‘They’re offering Beaumes de Venise by the glass, Tom. But if they bought that at Sainsbury’s, or M and S, or wherever… that’s a bloody rip-off, isn’t it? So… if we had that nice Chateau Climens instead, maybe? ’
Tom had wondered for a moment what Henry Jaggard would make of the Green Man bill, as a departmental expense, with Thomas Arkenshaw in the Princess Diana Suite and David Audley into the Chateau Climens: and then he’d thought the hell with Henry Jaggard!
And, later on, he’d thought: I’d better make some sort of night-round, to check the lie of the land, after I’ve put Audley to bed; although, for all the good it will do in total darkness, and with no one else watching our backs, it will be no more than giving me a breath of air before I turn in—
Price, Anthony - For the Good of the State And he’d said to the barman/under-manager, who’d been hovering:
‘I’ll just take a walk outside, for a few minutes… to blow away the cobwebs before I turn in.’ And the barman/under-manager had said: ‘ Well, you’d better take a torch, Sir Thomas. It’s very dark outside—or, it will be when I switch off the outside lights… And I’d better give you a key to the outside door, too.’
And now he felt the solidity of the wall at his back, which had been built, stone and mortar and rough plaster, before Lorna Doone had met John Ridd, back in the deeps of fictional Exinoor. And, with no back-up out there in the night—no back-up because neither bloody Henry Jaggard nor bloody David Audley appeared to have any interest in professional protection—the bloody wall at his back was all he had, in the way of safety, now. But, more to the point, it simply didn’t make sense— Because this wasn’t the moment to search his room, at this time of night, when the room would be occupied (and when there wasn’t anything in the room worth looking at, anyway)— that didn’t make sense—
And… maybe there was back-up, out there in the night, which Henry Jaggard hadn’t told him about: the ceaseless watch-andward of the old Royal Navy, of those storm-tossed ships which the safely-guarded English never saw, but simply took for granted—
because Jaggard’s attitude didn’t make sense otherwise, by God!
He pushed himself away from the wall, suddenly irritated by his Price, Anthony - For the Good of the State own crass irresolution, to stare again at the darkened facade of the hotel. The only thing he knew for sure about Henry Jaggard was that he was a tricky bastard—almost as tricky as Audley. But the only thing he knew for sure about his present situation was that someone was in his room, and this was no time to make pointless pictures about anything else—
Mercifully, the night-key turned easily in its well-oiled lock, with only the slightest of clicks.
He closed the door carefully behind him and then stood, listening to the silence. After the pitch-blackness of the night behind him the reception area had seemed bright at first, but now the feebleness of its minimum lighting returned. More pronounced after the clean moorland air were all the stale night-smells of the hotel, dominated by tobacco and alcohol from the bar on his right and the more acceptable hint of wood-smoke from the huge open fire in the residents’ lounge on his left, where the last log of the day sat on its huge pile of ash.
Tom exhaled the smells and was conscious also that he was mixing them with a self-pitying sigh. He knew that he was tired now, and that he had a right to be tired after so long a day, which had started so fairly and had developed so foully, and which had nevertheless kept its last, more dangerous moment to its very end, when he fell least able to cope with it.
Then, from his hidden reserves, he summoned up self-contempt to drive out self-pity. Looked at from the opposite direction (and, just for this final moment of reflection, forgetting Willy), this had been Price, Anthony - For the Good of the State a damn good day—even a lucky one: because Henry Jaggard, faced with an emergency, had chosen Tom Arkenshaw to handle it; and Audley’s would-be assassin had missed; and now someone, up in his room, had been careless—
He reached inside his coat, to settle the .38 in its holster, letting the weight of it comfort him: now someone had been careless—but this time Poor Tom wasn’t defenceless!
Two tip-toe steps to the left, and he was off the flagstones and on thick carpet, and on his way silently—
Memory flowed smoothly. The under-manager had led the way, through that door in the corner— this door— up the narrow (but still carpeted) private staircase to the Princess Diana suite— this stair, these stairs, two at a time and soundless now—
The short passage above was empty, and five silent steps took him to the door, back safely to the wall and the .38 in his hand, pressed to his chest.
There would be no sound inside, but he would listen anyway—
Sound — ?
He straightened up again, back to the wall, frowning.
For Christ’s sake! That was… ? Radio One—Radio Three—
whichever was the all-night pop music station—?
Ear to the door again, to confirm the impossible truth that someone was listening to pop music in his room, after midnight, in the Green Man, Holcombe Bridge— for Christ’s sake!
Price, Anthony - For the Good of the State All inclination to wait vanished in that instant. And, as his free hand hovered for a second over the room-key in his pocket, that inclination also evaporated. Instead, the hand tried the door-handle, and felt the door yield, inviting him to fact the music and the uninvited music-lover—
The smell hit him first, in the first millisecond of entry, out of that most ancient of human senses, which must once have made all the difference between being the hunter and the hunted, but which had already been activated down below by stale beer and tobacco, and wood smoke, and a menu full of faint cooking smells garnished with a hint of floor-polish—
But—not so much a smell as a fragrance— an unforgettable, unforgotten fragrance—Chanel, Lancôme, whoever—
‘Darling honey—where the hell have you been?’ Willy raised herself on one elbow, all honey-gold and freckled and frilly silken white on the brocaded rugger-field of the great bed.
Tom felt the warmth of the room on his face, registering another sense, after sound and smell and impossible sight as she flexed one slender leg at the knee, cascading the cobwebbed silk down in a movement so characteristic—so well-remembered from last night, and other nights—that it tore his heart with its reality.