The Business

CHAPTER TEN

I fussed and fretted throughout the rest of that evening and into the night, making calls, sending e-mails, trying to sleep, not sleeping. Suvinder looked shaken when he heard about Uncle Freddy. He arranged for the Twin Otter to bring forward its flight the next day: it would leave at dawn from Dacca and turn around as quickly as possible. Luckily the weather forecast was fairly benign. Tommy Cholongai's Lear wasn't available but there would be a company Gulfstream waiting for me at Siliguri by noon.

The Prince had to pay a belated visit to his mother that evening. I spent most of the time in my room on the phone; my little quilted chattering lady, who was called Mrs Pelumbu, brought me a meal, though I didn't eat much.

I called Leeds General, the hospital in the UK where Uncle Freddy had been taken, and eventually persuaded them that I was both a relation and that I was the 'Kate' that Freddy kept asking to see. He was in Intensive Therapy, as Hazleton had said.

A road traffic accident on the A64, two days earlier, during heavy rain. Four other casualties, two discharged, others not in danger. They wouldn't actually tell me how bad he was straight out, but they did say if I wanted to see him I should get there as soon as I could.

I tried Blysecrag. Miss Heggies answered.

'How bad is he, Miss H?'

'I…They…He…You…'

Miss H was reduced to little more than personal pronouns. The small amount of sense I did manage to get out of her only confirmed that Uncle Freddy was very poorly indeed, and in a sense I didn't even need that; just hearing how emotional and distraught this former paragon of stainless rectitude had become was enough to tell me things must be fairly desperate (it also made me wonder if she and Uncle Freddy…well, never mind).

Hi, Stephen. Lost Event Horizon here.

Kathryn, I heard about Freddy Ferrindonald. Can you get back there to see him? Is there anything I can do?

I'm starting back tomorrow, weather permitting. You can tell me what the word is in-company. Any details?

Yep, thought you might ask, so I found all this out. He was driving to some place on the coast nearby- Scarboro? - during the evening; it was raining, he skidded on a corner and hit a car coming in the opposite direction. Wouldn't have been too bad but the whatever he was driving was so old it didn't have a seat-belt; apparently he went through the windscreen and ended up wrapped round a tree or a bush or something. Lot of head and internal injuries. We'd have got him to one of our hospitals - we had a Swiss air ambulance waiting at the local airport for him the next morning - but he's in too bad a way to move. Kathryn, I'm sorry, but from what I hear he isn't even fifty-fifty. He keeps asking for you. I think Miss H's nose is out of joint, and not just because he's not asking for her. Apparently there's another woman there keeping vigil; this is the party he was on his way to visit in Scarboro.

Uncle F had a fancy woman. Well, that figures. Look, thanks for collating all that stuff. Do we have anybody on the ground I can contact?

Lady called Marion Craston, an L5 from GCM. She's at the bedside too. Well, there or thereabouts. In case he changes his will or something, I guess, but also just to have a co. presence too, most likely.

(Gallentine Cident-Muhel- London, Genève, New York, Tokyo — are our lawyers. Wholly owned.)

Thanks. We have a number for her?

I called Marion Craston at the hospital in Leeds. She wasn't much help; the epitome of lawyerly obfuscation. Basically she confirmed what I already knew. The line was very clear and I could hear that she was still clicking and tapping away on a keyboard as she talked, sort of absentmindedly, to me. This I did not appreciate.

After I hung up I sat for a few seconds thinking about calling GCM and getting her replaced with somebody else, then decided I was upset and possibly just taking it out on her. I had done the same sort of thing myself on occasion (though not when the person I was talking to was a couple of levels above me in the corporate hierarchy; I'd always given them my full attention). But what the hell; one could be too severe.

'Hi again. So, want my analyst's number?'

'No, I do not. Listen, more tribulations.'

I told Luce about Uncle F.

'They have autos without seat-belts? Jesus . I suppose it was a right pea-souper, oi, guv'nor?'

'Will you stop that? The poor old bastard's at death's door and all you can do is come on like Dick Van Dyke.'

'Okay, I'm sorry.'

'The car's a classic. Or was. That's why it didn't have a seat-belt.'

'I've said I'm sorry. Don't go all prickly-Brit defensive on me. But why does the old guy want to see you? Were you that close?'

'Well, fairly. I was like a daughter to him. I guess.'

'Yeah, like a daughter in the close-knit, down-home, swigging- moonshine-on-the-porch and whistling-Dixie sense. This is still the old geezer who used to grope you up, right?'

'Is this some new Valley phrase or are you in some continuing and pathetic attempt to sound British confusing grope and touch up?'

'Answer the question.'

'Look, we've been through all this. He's my Uncle Freddy who sometimes gives me an affectionate pat on the butt. End of story. He's a nice old guy and now it sounds like he's dying six thousand miles away from me and I've got to wait ten hours before I can even start heading to his bedside and I idiotically thought I'd call you for a little understanding maybe but instead —'

'All right! All right! So long as you're sure he never abused you.'

'Oh, not that again. I'm hanging up.'

'No! You've got hang-ups! Hello?'

In my dream, in the depths of that cold night, the east wind blew. Mihu, the Chinese servant who looked just like Colin Walker, Hazleton's security chief, cracked open a window in the eastern wall of windows, and the Queen Mother complained of a draught, so the canopy on that side of the bed was dropped. In the night, while the Queen slept, he went out on to the terrace. for a while, then slipped back into the chamber and opened the western windows, which led out on to the terrace — the Queen stirred and muttered in her sleep, but did not wake — then, while Josh Levitsen and the little lady-in-waiting looked on, Mihu/Walker opened the eastern windows to let the wind in.

The lowered side of the bed's canopy acted as a giant sail, bulging like a dark purple spinnaker and making the whole framework of the bed creak and flex. The Queen Mother woke up groggily just as the bed started to move. The giant statues with the frayed shining armour stared down, their tattered gold leaf whispering wildly in the gale blowing through the long room; a gibbous moon flared in the cloudless night sky, pouring through the space and scintillating on the tiny strips of tinkling leaf as they tore and lengthened and ripped away and went flying through the moon-dark room like shrapnel confetti.

