Текст книги "Hope"

Автор книги: Len Deighton

Соавторы: Len Deighton
сообщить о нарушении

Текущая страница: 7 (всего у книги 18 страниц) [доступный отрывок для чтения: 7 страниц]

'Do you know why you've never got on?' said Dicky in a friendly tone, while putting a hand on my shoulder. 'You can't distinguish the important things in life from self-indulgent trifles. '

'Yes,' I said. 'And anyway, it was General Ludendorff who did the work while Hindenburg snatched all the credit.' Dicky smiled to show he knew which general he was.

Karol arrived back at the house just after two o'clock. Everyone was fretting for their lunch but it was delayed until he arrived. Dicky had somewhat overstated Karol's riding attire. He came into the drawing room dressed in stained slacks, scuffed high-boots and a baggy tweed jacket. He sat down after no more than a gruff greeting and we were served more soup made from unidentifiable vegetables followed by a plate of peppery mashed swede with onion in it.

'Father Ratajczyk said he would come,' Karol said suddenly. This seemed to be directed to Uncle Nico, but he turned to take in the whole family. 'He had a christening and then he is coming directly here.'

'There is no need for him to go into the East Wing,' said Uncle Nico.

'Every room,' said Karol. 'He said he would go into every room and that is what I want.' Uncle Nico said nothing. 'It's what Stefan wanted,' Karol added defiantly.

After the swede plates were cleared away, we were served a heavy pudding with a few raisins in it, and a sweet white sauce over it. There were murmurs of satisfaction from everyone and the pudding was devoured to the last drip of sauce and the final crumb.

'I have saved some food for Father,' said Aunt Mary.

'Yes,' said Karol. 'He will be hungry. They never serve food at christenings.'

The priest arrived about an hour after lunch was eaten. He came striding through the house, a small scrawny figure who gestured extravagantly with hands high in the air. 'I'll start here,' he said, looking into the dining room and sparing no more than a glance at the big stuffed eagle. 'We'll bring the box.' He said it as if to himself and then turned abruptly on his heel, so that the skirt of his ankle-length cassock swirled around him. He sped back to the hallway and shouted through the front door to the sweaty old chap he'd brought with him, 'Bring the box, Tadeusz.'

It was a large wooden box and weighed heavily, judging by the panting, flush-faced old man who carried it into the house and put it down in the dining room with a deep sigh.

'I'll need the second box too,' said the priest. 'It's a big job.'

The priest looked around. As if seeing for the first time the crowd of spectators who'd gathered round him he said, 'You must leave the house. All of you. Right away.' He again made a fidgety gesture with his hands high in the air, as a child might shoo away worrisome hens.

'What's it all about?' said Dicky.

I didn't know. 'What's it all about, Uncle Nico?' I asked.

It was Karol who answered. 'Everyone must leave the house,' he said. 'There is a little cottage near the lake. I ordered that it should be swept and a fire lit to warm it. You will be comfortable there for as long as this takes.'

'How long is that likely to be?' I asked.

'We'll be finished by the time Stefan arrives,' he replied. 'Two hours . . . three at the most.'

'I see.' I looked at Dicky. We both knew that three hours in Poland could take you into the following week.

'Why?' said Dicky.

'We mustn't talk about it,' Karol said. 'Something happened . . . something bad. Each room must be restored to us.'

'Restored how?' said Dicky.

Karol looked to see if the priest was listening, but he wasn't, he was opening his boxes and counting the contents. 'There is an evil spirit in the house. He must be expelled . . . exorcized. You know this word?'

'Yes, I know this word,' said Dicky. 'Bell, book, and candle. So that's it?'

'You'll be comfortable in the little house,' said Karol. I must stay here to help.'

'My God,' said Dicky bursting with suppressed excitement by the time we were along the path on the way to the cottage near the lake. 'Bell, book, and candle, eh?'

'Not exactly,' I said. 'Bell, book, and candle is the ceremony of excommunication. This is exorcism. Expelling evil spirits by ringing a passing bell.'

'Passing bell?'

'A consecrated bell. Rung for people at death's door who might have their soul snatched away as it passed from the body.'

'Are you making this up, Bernard?'

'Of course not.'

'Yes, well you know all this foreign religious mumbo-jumbo,' said Dicky. 'Perhaps it doesn't seem so suspicious to someone like you. But you've got to admit it, this is a damned weird setup. Bells. Dismembered bodies. Priests exorcizing the rooms. He'll start in the dining room: it didn't take him long to decide that, eh? So it's obvious that George Kosinski was murdered in that dining room. My God! Think of it. Why a dining room? Because there are sharp knives to hand, right?'

