hand, and he went with great relief. I hoped he didn’t have a weak heart. At that age, shocks can be deadly. On the other hand, the elderly, the successful elderly, have a way of defending themselves against shocks.
When his footsteps had faded, the doctor cleared his throat. I could tell that he, too, was anxious to be gone. It didn’t make me feel any better.
‘I think he’s right. They have the feel of human bones.’
‘But how can they be human bones?’ I felt my last chance of sanity was slipping away with him.
‘I have just one thought – and that’s from reading, not from experience. In the War – the Hamburg bombing – the fire typhoon. Some of the people who died in the shelters, under the intense heat . . . the rescue squads thought that the bodies of adults were the bodies of very young children, they had shrunk so much . . . but I would think in that case the bones would be very brittle – hard to handle and arrange. They would break very easily.’ He got up to go. I reached for my cheque-book again, but he waved his hand, with a look on his face that I think was pity. ‘No – no payment. It’s not really a criminal matter, though I can see you have a problem. My advice to you is to hand the whole thing – the whole shooting-match – over to the police. Let them deal with it. Let them worry about it. They’ve got the experts; who will no doubt be utterly fascinated. Good night to you. Thanks, I can find my own way out.’
We listened to his footsteps retreating up to the side entrance. Then James said, ‘I’ll have to go. The missis will be frantic.’
We listened, through the drawn curtains, to him get into his car and drive away. A cold loneliness seemed to seep into the room, from the locked-up shed where the dead awaited our verdict.
‘Not going to stay here on your own tonight, squire?’ asked Mossy. I could have hugged him, for his concern.
‘No,’ said Hermione. ‘He’s coming home with me.’
Chapter 9
All my later admiration of Hermione stemmed from that night. How could she be so brisk, so efficient? It was only thanks to her that we left my house in good order. It was she who went upstairs to dig out my toothbrush and pyjamas, dressing-gown and razor. It was she who got me into my overcoat and made sure my doors were locked and the burglar-alarms on.
She drove calmly and efficiently. I thought things would be better, once we left my gate. As that old poem says, from my school-days, ‘out of sight, out of mind, we’ll think of cleaner things’. But you don’t, you know. The contents of the saloon of that model ship kept flashing on the screen of my mind over and over, like an obscene slide-show when the projector is stuck.
I tried to draw comfort, a little still comfort from the things we passed; a wet wall glistening in the lamplight, with a spray of bright leaves drooping over it; a man lighting a cigarette on a street-corner, waiting for the lights to change; even the good old London buses, the 82 VICTORIA and the 10 HAMMERSMITH beaming their glowing signs before them.
None of it worked. Everything belonged to a world that had fractured, that had torn like stage scenery to reveal a darkness behind. It was as if Christopher Columbus had reached that edge of the world his crew always feared, and seen the water streaming over the edge in some colossal Niagara, to fall for ever as spray among the stars . . . But was it the world that was fractured, or me? I still had the same two arms and the same two legs, and lungs that breathed and a heart that pounded and a mind that could think, but what use were they, scattered across the wasteland of that discovery?
It was good to be in her lighted room, to watch her hold a match to the coal-effect gas fire, and draw the curtains. But what was she drawing the curtains on? What horror was kept out only by thin glass and thinner cloth?
She knelt on the hearthrug, holding her slim hands to the as yet heatless blaze. How elegant she seemed, now that it no longer mattered, now that nothing mattered. I tried out the doctor’s wise words about the Hamburg