The bed began to move along its rails. Mihu/Walker decided it wasn't moving fast enough, and put his huge hands on the east side of its frame, and pushed. Contained within a blue-glittering cloud of golden flakes, the bed rumbled along its tracks and out into the night. The Queen Mother screamed, the bed's wheels hit the end of the tracks, but there was nothing there to stop them. The wheels clattered down on to the stones, striking sparks; the bed's canopy, loops and folds and curtains all flapped and snapped and fluttered in the golden-seeded breeze. Still picking up speed, wheels and the Queen Mother still screaming, the bed hit the terrace wall and crashed on through, tipping momentously into the black gulf beyond.

Somehow Mihu/Walker's hand stuck on to the bed and he could not let go, and so he went with it, and Uncle Freddy — trapped in the bed by straps and tubes and wires — screamed as he fell into the night.

I woke from that one with the sweats. I checked my watch. Twenty minutes since the last time I'd looked at it. After that it was a relief to lie and worry about everything.

Uncle Freddy. Suvinder. Stephen. Stephen's wife.

In a bizarre, horrendously guilt-making way it was a relief to have something to have to do. I remembered the feeling I'd had when I'd flown back alone from my Italian school trip, knowing that my mother was dead. The tears did not come and I just felt numb, surrounded by layers of insulation that even seemed to muffle the words of people. I recalled the noise the jet made as we flew over the Alps, all feathers of white spread over the land far below.

I was having problems with my ears and gone slightly deaf. The stewardesses were kind and solicitous, but I assumed they must have thought they were dealing with a half-wit from the way I had to keep asking them to repeat things. I really couldn't quite make out what they were saying. There was a roaring in my ears, a compound of the jet's engines and the air tearing past the fuselage and the effects of the pressure on my inner ears. That more than anything else was my insulation, the thing that kept everything at bay.

Then, more than now, you were isolated in a plane. Nowadays you can make calls from your seat phone; then, once you were up in the air, that was it. Aside from the very unlikely possibility of a caller persuading Air Traffic Control or somebody to patch them through to the flight deck, once you took your seat you weren't going to be disturbed. You had that time, that interval between the responsibilities that the ground beneath your feet implied, to detach yourself from things, to take an overview of your life or just whatever problems ailed you at the time.

It struck me only then that maybe that was why I always felt good on planes, why I liked them, why I slept well on them. Shit, did it really go back to that flight from Rome to Glasgow and that roaring in my ears, that strange, numb knowing that I was cut adrift from my mother for ever, and wondering what would become of me? I knew I hadn't really worried — or at least I hadn't worried that my biological father would come and reclaim me for himself and the life I thought we'd left behind — but I did get that detached, Now what? feeling, that impression that everything was going to change and I would too.

And so I kept myself awake all the way through the night thinking this sort of thing, wondering if Uncle Freddy was going to live, and if he didn't whether I'd get there in time before he died, and what it might be — if there was any specific thing — that was so important he was calling for me and not anybody else, and should I let Hazleton let Stephen know about his wife and her lover, and would the Prince, despite all he'd said, hate me for turning him down, and had it all been set up by the Business as the ideal way of tying Thulahn tightly to us, and how else were we going to do it, and should we do it, did the people in the place deserve or need or want to have all that might happen to them happen?

And was this whole thing about planes born in that other flight back after catastrophe, and did it go deeper than that, to layers of insulation I'd been wrapping around myself all my life, to all the hierarchies of contacts and business associates and good reports and executive levels and salary increments and pay-off guesses and colours of credit cards and classes of aircraft cabin and higher-level interest rates and even friends and lovers I'd collected around myself over all the years, not to keep the world away from me, because people were the world, but to keep me away from me?

My last thoughts, as dawn was coming up and I fell briefly asleep again, were that all this stuff about flying beds and aircraft and sleeping on them was making certain that I'd be so tired and sleep-deprived that I was bound to sleep on the plane; the Gulfstream if not the Twin Otter. Then, before it seemed I had really got back to sleep at all, the alarm went off and it was time to get up, feeling groggy and terrible and dizzy with the effects of interrupted sleep, and stumble sticky-eyed to the bathroom.

I stood beneath a tepid shower, listening to the wind moan in the vent to the outside air and making my own moaning noise as I heard it pick up and start to gust.

I dressed ethnic, in the long red jacket and matching trousers. It was only after I'd put everything on that I remembered I'd meant to dress Western. Oh, well.

My bags were already on their way down to the airfield when i did my usual last look round the room for anything I might have forgotten. Just a formality, really: I'm a conscientious packer and I hardly ever forget anything.

The little netsuke monkey. It was still sitting there on the bedside table.

How could I have missed you? I thought. I stuffed it in a pocket of my long red padded jacket.

The Twin Otter landed, I thought, spectacularly. Not an adverb I enjoyed settling on as the mot juste, in the circumstances. The Prince, bundled up against the cold, stiff wind, took my gloved hand in his. The wind was making my eyes water, so I guessed it was doing the same to his. He asked, 'Will you come back, Kathryn?'

'Yes,' I said. Dark clouds were moving fast across the sky, torn to great rolling ribbons by the high peaks. Swathes of snow dragged down the slopes. The pilots were hurrying the few pallid passengers off the craft and helping with the unloading, loading and refuelling. The crowd was small. Gravelly dust was picked off the football/landing field and thrown into the air.

Everything was late; the plane had been delayed at Siliguri with a burst tyre for an hour. I'd used the time to do a bit of present shopping while the weather worsened. When we heard the plane had taken off and was on its way I wasn't sure whether to feel relieved or terrified. My insides settled on both, which just seemed to leave my lower brain confused.

'You promise?'

'I promise, Suvinder.'

'Kathryn. May I kiss your cheek?'

'Oh, for goodness sake.'