'They are doing all the rooms,' I pointed out.

'Maybe the Church figures it's a sin that has spilled over and stained the whole house. In this part of the world, what the Church says goes.'

'Maybe that's it,' I said.

'Maybe that's it.' Dicky mimicked my words angrily. 'Yes, maybe that's it, and maybe you are holding out on me again. You've got your own theory, haven't you? So why don't you bloody well say so?'

'I think it's all a lot of bullshit. It's just a way of getting everyone out of the house.'

'Why? Why, why, why?'

'I don't know, Dicky. That's why I didn't say anything.'

'What, can that bugger Karol do when we aren't in the house that he can't do when we are in it?'

'Listen, Dicky,' I said. 'I was looking around this morning, and there's a room at the top on this side with a locked door. The windows are clean – I can see that from the outside – and the handle is well used. They are keeping the stove going there. Warming an extra room doesn't come cheap. So why?'

'Wait a minute! Wait a minute. What do you mean – when you were looking around this morning?'

'I got up early. I couldn't sleep.'

'And searched the house? Bloody hell, Bernard. What if they had caught you?'

'What could they do?'

'They could chop you into pieces like they've chopped up poor old George Kosinski. That's what they can do. Take it easy, Bernard. I don't want to arouse their suspicions.'

What Dicky meant by not wanting to arouse their suspicions was not clear to me. I would have thought their suspicions were already sufficiently aroused by the unannounced arrival of two nosy foreigners. But I didn't want to get sidetracked. 'I think this is a good chance to take a look at that room,' I said.

'At the room you found?'

'They won't be expecting us to defy them and go through the house while they are going through it too. We know there are only the three of them and they're bound to make a noise carting all that ecclesiastical paraphernalia, from room to room and doing their phony routine. The servants are all in the barn. We can get in and go up the back stairs, take a look, and be back in the cottage, twiddling our thumbs, within half an hour.'

'No, Bernard. I don't think so.'

'Okay, I'll do it alone. If you would keep a look-out for me downstairs there's not much chance I'd be caught.' Dicky came to a halt on the path and started kicking the toe of his cowboy boot into the dead vegetation. 'We'd be in and out in a jiffy,' I urged.

'You're a bloody maniac, Bernard. I must be mad, but okay. How do you want to do it?'

'All the servants are in the barn. We won't use the front door in case they hear us. If we go along the wooden veranda, and climb through one of the windows there, we can go up the back stairs that only the servants use. I know how to find the room.'

'But it's locked.'

'I've got something with me that should do it. It's not a real lock.' I'd had a good look round the kitchen while eating with the servants. In my pocket I now had a fruit knife with a thin pliable blade, and a couple of long skewers.

Once Dicky had agreed, he became quite keenly involved in our caper. Warily we skirted the barn, where a crowd of pitiable servants were grouped around an inadequate open fire. We then returned to the big house and went up the steps to the veranda, where we soon found a conveniently loose window. I slid it open and let Dicky climb through first, in case something went wrong. Then I followed him and pushed the window closed. Once inside the house we could hear the voices of the three men. They were in the drawing room now. The priest was talking very quietly in Polish and the man he'd brought with him was answering in monosyllabic grunts. I could neither hear clearly nor understand their words but it didn't sound like any sort of religious ceremony.

Dicky and I climbed the back stairs very slowly. We both kept to the side where the staircase supporting beams fitted into the outside wall, for the stairs were at their most secure there, and least likely to creak. Once up on the top floor we stayed away from the windows in case one of the men in the garden looked up and spotted us. Then we were at the door of the room I wanted to investigate.

The lock was easily pried back with the thin knife-blade. Once we were inside, even Dicky could see that it was worth looking into. It was a double room separated by a folding screen which was at this time open. These two rooms were obviously the best-maintained ones in the house. Together they formed a self-contained unit with a private bathroom and a fine bed with a mattress so new it still had its transparent wrapping intact. There was new wallpaper too, and some of the household's better antique furniture.

One room was furnished as a study, with extensive bookcases, a large gilt-framed mirror reflecting the whole room and a couple of landscape paintings. A lovely inlaid desk was placed diagonally so that someone seated at it, in the comer of the room, would get the light from two windows. A side table was entirely occupied by family photographs of all shapes and sizes, some of them in elaborate silver frames. A series of deep shelves held dusty cardboard models of theater sets with cut-out figures to show the effect of the costumes against the scenery.

