The Business

'You do too.  No one's mileage varies that much.'

'I'm telling you I don't, dammit!'

'Yeah, right.'

'Luce, I wouldn't lie to you.  I've never lied to you.'

'Oh, come on, you must have.  I'm your girlfriend, not your analyst.'

'What a terrible attitude!  And I don't even have an analyst.'

'Exactly.'

'What do you mean "exactly"?'

'That just shows how much you need one.'

'What?  Not having an analyst shows how much I need an analyst?'

'Yes.'

'You're mad.'

'Yeah, but at least I've got an analyst.'

Slow-gliding in the air above them all slid the wing-spread shapes of the bone-eating lammergeiers, forever cruising the blade-thin winds that sliced across the frozen peaks.

'Mr Hazleton?'

'Kathryn?'

'I just had a funny thought.'

'Funny?  How do you mean? I thought you'd be ringing about Freddy —'

'Mr Hazleton, I've just received a proposal of marriage from the Prince.  Am I supposed to…What about Freddy?'

'You haven't heard?  Oh dear.  He was in a car crash. He's in — what do they call it nowadays? — Intensive Care. Kathryn, I'm very sorry to be the one to tell you, but they don't seem to think he's going to make it. He was asking to see you.  Though, I don't know, by the time you'd be able to get there…'

Suddenly I remembered — or half-remembered — a joke Uncle Freddy had told me once, something about a man, a fanatical hunter who was a great marksman with a double-barrel shotgun and was forever bagging vast quantities of grouse and pheasant but who in the end went mad and sincerely thought he was the piece of cotton on the end of a length of string that shotgun owners use to clean out the barrels of their guns.  The punchline was his wife saying, 'But, Doctor, do you think he'll pull through?'  This had sent Uncle Freddy into a tearful, knee-slapping frenzy; I could still see him hooting and guffawing and bending and struggling to catch his breath through his laughter.

I said, 'Tell them I'm on my way.'

CHAPTER TEN

I fussed and fretted throughout the rest of that evening and into the night, making calls, sending e-mails, trying to sleep, not sleeping.  Suvinder looked shaken when he heard about Uncle Freddy.  He arranged for the Twin Otter to bring forward its flight the next day: it would leave at dawn from Dacca and turn around as quickly as possible.  Luckily the weather forecast was fairly benign.  Tommy Cholongai's Lear wasn't available but there would be a company Gulfstream waiting for me at Siliguri by noon.

The Prince had to pay a belated visit to his mother that evening.  I spent most of the time in my room on the phone; my little quilted chattering lady, who was called Mrs Pelumbu, brought me a meal, though I didn't eat much.

I called Leeds General, the hospital in the UK where Uncle Freddy had been taken, and eventually persuaded them that I was both a relation and that I was the 'Kate' that Freddy kept asking to see.  He was in Intensive Therapy, as Hazleton had said.

A road traffic accident on the A64, two days earlier, during heavy rain.  Four other casualties, two discharged, others not in danger.  They wouldn't actually tell me how bad he was straight out, but they did say if I wanted to see him I should get there as soon as I could.

I tried Blysecrag.  Miss Heggies answered.

'How bad is he, Miss H?'

'I…They…He…You…'

Miss H was reduced to little more than personal pronouns.  The small amount of sense I did manage to get out of her only confirmed that Uncle Freddy was very poorly indeed, and in a sense I didn't even need that; just hearing how emotional and distraught this former paragon of stainless rectitude had become was enough to tell me things must be fairly desperate (it also made me wonder if she and Uncle Freddy…well, never mind).

Hi, Stephen. Lost Event Horizon here.

Kathryn, I heard about Freddy Ferrindonald. Can you get back there to see him? Is there anything I can do?

I'm starting back tomorrow, weather permitting. You can tell me what the word is in-company. Any details?

Yep, thought you might ask, so I found all this out. He was driving to some place on the coast nearby- Scarboro? - during the evening; it was raining, he skidded on a corner and hit a car coming in the opposite direction. Wouldn't have been too bad but the whatever he was driving was so old it didn't have a seat-belt; apparently he went through the windscreen and ended up wrapped round a tree or a bush or something. Lot of head and internal injuries. We'd have got him to one of our hospitals - we had a Swiss air ambulance waiting at the local airport for him the next morning - but he's in too bad a way to move. Kathryn, I'm sorry, but from what I hear he isn't even fifty-fifty. He keeps asking for you. I think Miss H's nose is out of joint, and not just because he's not asking for her.  Apparently there's another woman there keeping vigil; this is the party he was on his way to visit in Scarboro.

Uncle F had a fancy woman.  Well, that figures. Look, thanks for collating all that stuff.  Do we have anybody on the ground I can contact?

Lady called Marion Craston, an L5 from GCM. She's at the bedside too. Well, there or thereabouts. In case he changes his will or something, I guess, but also just to have a co. presence too, most likely.

(Gallentine Cident-Muhel- London, Genève, New York, Tokyo — are our lawyers.  Wholly owned.)

Thanks. We have a number for her?

I called Marion Craston at the hospital in Leeds.  She wasn't much help; the epitome of lawyerly obfuscation.  Basically she confirmed what I already knew.  The line was very clear and I could hear that she was still clicking and tapping away on a keyboard as she talked, sort of absentmindedly, to me.  This I did not appreciate.

After I hung up I sat for a few seconds thinking about calling GCM and getting her replaced with somebody else, then decided I was upset and possibly just taking it out on her.  I had done the same sort of thing myself on occasion (though not when the person I was talking to was a couple of levels above me in the corporate hierarchy; I'd always given them my full attention).  But what the hell; one could be too severe.

'Hi again.  So, want my analyst's number?'

'No, I do not.  Listen, more tribulations.'

I told Luce about Uncle F.

'They have autos without seat-belts?  Jesus .  I suppose it was a right pea-souper, oi, guv'nor?'

'Will you stop that?  The poor old bastard's at death's door and all you can do is come on like Dick Van Dyke.'

'Okay, I'm sorry.'

'The car's a classic.  Or was.  That's why it didn't have a seat-belt.'

'I've said I'm sorry.  Don't go all prickly-Brit defensive on me.  But why does the old guy want to see you?  Were you that close?'

'Well, fairly.  I was like a daughter to him.  I guess.'

'Yeah, like a daughter in the close-knit, down-home, swigging- moonshine-on-the-porch and whistling-Dixie sense.  This is still the old geezer who used to grope you up, right?'

'Is this some new Valley phrase or are you in some continuing and pathetic attempt to sound British confusing grope and touch up?'

'Answer the question.'

'Look, we've been through all this.  He's my Uncle Freddy who sometimes gives me an affectionate pat on the butt.  End of story.  He's a nice old guy and now it sounds like he's dying six thousand miles away from me and I've got to wait ten hours before I can even start heading to his bedside and I idiotically thought I'd call you for a little understanding maybe but instead —'

'All right!  All right!  So long as you're sure he never abused you.'

'Oh, not that again.  I'm hanging up.'

'No!  You've got hang-ups!  Hello?'

In my dream, in the depths of that cold night, the east wind blew.  Mihu, the Chinese servant who looked just like Colin Walker, Hazleton's security chief, cracked open a window in the eastern wall of windows, and the Queen Mother complained of a draught, so the canopy on that side of the bed was dropped.  In the night, while the Queen slept, he went out on to the terrace. for a while, then slipped back into the chamber and opened the western windows, which led out on to the terrace — the Queen stirred and muttered in her sleep, but did not wake — then, while Josh Levitsen and the little lady-in-waiting looked on, Mihu/Walker opened the eastern windows to let the wind in.