What a cave up!

I wandered over to the secretary’s desk and said, with affected carelessness: ‘I don’t suppose … Miss Hastings wouldn’t be here this afternoon, by any chance, would she?’

She stared back at me, her eyes bored, without expression.

‘I’m only temporary,’ she said.

Just then Mrs Tonks re-emerged and beckoned me to follow her. I had never met Mr McGa

‘Sit down, Owen, sit down.’ He faced me across the desk. Mrs Tonks stood by the window. ‘This is serious news about the Winshaw book. What do you make of it?’

‘I think my line of inquiry has started to prove a little too controversial for certain members of the family. I think they may have wanted a foretaste of exactly what I was proposing to write.’

‘Hmm. Well, it’s a damned underhand way of going about it, that’s all I can say.’ He leaned forward. ‘I’ll be frank with you, Owen. I don’t approve of controversy.’

‘I see.’

‘But there are two sides to every coin. I didn’t commission you to write this book, and I don’t give a damn what you put in it. That’s Miss Winshaw’s business. It’s down to her what goes in and what comes out, and it seems to me that this arrangement gives you a pretty free hand, since we all know, and there’s not much point beating around the bush here, that she’s one or two fly-leaves short of a folio. To put it mildly.’

‘Quite.’

‘Now I’ll be frank with you, Owen. My understanding is that through her solicitors, Miss Winshaw has fixed up a pretty cosy financial arrangement on your behalf.’

‘You could say that.’

‘And there’s no harm in letting you know that she’s done very much the same for yours truly. By which I mean the firm.’ He coughed. ‘So the fact of the matter is that there’s no hurry for you to get this book finished. No hurry at all. The longer the better, one might say.’ He coughed again. ‘And by the same token, I would hope that there’s no question of you dropping it at any point, just because of a bit of intimidation from various interested –’

A buzzer sounded on his desk.

‘Yes?’ he said, jabbing at a button.

The secretary’s voice: ‘I finally got through to Wing Commander Fortescue, sir. He says he’s sure he put the cheque in the mail last week.’

‘Hm! Send him the usual letter. And don’t disturb me again unless it’s urgent.’

‘Also, sir, your daughter phoned.’

‘I see – cancelling di

‘Not exactly: she said her audition this afternoon was called off so she’s coming to meet you early. She’s on her way now.’

‘Oh. All right then, thank you.’

Mr McGa

‘Well, Owen, I think I’ve said all I needed to say at this juncture. We’re both busy men. As indeed is Mrs Tonks. No point in hanging around when there’s work to be done.’

‘I’ll see you to the lift,’ said Mrs Tonks, coming forward and taking my arm.

‘Good to meet you at last, Owen,’ said Mr McGa

I was out of his office before I had time to reply.

‘How are you getting home?’ asked Mrs Tonks, who surprised me somewhat by travelling down with me in the lift. ‘Taking a cab?’

‘Well, I hadn’t really thought –’

‘I’ll call you one,’ she said; and sure enough, she accompanied me out on to the street and had hailed a taxi in less than a minute.

‘Really, there was no need,’ I said, opening the door and half-expecting her to follow me inside.

‘Don’t mention it. We like to pamper our authors. Especially’ (with a simper) ‘the important ones.’

The cab moved off and stopped at a set of traffic lights almost immediately. As we waited, I noticed a taxi pass us in the opposite direction and pull up outside the main entrance to Vanity House. A woman got out and I turned to watch, assuming that it would be Mr McGa

‘Alice!’ I called out of the window. ‘Alice, hello!’

She was bending down to pay the driver and didn’t hear me: then the lights changed and my taxi pulled away. I had to be content with the knowledge that she was at least still working for the company, and that she hadn’t, from what I could see, changed very much in the years since our meeting.

Not many minutes had gone by when the driver pulled back the partition and said, ‘Excuse me, mate, but you wouldn’t happen to know anybody who might be following you, would you?’

‘Following me? Why?’

‘There’s this blue Citroen 2CV. Couple of cars behind us.’

I turned to have a look.

‘It’s difficult to tell in this kind of traffic, of course, but he’s still with us after a couple of short cuts I know, so I just wondered …’

‘It’s not impossible,’ I said, straining to get a look at the driver.

‘Well, I’ll speed up a bit and see what happens.’ He didn’t speak again until we had nearly reached Battersea. ‘No, we’ve lost him. I must’ve been imagining it.’

I breathed a quiet sigh of relief and sank back in my seat. It had been a long day. I wanted nothing more, now, than to spend the evening alone in my flat with the television and the video recorder. I’d had enough of people for a while. They were exhausting. I didn’t even want to see Fiona when I got home.

The taxi driver was counting out my change and handing it through the window when a blue Citroen 2CV chugged noisily by, gathering speed as it passed us.

‘Well, bugger me sideways,’ he said, staring after it. ‘We werebeing followed. You want to watch out, mate: I think somebody’s on your case.’

‘You might be right,’ I murmured, as the car disappeared around the corner of my mansion block. ‘You might very well be right.’

And yet at the same time, I couldn’t help thinking – a battered old Citroen 2CV? Would even Henry Winshaw be that devious?

Henry

November 21st 1942

Sixteen today! Mater and Pater gave me this smashing leather-bound notebook in which I shall record all my most secret thoughts from now on.1 Also, of course, another £200 in the old savings account, although I can’t touch that for another five years, more’s the pity!

In the afternoon they threw me a really super tea party. Binko, Puffy, Meatball and Squidge were all there, as well as one or two representatives of the fairer sex, such as the exquisite Wendy Carpenter, who didn’t speak to me much, alas.2 Thomas was aloof and snooty, as usual. But the real surprise was when Uncle Godfrey turned up out of the blue. Apparently he’s on leave at the moment, staying up at Winshaw Towers, and he drove all the way over just to look in on yours truly! He was wearing his full RAF kit and looked tremendously dashing. He came up to my bedroom to have a look at my model Spitfires and we got embroiled in a pretty deep conversation, all about El Alamein and how it’s provided just the fillip which was needed for everyone’s morale. He was saying that the chaps are already looking forward to how much better things are going to be after the war, and started waxing rather lyrical about something called the Beaveredge (?) Report, which apparently says that everyone is going to have a better standard of living from now on, even the working classes and people like that.1 When he left he slipped a fiver into my pocket without saying a word. He really is about as decent an uncle as any cove could possibly want.