'Hullo? Who's that?'
That was Jenny, safe and sound and undoubtedly: Jenny dummy2
never answered the telephone with her own name and number. 'Ian, Jenny — '
'Thank God for that! Where are you?'
'What? I'm at—'
'No!' She cut him off. 'Don't answer that. You're not at home
— at your flat, Ian — ?'
'No. What the hell's the matter, Jen?' He had never heard her so flustered. And that, in very quick succession, surprised him and then frightened him. 'Jenny — '
'Shut up, Ian. Don't say anything. Don't tell me where you are, or what you're doing. Just listen.'
He opened his mouth, and then remembered what she'd just said. But his fear overrode that. 'Are you all right, Jenny?'
'Shut up. I've got to be quick — you've got to be quick. Get out of there — wherever you are — and go to that place where the man dropped the soup . . . Remember that? And don't be followed. If you are, then go to my father's place, and don't leave it. And I'll phone you there. Okay?'
Although he tried to digest all that while she force-fed him with it, there was too much of it, and he gagged on it. Now he was just plain frightened — Beirut-style frightened. Or perhaps even more frightened, because he didn't know what ought to be frightening him in Lower Buckland, or her in London.
'Okay. It'll take me an hour, Jen.' He estimated the journey from Lower Buckland to Abdul the Damned's restaurant as dummy2
best he could. But he couldn't leave it at that. 'What's happened, Jen? You must tell me. Then I'll go.'
There was a fractional pause. 'Reg Buller's dead, Ian. And I can't raise ... his friend — he doesn't answer. I think the police may be there.' Another heart's-beat pause. 'Watch yourself, Ian — for God's sake watch yourself!'
The phone went dead.
5
There were times, under pressure, when everything around him ceased to exist — even he himself seemed disembodied
— and the only reality was what was going on in his head.
Jenny was all right, his brain told him. If she hadn't been all right, she wouldn't have spoken like that: when she'd spoken to him that one time in Beirut, when she'd been unfree, she'd been calm and matter-of-fact, almost confident. This time, she'd been free, but neither calm nor well-organized, and far from confident — certainly far from confident that her line was safe —
He realized that he was still inside the phone-box in Lower Buckland, just down the lane from the Village Green; and he was staring at the dialling instructions blindly, with the phone still in his hand. And his hand was sweaty —
Oh God! He closed his eyes on the blasphemy. Reg Buller!
dummy2
He replaced the receiver, and disciplined himself to accept the world as it now was, both around him in Lower Buckland, and beyond it. Jenny was in her flat, and although she was dead-scared (and although she had been dead-scared she had waited quite deliberately for his call, in spite of that . . . either because she needed him, or because she wanted to warn him — either or both, it could be) . . .
although she'd been scared, she still thought she could beat the odds, and get away to Abdul the Damned's, where she reckoned they'd both be safe — where little Mr Malik could undoubtedly be trusted: that gave more credence to her present safety than anything else she'd said.
There was nothing to be seen outside. And nothing included Reg Buller, for evermore in the world as it now was: Reg Buller, with his noisome pipe and drink problem, and his bulbous nose, and his suburban semidetached villa, had moved from evermore to nevermore.
On that thought, he pushed open the door, and stepped out of the box, with Reg Buller at his back. Because Reg would have had no time for such futile sentiments, and he couldn't afford them either, now. The lane was empty.
Of course the fucking lane's empty, Reg Buller would have said. Just get to the fucking car and drive, like the Lady said
— right?
But it wasn't right. Because Reg Buller had been smart, yet not smart enough. Because Reg had believed in danger before anyone else had done, but Reg was dead now, even dummy2
though he'd been smart.
And the car was all that was left to him, whether he'd been as clever (or as lucky) as he'd thought, just a few minutes back: he just might have been clever enough (or lucky enough) . . .
but Lower Buckland was undoubtedly in the middle of its own commuter-belt nowhere, with a bus once-a-week if at all. So if he wasn't going to walk, then he had to drive —
It was different now, was Lower Buckland, as he progressed up the empty lane towards the Village Green: it really was Fin Bheara's kingdom, as briefly glimpsed in Mrs Frances Fitzgibbon's — now Mrs Champeney-Smythe's — Dictionary of Fairies: if you were still in the land of the living yourself, then all the people you met there were already dead. And he wished now that he hadn't read that —
Yet that wasn't so much not right as simply ridiculous: he had had a long day and if he hadn't been so frightened that he'd be dog-tired after all the unaccustomed leg-work and interviewing, never mind the driving; and, as this day — this evening, this night — was now very obviously far from over he had to cool his unfounded fears here, and summon his reserves, and pace himself.
Also, the Village Green wasn't empty now. There was a woman pushing a pram, with two children and a dog in tow, on the far side. And there was a car — two cars — two lovely, ordinary cars, with drivers and passengers in them — passing just ahead of him. And Fin Bheara surely wasn't into prams, dummy2
and children, and dogs, and cars full of passengers, to people his shadowy land.
He swung round the short stretch of road into the parallel lane where the car was, almost angry with himself for his over-fertile imagination. And then halted for an instant before reversing direction, to set off diagonally across the broad expanse of Village Green, towards the great old yew-tree, where he'd paused the first time, and the churchyard and the church behind it —
God! There had been a man bending over his car, while trying the door to see whether it was unlocked! And, as he'd paused fractionally, the man had looked up, and their eyes had met across fifty yards; but the man hadn't dropped his hand, he had gone on staring — ! God — !
He accelerated his pace, almost to the beginning of a run, not knowing where he was going, only that he wanted to put distance between himself and the man, his follower — his follower who had caught up with him, to become his pursuer
— ? Or, after Reg Buller, something more fearful than that
— ?
God! He hadn't been so clever, or so lucky, after all! He'd been stupid — stupid to blunder straight here, on the track of Marilyn Francis, without taking proper stock of the situation . . . stupid to delude himself that he was clever . . .
and stupid, more immediately, to have reacted as he had just done — to have halted for that fatal half-second, and then not shouted angrily like an honest man, but had acted dummy2