Sleep and His Brother by Peter Dickinson

raced the electric pulses which commanded toe and finger to cradle one insignificant ex-detective through these cut-above-slums as though he were a fresh-picked, morning-scented virgin being wafted to an emperor’s bed. Yet the guy had opinions, preferences: somewhere above the shaved neck a few braincells must be linked together in a fashion which composed a picture of the passenger, elderly and dispirited, not a nonentity only by the fact of Athanasius Thanatos being momentarily interested in him, made visible, so to speak, like a rock on the moon by the shadow which the sun forces it to cast.
    Not a blond bristle stirred on the pale column; no finger rose to ease the itch of his scrutiny. That, curiously, was the point at which Dr. Silver scratched himself so vigorously. Pibble fell to wondering whether it was the blondness which was offensive, an instinctive anti-Aryanism in himself. If the neck had been Silver’s colour—and it was not all that different, given the whole spectrum—would he have disliked it so much? Surely not. Or take the halfway house of Rue Kelly’s skin, for Rue was a sour Celt, black Irish … And Silver had bestrode the boards of the Abbey Theatre, so he was black Irish in a different way, with his reference to the dumbest doll in Dublin …
    Far down the corridors of his mind the words began to reverberate and acquire a different meaning, like the distant call of ushers in the law courts which change their shape as they echo along Gothic passages but can be interpreted back into their meaning by anyone familiar with legal ritual.
    Black Irish was dead, surely. But Silver wore fake glasses; spoke of the Paperham jobs, and like Pibble put one immediate meaning on the ambiguous word “copper”; in Crete he sold fake antiques to tourists; he created an image of vagueness by deliberately getting people’s names wrong on first meeting them; exploited a hypnotic personality, so that strangers felt an impulse to rely on him. . .Pibble tried to remember about the Black Irish known to the Yard, but only saw vague stirrings in the mists of his memory, like Turner’s Polyphemus.
    He leaned forward and rapped on the glass partition between him and the nape. The man’s voice answered from the ceiling.
    â€œIf you open the panel to your left, sir, and press the second switch from the left, you will be able to speak to me.”
    The panel fitted like the lid of a jewel box, and under it lay a rank of switches and a rank of ivory knobs with symbols on them. Pibble clicked the second switch.
    â€œSpeak in your normal voice, sir.”
    â€œI know we’re in a hurry, but I’ve just thought of a point which I ought to check before I meet Mr. Thanatos. Can you stop at a phone box?”
    â€œWould you please pull the button third from the right, sir?”
    The button had a picture of a telephone on it; at Pibble’s touch a hitherto invisible panel beside the switch console flopped open and a thin handset slid out and offered itself to him. There was no dial.
    â€œTell the girl the number you want, sir. You may experience a degree of fading between tall buildings, but if you have trouble I will stop where the reception seems adequate.”
    â€œWe’ll see,” said Pibble. He flicked the switch up to return himself to his soundproof world, picked the handset off its cradle, spoke, waited, told the girl at the Yard the extension he wanted, waited.
    â€œBradshaw,” said the voice.
    â€œBrad, this is Jimmy Pibble. Sorry to bother you.”
    â€œBalls, Jimmy. It’s good to hear your voice. How are you doing?”
    â€œSo-so. I haven’t really sorted myself out yet. Freedom’s nice, but boring. I miss you all.”
    â€œWhereas office work is nasty but boring. What can I do for you?”
    â€œWell, Mary’s trapped me into giving a talk to one of her lots of ladies. It’s supposed to be about role-playing the