Текст книги "Eye of the Needle"

Автор книги: Ken Follett

Соавторы: Ken Follett
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Текущая страница: 13 (всего у книги 22 страниц)

20

PERCIVAL GODLIMAN HAD BY NOW PULLED OUT ALL the stops.

Every policeman in the United Kingdom had a copy of the photograph of Faber, and about half of them were engaged full time in the search. In the cities they were checking hotels and guest houses, railway stations and bus terminals, cafes and shopping centers; and the bridges, arches and bombed lots where derelicts hung out. In the country they were looking in barns and silos, empty cottages and ruined castles, thickets and clearings and cornfields. They were showing the photograph to ticket clerks, petrol station staff, ferry hands and toll collectors. All the passenger ports and airfields were covered, with the picture pinned behind a board at every passport control desk.

The police, of course, still thought they were looking for a straightforward murderer. The cop on the street knew that the man in the picture had killed two people with a knife in London. Senior officers knew a bit more; that one of the murders had been a sexual assault, another apparently motiveless and a third—which their men were not to know of—was an unexplained but bloody attack on a soldier on the Euston-to-Liverpool train. Only chief constables, and a few officers at Scotland Yard, knew that the soldier had been on temporary attachment to MI5 and that all the murders were somehow connected with Security.

The newspapers, too, thought it was an ordinary murder hunt. The day after Godliman had released details, most of them had carried the story in their later editions—the first editions, bound for Scotland, Ulster and North Wales, had missed it, so they carried a shortened version a day later. The Stockwell victim had been identified as a laborer, and given a false name and a vague London background. Godliman’s press release had connected that murder with the death of Mrs. Una Garden in 1940, but had been vague about the nature of the link. The murder weapon was said to be a stiletto.

The two Liverpool newspapers heard very quickly of the body on the train, and both wondered whether the London knife murderer was responsible. Both made enquiries with the Liverpool police. The editors of both papers received phone calls from the chief constable. Neither paper carried the story.

A total of one hundred and fifty-seven tall dark men were arrested on suspicion of being Faber. All but twenty-nine of them were able to prove that they could not possibly have committed the murders. Interviewers from MI5 talked to the twenty-nine. Twenty-seven called in parents, relatives and neighbors, who affirmed that they had been born in Britain and had been living there during the ’20s, when Faber had been in Germany.

The last two were brought to London and interviewed again, this time by Godliman. Both were bachelors, living alone, with no surviving relatives, leading a transient existence. The first was a well-dressed, confident man who claimed implausibly that his way of life was to travel the country taking odd jobs as a manual laborer. Godliman explained that—unlike the police—he had the power to incarcerate anyone for the duration of the war, and no questions asked. Furthermore, he was not in the least interested in ordinary peccadilloes, and any information given him here at the War Office was strictly confidential and would go no further.

The prisoner promptly confessed to being a confidence trickster and gave the address of nineteen elderly ladies whom he had cheated out their old jewelry during the past three weeks. Godliman turned him over to the police.

He felt no obligation to be honest with a professional liar.

The last suspect also cracked under Godliman’s treatment. His secret was that he was not a bachelor at all, not by a long way. He had a wife in Brighton. And in Solihull, Birmingham. And in Colchester, Newbury and Exeter. All five were able to produce marriage certificates later that day. The bigamist went to jail to await trial.

Godliman slept in his office while the hunt went on.

BRISTOL, Temple Meads, railway station:

“Good morning, Miss. Would you look at this please?”

“Hey, girls—the bobby’s going to show us his snaps!”

“Now, don’t muck about, just tell me if you’ve seen him.”

“Ooh, ain’t he handsome! I wish I had!”

“You wouldn’t if you knew what he’d done. Would you all take a look, please?”

“Never seen him.”

“Me neither.”

“Not me.”

“When you catch him, ask him if he wants to meet a nice young Bristol girl—”

“You girls—I don’t know…just because they give you a pair of trousers and a porter’s job, you think you’re supposed to act like men…”

THE WOOLWICH Ferry:

“Filthy day, constable.”

“Morning, captain. I expect it’s worse on the high seas.”

“Can I help you? Or are you just crossing the river?”

“I want you to look at a face, captain.”

“Let me put my specs on. Oh, don’t worry, I can see to guide the ship. It’s close things I need the glasses for. Now then…”

“Ring any bells?”

“Sorry, constable. Means nothing to me.”

“Well, let me know if you see him.”

