There was laughter and clapping. The point was won. Percival sat back shrugging and looking discomfited. Sir Michael had a broad smile on his face to rob the words of hurt and for just a moment, Johnny found himself smiling with him. He checked himself and looked around. It was easy to see the audience approved. The voice of reason or the Lorelei? He rubbed his forehead hard to fight off the first twinges of a headache.
That was almost it. There were two more questions and the CPRE lady announced that there would be a petition for their signatures by the door. The planning man gathered up his pile of papers again and Councillor Percival tried to buttonhole Sir Michael about something but had difficulty getting his full attention as the old diplomat scanned the crowd. Johnny helped get Jo’s chair down the side of the hall, through the people to a quiet corner at the back where he saw the other women waiting. The group didn’t seem to include Heather and he couldn’t immediately see her.
Margo turned to him. ‘What did you think of that?’
Johnny shrugged. ‘Interesting.’
‘Pretty pointless when it comes down to it. This lot aren’t going to get too stirred up about it, not with Percival and his cronies in there. Thank God for Sir Michael.’
‘Yes.’
Jo looked up at him. ‘I suppose you’ve heard him before. Did you see Question Time last week?’
‘No, I didn’t,’ said Johnny and sought to change the subject. ‘By the way, you were telling me about your case. What happened when you went to serve the writ?’
‘Oh that,’ said Jo, ‘it was a laugh a minute, that was. We went up there to the base, and you know you have to serve the writ personally? Well, we were told if we got the guard at the gate to accept them that would be good enough.’
‘Some chance,’ said Margo.
Jo nodded. ‘Yeah, he wasn’t having that. Anyway we demanded that he should call up Hayter or the Chief Inspector and he wouldn’t. He got on the blower and next thing there were modplods everywhere, vans blocking us in, the whole caboodle. All kinds of threatening stuff. Elsa went for a phone and she called up the real coppers in Harrogate.’
Johnny was surprised. ‘Did they take any notice?’
‘Didn’t they just! Elsa told them we were trying to perform our legal rights and we were in danger of assault from the modplods and ten minutes later there was a squad car up there backing us up.’
‘Backing you up?’ he asked in amazement. ‘Against police?’
‘The real coppers don’t think much of the modplods. They say they don’t know anything about the law. Anyway there was this weird stand-off for a bit then the coppers in the squad car went and told the modplods they’d arrest them if they interfered with us trying to serve the writ, so they were forced to accept it.’
At every turn, Johnny’s certainties about normal official behaviour were being shaken. The women went on talking as the hall slowly emptied around them and he stood there, trying to imagine the scene and wondering what his next move should be. He was very much the outsider still, treated with amused tolerance; certainly in no position to start asking more probing questions about how the group had got its hands on the Rage papers.
Heather’s voice from behind him broke in on his thoughts and he looked round to see her walking down the aisle, talking animatedly to her companion. She was only a few steps away, coming towards them. The man she was talking to was Sir Michael Parry. He took an involuntary step backwards and stumbled over a chair.
‘Hello everybody,’ she said, ‘I’ve just been saying how much we all liked what Sir Michael had to say.’
‘It’s very kind of you,’ he said, ‘I don’t think I added anything, at least nothing that will stand up against the Chamber of Commerce’s symphony of ringing cash registers.’
‘Well, I thought you did and it was nice to hear it,’ she said and there were noises of agreement all round. ‘I think you’ve met everybody before?’
Through the fog of semi-panic Johnny recorded that as an interesting fact but her next words pushed it far to the back of his mind: ‘Oh, except Johnny, I should say. Michael, this is Johnny Kennedy…’ and – bizarrely – he found himself shaking hands with his father, being forced to meet a pair of level, interested eyes, knowing that his own gaze was far from level and the hand he offered had turned suddenly clammy.
Handshake over, he stepped back, offering no conversation, and his father turned instead to Margo. Johnny looked at Heather.
‘What are you doing now?’ he said.
She looked at her watch. ‘Going to work in about ten minutes.’
‘Work?’
‘Yes. I’m on night shift at the Hall. I told you, didn’t I? Tinderley Hall? The place where you thought the boys needed a good thrashing?’
‘Don’t. I didn’t mean it. I wasn’t thinking. I’m just surprised. I mean, you’ve been up all day.’
‘Oh, it isn’t too bad. If there are no calamities I get quite a lot of sleep. What are you doing?’
‘I haven’t really thought. I’d like to talk to you about… well, all this. I’ll go and find somewhere to stay.’
‘There’s a pub near the Hall with rooms. If you follow me, I’ll take you past it.’
She said her goodbyes and they went outside. Disconcertingly, Sir Michael detached himself and came out with them. He crossed to a Rover parked next to Heather’s Citroën and called to her. ‘I’ll follow you up there, shall I?’
‘Fine. Johnny’s coming too. I’m just going to take him to the King and Queen on the way.’
‘The King and Queen? Why?’ said Sir Michael, puzzled. ‘It’s closed. There was a story in the paper. The tenant did a bunk or something like that.’ He turned to Johnny. ‘Were you going to stay there?’
‘I was hoping to. I’ll find somewhere else.’
‘Well, there’s a place down at… No, look, if you just need a bed for the night, I can put you up. There’s lots of space.’
Johnny tried to frame some reasonable, polite refusal but Heather quickly said, ‘That’s very kind of you, Sir Michael.’
‘It’s all right. I only need to drop in at the Hall for a few minutes. They’ve got some papers for me.’
‘Sir Michael is chairman of our trustees,’ Heather said to Johnny, then turned to look at the older man. ‘You don’t need to. I can drop the papers in tomorrow morning on my way home.’
‘Good idea. Come and have some coffee. Now, young man. Follow me.’
Three minutes later, the Rover’s tail-lights shining in front of him, Johnny could think of no way out short of simply turning abruptly and driving off. Getting lost accidentally was out of the question. Sir Michael drove with exaggerated care, signalling every turn far in advance and going slowly when Johnny got held up at a junction by other traffic. Behind him, his son had all the options that his steering wheel and accelerator laid before him to escape this approaching nemesis; but he knew that if he took them there could be no plausible re-entry into this group.
There were stone gateposts with no gates, then a long drive on a bumpy track that seemed, so far as Johnny could tell in the dark, to take them round a sweep of hillside. They pulled up in front of a house whose stone walls shone with a grey glimmer in the turning headlights as Johnny swung in beside the Rover.
When he switched his headlights off thick darkness cloaked everything and he realized that there could be no one else waiting for them inside the house. From somewhere outside, near the door, Sir Michael called to him.
‘Won’t take a minute. Just get some lights on.’
He heard a scrabbling of keys, the click of a latch and then a dim outside light, shrouded in tangled ivy leaves, came on to show the way. With a sense of deep foreboding, he went in to a stone-flagged hall, concentrating on the details to fill up his mind. Two torches on a side table, with secateurs, a roll of garden wire and half-used seed packets, closed up with clothes-pegs. A pair of binoculars, old but good, sticking out of an open leather case. Two pairs of wellingtons, one old, one new and they both looked the same size. Coats on a row of pegs, a Barbour, a tweed overcoat and some sort of mackintosh, all male but at the end, a paler, lightweight raincoat that looked like a woman’s. There was a dog basket under a table at the end of the hall, but no sound nor sign of a dog.