"We need to get into the Laurels sometime during the day when Duca"s out. What I"m looking for is his wheel, the talisman that he wears around his neck."
"Why do you want that?"
"Two reasons. When a live Screecher becomes a dead Screecher, its physiology changes. It can slide through the narrowest of gaps, and it can run so fast that you can barely see it, but it has very poor night vision. The wheel has properties which realign the rods and the cones in its eyes, so that it can see in the dark."
"But if Duca wears it around its neck-" said Jill.
"It doesn"t-not during the day. If it did, its eyes would be much too sensitized, and it would practically be blinded, especially if the sun came out. If we can find Duca"s wheel, and take it, Duca is absolutely certain to come looking for it."
"And I suppose we"ll be waiting for it, when it does?"
"You"ve got it. We"ll catch it in a sealed and darkened room, so that it won"t be able to see us and it won"t be able to escape."
"Then what?"
"We"ll tie it up, nail it down, decapitate it, and dispose of the body, just like the other Screechers. The only difference between exterminating a live Screecher and a dead Screecher is that the dead ones" bodies have to be cut into four pieces and each piece has to be buried well away from the others."
Terence looked queasy. Jill said, "I don"t have to be there when you kill it, do I?"
"Not unless you want to. It"s dangerous, and its pretty d.a.m.ned disgusting, and the dead ones usually scream blue murder."
"In that case, I think I"ll pa.s.s."
As we went into the house, lightning flickered over the trees at the end of the garden, followed by an indigestive rumble of thunder. Jill"s mother was in the dining room, wearing an emerald green sari, and setting the table for dinner. Her father was in the living room, standing in front of the fireplace. rumble of thunder. Jill"s mother was in the dining room, wearing an emerald green sari, and setting the table for dinner. Her father was in the living room, standing in front of the fireplace.
"Captain Falcon! Good evening! Perhaps I can offer you a snifter?"
"I"ll have a Scotch, if that"s OK."
He went over to a large drinks cabinet and opened it. "I"ve just been given some very palatable single malt, as a matter of fact."
"That sounds . . . very palatable."
He handed me a heavy cut-crystal gla.s.s br.i.m.m.i.n.g with whiskey. I didn"t usually drink this much alcohol in a week.
"Jill"s mother has been having a bit of a word with her," said Jill"s father, leaning forward confidentially and lowering his voice to make sure that Jill and her mother couldn"t hear him.
"Oh, yes?"
"It turns out that Jill"s rather taken with you."
"Oh. I didn"t realize. But what she has to understand is-"
"I suppose it"s partly the danger that she finds attractive. Women do, don"t they? They get starry-eyed about racing drivers and test pilots and mountaineers and suchlike."
"I"m afraid I"m not doing anything nearly as glamorous as that."
"Well, whatever it is, it"s certainly had an effect on our Jill, or so her mother tells me. She was very upset about what you were doing, no question about it. But she was even more upset that she might not have the gumption to go on working with you."
"Oh. I see. I"m sorry. But I think she needs to know that-"
Jill"s father lifted his hand. "All I"m saying to you, old boy, is that I"d appreciate it if you didn"t take advantage of her. No offense meant. But I"m her father, and obviously I have to have her best interests at heart."
"Of course. I totally understand."
"Good man. Just thought that it would be better to get things straight."
I sipped my whiskey. Jill"s father was right. It was very palatable, and I began to feel much more relaxed. But I couldn"t help asking myself why I hadn"t quite managed to admit that I was married.
Dinner was strange but very good. I had never eaten any kind of curry before, and this was a Burmese curry, with fishy-tasting rice and chicken simmered in coconut and a bewildering selection of pickled vegetables and fried chillies and chopped cilantro leaves.
We ate out of small decorative bowls, and drank very cold light ale, making a toast every time we took a drink. "Here"s to international friendship!" "Here"s to Bullet!" "Here"s to Harold Macmillan!"
Jill"s parents asked me about my family and my life in Connecticut, but they a.s.siduously avoided the subject of what I was doing here in England, and why I needed Jill and Bullet to help me.
"Jill"s always had such a pa.s.sion for dogs," said her mother. "I"ll show you some of her Kennel Club trophies, after supper."
"I"d like that," I said. "You can take it from me that what she and Bullet are doing for me-it"s invaluable. I only wish I could tell you what it is." what she and Bullet are doing for me-it"s invaluable. I only wish I could tell you what it is."
"Well, it was the same during the war," said Jill"s father. " "Careless talk costs lives" and all that kind of thing. Have some more of those noodles, they"re absolutely top-hole."
