The two men had regained consciousness in the same place. Their descriptions of this and of their routine tallied. There were two windowless rooms. The outer room was a living-room with a wooden table and two chairs, one an upright cheap table chair for eating and the other a rexine or leather-covered lounging-chair. The inner room, smaller, contained a safari camp bed with the appropriate bedclothes. Behind a curtain was a low-suite lavatory and a wall washbasin which gave hot and cold water. There was a small mirror over it with an electric razor point. A razor—a Philips—was provided. The lighting in both rooms was from ceiling strips which they were at liberty to operate. There were ventilation ducts near the ceiling in both rooms and, if the men needed warmth, there was a Dimplex heater in each room which they could switch on and off. In the living-room, set in the wall, was a loudspeaker system which they could control. Most of the day and early part of the evening light classical and popular music was relayed through this. Above this system was another loudspeaker which they could not control. Over this they received their instructions. When a meal was about to be brought to them they had to retire to the bedroom and close the door. There was no apparent lock on the door but they had both found that once inside it could not be opened on these occasions. Pakefield, examining it when it was open, had seen that at three places down the length of the door jamb on the handle edge of the door there were three studs that moved across—obviously from an electric control outside their quarters—which married into three cylindrical cavities in the edge of the door itself. Someone had gone to a lot of trouble, Bush had long known, to ensure security, and that someone never took a random step. The voice giving them their instructions over the speaker was male, but it was always backed by some kind of electronic disturbance, sometimes to the point of making it difficult to know what was being said.

  The door from the living-room to the outer world was of some stout wood, handleless on the inside. In the top half was inset a two-foot square of mirror. Both of the men had soon guessed that this was a one-way window through which they could be observed from the outside. Pakefield had tried to smash this mirror with the table chair but had only succeeded in breaking the chair, which was replaced without any comment. They were fed well and had a selection of magazines to read though these were never renewed.

  They were provided with no newspapers whatever and at no time were they given any information relating to their abduction, though both of them realised that they must be being held for some kind of ransom. They were happily ignorant of the fact that a death sentence hung over them unless the ransom was paid within a certain time limit.

  On the evening of their release the procedure had been the same for the two men. Over the speaker they had both been informed that they were being released, but if in any way they refused to carry out the instructions now to be given them then the release would be cancelled. The slightest attempt at heroics would merely prolong their stay. Naturally both of them had done as they were bid. They were told to take a dark blanket from their bed and wrap it securely around their heads and then to stand in the middle of the living-room. Both men had done this and—so far as they could tell—only one person had come into the room. Their right arms were taken and there followed the jab of a hypodermic needle and they passed out. Both men when picked up by the helicopter were in a highly sedated state. (A blood test on Archer—missed as far as Pakefield was concerned—had shown that the drug used was a highly sophisticated development of sodium theopentone and chlorpromezathine which was not generally available to the public.) The helicopter picking up Pakefield had landed near the first fairway of the Tiverton Golf Club in Devon. An open roadway ran near it. Archer had been picked up on the twelfth fairway of the Crowborough Beacon Golf Club in Sussex, and a roadway, screened by trees, ran alongside it. The drugged men, with their hands tied, were waiting on the ground fifteen yards from the landing spot of the helicopter. Both the girl, the first time, and the man the second time, had pointed out the man to the pilot and then, covering him with their automatic, had backed away into the night, leaving the pilot to get his load aboard unaided. The whole process so far as the kidnappers were concerned was over in a few seconds. The pilot—briefed after his experience the first time—had waited some minutes in the hope of hearing a car move off. He would then have picked up his load and followed it to try and establish its identity. But there had been no sound. The man had just disappeared into the night. (This had been no surprise to Bush or Grandison. The kidnapper would have known the helicopter risk once he had moved away from it and had made provision for it.)

  Listening to the tapes of the previous interrogations being played now, Bush was professionally full of admiration for the skill and intelligence behind the two abductions. Not only had the victims been studied in detail and arrangements made for their captivity which would leave them with little to tell when they were free, but the planning had for all that involved risk, the kind of risk, he was sure, in which the man behind it all would take a delight. Risk, the unforeseen trip of circumstances to bring disaster, there always had to be. But more than that, and this was what he wanted, somewhere or other there had to be something on which the mind, his mind, could seize and from the faintest echo of sound or the turn of a tiny detail give him the lead he wanted, and which he was determined to have because he meant for purely professional and ambitious reasons to get to Trader.

  When the interrogation tapes were finished, Bush said “Well, there it is, gentlemen. I’m sorry to put you through it all again, but as you’ve been told in confidence we’re pretty sure this Trader might operate again. No man sets up this kind of operation just for forty thousand pounds.”

  “It’s a lot of money, lad,” said Archer. “You ask my Union. They stumped up my twenty thousand. We could have used it for other things.” He began to roll himself a cigarette.

