Lord Leighton was paying no attention. He was making marks on paper again and mumbling, "The thing was that the others were content to stop with the spacetime continuum, the fourth, and call it quits. Donkeys! The next logical step was inevitable, clear as bumf in the living room, but nothing is ever clear to fools and..."
"Leighton!"
The old man looked up, "Sorry, J. What is it?"
"When can I see Blade? When are you going to release him?"
Lord L pulled out a ponderous old-fashioned watch. "Soon now. He's all yours. Had all his tests, been cleared, fit as a fiddle except for those minor wounds in his leg and side. Hmmm, I've had him four days now, eh? Good. Fine. That's enough. Soon as he comes out of hypnosis and has a final check he's all yours, J. Give him a bonus, a whopping big one, mind you, and tell him to have fun. I won't need him for another six months or so."
As J left the Tower he suddenly thought of Blade's girl, Zoe. Saucy little wench! Sticking her nose into things that didn't concern her. He had to smile as he tried to hail a taxi. The lass had pretty well blown the Whitehall cover thing, nosing about and asking questions and using her relatives and friends. J nodded reprovingly to himself as he stepped into a taxi. The Whitehall bit had been a little ramshackle and hastily set up. Have to change it.
Blade parked the MG off the lane and vaulted the stile leading to the cottage, thinking of the last time he had cleared it with Zoe in his arms. Zoe!
He had been trying to get in touch with her for two days now. Her family didn't know, or wouldn't tell, where she was. Everywhere he tried he was greeted by the same vague answers:
"Sorry, old man, haven't seen her lately."
"No, Mr. Blade, I do not know where Zoe is."
"Seems to me she said something about popping over to Paris for a week or so."
"I heard she had a spot of work to do in Wales."
"No, sir. Miss Cornwall hasn't been in her flat these past four days\'85 Thank you, sir."
He unlocked the cottage, went around raising windows, then got out because the scent of her was everywhere. His heart ached with a dull ache that both pained and angered him.
He wandered down to the cliff, to the Snuggery, as she called it, and stood looking out over the Channel. It was a day of mist and intermittent sun, and a mild swell was running in to break foaming on the shingle. Gulls circled in boredom and puffins investigated the wet black rocks far beneath him. Blade lit a cigarette and let the wind carry the match away.
They had been playing the quote game that evening. She had not responded, not at all.
Blade was in love and miserable. He admitted it. He was feeling sorry for himself, which was a crime to a man like himself. Okay. He was a criminal. Goddamn it, Zoe! Come back to me. I need you. I want you.
He had never cared for Wordsworth. He did not, especially, care for Wordsworth now. The line just popped into his head.
I wandered lonely as a cloud.
Which line would Zoe quote back to him? There was nothing of love in the poem.
Perhaps - And then my heart with pleasure fills?
Something dark caught his eye. It lay in the tall grass where they had been making love that last night.
He took half a dozen steps and picked up the black panties, wispy and crumpled and damp now with rain and dew. Blade smiled ruefully. They had been in a hurry that night, when the phone began to ring in the cottage.
He stuffed the damp panties in his jacket pocket and started back up the lane to the cottage. Halfway there he heard it. She had never gotten around to having that sticky valve repaired. Click-click-click - click-click. She was turning off the blacktop now, into the lane.
Blade began to run.