Jill"s mother showed me to a large bedroom on the third floor, with sloping ceilings and a window that overlooked the tennis court. It was decorated with red-and-gold Regency-striped wallpaper and all the furniture was antique. I took a bath and then I lay on the bed in a blue toweling robe that they had lent me, reading one of the books that were stacked on top of the bureau-a crime novel called The Tiger in the Smoke The Tiger in the Smoke, by Margery Allingham. "The Smoke" in the t.i.tle referred to London.
I suddenly felt very tired and very alone. I had tried to book a telephone call to Louise after dinner, but after forty-five minutes the international operator had come back to say that there was no chance of my being able to talk to the United States until the early hours of the morning. I had thought about trying to call my father, too. It was his sixty-first birthday in a week"s time. But I wasn"t sure how I was going to talk to him, now that I knew that he hadn"t told me the truth about my mother"s death. I very much doubted that the counterintelligence people in Washington had given him the full details of how she had died, but he must have known that she was on some kind of secret mission.
My eyes started to close. When I opened them again, my watch said ten after midnight and I was still lying on the bed with the bedside light on, with the book open in front of me. I rolled over and put the book aside, and I was just about to turn off the light when I heard floorboards creaking outside my door. Immediately, I pulled my gun out from under my pillow, pointed it directly at the center of the door and c.o.c.ked it. my watch said ten after midnight and I was still lying on the bed with the bedside light on, with the book open in front of me. I rolled over and put the book aside, and I was just about to turn off the light when I heard floorboards creaking outside my door. Immediately, I pulled my gun out from under my pillow, pointed it directly at the center of the door and c.o.c.ked it.
Screechers aren"t easily deceived, especially the dead ones, some of whom are twenty or even thirty generations old. If Duca had managed to remember who I looked like, then the chances were that it had worked out why I was here, and why I had paid it a visit.
There was a cautious knock. "Jim? It"s Jill. Are you still awake?"
I swung myself off the bed, went to the door and opened it. Jill was standing out in the corridor wearing a short white baby-doll nightdress.
"Are you OK?" I asked her.
"Not really. I was wondering if we could talk for a bit."
I peered out on to the landing. "What about your parents? I don"t want to ruffle any feathers here."
"Oh, they"re dead to the world. They always go to bed early, and you saw how much whiskey Daddy puts away."
"Maybe it could wait till the morning?"
"I won"t be able to sleep."
"OK, then." I opened the door wider and it was then that she saw my gun.
Her eyes widened. "What"s that for? You don"t think that Duca might follow us?"
"Never underestimate a Screecher, sweetheart."
She came into my room and sat down on the edge of the bed. "I suppose you think I"m being hysterical."
"Why should I think that?"
"They gave me this a.s.signment because I had so much experience with murders, and I accepted it because I thought I was pretty hard-boiled. But hunting these Screechers-I didn"t expect anything like this. Not only do we see them murdering people, right in front of our eyes. We We have to murder have to murder them them."
"That"s right," I said, sitting down close to her. "That just about sums up the n.o.ble sport of Screecher-hunting. Are you trying to tell me that you want out?"
"No. No No. I don"t know. It"s partly you you that"s making me feel so confused. I find it so hard to reconcile who you are with what you"re capable of doing. I don"t understand you at all." that"s making me feel so confused. I find it so hard to reconcile who you are with what you"re capable of doing. I don"t understand you at all."
"Do you think that"s necessary? To understand me, I mean? So long as you know that I"m on your side. So long as you"re confident that I"m never going to let you down."
She looked directly into my eyes. She was incredibly beautiful, even down to the small pattern of moles on her left cheek. She smelled so good, too, fragrant and soapy like Cusson"s Imperial Leather. The bedside light shone through the layers of nylon net that made up her nightdress, and I could just make out the darker tinge of her nipples.
"I"ve never felt like this before," she said. "Not about anyone."
"I"m just a garden-variety academic, Jill. There"s nothing special about me. I got involved in Screecher-hunting by accident, more than design. You know that."
"Yes, but you couldn"t do it, could you, if you didn"t have that special quality in you?"
"What special quality? Stupidity?"
"No," she said. "Cruelty."
She reached up her hand and touched my face. I thought about Louise but this was something very different. This was something dreamlike, something that was taking place on the other side of the mirror. Jill opened her lips and kissed me, and I kissed her back, our tongues touching and licking each other as if we were trying to discover what kind of people we were through our sense of taste, the way that Bullet did.
She loosened the tie of my bathrobe, and reached inside, running her fingers down my sides, so that I shivered. Her fingernails were very long, and when she ran them down my back the soft scratching was incredibly arousing. I could feel myself rising, and then there was no turning back.
Jill raised both of her arms like a ballerina and I drew the baby-doll nightdress up over her head. Her b.r.e.a.s.t.s were rounded and heavy, and they performed a complicated double-bounce when her nightdress came off. Her nipples were dark crimson, with very wide areolas, and as I rolled them between my fingers they knurled and crinkled and stood up erect.