  “It’s the principle, not the money,” said Pakefield. “So far as my family were concerned it didn’t mean much. But that’s not the integral point. When prominent men are put at risk, and by the very nature of their duties they are, then—”

  Bush, sighing inwardly, interrupted. “Yes, well, sir, that isn’t quite the point at the moment. You’ve heard the tapes. What my department has been thinking is that now, studied and recollected in a calmer atmosphere, there is just the chance that there could be something, no matter how small, that has possibly been missed and which might help us. What I would like to do is to put a few questions to you which might lead us somewhere. If in doing so it stirs anything extra in your memory I’d be grateful if you would let me have it. No matter how small, no matter how vaguely remembered. Not facts necessarily, an idea, an impression.”

  “Carry on, lad,” said Archer.

  Pakefield, re-lighting his pipe, nodded.

  Bush said, “Thank you. First then. Would you say the water you used for washing was hard or soft or what?”

  “Soft,” said Pakefield. “Very definitely. Now that’s interesting, isn’t it? If you establish the soft-water areas of the country and then—”

  “Dickey, lad,” said Archer, “Mr. Bush here knows that. Just let’s stick to the answers and leave the deductions to him, lad. You may want to play detectives, but I want to get this over and be back at the House. The water was soft, lad.” He nodded at Bush.

  “Do you remember the make of soap you were provided with?”

  “It was yellowy, been used before so there was no name on it,” said Pakefield. “I didn’t like the smell.”

  “It was Wright’s Coal Tar soap,” said Archer. “I’d know it anywhere from a boy. My mother used to scrub me with it.” Bush said, “These quarters. They were obviously adapted for the purpose. Would you say the installations were a professional job or a do-it-yourself effort?”

  “Do-it-yourself,” said Pakefield. “The wiring of lights and speakers just ran openly along the walls and ceiling. The partition that made the bedroom had been knocked up quite roughly. Everything worked, all quite functional—” Bush sighed inwardly again. Say what you mean once and leave it at that, he thought. “—but no attempt at refinement.”

  “You both say that at times you were given white wine with meals. Any idea what it was?”

  “Just white wine,” said Archer. “Pretty dry stuff.”

  Pakefield leaned back in his chair, took his pipe out of his mouth and stared at the ceiling. “Can’t see how knowing the wine would help. But, anyway, there was little doubt about it. I should say it was a Pouilly Fuisse 1966. The food was indifferent as I’ve said already. I would say that your man from a culinary point of—”

  “Oh, I don’t know,” interrupted Archer. “I had some very good plaice and chips. And a Yorkshire pudding once that was passable.”

  “I’ve just thought of something,” said Pakefield. “That main door with the mirror. I believe there was something outside that. Like another door. From the bedroom when you were waiting for the food to come in, you’d hear a sort of rumbling sound before the sound of the main door being opened. And sometimes sitting in the main room there would be this rumble and, I don’t think it’s my imagination, there would be a change in the quality of the light behind or coming through the mirror. I would say, as a conjecture, that we were down in some cellar system and that the entrance to our place was camouflaged in some way. A false wall that went across in the case of some unexpected visitor or inspection. This man, we know, had left nothing to chance. Somewhere he must be leading an outwardly ordinary life and—”

  “What were the walls of your quarters made of, sir?” asked Bush.

  “Stone slabs,” said Pakefield.

  “Any idea what kind of stone?”

  “No, I—”

  “Limestone, lad,” said Archer. “I should know that. And it had been there a long time. If it was a cellar then it doesn’t belong to any modern house. And that makes me think of something else. That lavatory and washbasin. There was no drainage problem. Water went away fast enough. If we was in a cellar then there was a pretty good fallaway. House could have been on a slope.”

  Pakefield said, “I’ve just thought of something. After all you have asked us for a kind of total recall. Any small, even apparently insignificant detail. Well, this comes into that category. I haven’t mentioned it before because it has only just come back to me. It may surprise you to know, I’m really a bit of a sentimentalist. I like mementoes. Go on holiday and I like to bring something back . . . well, I thought the same about this place. If I get out, I told myself, I’d like to have something, something I could frame for my study or put on a mantelpiece. So I stole one of the spoons. The cutlery and china as you know were all just plain, cheap stuff.”

  To stop the long-windedness, Bush said, “They took it from you, sir?”

  “Yes, I had it in my pocket when they drugged me to come out. It wasn’t there when I got back home.”

  Archer chuckled. “That happened to my feather. I found it on the floor of the main room one day after they brought the food. Stuck it in my pocket as a memento. Like Dickey, here, when I got back it was gone.”

  “What kind of feather was it, sir?”

  “It was a hackle feather. That’s a small feather from the neck of a bird. Kept pigeons when I were a lad. I wouldn’t like to say what bird this came from though. It was sort of browny grey. Anyway it was gone.”

  “They clearly searched us after we were drugged,” said Pakefield. “Pity about that spoon, you know—kind of thing one’s children would in time like to have.”

  “Tell me, sir,” said Bush to Pakefield. “You said previously that you thought you heard something over the intercom system. Could we go into that a little more?”