He kissed my cheek. I hugged him, briefly. He nodded and looked bashful. Langtuhn Hemblu and B. K. Bousande looked in different directions, smiling. I saw a way out of our mutual embarrassment and went over to where my little pointy-hatted friends had appeared. I squatted down to say hi. Dulsung wasn't there, but Graumo, Pokuhm and their pals shook both my hands and patted my cheeks with sticky fingers. I tried to ask why Dulsung wasn't there, and they tried to tell me, miming something that seemed to involve lots of twirling and fiddly work.

I distributed the gifts I'd bought earlier. I gave Graumo two presents and tried to make it clear that one of them was for Dulsung, but he looked suspiciously surprised and delighted and promptly disappeared. I hailed Langtuhn, who came over with a big bag of boring but useful stuff like pencils, erasers, notebooks, dynamo flashlights and so on. We presented this to the children, getting them to promise to share it all out.

We'd just finished doing this, and I'd given away the last of the presents, when Dulsung appeared, breathless and smiling broadly. She offered me a little home-made wire-and-silk flower.

I squatted down so our faces were level, accepted it from her and attached the new flower securely to my jacket.

I looked round for Graumo but there was no sign of him. I had nothing to present to Dulsung: I'd given everything away. I checked my pockets for a gift I might have missed. Only one lump remained in any of the jacket's pockets. The little monkey. That was all I had left: my tiny dour-faced netsuke piece.

I pulled it out of my pocket, held it in my fingers for a moment, then offered it to her. Dulsung nodded, then accepted it with both hands. Her face split into a huge smile and she reached up with both arms. Still squatting, I hugged her. The little monkey was in her right fist; I could feel its chunky hardness against the back of my head.

Then it was time to go, and so I went.

I left as I'd arrived, just me and the guys up front in the plane. Once the ground had dropped away — along with my stomach — I looked back to see the people I'd left, but by the time we turned after take-off all there was to see was the inside of a big black cloud full of jack-hammer turbulence and glimpses of swirling snow.

The flight was horrific. We got there; we got to Siliguri, but it was pretty damn frightful. One of those flights where you contemplate death and terror so closely that no matter what happens, even if — when — you arrive safely, the you that got on the plane really hasn't survived after all; the you that gets off is different.

I'd given away my little netsuke monkey. What had I been thinking of? Ah, well, never mind. It had seemed like the right thing to do. It still did. Anyway, it was my own fault for almost leaving it in the bedroom; otherwise it would never have been in my pocket in the first place. A superstitious person would have thought that somehow the little carving had wanted to stay in Thulahn. A Freudian…well, never mind what a Freudian would have thought. Luce had asked me once was I a Freudian? I'd told her no, I was a Schadenfreudian.

During one of the wilder bits of the flight, I found myself touching and stroking the little flower in my lapel. My hand was on the brink of jerking away again as my brain thought, Hello, is this some sort of rosary scene going on here? I looked down at my hand as though it belonged to somebody else. Then I thought, No, this is just a childish thing. Comfort, not superstition.

Same difference, I thought.

Of course, a really superstitious person would have thought that the monkey supernaturally knew that the plane was going to crash in the mountains and had made sure it was safely on terra firma at the time in the hands of a new owner.

The plane dropped sickeningly and hit another seemingly solid wall of air. I grabbed the flimsy seat arms with both hands. Yeah, very fucking comforting, I thought.

Gulfstream all the way. Siliguri to Leeds-Bradford just like that, in a tad over eight hours; would have been less but for head winds. I'd assumed we'd have to touch down somewhere to refuel, but no. The plane's seats were big and broad and leather in a cabin gleaming with mahogany; there was a rest room with gold and marble fittings, up front there was a no-nonsense flight crew and back with me a welcoming but unfussy stewardess who served hot and cold food and drinks that would have earned a Michelin star back on the ground, plus there were today's papers, this month's magazines — some of them women's magazines, hot diggety — and every TV channel under the sun and over the horizon. I got myself a serious news fix. Oh, and the flight was blissfully smooth.

I changed from Thuhn haute couture to a smartly corporate blouse, pinstripe skirt and jacket, and shoes more suitable for hospital visits in Europe in winter. Dulsung's little artificial flower went in an inside pocket. Contemplating myself in the generously sized and perfectly lit mirror above the deep marble basin, my avaricious side — stunned into shocked silence, like most of the rest of me, by the traumatic transition from Thuhn to Siliguri — woke up briefly to look round the plane and say, I want one! While a side I didn't even know I had reared its curious head and with a shake of it said, How sickeningly ostentatious and wasteful. But then both these disputing demispheres fell promptly asleep as soon as I settled my occasionally fondled but assuredly never abused butt into my seat.

I awoke over the North Sea looking down at the flares of oil and gas rigs, the seat fully reclined and a cashmere stole wrapped over my legs. The aircraft and the air roared and shushed around me.

I yawned and made my way past the smiling stewardess — I nodded and said, 'Thanks' — to the rest room to tidy my hair and apply some make-up.

A frustrating delay waiting for a customs official to turn up at Leeds-Bradford, then a smooth journey in a chauffeused Merc — rear seat unforgivingly hard — to the hospital. The air smelled strange and felt thick. Somehow I hadn't noticed this back at Siliguri but I noticed it now.

It was pretty late by then. I'd let Marion Craston know I was on my way as soon as we'd hit cruising altitude out of Siliguri and she'd told the medics, but whether I got to see Uncle Freddy or not depended on how he was. When I got to the ICU they asked me to turn my mobile phone off. I was allowed to set eyes on Uncle F — tiny, skin yellow-white, head bandaged, almost invisible from some angles because of all the machinery and wires and tubes and stuff — then had to tiptoe away, because he was asleep at last, for the first time, for any length of time, since he'd arrived here. He'd been told I was on my way; maybe he felt able to sleep now. I felt touched and flattered and worried all at once.

Marion Craston and the mysterious geriatric floozy from Scarborough were nowhere to be seen, having retreated back to their respective hotels. I asked if there was any point my staying through the night. I felt well enough rested from my extended snooze on the Gulfstream to handle one of these all-night bedside vigil things, but the medical staff said no; better to come back in the morning. They seemed marginally more sanguine about Freddy's chances than they'd sounded before. I stayed half an hour, just to make sure he really was safely asleep, then left. I still worried, and let myself out of the hospital with a feeling of hopelessness and dread, half certain that, after all, he'd die in his sleep during the night and I never would get to talk to him.