“Certainly.”

“Bon voyage.”

“Not bloody likely.”

NUMBER 35 Leak Street, London El:

“Sergeant Riley—what a nice surprise!”

“Never mind the lip, Mabel. Who’ve you got here?”

“All respectable guests, sergeant; you know me.”

“I know you, all right. That’s why I’m here. Would any of your nice respectable guests happen to be on the trot?”

“Since when have you been recruiting for the army?”

“I’m not, Mabel, I’m looking for someone, and if he’s here, he’s probably told you he’s on the trot.”

“Look, Jack—if I tell you there’s nobody here I don’t know, will you go away and stop pestering me?”

“Why should I trust you?”

“Because of 1936.”

“You were better looking then, Mabel.”

“So were you, Jack.”

“You win…take a butcher’s at this. If chummy comes in here, send word, okay?”

“Promise.”

“Don’t waste any time about it, either.”

“All right!”

“Mabel…he knifed a woman your age. I’m just marking your cards.”

BILL’S CAFE, on the A30 near Bagshot:

“Tea, please, Bill. Two sugars.”

“Good morning, Constable Pearson. Filthy day.”

“What’s on that plate, Bill—pebbles from Portsmouth?”

“Buttered buns, as well you know.”

“Oh! I’ll have two, then. Thanks…Now then, lads! Anyone who wants his lorry checked from top to bottom can leave right away…. That’s better. Take a look at this picture, please.”

“What are you after him for, constable—cycling without lights?”

“Never mind the jokes, Harry—pass the picture around. Anybody given a lift to that bloke?”

“Not me.”

“No.”

“Sorry, constable.”

“Never clapped eyes on him.”

“Thank you, lads. If you see him, report it. Cheerio.”

“Constable?”

“Yes, Bill?”

“You haven’t paid for the buns.”

SMETHWICK’S GARAGE, Carlisle:

“Morning, Missus. When you’ve got a minute…”

“Be right with you, officer. Just let me attend to this gentleman…twelve and sixpence, please, sir. Thank you. Good-bye….”

“How’s business?”

“Terrible as usual. What can I do for you?”

“Can we go in the office for a minute?”

“Aye, come on…now, then.”

“Take a look at this picture and tell me whether you’ve served that man with petrol recently.”

“Well, it shouldn’t be too difficult. It’s not as if we get hordes of customers passing through…ohh! D’you know, I think I have served him!”

“When?”

“Day before yesterday, in the morning.”

“How sure are you?”

“Well…he was older than the picture, but I’m pretty sure.”

“What was he driving?”

“A grey car. I’m no good on makes, this is my husband’s business really, but he’s in the Navy now.”

“Well, what did it look like?”

“It was the old sort, with a canvas roof that comes up. A two-seater. Sporty. It had a spare petrol tank bolted to the running board, and I filled that too.”

“Do you remember what he was wearing?”

“Not really…working clothes, I think.”

“A tall man?”

“Yes, taller than you.”

“Have you got a telephone?…”

WILLIAM DUNCAN was twenty-five years old, five-feet-ten, weighed a trim 150 pounds and was in first-class health. His open-air life and total lack of interest in tobacco, drink, late nights and loose living kept him that way. Yet he was not in the armed services.

He had seemed to be a normal child, if a little backward, until the age of eight, when his mind had lost the ability to develop any further. There had been no trauma that anyone knew about, no physical damage to account for sudden breakdown. Indeed it was some years before anyone noticed that there was anything wrong, for at the age of ten he was no more than a little backward, and at twelve he was just dim-witted; but by fifteen he was obviously simple, and by eighteen he was known as Daft Willie.

His parents were both members of an obscure fundamentalist religious group whose members were not allowed to marry outside the church (which may or may not have had anything to do with Willie’s daftness). They prayed for him, of course; but they also took him to a specialist in Stirling. The doctor, an elderly man, did several tests and then told them, over the tops of his gold-rimmed half-glasses, that the boy had a mental age of eight and his mind would grow no older, ever. They continued to pray for him, but they suspected that the Lord had sent this to try them, so they made sure Willie was Saved and looked forward to the day when they would meet him in the Glory and he would be healed. Meanwhile, he needed a job.

An eight-year-old can herd cows, but herding cows is nevertheless a job, so Daft Willie became a cowherd. And it was while herding cows that he saw the car for the first time.

He assumed there were lovers in it.

