FORTY-ONE

As a venue for what amounted to a council of war, the buffet at Didcot railway station left something to be desired. But since neither Harry nor Barry had felt able to suggest a smart move in any direction after watching Erica's four-by-four roar out of the car park, destination unknown, the buffet it had to be. It catered for people in transit, after all: those who had set off on a journey but not yet reached its end; and that was Harry and Barry to a tee.

'Fat lot of bleeding good coming here did us,' Chipchase complained, slurping McEwan's Export between drags on the first cigarette in a newly purchased pack.

'It was impressive the way you controlled the discussion from start to finish, certainly,' Harry observed, his tolerance of Chipchase's reproachful tone wearing thin.

'What did you expect me to do? She's some kind of spook. And she had a minder. She said her freedom of movement was limited. Well, it's better than no bloody freedom at all.'

'It's not as bad as that, Barry. Here we are, with money in our pocket and the run of the rail network. Where d'you want to go? Penzance? Pembroke? Pwllheli?'

'The money's in your pocket, since you mention it. And, without passports, making a run of it's a waste of what little time we have to play with before Plod starts twitching on our leash.'

'True enough.'

'So?'

Harry leaned back in his comfortless chair and rubbed his eyes, which were still smarting from the smoke they had had to contend with the night before. 'Meeting Erica wasn't the total washout you seem to think, Barry.'

'No?'

'Well, like you said, she turns out to be a spook. MI5. MI6. One or the other — or similar. The point is, there's some kind of overlap between Operation Clean Sheet and the Secret Service. God knows what it is. But no-one who does know is going to tell us. We're on our own. She said so, didn't she? She made that very clear.'

'If you're trying to cheer me up, you're—'

'I'm trying to tell it like it is. Listen. Erica doesn't know who the murderer is. Or what their motive is. So, the murders can't be directly connected with the spy angle to Operation Clean Sheet, whatever that is. They're about something else. Which means we're as well placed to figure out the answer as anyone.'

'Go on, then. Figure it out.'

'Back at the Pot, you were all for counter-attacking. Was that just the beer talking?'

'It might have been the humming the chorus. Indecision's the real bugbear. I can't decide whether I'm angrier than I am frightened. But on balance…' Chipchase took a long draw on his cigarette. 'Probably more frightened. Come to think of it … a lot more. And that makes me angry. That and being left in the lurch by Miss Four-by-Four. It all makes me bloody livid, as a matter of fact.'

'Me too.'

'So, I guess I still favour counter-attack.'

'Good.'

'But what — or who — do we go after?'

'Well, I'll phone Donna as soon as it's a civilized hour in Vancouver. See if she's turned up anything on Maynard's mystery drug — MRQS.'

'What if she hasn't?'

'Then we'll go back to Enslow. He lied to us about Ailsa Redpath. I'm sure of that. She doesn't live in Italy. He didn't want to tell us her real address in case we decided to pay her a visit. Now, why d'you think that might be?'

'Dunno.' Chipchase stubbed out his cigarette and smiled manfully. 'But I'd be willing to try and find out if it involved giving the fragrant Clifford a hard time.'

—«»—«»—«»—

Thanks to the vagaries of Great Western's Saturday afternoon connections at Reading and Twyford, it was nearly four o'clock when they reached Henley. The sole advantage of their late arrival was that it was now breakfast-time in Vancouver. Armed with an international phonecard bought before leaving Swindon and a cover story fine-tuned along the way, Harry called Donna from a payphone at Henley station, while Chipchase paced up and down outside and made further inroads into his cigarette supply.

There was something subtly wrong in Donna's tone even before Harry embarked on his explanation of why he was not ringing from his mother's. He tried to tell himself he was imagining it, that his guilt about lying to her was getting to him. But he remained, on some level, unconvinced.

'They've disconnected Mother's phone. God knows why. Some misunderstanding, obviously, but I can't sort it out over the weekend. My mobile doesn't seem to be charging either and Barry's has been cut off. No need to ask why that might be. So, I'm reduced to call-boxes. Any news on MRQS?'