I followed Dicky into the bedroom side of the unit.

'Look,' said Dicky, having opened a closet door. Inside there were men's clothes. One glance was enough for me to recognize George Kosinski's expensive attire. There were suits and sports jackets that I'd seen him wearing. There were new ski clothes and a sheepskin waistcoat. Some of the garments were in zipper covers and everything was arranged in that neat way that suggested a servant's hand; shoes on trees and in shoe-bags bearing exalted Italian names.

'It doesn't mean they've killed him,' Dicky said hastily.

This non sequitur seemed to be generated by the expression on my face. I said nothing. From downstairs I heard the litany of the old priest, and curious little sounds, like shrieks of pleasure, that I could not identify. I picked up a single shoe from the row of pairs, a brogue exactly like the chewed-up one we'd seen in the forest. 'Where's the other one?' I said.

'They're getting closer, Bernard. Did the priest and his man arrive in separate cars?' He was looking out of the window. 'There's another car there.'

'Calm down, Dicky. We can't cut and run now. There's too much at stake.'

'Yes, our lives,' said Dicky. 'This is becoming a personal vendetta for you, Bernard. I warned you about taking things personally, didn't I?'

'Shirts, underclothes . . .' I was pulling out each of the drawers, starting with the bottom drawer so that I didn't have to push them back. 'Socks.' It was a burglar's way of searching, and burglars didn't put anything back afterwards. It was this reckless procedure that alarmed Dicky. He followed me as I searched, trying to restore the room to its former tidy state. 'No wires, no transmitters as far as I can see . . . ' I said.

'Let's go, Bernard. Please!'

I opened the door to the bathroom. 'Jesus!' I was startled almost out of my skin. I jumped back. There was a man there. He was jammed in to the shallow space between the double doors. He was tall and thin, with long wavy gray hair. His face had skin so drawn and tight that all the muscles could be counted.

For a moment I thought it was a dead body propped there. Then he moved forward. 'I was listening,' he said in good clear English. 'My brother wasn't killed in this house.' Now I could see him more clearly I recognized him as George Kosinski's brother; I'd seen photos of him. But while George was short and active this man Stefan was tall, thin and deliberate in his movements. His clothes were Western and expensive: a thigh-length jacket of soft brown leather, a red silk roll-neck and drainpipe trousers of the sort the fashionable man was wearing in the Sixties.

'You are Stefan Kosinski?' said Dicky. There was no hint of discomfort or apology in his voice, and I admired him for the way he could control his feelings when he really wanted to.

'You abuse my hospitality,' said Stefan. He took his time putting a cigarette into a long ivory cigarette holder and lighting it with a gold lighter. 'I return home early and what do I find? I find you have invaded my home to ransack it.'

'We're looking for your brother,' said Dicky. 'If you've nothing to hide you'll let us talk to him.'

'Are you an insensitive fool?' asked Stefan in a strangled voice. 'Do you have no human feelings? My brother is dead. I have been to complete the formalities. The authorities have seen enough evidence, a death certificate has been signed. What more do you want of me?' Stefan sank down into the armchair and sighed deeply. 'I am totally desolated and I'm tired. I'm very tired.'

From along the corridor the little procession of the priest, his helper and Karol the secretary could be heard. The men were talking softly as they progressed methodically from room to room accompanied by occasional shrill musical notes.

Stefan said, 'We Kosinskis like to keep our family together. You English don't care about your dead, but for us it's different.'

'What happened here?' said Dicky. 'Why this exorcizing? Why the priest?'

Stefan, one hand under his chin, looked up at him from under lowered eyelids. Stefan was an actor; every movement, every stance was a contrived pose. No wonder the regime was so happy to have him go abroad to represent the Polish theater, he was the sort of handsome romantic Pole every foreigner might envisage. The thin body, the tragic expression, the soulful look, the burning eyes: everything about him contributed to this casting-director's dream. 'They are sweeping for hidden microphones,' said Stefan wearily. 'The apparatus sends a signal when the wand is held near to an active transmitter. The Church sent their own apparatus from Lublin. They have to have such devices: the secret police target the churches and their meetings.' Now I understood. Stefan had been examining each room for new wiring or fresh paintwork, keeping ahead of the detector team. He must have heard us talking when looking around the bathroom.