Willie knew about lovers. That is to say, he knew that lovers existed, and that they did unmentionable things to one another in dark places like copses and cinemas and cars; and that one did not speak of them. So he hurried the cows quickly past the bush beside which was parked the 1924 Morris Cowley Bullnose two-seater (he knew about cars, too, like any eight-year-old) and tried very hard not to look inside it in case he should behold sin.

He took his little herd into the cowshed for milking, went by a roundabout route to his home, ate supper, read a chapter from Leviticus to his father—aloud, painstakingly—then went to bed to dream about lovers.

The car was still there on the evening of the next day.

For all his innocence Willie knew that lovers did not do whatever it was that they did to one another for twenty-four hours at a stretch, so this time he went right up to the car and looked inside. It was empty. The ground beneath the engine was black and sticky with oil. Willie devised a new explanation: the car had broken down and had been abandoned by its driver. It did not occur to him to wonder why it had been semiconcealed in a bush.

When he arrived at the cowshed he told the farmer what he had seen. “There’s a broken-down car on the path up by the main road.”

The farmer was a big man with heavy sand-colored eyebrows, which drew together when he was thinking. “Was there nobody about?”

“No—and it was there yesterday.”

“Why did you not tell me yesterday, then?”

Willie blushed. “I thought it was maybe…you know…lovers.”

The farmer realized that Willie was not being coy, but was genuinely embarrassed. He patted the boy’s shoulder. “Well, away home and leave it to me to deal with.”

After the milking the farmer went to look for himself. It did occur to him to wonder why the car was semiconcealed. He had heard about the London stiletto murderer, and while he did not jump to the conclusion that the car had been abandoned by the killer, all the same he thought there might be a connection between the car and some crime or other; so after supper he sent his eldest son into the village on horseback to telephone the police in Stirling.

The police arrived before his son got back from the phone. There were at least a dozen of them, every one apparently a non-stop tea drinker. The farmer and his wife were up half the night looking after them.

Daft Willie was summoned to tell his story again, repeating that he had first seen the car the previous evening, blushing again when he explained that he had assumed it contained lovers.

All in all, it was their most exciting night of the war.

THAT EVENING, Percival Godliman, facing his fourth consecutive night in the office, went home to bathe, change and pack a suitcase.

He had a service flat in a block in Chelsea. It was small, though big enough for a single man, and it was clean and tidy except for the study, which the cleaning lady was not allowed to enter and as a consequence was littered with books and papers. The furniture was all prewar, of course, but it was rather well chosen, and the flat had a comfortable air. There were leather club chairs and a gramophone in the living room, and the kitchen was full of hardly used labor-saving devices.

While his bath was filling he smoked a cigarette—he had taken to them lately, a pipe was too much fuss—and looked at his most valuable possession, a grimly fantastic medieval scene that was probably by Hieronymous Bosch. It was a family heirloom and Godliman had never sold it, even when he needed the money.

In the bath he thought about Barbara Dickens and her son Peter. He had not told anyone about her, not even Bloggs, although he had been about to mention her during their conversation about remarrying, but Colonel Terry had interrupted. She was a widow; her husband had been killed in action at the very beginning of the war. Godliman did not know how old she was, but she looked about forty, which was young for the mother of a twenty-two-year-old boy. She worked on decoding intercepted enemy signals, and she was bright, amusing and very attractive. She was also rich. Godliman had taken her to dinner three times before the present crisis blew up. He thought she was in love with him.

She had contrived a meeting between Godliman and her son Peter, who was a captain. Godliman liked the boy. But he knew something that neither Barbara nor her son was aware of: Peter was going to France on D-Day.

And whether or not the Germans were there waiting for him depended on whether they caught Die Nadel.

He got out of the bath and took a long, careful shave and asked himself, Am I in love with her? He was not sure what love ought to feel like in middle age. Not, surely, the burning passion of youth. Affection, admiration, tenderness, and a trace of uncertain lust? If they amounted to love, he loved her.

And he needed to share his life, now. For years he had wanted only solitude and his research. Now the camaraderie of Military Intelligence was sucking him in: the parties, the all-night sessions when something big broke, the spirit of dedicated amateurism, the frantic pleasure-seeking of people to whom death is always close and never predictable—all these had infected him. It would vanish after the war, he knew; but other things would remain: the need to talk to someone close about his disappointment and his triumphs, the need to touch someone else at night, the need to say, “There! Look at that! Isn’t it fine?”