'None at all, Harry. Marvin drew a blank. But he's volunteered to follow a few more hunches, so he might turn up something yet. He's horribly eager to oblige. You can count on him doing his best. It might help if you told me how you came to hear of the drug in the first place.'

'It's a long story. And these payphones fairly gobble credit. MRQS could be an anti-AIDS drug from a while back. Or it could be for something else altogether. I just don't know. I don't even know if it's important.'

'But it may be?'

'Maybes are all I have to go on at the moment.'

'And you're being careful? Like you promised you would.'

'Yes. I'm being careful. I'm practically following the Green Cross Code every time I reach the kerbside. There's nothing for you to worry about.'

'I wish I could believe that.'

'You can. I'll phone again later. I've got to go now. Have a nice day. Love you. And Daisy. 'Bye.'

—«»—«»—«»—

Still troubled by an inflexion in Donna's voice that he was not sure had really been there at all and unable to recall anything in her actual words to substantiate his concern, he rejoined Chipchase outside the station.

'No joy on MRQS,' he tersely reported.

Chipchase shrugged. 'Can't say I'm surprised. Whatever this is about, I don't see how the battle against AIDS comes into it. In the days of Operation Clean Sheet, there was nothing worse than a dose of the clap to worry about, whichever way you hung your flag.'

'All right. Let's go and see Enslow.'

'That's more like it. Old crocks we may be, Harry, but I reckon we can put the squeeze on Cliff. And it'll be interesting to see what oozes out when we do.'

—«»—«»—«»—

They took a cautious peer into the Age Concern shop, but there was no sign of Enslow behind the counter. Chipchase popped in for a flirtatious word with the lady in attendance and was rewarded with the information that he had just left.

They agreed it was likely he would go straight home, so made a bee-line for Belle Rive. Their route took them past Cafe Rouge, where they had entertained him to lunch only the day before, though to Harry it felt far longer ago. Everything prior to the destruction of his old home in Swindon had a distant, sepia-tinged quality to it now, as if most of his life had gone up in smoke along with his mother's bric-a-brac and mementoes of the family's past.

'There he is,' said Chipchase, interrupting Harry's gloomy train of thoughts with a grab at his elbow.

Enslow was ambling along a footpath through an old graveyard that was clearly a short-cut to the next street and the lane serving Belle Rive and neighbouring properties. Harry and Barry overhauled him in half a dozen strides.

'Afternoon, Cliff.'

Enslow started at Chipchase's words and whisked round. 'What? Oh. Good God. You two.'

'Yeah. We just can't stay away from heavenly Henley.'

'Really? I—'

'Actually, it's you we can't stay away from.'

'Sorry?'

'Got what you might call a supplementary question for you. Arising from our little chat yesterday.'

'Surely we… covered everything.'

'Not everything.' Chipchase grinned. 'There's one tiny point we somehow overlooked.'

Harry summoned a grin of his own to match Chipchase's. 'You know what they say. There's no such thing as a free lunch.'

—«»—«»—«»—

'We need you to tell us where Ailsa Redpath lives,' Harry explained after they had piloted Enslow to a nearby bench and settled beside him. 'But before you do that, I ought to make a few things clear. Firstly, we know she doesn't live in Italy, so don't waste your breath on the Tuscan villa cover story. Secondly, you ought to be aware the Grampian police have us in the frame for those murders in Aberdeenshire you've read about. We're due to be grilled by them on Tuesday. We're not guilty, by the way, in case you wondered. But someone is. And they're after all of us. If we tell enough people you're the keeper of Lester Maynard's secrets, it's my bet you'll be added to the hit list. Co-operate with us, however, and we'll keep your name out of it. All you have to do is point us in your landlady's direction and stifle any temptation you might feel to warn her we're looking for her. It really is as simple as that. So, how about it?'

'I…'

'We'll make it easy for you, Cliff,' put in Chipchase. 'You can omit the post code.'

Enslow sighed heavily. He thought for a protracted moment, then said, 'All right.'