I still don't understand,' said Dicky. 'Who killed your brother?'

Stefan smiled. Along with all the other attributes of the actor, he had a charm that he could switch off and on at will. He looked at Dicky and gave him both barrels. Bringing his hand from his pocket he opened his fist and dropped a wristwatch and a man's gold signet ring on to the table with a calculated clatter. 'Look at them,' he said. I didn't need to look at them. I could see from where I was standing that they were George's.

I killed him,' Stefan said, gesturing with his long ivory cigarette holder. He let this alarming statement linger to extract from it the fullest dramatic effect. 'Poor George. I killed him when I let him go out in the forest on his own. He was depressed about the death of his wife. I thought perhaps some time to think the situation through would do him good.'

The door opened and Karol poked his head round it and raised his eyebrows. He seemed startled to see me and Dicky there, but he recovered immediately. Stefan said, 'Yes, you can come in here now, but I can see no sign of anything.'

The three men came into the room dragging the two boxes with them. The priest's helper was carrying a detector. It was a heavy black plastic machine resembling a transistor radio. There were red and green indicator lights on it, a volume control and a small meter. He directed the antenna up and down the wall, systematically covering every inch of it.

Stefan watched them and absentmindedly picked up George's shoe; the one I had put on a side table. To Dicky he said, 'And my brother knew that you two were chasing him. It didn't help.'

Tadeusz, the man with the detector, ran its antenna around the window frame, always a favorite place for concealed microphones.

Dicky said, 'You are talking in riddles.'

Stefan looked at him and said, 'The police are interrogating the killers. Two Russian army deserters. Middle-aged praporshchiks – warrant officers – not tough conscript kids. They picked them up last night. They were trying to sell poor George's gold Rolex watch in a bar.'

'How did it happen?' said Dicky.

'The Nazis built fortified bunkers through these woods in the summer of 1944. They held up the Russian army for weeks and weeks. The line runs for eighty miles and right through the forest: tunnels and ventilation shafts, trenches and tank traps. When the timber supports rotted, the tunnels collapsed, but the deep bunkers were made with concrete and steel. They'll last forever and now gangs of deserters use them. There are not enough policemen to clear them out of there.'

Suddenly the detector's hum changed to a shriek. 'There's one here,' said the priest.

'I knew there was. I knew it,' said Karol.

'Is it active?' said Stefan.

Karol said, 'It's active.'

'Is this your doing?' Stefan asked Dicky, while the priest climbed up on a chair to look more closely at the hidden microphone that was concealed in the curtain rail over the window.

'No,' said Dicky.

'You haven't got some British comrade out there in the forest with headphones clamped round his skull?'

'Listening to your foolishness?' said Dicky. 'The answer is no.'

The priest ripped the microphone down and there was a tearing sound and a little puff of white dust as a long wire emerged from the paint under which it had been hidden. He pulled the battery from the transmitter and put it in his pocket.

'They arrested the killers?' asked Dicky. 'Do you want to talk with the bastards? I can perhaps arrange it.'

'Will the authorities issue a death certificate?' said Dicky.

'It will take a few days. Getting official paperwork takes a long time here in Poland. But yes, the police are satisfied that it is murder. Now they have two men they'll find their hideout and round up the rest of that gang. They'll beat a confession out of one of them. They live by robbing the farms. Local people will be pleased to hear there are a few less of those bandits.'

'Can you get me a certified copy of the certificate?' Dicky asked. 'I'll need it for my records.'

'Of course,' said Stefan with studied politeness. 'You'll need it for your records.'

Without knocking at the door, Uncle Nico came into the room. He seemed not to notice the tension and bad feeling. He looked first at Dicky and then at me. 'I've made tea,' he announced. 'Real English tea with boiling water the way I used to drink it in England. It's all made. I took it to your room. Come downstairs and have some. It will spoil if it's left too long.' Glad of a chance to escape, we followed the old man to where he'd set out the tea things on a tray on a low table in my bedroom. He'd set cups for three tea drinkers and he sat down with us.

'Just, like being in England,' said Dicky.

'Well, it's not like Poland, if that's what you mean,' said the old man sarcastically. 'This house is a museum . . .' He restated this. 'Or a theater. And we're all playing roles devised by Stefan.'

Dicky had been eyeing the teapot anxiously – he hated strongly brewed tea – and now he leaned forward and poured some for us. The old man seemed not to notice. But he went to the door, looked down the corridor to be sure no one was listening, and then closed the door.

