spin it out. He wants time only to set it up. The closer the third strike comes to the others the better from his point of view. It will reinforce his demand for complete secrecy. All right?”

  “Yes.” Bush’s mind was already racing ahead. This was what he wanted.

  “Sangwill will give you everything you want. There are two things you should pay particular attention to. Evidence which seems to have no significance when it is first collected may turn out to be more than pertinent six months later. The other thing is that an ordeal recollected in calmness often throws up small facts, or uncovers minor lapses of memory, which don’t come to the surface in the interrogation immediately after the ordeal. The human mind is unreliable in its recollection of facts and often rejects or even conceals small details because of the priority which it feels must be given to larger and, so it would seem, more cogent facts. I am sure you are aware of that already, but I get a pedantic pleasure out of stressing it.”

  Bush smiled at this. The last sentence had been a characteristic form of apology in case he had been making two unnecessary points.

  Later in his room Bush acknowledged that the first point he had been well aware of. The second had not occurred to him, though it might have done later. He picked up the telephone and called Sangwill and asked that appointments be made for him to see again the next day the two men who had been kidnapped. He had already seen them once individually. This time he wanted to see them together.

  He looked at his watch. It was seven o’clock. He called the main office and asked for coffee and sandwiches to be sent up and then turned to the bundle of six orange-backed files which contained a complete record of all the enquiries which had been made by the police and his department on the kidnapping cases.

  By midnight he had gone through the files meticulously and had made a list of points which warranted further investigation. He dictated a tape outlining the points and requesting that Scotland Yard be asked to deal with three of them. The others would be his concern.

  The three points for Scotland Yard were—

  A check over the last three years of the membership lists of Crowborough Beacon Golf Club and Tiverton Golf Club to be made and the names noted of any man or woman who was or had been a member of each club.

  A similar check through the visitors’ books of the clubs and a note made of all names appearing in each.

  The photograph of the carnival mask worn by Trader to be circulated to all novelty manufacturers in the country for possible identification. If identified, a list of all retail and foreign outlets.

  The points for himself were—

  The rushing sound and the small bell ringing?

  Travel limit radius by train or car. From Newbury and Reading after phone call. Two hours first, one hour second.

  Water?

  He walked home through the late-night streets to his flat, had a bath and went to bed. The next morning there was a letter in the post for him from his wife. She wrote to tell him that she was not coming back to him. She was willing— whichever way he chose, since it might have some effect on his professional status and future prospects—to give him the evidence for a divorce or let him give it. He put it in his pocket quite unmoved by it. Sometime or other soon he would think about it and let her know. There were other things on his mind at the moment.

  * * * *

  Miss Rainbird woke for the second morning in succession without having dreamt. It was a refreshing feeling and she told herself sensibly that she must have been very stupid to let herself get into any kind of state because of them. Everyone had strange dreams at times. The thing to do was to ignore them. She couldn’t understand how she’d ever let Ida Cookson persuade her to see that blowsy Madame Blanche.

  When the maid brought her morning tea and drew the curtains on a sparkling morning, she told her to tell the chauffeur to have the Rolls ready at half-past nine. She was going to London. She would treat herself to a couple of hours’ shopping in Harrods. It was still a keen pleasure to be able to come back at the end of the day and not be subject to a bad-tempered inquisition from Sholto as to where she had been and exactly how much money she had spent and on what. Sholto had really become impossible in his later years. It was a blessing when, very drunk, he had fallen down the main stairway and killed himself.

  * * * *

  That morning George drove off for Chilbolton sorry that the weather was so fine. If you stood on the doorstep with the rain belting down or a cold wind running up the inside of your trousers you met more than one who would ask you inside for a cup of tea that always led to gossip. It always amazed him how people liked to talk. Loneliness it was. Anyone to natter to for half an hour. You rolled up with your important looking notebook. Doing a survey for a big London firm of Publicity and Advertising Consultants. Half of them didn’t know what you were talking about. What daily paper do you take? And magazines? Oh, yes. You’re only the second one I’ve had this morning, madame, who takes that. Very high-class publication. Now what about the children, the rest of the family? To begin with, how many would you be in family? Out it would come. What does your husband do? was a gusher opener sometimes. You got what he did or didn’t do and what he ought to do, and his ailments and the whole family picture.