Mercedes to Blysecrag. A red-eyed Miss Heggies, very obviously keeping control of herself. The house felt terribly empty. It should have felt cold, too, and probably would have if I'd come from anywhere other than Thulahn. Instead it felt warm, but still empty and desolate.

I woke up in the middle of the night with a dream of drowning in warm water. Where was I? Warm. Warm air. Not in Thuhn. I felt for my torch, watch and the little monkey, then recalled where I was and flopped back. York room, Blysecrag. Uncle Freddy. I lay looking up at the darkness, wondering if my drowning dream counted as a premonition and whether I should ring up the ICU to see if there was some sort of crisis. But they had the number here: they'd phone me or Miss H if there was anything serious to report. Better not bother them. He'd be okay. Sleeping soundly. Bound to pull through. I reached out for the netsuke monkey.

Nothing there between the watch and the torch. Of course: Dulsung had it, half a world away. I hoped she looked after it. Actually there was something there, between the torch and my watch: a little home-made artificial flower. I patted it, turned over and went back to sleep.

'Kate, my girl.'

'Uncle Freddy. How are you feeling?'

'Bloody awful. Wrecked the car, you know.'

'I know.'

Breakfast had been interrupted by a call from the hospital to say that Uncle Freddy was awake and asking to see me. There was still half an hour before the car was due to arrive, so I suggested that Miss Heggies and I go together in her ancient Volvo estate. She just shook her head: she'd go when she was asked for.

We opened up the stables-cum-garage and I drove the Lancia Aurelia into town. Miss H would phone the car company to tell them they wouldn't be needed.

Marion Craston was there in the ICU's small lounge, and the mystery woman. Marion Craston was tall, athletic, a little plain, a little vague and mousy brown. Mrs Watkins, the object of affection in Scarborough, was there too: younger than I'd expected, petite, plump, nicely turned out, lots of brassy dyed blonde hair; soft Yorkshire accent. I thought we might all troop in together, but Uncle Freddy asked to see me alone.

Seeing the set-up closer to, I realised we couldn't all have trooped in anyway: there was just about room for one person to squeeze in between all the machines and sit by Freddy's side. The nurse, who made sure I got settled in without tearing out any vital tubes or wires, bustled off immediately afterwards, called to some other emergency.

He looked shrivelled, reduced, lying there. His eyes looked bright in the subdued light, but seemed shrunken back inside their bony orbs, the skin waxy and stretched thin around them. His face and hair were the same yellow-white colour. I patted a few stray wisps of hair back into place.

'Lovely old Delage it was,' he said. His voice was soft and wheezy. 'No bugger'll tell me if it's a write-off or not. Could you find out for me?'

'Of course. Oh, I came in the Aurelia; hope you don't mind.'

'Not at all. They need to be used. Umm. Have you met Mrs Watkins?'

'Just now. She's out there with Ms Craston, the lawyer.'

Uncle Freddy wrinkled his nose. 'Don't like her.'

'Marion Craston?'

'Hmm. Legal eagle. More like legal vulture.' He coughed and: wheezed for a couple of seconds before I realised he was really laughing, or trying to. I held his thin, cool hand.

'Steady, now. You'll shake your tubes out.'

He seemed to find this funny, too. His other arm was in a cast; he lifted the hand I was holding away for a moment to wipe at his eyes with a weak, painful-looking delicacy.

'Let me do that.' I pulled out a handkerchief and dabbed at his eyes.

'Thank you, Kate.'

'You're welcome.'

'I hear you've been in Thulahn.'

'Just returned.'

'Did I drag you back, my dear?'

'Well, I was ready to come back.'

'Mmm-hmm. And how is Suvinder?'

'He's well.'

'Did he ask you anything?'

'Yes, he did. He asked me to marry him.'

'Ah. Care to tell an old man what your reply was?'

'I said I was flattered, but the answer was no.'

Uncle Freddy's eyes fluttered closed for a while. I wondered if he'd gone back to sleep, and even if he was conking out on me, but there was still a weak pulse in the wrist above the hand I was holding. His eyes came slowly open again. 'I told them it was a mad idea.'

'You told who, Uncle Freddy?' Oh, shit, I thought. You were in on it too. Uncle F, how could you?

'Dessous, Hazleton.' Uncle Freddy sighed. He did his best to squeeze my hand. There was more pressure from the weight of his thin hand than there was from his fingers. 'That's one of the things I had to say to you, Kate.'

'What, Uncle Freddy? That you knew?'

'That I'm sorry, dear girl.'

I squeezed his hand gently. 'No need.'

'Yes, there is. They asked me which way you'd jump, Kate, how you'd react. They asked me not to say anything to you. I agreed not to. Should have.'

'Was this just Dessous and Hazleton, or did the Prince take part in these discussions?'

'Just those two, and Tommy Cholongai when they brought him in later. They were only hoping Suvinder would pop the question; dropped a few hints, maybe. But I should have said something to you, Kate.'

'Uncle Freddy, it's all right.'

'They're worried, Kate. They thought they had this all tied up, but then they realised that they were relying on Suvinder's word or, more to the point, on his greed. And it gradually dawned on them he wasn't actually as selfish as they'd assumed. Not like them, I suppose.'

'A cultural thing, maybe.'

'Hmm. Perhaps. But either way, they thought if they could get you in there they'd be going some way to guaranteeing the deal.'

'I bet they did.'

'I expect they'll still go ahead. With the whole thing. Do you think so?'

'I have no idea.'

'I think they wanted to know how…Damn, I don't know what the word is. Mind's going. I don't know.'

'Take your time.'

'Oh, I don't think so. I don't think I've… Well, anyway. They wanted to know how you might react to the place, to the country, to the people, I suppose. Would that maybe persuade you, if Suvinder himself didn't? You see?'

'I think so.'

'Take it their fiendish plan didn't work, then?'

