Part 3 (1/2)

'I haven't seen you for three years... and I broke your nose ...'

I took the key out of his hand and unlocked the door. I supposed I might have been suspicious of me if I'd been attacked twice in five days, considering I came into the high-probability category of son. I switched on the light and went forward into the room which was free from lurking murderers that time at least.

Malcolm followed, only tentatively rea.s.sured, closing the door slowly behind him. I drew the heavy striped curtains across the two windows and briefly surveyed the s.p.a.cious but old-fas.h.i.+oned accommodation: reproduction antique furniture, twin beds, pair of armchairs, door to bathroom.

No murderer in the bathroom.

'Ian ...' Malcolm said.

'Did you bring any scotch?' I asked. In the old days, he'd never travelled without it.

He waved a hand towards a chest of drawers where I found a half-full bottle nestling among a large number of socks. I fetched a gla.s.s from the bathroom and poured him enough to tranquillise an elephant.

'For G.o.d's sake ...' he said.

'Sit down and drink it.'

'You're b.l.o.o.d.y arrogant.'

He did sit down, though, and tried not to let the gla.s.s clatter against his teeth from the shaking of his hand.

With much less force, I said, 'If I'd wanted you dead, I'd have let that car hit you tonight. I'd have jumped the other way... out of trouble.'

He seemed to notice clearly for the first time that there had been any physical consequences to our escape.

'Your leg,' he said, 'must be all right?'

'Leg is. Trousers... can I borrow a pair of yours?'

He pointed to a cupboard where I found a second suit almost identical to the one he was wearing. I was three inches taller than he and a good deal thinner but, belted and slung round the hips, whole cloth was better than holey.

He silently watched me change and made no objection when I telephoned down to the reception desk and asked them to get his bill ready for his departure. He drank more of the scotch, but nowhere was he relaxed.

'Shall I pack for you?' I asked.

He nodded, and watched some more while I fetched his suitcase, opened it on one of the beds and began collecting his belongings. The things he'd brought spoke eloquently of his state of mind when he'd packed them: about ten pairs of socks but no other underwear, a dozen s.h.i.+rts, no pyjamas, two towelling bath-robes, no extra shoes. The clearly new electric razor in the bathroom still bore a stick-on price tag, but he had brought his antique gold-and-silver-backed brushes, all eight of them, including two clothes brushes. I put everything into the case, and closed it.

'Ian,' he said.

'Mm?'

'People can pay a.s.sa.s.sins... You could have decided not to go through with it tonight... at the last moment...'

'It wasn't tike that,' I protested. Saving him had been utterly instinctive, without calculation or counting of risks: I'd been lucky to get off with a graze.

He said almost beseechingly, with difficulty, 'It wasn't you, was it, who had Moira... Or me, in the garage...? Say it wasn't you.'

I didn't know really how to convince him. He'd known me better, lived with me longer than with any of his other children, and if his trust was this fragile then there wasn't much future between us.

'I didn't have Moira killed,' I said, 'If you believe it of me, you could believe it of yourself.' I paused, 'I don't want you dead, I want you alive. I could never do you harm.'

It struck me that he really needed to hear me say I loved him, so although he might scoff at the actual words, and despite the conditioned inhibitions of my upbringing, I said, feeling that desperate situations needed desperate remedies, 'You're a great father... and... er... I love you.'

He blinked. Such a declaration pierced him, one could see. I'd probably overdone it, I thought, but his distrust had been a wound for me too.

I said much more lightly, 'I swear on the Coochie Pembroke Memorial Challenge Trophy that I would never touch a hair on your head... nor Moira's either, though I did indeed loathe her.'

I lifted the suitcase off the bed.

'Do I go on with you or not?' I said, 'If you don't trust me, I'm going home.'

He was looking at me searchingly, as if I were a stranger, which I suppose in some ways I was. He had never before, I guessed, had to think of me not as a son but as a man, as a person who had led a life separate from his, with a different outlook, different desires, different values. Sons grew from little boys into their own adult selves: fathers tended not to see the change clearly. Malcolm, I was certain, thought of me basically as still having the half-formed personality I'd had at fifteen.

'You're different,' he said.

'I am the same. Trust your instinct.'

Some of the tension at last slackened in his muscles. His instinct had been trust, an instinct strong enough to carry him to thetelephone after three silent years. He finished the scotch and stood up, filling his lungs with a deep breath as if making resolves.

'Come with me, then,' he said.

I nodded.

He went over to the chest of drawers and from the bottom drawer, which I hadn't checked, produced a briefcase. I might have guessed it would be there somewhere: even in the direst panic, he wouldn't have left behind the lists of his gold shares or his currency exchange calculator. He started with the briefcase to the door, leaving me to bring the suitcase, but on impulse I went over again to the telephone and asked for a taxi to be ready for us.

'But your car's here,' Malcolm said.

'Mm. I think I'll leave it here, for now.'

'But why?'

'Because if I didn't tell anyone you were going to Newmarket Sales, and nor did you, then it's probable you were followed there, from... er... here. If you think about it... the car that tried to kill you was waiting in the sales car-park, but you didn't have a car. You went there by taxi. Whoever drove at you must have seen you and me together, and known who I was, and guessed you might leave with me, so although I didn't see anyone following us tonight from Newmarket, whoever-it-was probably knew we would come here, to this hotel, so... well... so they might be hanging about in the courtyard where we parked, where it's nice and dark outside the back door, waiting to see if we come out again.'

'My G.o.d!'

'It's possible,' I said.'So we'll leave through the front with the doorman in attendance, don't you think?'

'If you say so,' he said weakly.

'From now on,' I said, 'we take every exaggerated precaution we can think of.'

'Well, where are we going in this taxi?'

'How about somewhere where we can rent a car?'

The taxi-driver, however, once we'd set off without incident from the hotel, bill paid, luggage loaded, doorman tipped, informed us doubtfully that nine o'clock on a Tuesday night wasn't going to be easy. All the car-hire firms' offices would be closed.

'Chauffeur-driven car, then,' Malcolm said.'Fellows who do weddings, that sort of thing. Twenty quid in it for you if you fix it.'

Galvanised by this offer, the taxi-driver drove us down some backstreets, stopped outside an unpromising little terraced house and banged on the door. It opened, s.h.i.+ning out a melon-slice of light, and gathered the taxi-driver inside.