  “And Albert,” he said, reaching over and scratching the dog’s head, “somewhere along the line you hit some old trout who’s worked at Reed Court. Some old dirt hoarder, or some old coughing, beer-drinking ancient who could and will give you the whole Doomsday book of scandal and gossip about everyone in the village. And Albert, just because I’m good at it, don’t think I enjoy it. Really nasty some are. They do love to hand on a bit of dirt. Got to be careful, too, with some of the women, Albert. Fine-looking fellow like me. No funny stuff. Remember the matron at school. What the hell was her name? Had to be me that was caught and fourth in the queue by all accounts. Heigh-ho, the wind and the rain. Wish there bloody well was some.”

  He began to whistle. He hadn’t got a care in the world which he could do anything about.

  * * * *

  That evening the two men who had been kidnapped came to see Bush in the department’s guest room. Although they were both Members of Parliament they had no conception of the real function of the department. For them it was simply a discreet branch of the Home Office which specialised in liaison work with the police forces of the country and, unless invited, no one was encouraged to ask questions about it. Everything they said in the room was recorded on tape openly.

  Richard Pakefield was a right-wing member of the Labour Party. He was an old Etonian, in his late thirties. He was an eager, excitable, restless man, brimming largely with impractical ideas, a tall, wide-eyed man who, despite the pipe nearly always in his mouth, gave the impression of an overgrown, precocious schoolboy.

  On the night of his kidnapping he had decided to walk back to his hotel from a political meeting he had addressed in Southampton. He was crossing the dark forecourt of his hotel when someone had called his name from a group of parked cars. He had gone over to find a woman sitting at the driving wheel of the car, the window open. All he remembered of her was that she wore a dark coat with a large collar that was pulled up around her face. Her hair—she wore no hat—was short and seemed to be blonde or light brown. As he had bent to ask her what she wanted, someone—he presumed a man—had come up behind him. He had felt a sharp pain in the top of his left arm and had passed out before he could straighten up. The car, a stolen Rover 2000 saloon, was found abandoned the next morning in a layby on the Southampton Winchester road about three miles north of Southampton. The car belonged to a commercial traveller staying at the hotel who was sleeping soundly when the kidnappers appropriated it so that its loss was not reported until the following morning. When Pakefield had come to he was in the quarters where he was to spend the rest of his time until the night of his release.

  The second victim, the Right Honourable James Archer, had had much the same thing happen to him. Archer was one of the doyens of the Labour Party. He was a man in his mid-sixties, a shrewd, earthy, frankly-spoken Trade Unionist who had begun life in a Yorkshire mine. He was observant and intelligent and had previously been a Cabinet Minister. He had been taken one week-end while staying with friends in the country near High Wycombe. He often stayed with them and it was his habit nearly always before going to bed to take a five-minute stroll down the lane for a breath of fresh air. As he had come abreast of a car parked off the road under the shadow of a tree, the car window had come down and the woman driver had beckoned to him. Wiser than Pakefield, he had remained where he was and called to ask what the driver wanted. Before she could reply he heard a soft scuffling sound behind him and began to turn. He was gripped from behind, had a glimpse of a masked face, and then felt the prick in his shoulder and had rapidly passed out. He was convinced that his assailant had been a man. Although not big he was a strong man, but he had been gripped and held one-armed with a strength he was sure no woman could have possessed. As for the woman in the car, she was bare-headed and, he swore, certainly not blonde or fair. Her hair was either dark brown or black. The car, a Volvo saloon, had been found abandoned the next afternoon on a little-used road through a wood near Maidenhead. It had been stolen from the staff car park of a High Wycombe Hospital and belonged to a young doctor who was doing all-night casualty service so that its loss was not reported until the next morning. Fingerprinting of the two cars had produced no helpful results. Clearly the man and woman concerned wore gloves and they had operated in the stolen cars safe in the knowledge that there would be no police call out for them. Equally clearly they had each time driven to their own car and made a transfer of their victim.