'Oh, I don't know. I suppose I did kind of fall in love with the place. But I can't marry the country.'

He blinked a few times and looked oddly surprised. 'Have you met Maeve?'

'What? Mrs Watkins? Yes.'

'Not bad, don't you think?' He winked with a sort of feeble lasciviousness.

'Pretty good, for an old codger like you,' I agreed, smiling. 'I haven't really had a chance to talk to her, but she seems very nice.'

'Very dear to me, Kate. Very dear.'

'Good. That's nice. Have you known her long?'

'Oh, absolute yonks, but we've only been, you know, involved, for about a year.' He sighed. 'Lovely place, Scarborough. You ever been?'

'No.'

'Worth a visit. Road's not really that tricky, either. Just impatient, I suppose. Don't think Maeve thinks it…' He seemed to lose the thread somewhat, then shook himself out of it. 'The Prince. Was he upset? I mean, at you turning him down.'

'A little, but still okay about it. More sad than anything else. The ironic thing is I like him a lot more now. I mean, I don't love him, but…Oh, it's all so complicated, isn't it, Freddy? It's like you just never get the one you want.'

'Or you do, at long last, but then you go and crash your car on the way to see her and end up in somewhere like this.'

'Well, you'll just have to get better, won't you? Though I think we'll have to get you a chauffeur after this.'

'You reckon?'

'I reckon.'

'I think a chauffeuse, don't you?'

'No, Uncle Freddy. I think a chauffeur.'

'I don't know, Kate,' he said, looking away. 'I don't think I'll be leaving here alive.'

'Oh, come on, now, just stop that. You'll —'

'I'm being honest with you, Kate,' he said softly. 'Can't you be honest with me?'

'I am, Uncle Freddy. They thought you were going to go belly up until last night. Now they think you might just make it. But, then, they don't know you the way I do. In fact, I'm going to warn them that they better surround you with male nurses from now on, or at least make sure no female ones bend over within striking distance.'

He coughed and wheezed again. I dabbed at his eyes. 'I'm sure you are.'

'Well, look, if you —' I said, making getting-ready-to-go movements.

'Don't go. Stay a bit. I have more to say, Kate.'

'Okay, but they don't want me to stay too long.'

'Listen, dear girl, there's something going on.'

'You mean, apart from trying to marry me off to Suvinder?'

'Yes. That bugger Hazleton's up to something.'

'Busy man, isn't he?' I said, thinking of the DVD disc.

'Kate, I didn't get you into any trouble, did I? I mean, by agreeing to invite you to Blysecrag for the weekend. It was Miss H who told me. They had people watching you and that American chap, Buzetski, while you were there.'

'Did they now?'

'Well, I wasn't sure whether to say anything or not. They didn't, I mean they didn't, umm, discover anything, or, or…'

'There was nothing to discover.'

'You're pretty attached to the fellow, aren't you? Even I could see that. Didn't need to be told.'

'Pretty. But sadly it isn't mutual.'

'I'm sorry.'

'Me too. But, then, he is married.'

'Yes, I gathered that. That's why I was worried.'

'How?'

'That they might, oh, I don't know, find something that they could use against you, or him, or both of you. Only it was a bit late by the time I found out. Again, though, I could still have said something. I feel bad, Kate. I should have been more open with you.'

'Well, nothing happened, Freddy. I threw myself at the man but he pushed me away, politely. The most sensual we got was me watching him swim and him giving me a peck on the cheek. No blackmail material, if that's what you mean.'

(This was ignoring the fact I'd asked Stephen to take me in no uncertain terms, words any decent parabolic mike or something planted in his suit could have picked up with ease, but apart from causing me a little embarrassment at sounding so desperate, so what?)

'Ah, well, no harm done, then.'

'Well…'

'What?'

'See this?' I pulled the DVD out of my pocket.

'CD, isn't it?'

'Digital video disc. It does have blackmail material on it. Not of me, not of Stephen Buzetski, but of somebody connected. Hazleton made sure I got this. Thinking that I might use it to get myself something I want, in which case Hazleton hopes I'll feel beholden to him.'

'Crafty beggar, isn't he?'

'Yes, he is.'

'God, I worry for Suvinder, Kate.'

'What do you mean? Why?'

'Because they've got the boy, his nephew. In school in Switzerland. Oh, I don't know, Kate, they might be exaggerating, but they seem to think he's theirs. Willing to do whatever they suggest. Greedy, the way they'd like him to be. If that's true, Suvinder had better watch himself.'

This took a moment to sink in. 'You think they might have Suvinder killed?'

'Wouldn't put it past the blighters, Kate. They're very serious about this, you know. Lot of money involved.'

'I know. Lot of people involved, too, in Thulahn.'

'I don't think they care about the people there, Kate, except as obstacles.'

'I think you're right.'

'Oh.' Uncle Freddy sighed, with surprising force. He blinked up at the ceiling a few times.

'You're looking tired, Freddy. I'd better go.'

'No! No. Just in case. You have to listen.' He clutched at my hand, suddenly strong. 'It's this Silex thing.'

'Silex?' I had to think. The chip factory near Glasgow. It seemed like a long while ago. 'What about it?'

'They nobbled our chap. The fellow we had transferred from Brussels.'

'What do you mean, "nobbled"?'

'He's been bought off, turned, whatever you want to call it. Doesn't matter how I know, but I do. He's saying it's all above board up there. Bugger's lying. And I think it's Hazleton again.'

'Are you sure?' Uncle Freddy was starting to sound paranoid, developing a Hazleton fixation. Next, he'd be the one who'd forced him to have the crash.

'No, no, not sure. But his people were there, at the Silex plant. At least one of them.' He winked at me. I had never seen the movement of an eyelid look so laboured and so difficult. 'I had somebody else there. Somebody I knew I could trust. Said that Poudenhaut fellow had been there. Our Brussels chap met him at the factory but didn't mention it. That's how I know.'

I closed my eyes briefly. 'This is getting too complicated, Uncle Freddy. I'll have to think about it later. Come on, you look pretty washed out. I really think I'd better go.'

'Kate.' He kept hold of my hand.