"I don"t have any rubbers," I told her.
"What?"
"I don"t have any protection."
She pressed her forehead against mine and laughed. " "Rubbers" are Wellington boots. Well, they are in England."
"That doesn"t help. I don"t have any Wellington boots, either."
She kissed me and kissed me and kissed me again. Then she opened up my bathrobe and took hold of me and squeezed me hard, digging her nails into me as if she wanted to prove that she could be cruel, too.
She lay back on the bed. The hair between her legs was fine and dark, like Burmese silk. I climbed on top of her and all the time she kept her eyes open, staring up at me, trying to read the expressions on my face. I made love to her very slowly, because I had the feeling that this would be the first and only time, and I wanted it to last as long as possible.
As I rose up and down, she drew her fingernails across my shoulders. "You"re so lean," she said. "All muscle and bone and sinew. Like a greyhound."
She smiled all the time we were making love, as if she were harboring some secret. Her b.r.e.a.s.t.s swayed in a gentle, undulating rhythm, and her hips rose to meet me with every thrust so that I penetrated deeper and deeper. At last I began to feel that tightening sensation between my thighs and I knew that I couldn"t hold off much longer. "I"m afraid it"s going to have to be coitus interruptus coitus interruptus," I told her.
"Oh, no! Dr. Duca doesn"t approve of it! He says it"s messy messy."
"It"ll be a darn sight messier if I knock you up."
I took myself out of her and climaxed. The warm drops fell in a pattern across her stomach. Outside, rain began to patter on the roof.
She said, "Do you think, when this is all over, and you"ve gone back to America, that you"ll remember me?" and you"ve gone back to America, that you"ll remember me?"
"Are you kidding me? I"ll remember you for the rest of my life."
She sat up and kissed me. "I know you will. Because I"m never going to let you forget me. Ever."
Wheel of Ill Fortune.
Terence came to pick me up at 9:30 the next morning. He smelled of cigarettes and fried bacon.
"Any movement from Duca?" I asked him as I climbed into the pa.s.senger seat.
"Not a d.i.c.ky bird. If he did leave the house, he didn"t use his car."
"Have you found us someplace we can use to trap it?"
"I believe so. It"s in an old newspaper office in South Croydon. The paper closed down about a year ago, and the building"s been empty ever since then. But there"s one room they used to use as a darkroom. No windows, double-sealed doors, and we can easily cover up the ventilator."
"That sounds ideal. Did you find me a bed-and-breakfast?"
"Better than that, old man. You can come and stay with me. I live in Thornton Heath, and that"s only ten minutes away from here. It was my mother"s idea. She said you must be feeling homesick."
"Well, that"s very thoughtful of your mother, but-"
"Excellent, that"s settled, then! One of the chaps will bring your cases down, and you can borrow a clean shirt from me, until they arrive." bring your cases down, and you can borrow a clean shirt from me, until they arrive."
Terence and his mother lived in a semidetached Victorian house in a long street of semidetached Victorian houses. Inside it was gloomy and narrow with very high ceilings. The furniture was reproduction rustic with tapestry upholstery, and there was a gilt-framed reproduction on the wall of The Haywain The Haywain by John Constable, as well as decorative dinner plates and a selection of Spanish fans with sequins on them. by John Constable, as well as decorative dinner plates and a selection of Spanish fans with sequins on them.
Terence"s mother was a small, fl.u.s.tered woman with very red cheeks and wild gray hair. She wore a cotton print frock with huge yellow flowers on it. "As soon as Terence told me you were looking for a B-and-B, I thought, the poor fellow can"t stay in a place like that. What he needs is his home comforts."
"That"s very generous of you, Mrs. Mitch.e.l.l."
"Oh, please. Call me Dotty. I hope you like shepherd"s pie."
Terence showed me up to my room. "It used to be my sister"s, before she moved out." There was a dressing table with a pink frilly valance around it, and a dark mahogany closet, and a poster of Pat Boone on the wall, stuck with Scotch tape.
"Tell me when you want a bath, won"t you," said Terence, "and I"ll put the immersion heater on. It only takes about an hour to heat up."
I changed into a clean blue shirt and then Terence drove me to South Croydon, to the abandoned offices of the South Croydon Observer South Croydon Observer-a squarish three-story building of brown brick, right on the noisy main road. The same blue Austin van was parked outside, and when Terence parked behind it, the whippet-thin driver and his shaven-headed friend climbed out, and came toward us. The same blue Austin van was parked outside, and when Terence parked behind it, the whippet-thin driver and his shaven-headed friend climbed out, and came toward us.
"Everything OK?" asked Terence.