This Private Plot (15 page)

Underwood was surprised when, only a few weeks after his accession to the P.S., he received a call from the other Grand Master in Rennes-le-Chateau, who informed him that the long-serving G.M. in Synne, a man called Dennis Breedlove, had died. Underwood's task was to go to Synne and find a replacement. Underwood had little idea how to choose a suitable Grand Master from a village of strangers. Yet once again, his anonymity became his strength, because he found that he could sit unserved and unobserved in tearooms and coffee shops and pubs, soaking up the imprudent remarks and gossip until he felt he knew them all—certainly well enough to exclude that shameless vicar as a candidate for a post of the highest discretion.

He was surprised to see some familiar faces in Synne. He recognized Lesbia and Sidney Weguelin, a couple he'd often seen shopping together in his local Asda in Finchley before they decamped to the country two years earlier. And he kept seeing that fair-haired young man with the curly-tressed girlfriend. Now he remembered! They'd chatted in a police station waiting room last Christmas, before the days of the Priory of Synne. How could he have forgotten such a rare event as a conversation? Well, if the young chap lived in the village, would he be a suitable Grand Master? The thought occupied him as he left the tearoom half an hour later, still thirsty, and walked out into the cool dusk.

Chapter Seventeen

Thursday evening

Dennis Breedlove had died under the full moon. Six days later, the moon's face was nearly half in shadow, but it was bright enough for Oliver to find his way around the side of the house without a flashlight. It was eleven o'clock, after a dinner with all the Swithin houseguests that, despite the presence of the brigadier, had been prolonged and raucous. Oliver had almost abandoned his plan to haul the borrowed stepladder to the rear wall of the Weguelins' house and try to get proof of his two-are-really-one theory—oddly, the precise opposite of Toby's Shakespeare thesis. Still, he'd give it ten minutes and then go back and do naughty, naughty things with Effie.

It would also give him a quiet moment to refine his theory of MindSpam, as he'd decided to call it (no space, no hyphen, uppercase
S
, with a little
R
in a circle).

Oliver had already noticed that MindSpam seemed to have two distinct and rather contrary attributes. First, it's irresistible—the facts snag onto the memory, as clinging as the last wet hair that sticks to your finger when you're cleaning a bath.

But then once there, they hunger for freedom again, as if a little knowledge, a dangerous thing according to Alexander Pope, had to be regurgitated from its host. So they spy through the fabric of social intercourse, searching for a tear to leap through, blurting like a telemarketer at the slightest opportunity, even though you know from their glazed eyes and weak smiles that your audience is already well aware of these dubious factoids, having themselves been infected years earlier. (“Factoids” does sound like a medical condition.) And that's why you find yourself compelled to declare, “Oh, since we're talking about Australia, did you know the water runs down the drains counterclockwise?” and “Apropos of nothing, I've heard that the Great Wall of China is the only man-made structure that can be seen from the moon, and roast goose is very greasy, and the initial letters of the Beatles' “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds” are

It's not the pain, it's the unexpectedness that throws you off, he reflected, sprawling across the metal ladder, which he'd dropped when he fell. Oh well, no matter how much he'd like to stay down here, now that he'd processed the last three seconds, he decided that it made more sense to get up. In case that black-clad figure hit him in the head a second time. Ah no, the attacker was aiming a kick at his kidneys, fortunately only making contact with the ladder.

Oliver struggled to his feet, but a gloved fist again bounced off the side of his head, dislodging his glasses. He landed a weak blow in the attacker's stomach, reliving the impotent weakness of fights in dreams against too, too solid flesh.

The figure seemed unhurt, but didn't follow up with another punch. The two faced each other.

“Stay away,” the figure hissed through the mouth opening of the ski mask, the voice strained and unidentifiable.

“No, you stay away,” Oliver riposted, impressed with the wittiness of the retort, given the circumstances. His left ear was numb and was singing to him about it. He touched it. His fingers felt wet, but he dared not take his eyes off his blurry attacker. Where's a rush of adrenaline when you need one?

“I mean stop poking your nose into other people's business,” the figure added with a tone of impatience, which Oliver found rather impudent.

The next punch came straight, but Oliver's cricket-honed reflexes were fast. He caught the fist in his hands, before it made contact with his chin. But he forgot about his attacker's other fist, which caught him on the cheek. He fell back, letting go. Another slap struck him on his bleeding ear. Oliver punched again, hitting the attacker's breastbone. He heard a sudden exhalation of pain. The figure dropped back, tripping slightly on the ladder and falling against the kitchen window.