War was grueling and oppressive and frustrating and uncomfortable, but one had friends. If peace brought back loneliness, Godliman thought he would not be able to live with it.

Right now the feel of clean underwear and a crisply ironed shirt was the ultimate luxury. He put more fresh clothes in a case, then sat down to enjoy a glass of whisky before returning to the office. The military chauffeur in the commandeered Daimler outside could wait a little longer.

He was filling a pipe when the phone rang. He put down the pipe and lit a cigarette instead.

His phone was connected to the War Office switchboard. The operator told him that a Chief Superintendent Dalkeith was calling from Stirling.

He waited for the click of the connection. “Godliman speaking.”

“We’ve found your Morris Cowley,” Dalkeith said without preamble.

“Where?”

“On the A80 just south of Stirling.”

“Empty?”

“Aye, broken down. It’s been there at least twenty-four hours. It was driven a few yards off the main road and hidden in a bush. A half-witted farm boy found it.”

“Is there a bus stop or railway station within walking distance of the spot?”

“No.”

“So it’s likely our man had to walk or hitchhike after leaving the car.”

“Aye.”

“In that case, will you ask around—”

“We’re already trying to find out whether anyone local saw him or gave him a lift.”

“Good. Let me know…Meanwhile, I’ll pass the news to the Yard. Thank you, Dalkeith.”

“We’ll keep in touch. Good-bye, sir.”

Godliman put the phone on the hook and went into his study. He sat down with an atlas open to the road map of northern Britain. London, Liverpool, Carlisle, Stirling…Faber was heading for northeast Scotland.

Godliman wondered whether he should reconsider the theory that Faber was trying to get out. The best way out was west, via neutral Eire. Scotland’s east coast, however, was the site of all sorts of military activity. Was it possible that Faber had the nerve to continue his reconnaissance, knowing that MI5 was on his tail? It was possible, Godliman decided—he knew Faber had a lot of guts—but nevertheless unlikely. Nothing the man might discover in Scotland could be as important as the information he already had.

Therefore Faber was getting out via the east coast. Godliman ran over the methods of escape which were open to the spy: a light plane, landing on a lonely moor; a one-man voyage across the North Sea in a stolen vessel; a rendezvous with a U-boat, as Bloggs had speculated, off the coast; a passage in a merchant ship via a neutral country to the Baltic, disembarking in Sweden and crossing the border to occupied Norway…there were too many ways.

In any case the Yard must be told of the latest development. They would ask all Scots police forces to try to find someone who had picked up a hitchhiker outside Stirling. Godliman returned to the living room to phone, but the instrument rang before he got there. He picked it up.

“Godliman speaking.”

“A Mr. Richard Porter is calling from Aberdeen.”

“Oh!” Godliman had been expecting Bloggs to check in from Carlisle. “Put him on, please. Hello? Godliman speaking.”

“Ah, Richard Porter here. I’m on the local Watch Committee up here.”

“Yes, what can I do for you?”

“Well, actually, old boy, it’s terribly embarrassing.”

Godliman controlled his impatience. “Go on.”

“This chappie you’re looking for—knife murders and so on. Well, I’m pretty sure I gave the bally fellow a lift in my own car.”

Godliman gripped the receiver more tightly. “When?”

“Night before last. My car broke down on the A80 just outside Stirling. Middle of the bally night. Along comes this chappie, on foot, and mends it, just like that. So naturally—”

“Where did you drop him?”

“Right here in Aberdeen. Said he was going on to Banff. Thing is, I slept most of yesterday, so it wasn’t until this afternoon—”

“Don’t reproach yourself, Mr. Porter. Thank you for calling.”

“Well, good-bye.”

Godliman jiggled the receiver and the War Office operator came back on the line.

Godliman said: “Get Mr. Bloggs for me, would you? He’s in Carlisle.”

“He’s holding on for you right now, sir.”

“Good!”

“Hello, Percy. What news?”

“We’re on his trail again, Fred. He was identified in a garage in Carlisle, and he abandoned the Morris just outside Stirling and hitched a lift to Aberdeen.”

“Aberdeen!”

“He must be trying to get out through the east door.”

“When did he reach Aberdeen?”

“Probably early yesterday morning.”

“In that case he won’t have had time to get out, unless he was very quick indeed. They’re having the worst storm in living memory up here. It started last night and it’s still going on. No ships are going out and it’s certainly too rough to land a plane.”

“Good. Get up there as fast as you can. I’ll start the local police moving in the meantime. Call me when you reach Aberdeen.”