'What, Freddy?'

'Blysecrag.'

'What about it?'

'Oh, Kate, I don't know what to do.' He started to cry; not sobbing, but just crying quietly, tears rolling down his cheeks.

'Freddy, what is it? Come on, don't upset yourself.' I dabbed at his eyes again.

'I'd left it to you, Kate.'

'You did what?'

'I'd left it to you, then I changed my will to leave it to the National Trust, because I didn't want to give you an added reason to stay in this country if you might be moving to Thulahn. But…' His voice sounded thin and desperate. 'But now I don't know what to do. I can change the will back again if you want the dreadful old pile. I mean, I don't know. You could call in Miss thing, Miss Craston, the lawyer. I could do it now—'

'Hey, hey, hey. Uncle Freddy. Look, I'm honoured you even thought of willing it to me. But what would I do with a huge place like Blysecrag anyway?'

'Look after it, Kate, that's all I've ever done.'

'Well, then, I'm sure the National Trust will do a much better job than I could. But you've got to stop talking like this, Freddy. You're not dead yet. Come on, now.'

I had no idea if this pull-yourself-together-old-bean stuff would work with Uncle F. I felt awkward with it, but then how else are you going to feel when you're with somebody who might be dying and who seems convinced they are, or are about to? Especially when he's already crying and you feel you might be about to.

'I'll be all right,' he said, falteringly and unconvincingly. ' Are you sure you don't want it?'

'Positive. I'd just get lost. Look, you're not going to die yet, but I take it you have provided for Miss Heggies, for when the time does come?'

'Oh, yes. Her flat is hers. And there's money.'

'Then there's nothing to worry about. Stop distressing yourself. Good grief, give it a few weeks and you'll be back there yourself, trying to get the damn catapult to work again.'

'Yes.'

'Look at you. You can't even keep your eyes open. Get some sleep.'

'Yes.' He stopped fighting it and let his eyes close. 'Sleep,' he said groggily.

'I'll see you tomorrow,' I said, rising. I let go of his hand and let it rest on the pale green disposable sheet.

'Tomorrow,' he whispered.

'I don't believe this! You're making this up! A fucking for-real prince offers to marry you and you turn him down and take the next jet out of town, then barely a day later an uncle on his deathbed wants to give you some vast estate in England with a house the size of the fucking Pentagon and you turn your nose up at that as well! Are you crazy?'

'Oh, right. This from the woman who claims to believe sisters should do things for themselves. And Freddy is not on his deathbed.'

'Look, there's nothing unsisterly in letting somebody will you enormous amounts of realty. Especially when it's an old man on his deathbed. I mean, that's perfect. If he ever did expect you to put out in return, he sounds far too weak to do anything about it now! Even if you were prepared to drop your precious self-righteousness, and your pantyhose, which I doubt.'

'Luce, I swear, talking to you cleanses my soul.'

'You're a fucking atheist, you haven't got a soul. What are you talking about?'

'If ever I start to worry that I might be in any way deceitful, shallow, vindictive, overly acquisitive, exploitative or cynical, I only have to talk to you for a few minutes to realise that I am something close to a saint in comparison.'

'Bullshit.'

'Don't you see, Luce? You're the reason I don't need a shrink. All I need every now and again is to be reminded that I'm not a bad person. And you do that! I should thank you. Actually, I should pay you, but I'm not that saintly.'

'Kathryn, get some help. Your brain has left the building. Book yourself into a clinic. I'm serious.'

'You're not serious, and I'm not ill.'

'You are too! Talk about denial! Apart from anything else, you're denying yourself the chance to own half of North York state or wherever this Blisscraig place is, and you're denying yourself to be Queen of an entire fucking country!'

'Look. Can we come back to this some other time?'

'To talk about what? The archangel Gabriel appeared before you asking you to be the Mother of God for the Second Coming and you turned that down too?'

'Ha ha. No, it's an opportunity I have. I don't know whether to take it or not. Can I run it past you?'

'Why bother? The mood you're in at the moment, you'd turn down the offer of a cure for cancer and an end to world hunger.'

'Well…Look, I've been given some blackmail material.'

'Blackmail? Seriously?'

'Seriously. Film of somebody fucking somebody they shouldn't be fucking, somebody they're not married to.'

'So this person is married?'

'Yep, she is.'

'Ah-hah. Anyone I know?'

'No. Thing is, I only have to say the word and the husband gets to see the film.'

'And you get to see the husband?'

'Well, maybe.'

'Ho ho. So is this to do with your beloved?'

'Yes. I can probably destroy his marriage if I want. Of course, whether he falls into my arms is another matter, but…'

'Okay. You want to know what I would do?'

'Yes.'

'Let me just check. Are either of the people in the film richer than you?'

'Eh? No.'

'Right, so there's no point in, like, actually blackmailing them.'

'Luce! Even for you —'

'I'm just checking!'

'Okay. Sorry. Go on.'

'Right. Well, I'm very tempted to say, whatever you do, don't use the film, just sit on it. I feel I should say that because it seems like you always do the exact opposite of what I suggest anyway, so if I apply a bit of reverse psychology and advise you to do whatever is most against your best interests, you'd end up doing the right thing through sheer cussedness.'

'Whereas really you think I should give the word and let him know his wife's cheating on him?'

'Yeah, do it. If you really want this guy, and you really don't want to ascend to the Yeti Throne or whatever the fuck it is, do it. Give that film the green light.'

'But then I could be blackmailed by the person who got the film to me in the first place.'

'Hmm. Hold on, I've got it.'

'What?'

'The solution.'

'What? What is it?'

'It's this. Be positive. Be affirmative. Say yes to everything.'

'Say yes to everything?'

'Yes. Take the mansion and half of York state; sell it and buy hospitals and schools for the needy of what's-it-called.'

'Thulahn.'

'Yeah, Thulahn. Which I think you should become Queen of. Tell the Prince you'll be his wife, but it'll be one of these formal marriages the Europeans used to have, because you release the film too and do everything you can to be in the right place at the right time to get your guy and carry him off to Thulahn as well, to be your secret lover.'

