Part 28 (2/2)

'Very stupid, I think, sir.'

'Fair enough. Either way, Crane'll be heading there himself, unless he tracks Downey down en route. I'm serious about this, now, Howard. Crane finds them before they get to the island, he'll leave a mess all over the landscape. On the island, it doesn't much matter. We can hose it down and forget it. But I don't want more of a pig's ear made out of this than you've managed already. So stop Crane. If he reaches the island first, fair enough. Let him do his job. But I don't want him leaving it. I don't mean to be harsh about this, Howard, but he's like a pit bull that's tasted blood. You can never trust him again.'

'I think I know what you mean.'

'And stop pretending it's a painful duty. I'm sure you'll p.i.s.s on his corpse. Now get out.'

There was a spring in Howard's step as he walked back across the park. It wasn't often a revenge fantasy received official sanction. Almost enough to make up for the amount of s.h.i.+t he'd had to eat to get it: that man was a foul-mouthed b.a.s.t.a.r.d all right. Still. One fantasy at a time.

He hoped Crane made it to the island first.

He also hoped Downey still had a gun.

Chapter Six.

The Good Soldier I.

The hire car was a red VW, one of those compact, city models. Michael put his new rucksack in the back, along with the canvas bag Sarah had inherited from him. Two days ago, she'd left home with nothing. Already she had luggage; was acc.u.mulating a new history. It wasn't that easy to leave everything behind. You junked what you could, and new junk came right along and took its place.

At least there was a new Sarah, though. She turned the windscreen flap down, and checked herself out in the vanity: in Boots, she'd bought a dye-pack, and transformed herself from an average, mouse-brown woman to a raven. She wasn't sure how many washes it would take. From the state of the towel when she'd finished, not a lot. But it would do. She no longer looked like the Other Sarah Tucker. She looked like her own woman.

Michael saw what she was doing. 'I told you,' he said. 'It looks fine.'

'Thanks.'

'You could be anybody.'

'Thanks,' she said again, but he didn't register the difference. They were on the road now, leaving the town behind. She saw a pair of buzzards hovering over a concrete bridge. It was sad, with all the s.p.a.ce their wings might afford them, that they chose to live by the hard shoulder.

'How did you hire a car?'

He looked at her briefly.

'Don't you need ID? Aren't you supposed to be dead?'

'I've got ID.'

'Whose?'

No answer. She went back to landscape gazing. Once, on a drive with Mark, they'd pa.s.sed a buzzard sitting on a post. It had been much larger than they'd have expected. Unafraid, it had stared them down with an angel's contempt for the earthbound, then returned to surveying its field. As they drove on, Sarah's main feeling had been one of guilt. She did not know why this was so, and never would.

Another time, in Oxfords.h.i.+re, they'd driven past a field of ostriches. Dozens of them: out of place, and wicked, and downright delightful.

'His name was Fielding,' Michael said.

'Fielding.'

'James Fielding.'

'Sounds like a stockbroker.'

'He was a wino. Living on the streets.'

'And you bought his ident.i.ty?'

'He wasn't using it any more.'

Once you had the social security number, everything came easy. Driving licence, credit cards . . . Even junk mail, if you had an address.

Michael kept driving. They didn't pa.s.s any ostriches.

After some hours, they were in London. And then, before she felt truly ready for it, Michael was finding a parking s.p.a.ce for the VW, and she was alone on a leafy street, walking through dappled shadows among houses that sang of summer, and light, and money.

Gerard's Hampstead home had none of the rural insecurities of his Cotswold cottage: he might be faking it with the county set, but he had nothing to prove in the suburbs. His house was large, detached, and mostly hidden from view by a high and surgically perfect hedge, whose purpose was less to secure privacy than to underline that, in a street like this, conspicuous expenditure was unnecessary. If you'd made it here, you'd made it. Scrunching up the gravelled drive, she admired the potted bays flanking the big front door; the way that, though a car was parked nearby, no tyre tracks betrayed that it had been driven rather than built there. Probably each stone was numbered and allotted a position. Probably Gerard had full-time staff, organizing this.

All of which supposed it was Gerard's home. But memories of conversations about Hampstead had steered Sarah to the appropriate phone book; she had little doubt she'd got it right. Especially when the car turned out a Porsche. Her only disappointment being, when she rang the bell, Inchon answered the door himself. She'd been hoping for something in livery, or at the very least a French maid.

'Good lord,' he said.

'Not at work?'

'It's a holiday,' he said automatically. Then, 'Sarah? What on earth are you doing here?'

'It's a long story.'

Michael appeared behind her. He'd moved silently over the gravel; had possibly floated an inch or two above it.

Gerard glanced at him briefly; said, 'I think you have the wrong house.'

'He's with me.'

'Really?'

Confirming it would have put her at a disadvantage. She simply waited until he said, 'You'd better come in.'

So they followed him through a wide, immaculate hall to a room at the back; a broad, sunny room with french windows, a baby grand, and large, comfy chairs. From outside came what Sarah thought was the chirping of crickets, but turned out to be a water sprinkler. Its reach didn't quite make the windows, but the patio sparkled wetly, and rainbows danced off the spray with each pa.s.s. Summertime in England. She half expected a string quartet to kick off.

'Drink?'

'No thanks.'

He said, 'Some people have been worried about you.'

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