"Men on holiday. Brings the beast out as you might call it. I know. I have no objection if she there hasn't." And, getting up, she gave Enderby a murderous look which he considered unfair, since he had, after all, been the instrument of disclosure of her husband's beastliness, meaning the truth. As she sat down grunting next to Miss Boland, Enderby saw that she had an English newspaper folded to what looked like a simple crossword puzzle. She had a ballpoint, but she did not seem to have filled anything in yet. He leaned across her bosom to squint at the date and saw that, as far as he could judge, it was yesterday's. That was all right, then. Before that lot happened. And then he saw that it was the Evening Standard and it was not all right. He said to this woman, leaning over more deeply:
"Where did you get that? Give it me, quick. I must have it. Something I've got to see."
"Right," said Mr Mercer. "Go and sit down quietly behind next to this lady's husband. We don't want any more trouble, do we now?"
"Cheek," said the woman. "It was left in the ladies at the airport by one of them Gibraltar people. I've as much right to it as what he has."
"Oh, please go on now," said Mr Mercer in distress. "If you can't hold it you shouldn't take it. A lot of this foreign stuffs stronger than what many are used to."
"She may be drunk," said Enderby, shoulder-jerking towards Miss Boland, "but I'm not, thank you very much. All I want to see is that paper. Something in it. A book review, very important. And then I'll go to that lavatory and sit in there quietly." Seeing Miss Boland gasp in a lot of air to revile him further, he made a grab for the newspaper. The condom man's wife strengthened her hold.
"For God's sake," said Mr Mercer, uncourierlike, "let him see what he wants to see and then let's get him out of the way."
"1 want to find it myself," said Enderby. "I don't need her to show it me."
"And who's her when she's at home?" said the woman. Miss Boland looked cunning and said:
"Let me see. There's something very fishy about all this. Running away from his wife, so he said."
"Really? Told you, did he?"
"Let me see." And Miss Boland, unhandily in the manner of all women with a newspaper, unfolded the Evening Standard, and the safe backwater of small ads and cartoons and crossword gave place, after a rustling tussle, to the horrid starkness of front page news. There it was, then. Enderby gulped it all in like ozone.
"Oh," said the woman, "I never seen that. Oh terrible, that, oh my word."
"Yes," said Miss Boland. "Terrible."
A screaming banner announced the shooting of Yod Crewsy. In hour of triumph. In Premier's presence. Waiter believed assailant. There was a large blurred photograph of Yod Crewsy with stretched gob or cakehole, but whether shot or just singing was not indicated. There was also a still photograph of the Prime Minister looking aghast, probably taken from stock. No picture, thank God, of waiter believed assailant. But Miss Boland was reading avidly on. Enderby had to now or never. He leaned over the condom man's wife and grabbed. The paper did not tear: he got the thing whole. He said:
"Very important review. Book page, book page," rustling tremulously through. "Oh, stupid of me. Wrong day for book page." And then, as though an issue without the book page were an insult to the literate, he crumpled the Evening Standard into a ball.
"That's going too far," said Mr Mercer.
"You mannerless thing," said the woman. "And that poor lad dead, too."
"Not yet," said Enderby unwisely. "Not dead yet."
"Hogg." That was Miss Boland.
"Eh?" Enderby looked at her with bitter admiration. He had been right, then; he had known all along this would happen.
"Hogg. Puerco. That's why you're on the run."
"She's mad," Enderby told Mr Mercer. "I'm going to the lavatory." He began to unball the paper and smooth it out. She had seen the name Hogg; the only thing to do now was to insist that he was not Hogg. There was no point in hiding the fact that Hogg was wanted to assist in a police enquiry. If, that is, one were oneself not Hogg. And one was not, as one's passport clearly showed. Enderby nearly drew out his passport, but that would look too suspiciously eager to prove that he was not Hogg. A lot of people were not Hogg, and they did not have to keep presenting their passports to prove it.
"The police," said Miss Boland. "Send a radio message to the airport. He did it. That's why he's run away."
"I don't have to put up with all this, do I?" said Enderby with a fine show of weariness.
"He said all the time that he hated pop-singers."
"That's not true," said Enderby. "All I said was that you mustn't necessarily regard me as an enemy of pop-culture."
"Jealousy," said Miss Boland. "A bad poet jealous of a good one. And what was that you said just then about a gun? I'm quite sure I didn't dream it." She seemed very calm now, glinting, though breathing heavily.
"I'll give you bad poet," said Enderby, preparing to shout. "If there's any good in that book of his, it's because it's been pinched from me. That bitch. Plagiarism. I hope he dies, because he deserves to die."
"Look," said Mr Mercer, "we don't want any trouble, right? This is supposed to be for pleasure, this cruise is. Will you both stop shouting the odds? If there's anything to be seen to I'll see to it, right?"
"If you don't," said Miss Boland, "I will. I will in any case. He killed him, no doubt about it. He's as good as admitted it."
"Who's a bitch?" said the condom wife, belatedly. "Who was he saying was a bitch? Because if he was meaning me -"
"I'm going to the lavatory," said Enderby. Mr Mercer did not attempt to stop him; indeed, he followed him. The crumpled Evening Standard had somehow reached Miss Kelly. She was spelling all that front page out, reserving her reaction till she had taken everything in. Just by the lavatory door Mr Mercer said:
"What's going on with her down there? Is she potty or what?"
"A matter of sex," Enderby said. "I spurned her advances. I don't think it's decent the way she carries on, and me with my mother dying in Marrakesh."
"Look," said Mr Mercer without sympathy. "You shouldn't rightly be on this plane at all, as you well know, and I'm bloody sorry I let you come on it. It was a bit of a fiddle, and I think I've learned my lesson now about that sort of thing. Now she's going on about you being a dangerous criminal, which sounds to me like a load of balls. You've not been killing anybody, have you?"
"I have enough on my hands," said Enderby gravely, "with a dying mother."
"Right then. I'll get her calmed down and I'll tell her that I'm doing whatever has to be done. The police and that. The customers have got to be satisfied, that's laid down in the rules. Now it won't be long to Marrakesh now, so I'll tell you what I'll do with you. You nip off before everybody else, see, because I'll let you."
"Thanks very much," said Enderby.
"I'll keep them all back till you have time to get away. I don't want her on the job again, howling murder and upsetting the other mugs," said Mr Mercer frankly. "So you'll find three taxis laid on specially for the tour. They take one lot to the Hotel Maroc and then keep coming back for the rest. Well, you get into one and get the driver to drop you wherever it is you want to be dropped and then send him back to the airport, right? How far is it you have to go?"