'So I should suggest to the Prince that we get married but it's never consummated?'

'Yeah. A morganatic marriage, or whatever it's called.'

'I don't think that's what a morganatic marriage means.'

'Isn't it? Shit, and I used to think it meant a good marriage, like rich, from J. P. Morgan? Yes?'

'No, not that either. But that's your suggestion?'

'It is. And if it all works out, I expect a damehood or something, or a fucking tiara loaded with diamonds at the very least. A castle would be nice. Hell, leave Blisscraig to me if you like; it could be your embassy in England.'

'Hmm. I don't know that Suvinder would be very happy with an unconsummated marriage.'

'Oh. Suvinder, is it? Okay then, consummate it.'

'Consummate it?'

'Yes. Is he that gruesome?'

'He's a little plump.'

'How little?'

'Maybe an extra twenty, thirty pounds.'

'How tall is he?'

'About my height. No, a bit taller.'

'That is not grotesquely obese. Does his breath smell?'

'I don't think so.'

'Does his body smell?'

'No. Well, only of scent. Well, I mean…Never mind.'

'Teeth straight?'

'The teeth are good. The teeth are an asset. And he's a good dancer. Light on his feet. Even graceful. You could say graceful.'

'Well, that's good.'

'Yeah, but they're old-fashioned dances; waltzes and shit.'

'The waltz may be making a come-back. That's a neutral, for now. Could become a plus.'

'Okay. What else?'

'Full head of hair?'

'Yup. Maybe too full; slightly bouffant.'

'Irrelevant. Hair on a man's head is like the opposite of salt in a dish; you can take it away but you can't add it in.'

'That is so nearly profound it's painful. Keep going.'

'Is he slimy, repellent, actually, like, ugly?'

'None of the above.'

'Can you imagine fucking him?… Hello? Kathryn? Hello?'

'I just imagined it.'

'And?'

'It wasn't that good for me.'

'Did you imagine having to fake orgasm?'

'Yes. Probably. Maybe.'

'But you don't actually feel sick?'

'Not sick. Possibly a little soiled.'

'Why soiled?'

'I never imagined fucking a guy I didn't actively want to fuck before.'

'You haven't?'

'Never.'

'You're unreal. But anyway, it wasn't that awful, right?'

'Right. But imagining fucking him isn't the same as actually fucking him, is it?'

'That's what your imagination is for, you idiot, it's like on-board VR. If it's not that terrible in your imagination it'll probably be even better in reality.'

'So I marry him, fuck him, but keep my beloved as lover?'

'Yes.'

'That may be a little sophisticated. I'm not sure how that'll play someplace where a good wife is worth three yaks.'

'Be discreet. Anyway, he's a man. He'll want to play away, too. Think reciprocity.'

'What about children?'

'What about children?'

'What if I'm expected to produce? There's a royal line to be continued here.'

'Well…maybe you're not fertile.'

'I am.'

'You checked?'

'I checked.'

'So go on the pill. Tell him they're headache tablets. He'll never know.'

'That is almost plausible.'

'Anyway, once you're in a stable relationship, in fact once you're in two stable relationships, with the King-prince and your beloved, you may change your mind. You may realise you've wanted children all along.'

'So you would have me believe.'

'Hmm. The Prince; his colouring. Is he, ah, dark-complexioned? Compared to the beloved, I mean. Could you…would it be possible…?'

'…No, I don't think I want to look down that…'

'…No, you're right, maybe not.'

'Definitely not. I could get beheaded or something.'

'They behead people for that sort of thing there?'

'Actually they don't have the death penalty at all. More civilised than the US in that respect.'

'Yeah? Well, fuck them. How many aircraft carriers they got?'

'Not a lot of call for aircraft carriers in landlocked Himalayan states.'

'Stealth bombers? Cruise missiles? Nukes?'

'You're right, they're pathetically ill-equipped to enter an escalating correctional-system conflict with Old Glory.'

'You do realise you could end up with three passports at the end of this?'

'Dear holy shit! I hadn't thought of that!'

'Well, you —'

'Hold on, I got a call waiting. Oh, shit. I got a bad feeling about this, Luce.'

Miss Heggies was sitting on the parapet at the end of the mile-long reflecting pool, her feet dangling almost in the water, her usually neatly bunned hair hanging down in grey lengths around her undone collar. She didn't look round when I parked the old Lancia on the gravel behind her.

I went up and sat with her on the stone, my legs drawn up under my chin. A very light rain, what we'd call a smir in Scotland, was falling from the bright grey overcast.

'I'm very sorry, Miss Heggies.'

'Yes,' she said dully, still staring at the flat water. 'Sorry.'

I put my arm out tentatively. She inclined millimetrically towards me. She didn't exactly relax and start sobbing, but. she leant against me and put her arm round my waist, patting me. We sat like that for a while. In Scotland, sometimes crying is called greeting, and it only struck me then that it was odd that something you usually did when you were saying goodbye to somebody, one way or another, should also mean welcoming.

On the way back to the house I stopped and looked up at the place. So did she, gazing wonderingly at it, as though taking in its baroque confections of stonework for the first time. She sniffed, buttoning the collar of her dress and tucking up her hair.

'Do you know what's happening to Blysecrag, Ms Telman?'

'Apparently it's going to the National Trust, but I think only on condition you get to stay.'

She nodded. I pulled a piece of paper out of my pocket. 'And this is my inheritance.'

She squinted at the note. 'David Rennell? He used to be a gardener here. Nice lad. Mr Ferrindonald found him a job with the company.'

'Yes, most recently just outside Glasgow. I'm sorry if this isn't a good time, Miss H, but Uncle Freddy obviously thought this was important and I'd like to talk to Mr Rennell as soon as possible. Would you make the introduction?'

'Of course, Ms Telman.'

I didn't really need the introduction from Miss H, apart from having my identity confirmed quickly; Uncle F had told David Rennell to answer all my questions if I ever got in touch.

'You've been in there?'

'Yes, Ms Telman. There doesn't seem to be any big deal about it any more. People are wandering in and out, clearing up and that sort of thing.' He had a nice Yorkshire accent.