“I’m on my way.”

21

WHEN FABER WOKE UP IT WAS ALMOST DARK. THROUGH the bedroom window he could see the last streaks of grey being inked out of the sky by the encroaching night. The storm had not eased; rain drummed on the roof and overflowed from a gutter, and the wind howled and gusted tirelessly.

He switched on the little lamp beside the bed. The effort tired him, and he slumped back onto the pillow. It frightened him to be this weak. Those who believe that might is right must always be mighty, and Faber was sufficiently self-aware to know the implications of his own ethics. Fear was never far from the surface of his emotions; perhaps that was why he had survived so long. He was chronically incapable of feeling safe. He understood, in that vague way in which one sometimes understands the most fundamental things about oneself, that his very insecurity was the reason he chose the profession of spy; it was the only way of life which could permit him instantly to kill anyone who posed him the slightest threat. The fear of being weak was part of the syndrome that included his obsessive independence, his insecurity, and his contempt for his military superiors.

He lay on the child’s bed in the pink-walled bedroom and inventoried his body. He seemed to be bruised just about everywhere, but apparently nothing was broken. He did not feel feverish; his constitution had withstood bronchial infection despite the night on the boat. There was just the weakness. He suspected it was more than exhaustion. He remembered a moment, as he had reached the top of the ramp, when he had thought he was going to die; and he wondered whether he had inflicted on himself some permanent damage with the last mind-bending uphill dash.

He checked his possessions too. The can of photographic negatives was still taped to his chest, the stiletto was strapped to his left arm, and his papers and money were in the jacket pocket of his borrowed pajamas.

He pushed the blankets aside and swung himself into a sitting position with his feet on the floor. A moment of dizziness came and went. He stood up. It was important not to permit himself the psychological attitudes of an invalid. He put on the dressing gown and went into the bathroom.

When he returned his own clothes were at the foot of the bed, clean and pressed: underwear, overalls and shirt. Suddenly he remembered getting up sometime during the morning and seeing the woman naked in the bathroom; it had been an odd scene and he was not sure what it meant. She was very beautiful, he recalled. He was sure of that.

He dressed slowly. He would have liked a shave, but he decided to ask his host’s permission before borrowing the blade on the bathroom shelf; some men were as possessive of their razors as they were of their wives. However, he did take the liberty of using the child’s bakelite comb he found in the top drawer of the chest.

He looked into the mirror without pride. He had no conceit. He knew that some women found him attractive, and others did not; and he assumed this was so for most men. Of course, he had had more women than most men, but he attributed this to his appetite, not to his looks. His reflection told him he was presentable, which was all he needed to know.

He left the bedroom and went slowly down the stairs. Again he felt a wave of weakness; and again he willed himself to overcome it, gripping the banister rail and placing one foot deliberately before the other until he reached the ground floor.

He paused outside the living room door and, hearing no noise, went on to the kitchen. He knocked and went in. The young couple were at the table, finishing supper.

The woman stood up when he entered. “You got up!” she said. “Are you sure you should?”

Faber permitted himself to be led to a chair. “Thank you,” he said. “You really mustn’t encourage me to pretend to be ill.”

“I don’t think you realize what a terrible experience you’ve been through,” she said. “Do you feel like food?”

“I’m imposing on you—”

“Not at all. Don’t be silly. I kept some soup hot for you.”

Faber said, “You’re so kind, and I don’t even know your names.”

“David and Lucy Rose.” She ladled soup into a bowl and placed it on the table in front of him. “Cut some bread, David, would you?”

“I’m Henry Baker.” Faber did not know why he had said that; he had no papers in that name. Henry Faber was the man the police were hunting, so he was right to have used his James Baker identity; but somehow he wanted his woman to call him Henry, the nearest English equivalent of his real name, Heinrich.

He took a sip of the soup, and suddenly he was ravenously hungry. He ate it all quickly, then the bread. When he’d finished Lucy laughed. She looked lovely when she laughed; her mouth opened wide, showing lots of even white teeth, and her eyes crinkled merrily at the corners.

“More?” she offered.

“Thank you very much.”

“I can see it doing you good. The color is coming back to your cheeks.”

Faber realized he felt physically better. He forced himself to eat his second helping more slowly, out of courtesy, but he still relished it.

David said, “How did you happen to be out in this storm?” It was the first time he had spoken.