Oliver felt a surge of sympathy, never truly wishing to hurt anyone. He didn't have the soldier's ruthlessness that his father would have learned and taught, dehumanizing the enemy as Hun, Bosche, Gooks, Charlie, towel-heads. His opponent was a human being: a single hard, bare-knuckled blow could cause an injury that might never go away, not like the shaken-off punches of television fights. Despite the pain and the blood, Oliver still found himself thinking more in sorrow than in anger.

Then the figure braced his hands against the window ledge and aimed a rapid kick toward Oliver's recovering groin, and the adrenaline dam broke.

Oliver leaped sideways, slamming into the brick wall of the house. Now it was personal, which made it impersonal. This bugger buggered up my ear, he screamed silently as he flung himself toward the advancing attacker, climbing into the cage of flailing arms, slicing fists hard into sides.
You don't do my ear that violence and get away with it.

He smashed his forehead into the woolen ski mask. His opponent pushed back, and they found themselves locked like two tired boxers, scuffling for advantage. If only Effie were here to play referee, to call out “break!” Or better still, to knock the sod arse over tit with a karate chop. Could nobody inside the house hear the commotion?

Effie! Of course. She'd talked about just this situation—incident readiness, she called it. There were ways to win a fight quickly and decisively. First of all, keep your head, don't be passion's slave. Go for the vulnerable parts, one of which was always exposed in the tango of combat. She'd taught him an acrostic: HOMES.

So it's Head, then Ovaries, then, uh, Medulla Oblongata…

No, hang on, that's the acrostic for the Great Lakes: Huron, Ontario, Michigan… Shoot, not now, Ollie.

Oh wait, it's SING. Solar plexus. Instep. Nose. Groin.

Okay, solar plexus, currently pressing against mine—rather too intimate frankly, even if the man was a friend, and he clearly isn't. A friend, that is, not a man. It had to be a man.

Instep, yes, but is that the bit on top of the foot or on the shin?

Nose, nebulous beneath the cushioning mask, but I could probably make a good guess.

Groin—see solar plexus, worryingly.

And one more thing: Don't hit anything hard with your fist. As any Saturday night emergency room nurse will tell you, you'll break your own fingers first. But there's another body part you can use.

Oliver's foot scraped down his attacker's shin and stomped hard on top of his boot. The figure recoiled slightly. Oliver rapidly slid his bent right arm into the space between their bodies and straightened it sharply. The heel of his hand smashed into the underside of the attacker's nose. Oliver clawed at the mask, which tore but did not come off as the other man careered backwards into the inky cloak of nighttime, whimpering. He did not return.

Chapter Eighteen

Friday morning

Despite its sexism, Emily Seldom secretly liked her job title, “Subpostmistress of Synne.” If she blotted out the first two syllables, it conjured appealing fantasies of an alternative life to that of a middle-aged village shopkeeper and the uneasy celibacy that went with it.

Sensing her loneliness, the vicar had dangled the diversions of his writing group before her, but like Lewis Carroll, who said nude boys “always seem to need clothes,” the strictly sapphic Emily thought the naked male body, especially as it approached her age, to be ungainly, unhygienic, and slightly ludicrous (a sentiment also shared by the majority of heterosexual women). She longed for love, but unless the woman of her dreams walked into the post office and asked for a copy of
Jazzwise
, she had no idea where she'd find it.

The dark-haired woman currently hovering outside the shop, beside a wire carousel of postcards of Synne, was certainly attractive in a curvy, Italianate way, and when she glanced up in Emily's direction, revealed astonishingly large brown eyes. But she was less than half Emily's age, and probably straight, even though it taxed the imagination to guess what she saw in her companion, a short, beady-eyed, long-nosed young man who looked like a puffin with low self-esteem. Tourists, Emily thought, blinking in a sudden flash of rainbow-edged sunlight that reflected off the music CD they were inspecting.

Odd to carry CDs rather than use mp3 files, thought Emily, but with some approval for the girl's preference for lossless music. Odd to use over-the-ear headphones rather than convenient earbuds, but the sound quality is better. Odd to carry a portable CD player when they must have arrived by car. Emily guessed they were motorists, because they were not burdened with parkas and bloated backpacks, which inevitably knocked items off her crowded shelves.