'How can you understand all this?' asked the old man, taking from Dicky the offered cup of tea and sipping some. 'Stefan has us all in his power. He likes to play with us. He knows we can't fight back.'

'Why are you in his power?' Dicky asked him.

'He's rich and famous.'

'I've never heard of him,' persisted Dicky.

'No,' the old man agreed. 'Stefan is not famous outside Poland – he is not translated. But his plays are sometimes performed by Poles living abroad, and they help to form the opinions of those exiles. His plays are sometimes made into Polish films which, in video form, are distributed to Poles living abroad.'

'Is he a communist? Is he a supporter of the generals?' said Dicky.

'Tolerant. Stefan's tolerant views of the communist and military rulers are valuable to them. So is the way he equates "evil Russia" with "evil U.S.A." Many people in his unsophisticated audiences are happy to accept this simplistic view of world politics. Many American liberals will tell you that Reagan's America and its CIA is no better than Stalin and his KGB. But if you live here you know that racist policemen in Alabama and the U2 spy planes are not to be compared to extermination camps, or to our secret police with thousands of informers and the regular use of torture.'

'He wrote one called Let's Murder Stalin, ' said Dicky.

'Oh yes, Stefan's plays are outspoken in a superficial kind of way, but Stefan is a clever man. He knows that it is better to appear to be a protester. But always his plots and their conclusions do the work that the government here needs done.'

'And yet his study is bugged?'

'The microphone? Ha, ha. Did you see the look on the face of Father Ratajczyk?'

'No,' admitted Dicky.

The old man smiled and drank some tea. 'No matter who comes to sweep the house, they always find a bug. Stefan plants them himself. Always it is placed somewhere that suggests that Stefan is the man they are after.'

'Plants them himself? Are you serious?' said Dicky.

'You may as well ask Stefan if he is serious, for by now everyone in the house knows his tricks.'

'But why?'

'It's all part of his role: this character he plays of a martyr and patriot, ever fighting against the regime. He will go to his authors' club and protest loudly about being persecuted and harassed by the secret police.'

'And will he be believed?'

'Yes. Yes. Yes. Writers are by their very nature paranoid. Every now and again they a put their signatures under letters published in the newspaper. Stefan adds his signature willingly.'

'And such protests don't anger the government?'

'It looks like free speech. The government worries most about Western banks. And Western banks are looking for signs of stability with just a trace of intellectual latitude. Also such protests

reassure Moscow that our regime is not giving way to liberal reformers.'

'And no one ever challenges Stefan and his beliefs?' Dicky asked.

'Is that your English way of asking whether I confront Stefan with my views? Yes, of course it is. Well, let me tell you that I am not mad. It is Stefan, and his elastic relationship with the regime, that ensures that I live in this magnificent house. How many lovely estates like this have been preserved from one generation to the next? Stefan burns a candle for the devil – is that the expression? He prevaricates and compromises in order to keep his family in comfort, and I am a part of that family. I enjoy all the material comforts: heating, hot water, a sound roof, something to eat every day. In Poland today these are not benefits to be taken lightly. I'm not complaining.'

'I thought you were,' said Dicky.

'I'm explaining,' said Uncle Nico, becoming slightly flustered at Dicky's deadpan accusation. 'I thought you should take back to England the truth . . . the true state of affairs, rather than believe a lot of play-acting.'

'Ah, that's different,' said Dicky.

'You will see,' promised Uncle Nico. And he rang the bell so that a servant would come and collect the tea-tray.

That evening Stefan took his rightful place at the head of the table. He was casually dressed in a pale yellow cashmere sweater, tailored linen pants and white buckskin shoes. His long wavy hair was perfect and his freshly shaved face dusted with talc. Next to him sat his wife, Lena, a plumpish woman with long fair hair that was plaited and coiled in a 1940s style. Her high-neck gray dress had a similar old-fashioned look. So this was the daughter of the Party official. Marriage to her had no doubt furthered Stefan's career. She spoke little apart from giving monosyllabic orders to the servants.

That evening the long dining table was differently constituted. The younger people had now been banished to the kitchen, from where I could hear their youthful and far less inhibited exchanges whenever the door was opened. There were two extra people at dinner. Muscular men in their early twenties, they sat at the very end of the table. It was difficult to decide whether they were employees or members of the family. At dinner Stefan dominated the conversation with stories about his adventures abroad. Despite his obvious vanity he had a disarming way of telling stories of his folly and naive misunderstandings of how things worked in the West.