“Don’t badger him, David…”

“It’s all right,” Faber said quickly. “I was foolish, that’s all. This is the first fishing holiday I’ve been able to have since before the war, and I just refused to let the weather spoil it. Are you a fisherman?”

David shook his head. “Sheep farmer.”

“Do you have many employees?”

“Just one, old Tom.”

“I suppose there are other sheep farms on the island.”

“No. We live at this end, Tom lives at the other end, and in between there’s nothing but sheep.”

Faber nodded. Good—very good. A woman, a cripple, a child and an old man…and he was already feeling much stronger.

“How do you contact the mainland?” Faber said.

“There’s a boat once a fortnight. It’s due this Monday but it won’t come if the storm keeps up. There’s a radio transmitter in Tom’s cottage, but we can only use that in emergencies. If I thought people might be searching for you, or if you needed urgent medical help, I should use it. But as things are I don’t feel it’s necessary. There’s little point; nobody can come to fetch you off the island until the storm clears and when that happens the boat will come anyway.”

“Of course.” Faber’s tone concealed his delight. The problem of how to contact the U-boat on Monday had been nagging at the back of his mind. He had seen an ordinary wireless set in the Roses’ living room, and he would, if necessary, have been able to rig up a transmitter from that. But the fact that this Tom had a proper radio made everything so much simpler…“What does Tom need a transmitter for?”

“He’s a member of the Royal Observer Corps. Aberdeen was bombed July of 1940. There was no air raid warning. There were fifty casualties. That was when they recruited Tom. It’s a good thing his hearing is better than his eyesight.”

“I suppose the bombers come from Norway.”

“I suppose so.”

Lucy stood up. “Let’s go into the other room.”

The two men followed her. Faber felt no weakness, no dizziness. He held the living room door for David, who wheeled himself close to the fire. Lucy offered Faber brandy. He declined. She poured one for her husband and herself.

Faber sat back and allowed himself to study them. Lucy was really quite striking: she had an oval face, wide-set eyes of an unusual, cat-like amber color and an abundance of rich, dark-red hair. Under the mannish fisherman’s sweater and baggy trousers there was the suggestion of her very good, fullish figure. Dressed up in silk stockings and, say, a cocktail sort of dress, she might be very glamorous. David was also handsome—almost pretty, except for the shadow of a very dark beard. His hair was nearly black and his skin looked Mediterranean. He would have been tall if he had had legs in proportion to his arms. Faber suspected that those arms might be powerful, muscled from years of pushing the wheels of the chair.

An attractive couple—but there was something badly wrong between them. Faber was no expert on marriage, but his training in interrogation techniques had taught him to read the silent language of the body—to know, from small gestures, when someone was frightened, confident, hiding something, or lying. Lucy and David rarely looked at one another, and never touched. They spoke to him more than to each other. They circled one another, like turkeys trying to keep in front of them a few square feet of vacant territory. The tension between them was enormous. They were like Churchill and Stalin, obliged temporarily to fight side by side, fiercely suppressing a deeper enmity. Faber wondered what the trauma was that lay at the back of their distance. This cozy little house must be an emotional pressure cooker, despite its rugs and its bright paintwork, its floral armchairs and blazing fires and framed watercolors. To live alone, with only an old man and a child for company, with this thing between them…it reminded him of a play he had seen in London, by an American called Tennessee something—

Abruptly, David swallowed his drink and said, “I must turn in. My back’s playing up.”

Faber got to his feet. “I’m sorry—I’ve been keeping you up.”

David waved him down. “Not at all. You’ve been asleep all day—you won’t want to go back to bed right away. Besides, Lucy would like to chat, I’m sure. It’s just that I mistreat my back—backs were designed to share the load with the legs, you know.”

Lucy said, “You’d better take two pills tonight then.” She took a bottle from the top shelf of the bookcase, shook out two tablets and gave them to her husband.

He swallowed them dry. “I’ll say good night.” He wheeled himself out.

“Good night, David.”

“Good night, Mr. Rose.”

After a moment Faber heard David dragging himself up the stairs, and wondered just how he did it.

Lucy spoke, as if to cover the sound of David. “Where do you live, Mr. Baker?”

“Please call me Henry. I live in London.”

“I haven’t been to London for years. There’s probably not much of it left.”

“It’s changed, but not as much as you might think. When were you last there?”

“Nineteen-forty.” She poured herself another brandy. “Since we came here, I’ve only been off the island once, and that was to have the baby. One can’t travel much these days, can one?”