The bell on the front door jangled, and the young man and woman came into the shop, midway through an argument, apparently about the CD.

“‘Land of Hope and Glory,'” insisted the young woman.

“‘Rule Britannia,'” bleated her companion.

The woman shook her head. “You're totally wrong as always,” she said scathingly, then turned a dazzling smile on Emily that, in tandem with her low-cut sweater, made the incognito Mistress of Synne feel a little better about life. “Hello, do you have any bottled spring water?” she asked, while the young man walked over to the magazine rack opposite the counter.

Emily pointed out the water. “Just visiting?” she asked.

“Something like that,” the girl replied. She turned to study her friend's back. “The naturist magazines are on the top row,” she called. “I'll lift you up if you can't reach. And it's ‘Land of Hope and Glory,' you tone-deaf wombat.”

“‘Rule Britannia,'” he mumbled back with subdued defiance, pretending to be fascinated by a kayaking magazine.

The girl switched her attention back to Emily. “Do pardon this unseemly burst of patriotism, but my fellow-citizen and I are having a mild difference of opinion. He thinks he isn't an ignorant, pig-headed, beaky-nosed prat, and I happen to disagree on all counts. I say, do you know anything about music?”

Further along the shop's single aisle, Sidney Weguelin stopped looking at Emily's meager stock of birthday cards and seemed to pay attention to the conversation.

“I am something of a classic jazz aficionado,” Emily remarked.

“Oh, how splendid. I'm partial to a little hard bebop myself.” She ignored the pointed snigger that came from the young man's direction. “Only we're having a bit of a debate about this CD of East Coast hip-hop music.”

“I'm afraid I don't know much about hip-hop. East Coast? You mean from New York City?”

“Er, no. It's actually an English rapper who comes from Clacton-on-Sea. Calls himself Masta DJ T-Bot, but his real name's Trevor Bottomley, and he's a fourteen-year-old Young Conservative. The tune of the time is called ‘Why Doesn't U Stand Up 4 the National Anthem?' You see, he's sampled the orchestral introduction to a patriotic song, but we never get as far as the big theme. I think it's the opening of ‘Land of Hope and Glory,' but the sniveling idiot over there insists it's ‘Rule Britannia.' I have a pint of Bishop's Finger riding on it.”

“And you know what I always say…” the young man began.

“Yes,” said the girl quickly.

Emily giggled. “I'd know the main themes, of course,” she said. “But as to the introductions…” She noticed Weguelin. “Sidney, could you possibly spare a moment to help these young people?”

The church organist, who had been following every word, glanced up with an expression of feigned distraction, the same look of humble wonderment adopted by opera divas when they emerge for a curtain call, as if they'd been sitting backstage with a cup of tea and decided to see where all that clapping was coming from.

“Tell you what,” said the young woman, “why don't you listen to it?” She flipped open the cover of the CD player and removed the CD that was inside.

“Here,” she said, tossing it to Sidney, “hold that for a moment.” Sidney grabbed at it mutely, while the girl loaded the other CD into the player. Then she passed Sidney the headphones.

“Let me help you,” said the young man. “They adjust to fit, you know.” He reached over and fiddled with a slider, but only succeeded in trapping some strands of Sidney's crinkly hair.

The player whirred softly, and Sidney listened to the music for a few seconds.

“This appears to be a lamentable love song called ‘Why Did U Leave Us, Maggie?'” he informed them.

“Oh sorry, wrong track.” The girl tried to find the appropriate button on the player, which had the effect of tugging Sidney, still reined by the headphones, sharply toward her cleavage. The headphones came off completely, taking several hairs with them. Sidney yelped.

“Young lady,” he said, after the headphones had been restored and he'd listened to the correct track, “what this barbarian has stolen for his neo-Fascistic posturing is not ‘Rule Britannia,' written by Thomas Arne for his masque
Arthur
, but the opening of the Pomp and Circumstance March No. 1 in D major, composed in 1901 by Sir Edward Elgar. Its trio section later gained words implying that England is a ‘Land of Hope and Glory,' a sentiment with which I am rapidly losing faith. Good day.”

He thrust the headphones and the spare CD at the young man and pootered out of the shop, tripping slightly on the threshold. Emily giggled again but then recovered herself, regaining her prefixes.

“Thank you, dear,” the girl called out after Sidney, before turning to her friend. “You see, Geoffrey, I always said you didn't know your Arne from your Elgar.”