position on the long pull up Hammond’s Hill on the motorway. And she fancied that if she listened carefully enough she ought to be able to hear the computer-whine of her own brain merging the non-information she possessed already with the non-information he had just given her, and, more than that, adding to it his presence here now—a very large and significant mountain come uninvited to a very small and insignificant Mohammed.
* * *
After the bomb there had been Colonel Butler—
‘ Thank you, Mrs Fitzgibbon … Well, there ’ s nothing more you can usef ully do here, so you ’ d best go home, and I ’ ll call you if I need you … When Mitchell has seen the Minister off he ’ ll give you one of the cars. ’
* * *
He was good, was Colonel Butler, she had decided at that point, observing him control the ant-heap confusion without fuss, without raising his voice, without a nuance of I-told-you-so: it had been like watching a re-enactment of Kipling’s If by one quiet, ugly-handsome, totally decisive man who somehow made the time and had exactly the right word of reassurance or encouragement or command for everyone, from the slightly panicky ministerial security officer, whose minister had been whisked away from him by Paul Mitchell, to a Jock Maitland drenched with muddy water and plastered with feathers and flying duck entrails but still—or even more—dourly and gloriously Scottish—
* * *
‘ — ye wain night, sairr — and a lateral charge too, of aboot six poounds … But that doesna ’ make a nothing of the otherr — he ’ s a trricky one, this fella ’ … ’
‘ Happen you ’ re right too, major — ‘ Colonel Butler had smiled at him, and it was that rare and private change in his own expression which purged his ugliness; and at the same time the Lancashire which Paul had noticed peeped through the Sandhurst accent, so that for a moment it was like speaking with like ‘ — so you get yoursel ’ over to t ’ other, an ’ doan ’ t let that young chap Pirie lay a finger on it. He wants t ’ be a hero. I rely on you not to let him make his wife a widow - ‘
* * *
The other and t ’ other had confused her for a moment, but then she had disentangled them:
There had been a second bomb.
* * *
‘Oh sure. Princess, there were two of them … hold on a sec while I fix the seat for you… James’s legs aren’t as pretty as yours, but they are somewhat longer… Because that’s Comrade O’Leary’s modus operand! when he’s expected. And the trick is… There! I think that will do nicely… the trick is to distinguish which is the diversion and which is the real killer. Is A intended to set you up for B? Or is B intended to divert you from A ?’
(Under his Chobham-armoured assurance Paul was still angry, but there was something odd about that anger after Colonel Butler had made such a fool of him; and therefore, while one part of her wanted to slip away in the car’s nicely-adjusted seat, as far and as fast and as quickly as possible from the University of North Yorkshire, there was another part which wanted to stay and find out why Paul was still angry when he should be humiliated; because, to give him his due, Paul was usually ready to admit when he was wrong.)
‘Well, I suppose I should be glad that Colonel Butler got it right.’ (She had to find the chink in the armour to make him say more.)
‘Well … that we don’t really know, do we? And now we’ll never know, because he changed the rules.’ (He had looked at her curiously then, and she knew she had found the chink: there was always something which Paul knew that no one else knew, and which he shouldn’t have known.) ‘But I tell you this. Princess—there’s something very odd going on, and that’s a fact.’
‘I wouldn’t dispute that.’ (After swapping British-American for the new Library, and Mr Cavendish’s letters for O’Leary and The Land of Faerie that was an
* * *
After the bomb there had been Colonel Butler—
‘ Thank you, Mrs Fitzgibbon … Well, there ’ s nothing more you can usef ully do here, so you ’ d best go home, and I ’ ll call you if I need you … When Mitchell has seen the Minister off he ’ ll give you one of the cars. ’
* * *
He was good, was Colonel Butler, she had decided at that point, observing him control the ant-heap confusion without fuss, without raising his voice, without a nuance of I-told-you-so: it had been like watching a re-enactment of Kipling’s If by one quiet, ugly-handsome, totally decisive man who somehow made the time and had exactly the right word of reassurance or encouragement or command for everyone, from the slightly panicky ministerial security officer, whose minister had been whisked away from him by Paul Mitchell, to a Jock Maitland drenched with muddy water and plastered with feathers and flying duck entrails but still—or even more—dourly and gloriously Scottish—
* * *
‘ — ye wain night, sairr — and a lateral charge too, of aboot six poounds … But that doesna ’ make a nothing of the otherr — he ’ s a trricky one, this fella ’ … ’
‘ Happen you ’ re right too, major — ‘ Colonel Butler had smiled at him, and it was that rare and private change in his own expression which purged his ugliness; and at the same time the Lancashire which Paul had noticed peeped through the Sandhurst accent, so that for a moment it was like speaking with like ‘ — so you get yoursel ’ over to t ’ other, an ’ doan ’ t let that young chap Pirie lay a finger on it. He wants t ’ be a hero. I rely on you not to let him make his wife a widow - ‘
* * *
The other and t ’ other had confused her for a moment, but then she had disentangled them:
There had been a second bomb.
* * *
‘Oh sure. Princess, there were two of them … hold on a sec while I fix the seat for you… James’s legs aren’t as pretty as yours, but they are somewhat longer… Because that’s Comrade O’Leary’s modus operand! when he’s expected. And the trick is… There! I think that will do nicely… the trick is to distinguish which is the diversion and which is the real killer. Is A intended to set you up for B? Or is B intended to divert you from A ?’
(Under his Chobham-armoured assurance Paul was still angry, but there was something odd about that anger after Colonel Butler had made such a fool of him; and therefore, while one part of her wanted to slip away in the car’s nicely-adjusted seat, as far and as fast and as quickly as possible from the University of North Yorkshire, there was another part which wanted to stay and find out why Paul was still angry when he should be humiliated; because, to give him his due, Paul was usually ready to admit when he was wrong.)
‘Well, I suppose I should be glad that Colonel Butler got it right.’ (She had to find the chink in the armour to make him say more.)
‘Well … that we don’t really know, do we? And now we’ll never know, because he changed the rules.’ (He had looked at her curiously then, and she knew she had found the chink: there was always something which Paul knew that no one else knew, and which he shouldn’t have known.) ‘But I tell you this. Princess—there’s something very odd going on, and that’s a fact.’
‘I wouldn’t dispute that.’ (After swapping British-American for the new Library, and Mr Cavendish’s letters for O’Leary and The Land of Faerie that was an
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