Vintage Stuff

'Nobody would think of looking there,' he'd said, 'and when it's all blown over...'

'It isn't going to blow over, damn you,' said Glodstone, 'and anyway we'd come out stinking like a couple of ferrets with BO.'

'Not if we found somewhere near a stream and bought some soap. We could stock up with tins of food and dig a really deep burrow and no one would ever know.'

'Except every farmer in the district. Anyway, cub-hunting's coming up shortly and I'm not going to be chased across country by a pack of hounds or earthed up. Use your loaf.'

'I still don't think we should do what that woman said. She could have been lying.'

'And I suppose you think the Daily Telegraph's lying too,' said Glodstone. 'She told us it was an international gathering and she was bloody well right.'

'Then why did she write you those letters? She asked us to '

'She didn't. Can't you see that? They were forgeries and we've been framed. And so's she.'

'I can't see why. I mean...'

'Because if we're caught and we say she wrote those letters she can't prove she didn't.'

'But you burnt them.'

Glodstone sighed, and wished to hell he hadn't. 'She didn't know that. That's how I knew she was telling the truth. She hadn't a clue about the damned things. And if she'd been going to do us down she'd have gone to the police when she went off to get petrol. Surely that told you something?'

'I suppose so,' said Peregrine, only to bring up the question of the revolvers. 'The Major's going to be jolly angry when he finds they're missing from the armoury,' he said.

Glodstone stifled the retort that what Major Fetherington felt was the least of their problems. If the damned man hadn't trained Peregrine to be such an efficient killer they might not have been in this terrible mess. And mess was putting it mildly. Their fingerprints were all over the Château, the French police must be looking for an Englishman with a glass eye, and even if they'd had the revolvers to put back the forensic experts could easily match them with the bullet that had killed Professor Botwyk. Finally, what made it insane to imagine they could resume their old lives or pretend they'd never been to France was what the Countess had said; whoever had set them up would undoubtedly drop the word to the police. After all, it would pay the bastard to. He hadn't killed anyone and they had, and it would get him off the hook. And only the Countess could save their necks if she chose.

So Glodstone had driven to London, had changed his travellers' cheques and, leaving the Bentley with a reputable dealer in vintage cars with orders to sell as soon as he received the registration and licence papers, had caught the train to Margate. Peregrine had travelled in a separate carriage and he'd found himself a room in a guest-house. Glodstone spent half an hour changing and shaving in a public lavatory and had booked into the first Two-Star hotel to have a spare room. He hadn't been out since. Instead, he had hung about the bar, had watched the news on TV and had read the latest report in the papers of the terrorist attack in France. But for the most part he had stayed in his room in an abyss of self-pity and terror. Life couldn't be like this. He wasn't a criminal; he'd always detested murderers and terrorists; the police were always right and they should never have stopped hanging. All that was changed and he was particularly grateful that capital punishment had been abolished in France. He'd lost faith in the police too. It had been all very well to talk about going outside the law but now that he was there he knew no self-respecting policeman who would believe his story and if he did it would make not the slightest difference. And being inside meant just that. Whatever some damn fool poet had said about stone walls and iron bars, Glodstone knew better. They made prisons, and French ones at that. He'd never have a chance to urge his House on at rugger or knock a ball about in the nets again and the train-set in the basement...He'd be known as Glodstone the Murderer and go down in the school infamy as Groxbourne's equivalent of Dr Crippen. And how Slymne would gloat...He was just plumbing this new hell when the phone rang beside his bed.

Glodstone picked it up and listened to a now familiar voice.

'My, my, brother John, it's just taken me for ages to reach you.'

'Yes, well, the thing was...' Glodstone began before the Countess cut him short. She was thinking about girls on switchboards.

'I'm down by the pier so meet me there in five minutes and we'll have ourselves some lunch. Alone.'

'Yes,' said Glodstone. The phone went dead. With as much nonchalance as he could muster, he walked downstairs and out into the sunshine. The promenade was crowded with the sort of people he would normally have avoided at all costs, but today he was grateful for their presence. The Countess had known what she was doing when she had picked on Margate. All the same, he approached the pier cautiously, horribly conscious that he might be walking into a trap.

But the Countess was sitting on a bench and rose as he came up. 'Darling,' she said to his surprise, and put her arm through his. 'Gee, it's just marvellous to see you again.'

She dragged him across the road and down a side street to a car. 'Where's Peregrine?' she asked as they got in.

'In the amusement park probably, shooting things,' said Glodstone. 'It's called Dreamland.'

'Appropriately,' said the Countess. 'Right, so that's where he stays temporarily while I debrief you.'

'Debrief me?' said Glodstone, uncertain after that 'Darling' how to interpret the word.

'Like with astronauts, and guys that have been taken prisoner. Somewhere along the line there's got to be a connection.'

'Between what?' said Glodstone more confused than ever.

'Between you and me. Mister Letter-Writer. Someone who wanted to screw us both and succeeded. Go back over those letters again. Was there anything peculiar about them?'

'Yes,' said Glodstone vehemently, 'there bloody well was. They...'

'No, sweetheart, you're not reading me. Did you see where they were posted?'

'In France. Definitely in France and in your envelopes. The ones with the crest on the back.'

'And in my handwriting. You said all that but how could you be so sure?'

'Because I've got your other letters to me about Anthony's allergies and whatnot. The handwriting was identical.'

'So that puts it back in my court. Now what did they say, and I mean exactly.'

As she drove slowly out of town Glodstone went through the details of the letters and their instructions with a total recall born of fear.

'Hotels you were booked into? Crossing via Ostend? Your whole route mapped out for you? And you did just what they said?'

'Until we got to Ivry. There was another letter there saying we had to turn back or you were going to die.'

'So you had to come on,' said the Countess, shaking her head sadly. 'And that was the only one that made sense.'

'That night they tried to stop us by putting oil on the road in the forest. We could have been killed. As it was, a man tried to hold us up '

'Stop right there. Can you describe him?'

Glodstone visualized the figure of Mr Blowther covered in oil and leaves, and found it difficult.

'But he was English? You're sure of that?'

'I suppose he was. He certainly sounded English. And there was another one at Calais who told the ferry people my wife had died. I don't have a wife.'