‘I never worked with explosives, being an adjutant.’ He buttered a piece of croissant, added marmalade and ate it. His service as a young officer in his war had been spent in arranging details of troop movements and as assistant to camp commanders, often near enough to the enemy but not seeing the whites of their eyes. He never spoke of it much: it had been history before I was born.
‘I remembered where the cordite was, even after all this time,’ 1 said. ‘If you imagine yourself going into the house with this tin of detonators, where would you be likely to put it? You’d put it where you would think of looking for it first, wouldn’t you?’
‘Yes,’ he nodded, ‘always my system.’ A faraway unfocused look appeared in his eyes, then he suddenly sat bolt upright.
‘I know where they are! I saw the tin not so very long ago, when I was looking for something else. I didn’t pay much attention. It didn’t even register what was in it, but I’m pretty sure now that that’s what it was. It’s a sort of sweet tin, not very big, with a picture on top.’
‘Where was it, and how long ago?’
‘Surely,’ he said, troubled, ‘they’d be duds by this time?’
‘Quite likely not.’
‘They’re in the office.’ He shrugged self-excusingly. ‘You know I never tidy that place up. I’d never find anything ever again. I’m always having to stop people tidying it.’
‘Like Moira?’
‘She could hardly bear to keep her hands off.’
‘Where in the office?’ I remembered the jumble in his desk drawer when I’d fetched his passport. The whole place was similar.
‘On top of some of the books in the breakfront bookcase. Bottom row, right over on the right-hand side, more or less out of sight when the door’s closed. On top of the Dickens.’ His face suddenly split intoa huge grin, i remember now, by God. I put it there because the picture on the tin’s lid was The Old Curiosity Shop.’
I rubbed my hand over my face, trying not to laugh. Superintendent Yale was going to love it.
‘They’re safe enough there,’ Malcolm said reasonably, ‘behind glass. I mean, no one can pick them up accidentally, can they? That’s where they are.’
I thought it highly likely that that’s where they weren’t, but I didn’t bother to say so. ‘The glass in the breakfront is broken,’ I said.
He was sorry about that. It had been his mother’s, he said, like all the books.
‘When did you see the tin there?’ I asked.
‘Haven’t a clue. Not all that long ago, I wouldn’t have thought, but time goes so quickly.’
‘Since Moira died?’
He wrinkled his forehead. ‘No, probably not. Then, before that, I was away from the house for a week or ten days when I couldn’t stand being in the same place with her and she obdurately wouldn’t budge. Before that, I was looking for something in a book. Not in Dickens, a shelf or two higher. Can’t remember what book, though I suppose I might if I went back and stood in front of them and looked at the titles. Altogether, over three months ago, I should say.’
I reflected a bit and drank my coffee. ‘I suppose the bookcase must have been moved now and then for redecorating. The books taken out…’
‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ Malcolm interrupted with amusement. ‘It weighs more than a ton. The books stay inside it. Redecorating goes on around it, and not at all if I can help it. Moira tried to make me take everything out so she could paint the whole office dark green. I stuck my toes in. She had the rest of the house. That room is mine.’
I nodded lazily. It was pleasant in the sunshine. A few people were sunbathing, a child was swimming, a waiter in a white jacket came along with someone else’s breakfast. All a long way away from the ruins of Quantum.
From that quiet Sunday morning and on until Wednesday, Malcolm and I led the same remote existence, being driven round Los Angeles and Hollywood and Beverly Hills in a stretch-limousine Malcolm seemed to have hired by the yard, neck-twisting like tourists, goingout to Santa Anita racetrack in the afternoons, dining in restaurants like Le Chardonnay.
I gradually told him what was happening in the family, never pressing, never heated, never too much at one time, stopping at once if he started showing impatience.
‘Donald and Helen should send their children to state schools,’ he said moderately.