'Call me Kathryn. I'll call you David, all right?'

'All right.'

'So, David, what was there? What did you see?'

'Just a big empty room. There were containers for etching materials in there, but I talked to one of the guys; they were empty and just put in there the other day, after everything was moved out.'

'What was moved out?'

'I don't know. Whatever it was it all disappeared in the middle of the night, on the twentieth. Somebody saw a load of desks being shifted next morning. I think some of them might still be around in the warehouse.'

'Could you describe the room in more detail?'

'About ten metres by twenty, ceiling the same height as the rest of the factory, with the usual ducting and so on, carpet tiles on the floor, lots of cables lying around and coming out of opened conduits in the floor.'

'What sort of cables?'

'Power cables. Lots of others, like printer cables and that sort of thing. Ah, I picked up a couple of connectors and plugs and so on.'

'Ah-hah. Well done. Could you possibly do me a favour, David?'

'Certainly.'

'…and maybe take some time off?'

I was to meet David Rennell in the car park at Carter Bar, right on the border between England and Scotland. It was a coolish, blustery day. The view from the shallow pass, looking north into the undulating hills, forests and fields of the Scottish lowlands, was moodily dramatic and changing all the time under the clouds that sped and tumbled above. I got a veggie burger from a van at one end of the car park and sat eating it in the car. Very stake-out. Meeting on the border; very cold war.

It had been a good drive. I'd left the phone off for most of it, just driving the Aurelia across the moors on secondary roads, thinking.

Thinking a lot about Uncle Freddy, about what a laugh he'd been and how much I was going to miss him and the occasional invitation to Blysecrag. Probably next time I wanted to go I'd have to pay, and there would be a National Trust shop, and lots of those carmine-coloured ropes with brass hook-ends attached to brass stands that corral visitors into the accepted circular route in your average English stately home. Ah, well. It would mean more people would get a chance to see the weird old place. For the good, in the end. No grouching about that.

Uncle Freddy was another matter. Another one dead. My real mother, Mrs Telman last year (her husband — technically my adopted father, according to the legal paperwork — ten years earlier, not that I'd seen him more than once); now Freddy.

I wondered if my biological father was still alive. Probably not. The truth was I didn't want to know, and if I was honest with myself I'd have to admit that I'd be relieved to discover he was no longer in the land of the living. Guilt about that. Was this the same as actually wishing him dead? I didn't think so. If I'd had the choice, if somehow I could make him alive by thinking him so, I would. But I didn't want to meet him, didn't want some bogus emotional reunion, and anyway it didn't seem fair that he might have survived when the people I'd cared about most, my mother, Mrs Telman and Uncle Freddy, were dead.

What had been his contribution to my life? One drunken ejaculation. Then he'd slapped my mother around, gone into prison for theft, come out to pursue his career as an alcoholic and turned up at my mum's funeral to shout names at me and Mrs Telman. At least he'd had the decency not to contest the adoption. Or he'd been bought off, which was more likely. And — if he knew I'd become, by his standards, disgustingly rich — he'd never bothered me for cash.

I supposed I ought to make enquiries, find out if he was still alive or not. One of these days.

The drive went on; the weather came and went, sending rain and sun and sleet and slush. The high roads across the moors were wild and grey one moment, then sun-bright and fresh with purple heather the next. I stopped at Hexham to put some four-star into the Aurelia's tank and was reminded of the calibratory nature of travelling in a covetable car: if guys in garages start to admire the car more than you, you're getting old. Honours even, then. I drove on into the north.

David Rennell arrived in a dark blue Mondeo. I bought him a burger and a soda and we sat in the steamed-up Aurelia, for all the world like a married-to-others couple having a clandestine meeting towards the end of the affair. Rain beat on the roof.

David Rennell was a tall, wiry-looking guy with short auburn hair. Bless him, he'd brought a couple of Polaroids of the desks they'd moved out of the mysterious, no-longer-top-secret room in the middle of the Silex plant. Not ordinary desks. Too many shelves. Lots of holes in the flat surfaces for cables. He'd brought a handful of the connectors and plugs that had been lying around the place.

'That one looks like a phone jack, except not,' he said.

'Hmm. Did you come up with anything else?' I'd asked him to have a think while he drove down here. The usual no-matter-how-trivial stuff you see in cop shows.

'I talked to somebody who saw one of the trucks that took the stuff away.'

'Any haulier's name?'

'No, they were just plain. They didn't have any markings, but the person I was talking to thought they looked like Pikefrith trucks, though he wasn't sure why. Means nothing to me, I'm afraid.'

Pikefrith was a wholly owned subsidiary of ours, one of the few European companies that specialised in shifting delicate scientific instruments and sensitive computer gear. Come to think of it, their trucks did appear slightly different from your average lorry, if you looked carefully enough or were into the subtleties of truck design. Air suspension. I just nodded.

'Oh, yes, and the Essex kids have all disappeared. They all seemed glad to see the back of them up there.' (He pronounced it 'oop there', which was really rather cute.)

'Who the hell are the Essex kids?'

'It's what the Silex people called this lot that have just left. They mostly worked in the room and they kept themselves to themselves. Bit brash, though, so they say. Had a big party on the Friday and then never showed up on the Monday. All transferred.'

I felt confused. 'Were they really from Essex?'

'I think they were from down south. Don't know about Essex.'

'And Freddy said you saw Adrian Poudenhaut there, at the factory?'

'Yes, just last week.'

I felt my eyes narrow as I looked at him. 'You're absolutely certain it was him?'

David Rennell nodded. 'Positive. I've met him a few times; helped him get some of Mr Ferrindonald's cars started, reloaded for him when he was shooting.'

'Did he see you?'

'No. But it was him, definitely.'

Things that make you go, Hmm.

We went our separate ways. I drove back a different route to Blysecrag, still favouring the picturesque B-roads, even when the sun went and night descended. I had many more miles to think stuff over.

The Lancia really was a hoot to drive.

Uncle Freddy's funeral was in three days. I had plenty of time to visit London.