He told of throwing away the royalties on his finest play by betting on the horses in Paris and the English races too. 'With horses I am always unlucky,' said Stefan. 'Every horse I bet on lets me down.' He reached out to caress his wife's hand. 'But with women I am lucky beyond words.'

Lena smiled.

After dinner Stefan insisted that Dicky and I made up a four for bridge with Uncle Nico. It was a miserable game. I have never been able to play bridge with any skill, despite a lifetime of fierce instruction from Tante Lisl, the gloriously unpredictable woman who'd so influenced my childhood in Berlin.

At ten minutes before midnight, Stefan brought the game abruptly to an end. He threw down his hand – it was a winning one of course – got up suddenly, sighed, consulted his thin gold wristwatch and poured brandy for himself from a large bottle that he took from the sideboard's cupboard. Only when he had done this and turned to meet everyone's eyes did he offer us all a drink. It wasn't meanness as much as a desire to be the center of attention, at least that was my interpretation of his every move.

This feeling about Stefan was endorsed when he returned to the green felt-topped card table, picked up the cards and, without a word, started performing card tricks. He went on for half an hour. His hands were slim and elegant and this was a chance to display them. The ease with which he was able to manipulate the deck of cards – fanning them across the table or tossing them into the air so that his hand emerged holding the ace – held everyone's attention. His wife Lena watched him too, and Aunt Mary put down her knitting. Even Uncle Nico, who must have seen the tricks a thousand times, was as engrossed as any of us.

Watching his card tricks was an opportunity to study Stefan. Nothing about his appearance, or the elegance of his movements, would have been remarkable had he been twenty years old. But Stefan was a mature man who'd left his youth far behind. And there were other contradictions apparent too. Who was this well-bred man in whom suppressed anger could be frequently glimpsed? Having guests obviously inconvenienced him and spoiled his household routine. He made sure we understood that, but his hospitality was always on tap. He was bored but he was passionate; he was intellectual but he was obsessed with his physical self. He supported the communist regime but lived in pampered luxury. Was it all these tensions inside him that provided him with his charm?

'One last little trick,' said Stefan. 'It's called find the knave.' He offered a fanned deck of cards from person to person. Each one took a card and then thrust it back into the pack. With that casual detached indifference that is a part of the magician's art he handed the pack to me to shuffle. Then he fanned the cards and chose a card for each of us. Turned over to reveal the faces, they were the cards we'd selected.

'Why is it called find the knave?' Dicky asked.

Stefan gave a slow smile and then leaned across to Dicky and, with a superb demonstration of palming, produced a knave of hearts from Dicky's pocket.

'Well,' said Dicky, somewhat flustered. 'How . . . ?'

'Someone always asks why it's called find the knave,' explained Stefan. His wife Lena and Aunt Mary exchanged amused smiles. It was clearly a trick de– signed to dismay visitors and small children.

Soon after that Uncle Nico said goodnight and the gathering broke up and everyone went to bed.

'What's going on here?' said Dicky when we were upstairs, as he patted his stove to see how warm it was before deciding whether to wear his woollies in bed.

'What?'

'This Stefan, is he crazy or some sort of saint? I mean, they all watch him all the time. Even his wife. Are they all shit-scared of him? Or are they all enslaved? Dependence. It's as if he is their analyst, and they are frightened of facing life without him. I don't get it. Can you understand?'

'He's the breadwinner.'

'He's more than that, old pal. He's the messiah. It's almost scary. I can feel his presence. I mean it: I can feel his presence in the house. Ever since he jumped out of that cupboard and put the fear of God into you . . .'

'He didn't put the fear of God into me,' I protested.

'Come on, Bernard. You went white.'

'I was surprised, that's all.'

'You were shit-scared. You nearly jumped out of the window.'

'Take it easy, Dicky.'

'Look out! Jesus!' Dicky suddenly yelled. 'Wow! He's coming through the door like a spirit.'

'Cut it out, Dicky. I'm tired.'

'You looked round, Bernard,' said Dicky gleefully. 'Stefan coining through the door: that made you look round.' Suddenly his face crumpled up and he held this grotesque expression for a moment before surrendering to a tremendous sneeze. He wiped his nose on a clean handkerchief Dicky had an inexhaustible supply of very large clean handkerchiefs. 'I've picked up some sort of bug,' he said. 'I'm sneezing and I have stomach cramps too. Have you been drinking the water?'