‘What’s done is done, Miles. There’s no escaping it.’
‘True.’
‘Listen, confession’s over on my part, no more to tell. Except to say that you must be mad, running around with the man behind the Kew bombing. He’ll be public enemy number one any day now. But I suppose none of this is my concern. Do you mind if I put a record on, something relaxing?’
‘No, go ahead.’
Billy went to the stereo, slipped the record back into its sleeve, and began to search through his collection.
‘You’ve got a lot of records,’ said Miles, coming up behind him.
‘Oh, yes, well, I like to think that my tastes are eclectic.’ He brought out a classical album, thought better of it, and looked for something else.
‘Can’t you find anything suitable?’ said Miles.
‘Well, it is rather a strange occasion.’
‘Do you mind if I take a look?’
‘Not at all. What are your tastes, dear boy?’
‘Oh, eclectic, I suppose, like yours.’ Miles crouched down, while Billy, having decided upon a Dave Brubeck album, stood in front of the stereo. ‘I usually just start at the beginning,’ said Miles, ‘and work my way through. Take this section, for instance. I’d start here on the left with Pink Floyd, Liszt, Janis Ian, Michael Nyman, Tchaikovsky’ — Miles fingered each record in turn — ‘and so on, right up to... let me see, yes, Miles Davis.’ Billy had moved back from the stereo without switching it on. ‘Look, Billy, it’s a funny thing, but if you take the initials of these records there’s a message spelt out. It says, “Flint onto you.” Isn’t that a coincidence?’
‘Sheila told you about our little code?’
‘Of course,’ said Miles, rearranging the records. ‘Oh, you’re the clever one, Billy. And I’ve been your dupe for far too long. Time for a change, my dear old friend and comrade. Time for everything to change. But you needn’t bother with this little code. We’re not taking you anywhere.’
‘What are you going to do?’
‘Well, firstly I’m going to have this tape copied, and the copies sent to Richard Mowbray and to this journalist Stevens. That should ensure that, even if I don’t survive, something is done to pull this whole cheap façade to bits. Then I am going to demand your silence.’
‘You’ll have it.’
‘I know I will. You’re going to arrange for me to “come in.” Get in touch with the old boy and insist that Partridge and he fetch me themselves. Tell them that something went badly wrong in Ireland, but that I’m sure it was all a mistake and now I want to be met by people I trust.’
‘Partridge won’t fall for it.’
‘That’s what I’m hoping for. But then he won’t know about Mr. Collins here, will he? As long as I have Mr. Collins with me, I hold the trump card. I can expose Partridge.’
‘That brings me to another question, Miles. Our friend here’ — Billy pointed a brittle finger at Collins — ‘how did you ever enlist his cooperation?’
Miles smiled, then produced a gun from his pocket.
‘Cooperation is a dead principle, Billy. You of all people should know that. The new religion is coercion. From the Latin, meaning to shut in. I feel as though I’ve been shut in for far too long. It’s time to close some doors on Partridge. And I know just the place to do it.’
‘Where?’
‘My home territory,’ said Miles, smiling a smile that would have chilled a good glassful of gin. ‘I’ve been playing away from home for far too many matches, and I’ve only just realized it.’
It was as dark outside as the half-moons under Jim Stevens’s eyes when he finally switched on his answering machine and heard Janine’s excited voice.
A few minutes later, he was wrestling with his jacket again, trying to pull it on with one hand while he tied his tie with the other. He staggered against a wall, swore to himself, and opened the door back into the wide and humorless world. He was relieved to have an excuse to get out of the flat. He loathed its emptiness and the fact that he maltreated it. But now he had a mission, and had evidence, too, that Janine had forgiven him, though she had said nothing on the telephone. Well, all that could come later. The spy was back in town, and Jim Stevens was ready to confront him.
Though he had forgotten for the moment just why he wanted to speak with him in the first place.
He rode the tube for two stops, began to feel dizzy and sick, and came up into the chilled night. A black cab was there, as though he had hailed it, and he stepped inside, pulling open the window so that he could breathe whatever was out there. It had been a very long forty-eight hours.
The streets were empty, and the traffic lights were with him. Soon enough the taxi came to a halt.
‘Marlborough Place, guvnor. That’ll be eight quid and tenpence.’
Muttering to himself, he paid off the cabbie and felt a sudden tiredness descend upon him as he climbed out.
‘Jim.’ It was Janine, standing before him in her private-eye raincoat and headscarf.
‘You look the part,’ he said. Then remembered. ‘Look, Janine, I’m sorry about — well, about everything. I mean it.’
‘This is not the time for self-pity, mister. Where have you been? No, never mind. I can guess from your look. Come on, let’s go get your spy.’
He watched her cross the road, wondering what he was doing here so late at night when he could be zapping aliens at one of the all-nighter arcades down by Piccadilly. But the way she moved... There was nothing to do but follow, even though it took the final drops of his energy to climb the half-dozen steps to Miles Flint’s front door. By the time he pushed at the doorbell, he was dizzy again and breathing hard. Janine gave him a peck on the cheek.
‘Forgiven,’ she said with the briskness of a priest.
Flint’s wife opened the door. She looked drawn, as though they had disturbed her in the midst of a crisis. She looked dazed, too, with the sluggish motions of a shell-shocked survivor. She didn’t seem to recognize Stevens and spent the first few seconds concentrating her attention on Janine.
Stevens himself felt about as unhealthy as a human being could come without actually being on a slab.
She recognized him at last.
‘Not you again,’ she said.
‘I know he’s here,’ puffed Stevens. ‘He’s back. Can I speak to him now?’
‘He’s gone off again.’
‘But I saw him this evening,’ said Janine.
‘Yes, but now he’s gone.’ Sheila Flint opened the door wide. ‘Take a look if you like. He told me never to let strangers in, but I don’t suppose it matters now.’
The look on Jim Stevens’s weathered face would have melted the heart of the meanest crone. Janine thought he was about to cry and put a hand on his shoulder to comfort him.
‘Where’s he gone?’ he asked.
‘Edinburgh, I think,’ said Sheila Flint, her face wrinkling slightly as she remembered something. Then, slowly and quietly, she closed the door again.
‘This is a nightmare,’ said Stevens. There was no other explanation for it. Soon now he would wake up and everything would be as it had been five years ago, when he was on the crest of his career. Edinburgh? People came from Edinburgh, they didn’t go there. Why in God’s name had Flint gone to Edinburgh?
‘We can follow him,’ Janine was saying. ‘You can pay for the fares out of the money you’ve saved by not paying me any money this past week.’
‘How did he get away? I thought you were watching?’
‘Well, I had to find a phone, didn’t I? There was this pub, and I thought I could call from there, but then the barman offered to buy me a drink. He was Scottish, and the place was quiet. I suppose he wanted the company. Anyway, I had a drink and then I telephoned... Jim? Jim?’