  “Well, yes. It was a dual system clearly. Through the bottom speaker came this taped music. I should say home-made, Muzak stuff. During the day and early evening, if you switched on, it was usually going. The top speaker was dead until they switched on. You’d hear the click of the switch and then sometimes it would be a few seconds before the man—always the man—spoke. One day this happened. The man began to speak, the usual stuff about food coming in and I must go to the bedroom, and then there was an interruption. Only for a few seconds, though. I heard him make an angry . . . no, rather exasperated noise. Like you might use when flapping away a wasp. And there was this little tinkle of sound and with it a sort of rushing of air. Then it stopped and he went on speaking.”

  “If you had to put an explanation to it, sir, what would you say?”

  “Well . . . I’d have thought that he’d knocked something over, like a big pile of papers and some small glass object. Something on his desk or table.”

  “Originally you said it was bell-like.”

  “Well, it was in a way.”

  Bush said, “Did either of you ever hear any other noises? Not over the speaker. Say the sound of traffic or planes?”

  Both men shook their heads. Then Archer said, “The plates were always good and hot when we had a cooked meal. The stuff came on an open tray so the kitchen couldn’t have been far away.”

  “You’ve no recollection of being driven either to and from this place?”

  Neither of them could remember anything of their journeys. There were no markings or makers’ labels on any of their bed clothes. At meals they were served with plain white paper napkins.

  When they were gone he ran the tape of their conversation. He hadn’t been expecting anything very pertinent from them, and he hadn’t got it. There was no disappointment in him. In his job you kept emotions at an even level. No joy, no pain, just hard grafting. The house—if it were a house—could be in limestone country with the kidnap quarters in the cellar. Fairly big cellar or cellar system. That meant a fairish-sized house. Near traffic noises or aircraft noises would have come through faintly maybe at night. Unless the cellar quarters were soundproofed it could mean that the location was in the country somewhere . . . almost certainly was because Trader wouldn’t want the close presence of neighbours. The house could stand on a slope or hill. The rushing noise. Wind, falling papers? The tinkling sound? An ornament falling, a glass vibrating, some small bell?

  He stood up and walked slowly about the room. This was going to be one of those hard, hard jobs of attrition. Almost certainly a closed van of some kind would have been used. The stolen cars were only safe enough for a few miles. Beyond that the risk was too great. He would have to get down to his maps and his timings. Trader had gone north from Southampton and south-east from High Wycombe. That wasn’t significant. Trader would never use any direct route—but even he could not be independent of place, time and distance. Tiverton was in Devon and Crowborough in Sussex—a good two hundred miles apart. He poured himself a drink and considered the feather. Blown in by a draught when the door was opened for the meal to be brought? Or caught up on the sole of a muddy boot or shoe and brought in. From the kitchen? Few people plucked fowls in the kitchen these days. Or they might if it were a farm. Naturally Trader had searched the men before they left. Finding and taking the spoon was obvious. But the feather. Why take that? On principle? The men were to go as they had come in. The spoon, yes. It could conceivably have given a lead. But why a feather, a small browny hackle feather little more than an inch long? If it had meant nothing Trader might not have bothered with it. The fact that he had, meant that he did not want it to go out. The assumptions had to be that either he was just sticking to a principle, or that he felt the feather might at a pinch have some significance . . . say in the hands of a qualified ornithologist. And where on earth did he get the sodium theopentone-chlorpromezathine stuff? If it had been—his mind came swinging back to it suddenly—a hen, duck or turkey feather it would have helped no one. But take the extreme case—if it had been a feather from an unusual bird and could be identified by an ornithologist then it might help. Trader was either just careful on principle—or he might own or have contact with a bird or birds which would not be classed as ordinary.

  CHAPTER THREE

  FOR THREE NIGHTS Miss Rainbird’s sleep was clear of any disturbing dreams. On the fourth night Harriet returned. On the following day as Miss Rainbird was feeding the ornamental wildfowl on the small lake in the grounds of Reed Court she decided to send for Madame Blanche. Although she was inwardly still sceptical that Madame Blanche would be able to help her, she was forcing herself to be open-minded enough to give the experiment a trial. But one thing she was determined not to be was hoodwinked and so become a source of easy money for some charlatan.

  Madame Blanche arrived at six o’clock that same evening and was shown in by Syton to the drawing-room. The curtains were drawn for the night and on a small table were set out a sherry decanter and cocktail biscuits. Madame Blanche, Miss Rainbird noted, was less soberly dressed than on her first visit. She wore a plum-coloured dress with matching shoes and there was a long string of large artificial pearls around her neck and looping down over her ample bosom. Over the telephone Miss Rainbird had already told Blanche that her dreams had returned. She had gone into no details of the dreams. To begin with she was quite determined not to help this woman in any way. She wanted first of all some positive demonstration that Madame Blanche did indeed possess some, at least, of the powers Mrs. Cookson had claimed for her.

  While she was offering Blanche a glass of sherry, which was accepted, she said quite frankly, “This dream is one that recurs very often. I’m not prepared to say more at the moment than that it concerns someone who is dead and was very close to me. If I went into some of the circumstances of our relationship it might lead you—and forgive me for saying this—into conjectures and the possible formation of hypotheses which might influence you quite wrongly. You don’t mind that I adopt this attitude, do you?”