"The Brits brought the game here, Tom." "We ran the place for about 50 years last century, till the natives got restless." " Did they throw us out?" " Not exactly." "We retired." "Gave it back." " Declared at 50." " Yes, Tom." "Well put." "Oh, brilliant shot!" "Sir Magnus, we have to talk." "My dear old friend." "This is a terrific pleasure!" "I find you here of all places." "What a surprise." "Wonderful." "Wonderful." "This young man is your son?" "Hello, young man." "What's your name?" "Tom, just hang on for me here, will you?" " Shan't be long." " Very pleased to meet you, Tom." "It's over, Sir Magnus." "It's time for us oldies to make way for the next generation." "Let them tear their hair in anguish over the state of the world." "Leave me in place, Axel." "I can do it." "Do you want to be like a poor old actor one has literally to drag from the stage?" "They'll clear me again." "I can do it." " Like last time?" " Yes." "You won't see it, will you?" "You were not cleared." "Jack Brotherhood won a little time, that's all." "What happens if Jack joins the bad guys?" " Hell hath no fury like a deceived protector." " He won't." "I know I can do it." "Sir Magnus..." "I beg you." "You know they're straight." "Do I have to frighten you?" "Axel, really!" "After 25 years." "36, Sir Magnus." "And now it's over." "I have to get back to Tom." " I haven't finished." " Tomorrow maybe." "It's a family holiday!" " I'm Superman!" " I'm King Kong!" " I'm the greatest!" " I'M the greatest!" "I'm bionic!" " I'm getting tired." " I'm knackered." "Agh!" " I'm having a cigarette." "That looks pretty good." "You're coming on." "Thanks." "Tom told me this morning he was German." "Who was?" "The ancient Brit who pestered you at the cricket, trying to flog his villa." "Tom wanted to know why you told me he was a Brit if he wasn't." " What did you say?" " I snapped at him." "I said if he wanted to listen to our conversations in bed, he should come in and not skulk outside the door like a bloody spy." " I haven't roared at him like that for ages." " Sorry, Mabs." " My fault." " Yes, it was." "Why the mystery?" " He's an observant kid, isn't he?" " For God's sake!" " There's nothing to worry about." " Balls!" "My son tells me about some creep with a moustache and a limp and spook written all over him - or else I'm potty - who pops up out of nowhere, and you're arm in arm like two old nancies and you give me this rubbish about him." "Who is he?" "Is he dangerous?" "We have our son with us!" "Calm down, Mabs." "All right." "He's an old Joe." "A bit pathetic these days, but a real tough egg once upon a time." " Nothing goes away in life." " You could have said that before." "We're on holiday." " I don't want to think about Joes." " We're not on holiday." " We're hiding." "Someone found us." " Mary, stop this nonsense." "The man's harmless." "He wants a jaw, he wants to get drunk." "He wants a trip down memory lane." "And who's hiding?" "What put that in your mind?" "You've seen how relaxed I am here." "Sometimes." "Dad, did you see those two men with the motorbike?" "They were at the cricket match." "They were in the car your friend got into." "Are you sure?" "The island's full of boys like that." "They all look the same to me." "It was them, Mum." "Honestly." "How about a drink, Mabs?" "I'm parched." "Come on, darling." "Well, I think it's them, anyway." "Come over, Sir Magnus." "Enjoy a well-earned retirement with us." "Distinction." "Medals." "Your family around you if they wish it." "Axel, really!" "My dear old Poppy." "Do you honestly think anything would tempt Tom into Czechoslovakia, away from his school?" " He's captain of Pandas next term." " Another brave little English soldier." "Weren't we going to put a stop to all that?" "It's a better school than anything I experienced." "They can take their teddy bears to bed." "Hmm!" "The revolution" "I won't budge." "You must keep me in place." "It's all I know." "And what I know, I owe to you... and Brotherhood." "You're my parents." "You made me." "And kept me going." "You know, Axel... ..I wish I could adequately describe to you..." "..the pleasure of being really well run." "Let's get away, Mabs." "Let's really get away." "Let's bugger off for the whole of the summer." "You paint, I'll write my book, and we'll make love until we fall apart." "Listen." "Don't forget, darling, please." "You give this letter to Granny the moment you meet her at London airport, and at school, you give this one to Matron about your shrimp rash." "That's 1,999 times!" " I'm sorry, but..." " Mum!" "I just saw one of them!" " I did!" " Who?" "One of the men on the motorbike." "I did!" " I saw him." " Please, Tom." "We've finished that game." " Please be nice." " Oh, all right, then." "Sentimental crap!" " Still sleepy?" " Mmm." "How did it go?" "It went well, Mabs." "Seven pages of deathless prose." " Undercoat, but good." " Great." "Later." "Sure." "Where are you going?" "Walk." "I'll come with you." "You could tell me about it." " About what, for heaven's sake?" " Whatever's worrying you." "Just tell me...whatever it is." "I don't mind what." " Just so that I don't have to..." " What?" "Bottle it up." "Look away." "Nonsense, Mabs!" "Everything's fine." "We're both just a bit blue without Tom." "You sleep it off," "I'll walk it off." "I'll see you at the taverna around three." ""For Sir Magnus, who will never be my enemy."" "Screw her!" "Screw fancy nicknames!" "Duplicity is when you please one person at the expense of another." "Rick invented me." "Rick is dying." "What will happen when Rick drops his end of the string?" "Now everyone's after me." "The Firm's after me." "The Americans are after me." "You're after me." "Even poor Mary's after me, and she doesn't know you exist." "Poppy." "My destiny." "Dearest Poppy." "Best of best friends." "Get your bloody dogs off my doorstep." "The creditors are beating at the door." "I lower my head and lift my shoulders." "I wade at them." "I punch and flail and butt them while they smash my face in." "But even with no face left, I'm doing what I should have done 30 years ago to Jack and Rick and all the mothers and fathers for stealing my life off my plate while I watched you do it." "Poppy, Jack, the rest of you... .. driving me into a lifetime's betrayal." "We betray to be loyal." "Betrayal is like imagining when the reality isn't good enough." "Betrayal as hope and compensation." "Betrayal as love." "As a tribute to our unlived lives." "Betrayal as escape." "As a statement of ideals." "Betrayal as worship." "As an adventure of the soul." "You were my promised land, Poppy." "You gave my lies... ..a reason." "Hello, old love." "Catching up on the great novel, are we?" "It's not exactly Jane Austen, I'm afraid, but some of it may be usable... ..when I get a proper run at it." "Telegram from Jack Brotherhood." ""Return at once." "All is forgiven." ""Transatlantic harmony restored." ""Committee reassembles Vienna Monday 10am."" "Everything's fine, girl." "Told you." "Auf Wiedersehen." "Bye." " Super venison, Mabs." " They all thought Frau Wenzel cooked it." "Then sod them!" "Everything all right, darling?" "Darling?" "I'm free." "What do you mean?" "Free." "Free?" "Free?" "Of what?" "Who?" "What?" "Rick is dead." "Rick, my father, is dead." "He died of a heart attack at six o'clock this evening." "While we were getting ready for dinner." "It's all we could think of." "It's just that there wasn't any funds for the undertaker." "Not a penny piece to be found anywhere, is there, Vi?" "Nothing." "This was a favour from the pub over the road." "Your dad was very popular in there." "The slate he ran up, of course, that's got to be settled." " Will 200 look after the immediate bills?" " Oh, that is nice of you, dearie." "We was holding him." "We was having a nice little drop next door." "He'd been a bit depressed, you see." "He'd had this barney on the blower with the telephone exchange about a cheque what was in the post to them." "It was all over for him, dearie." "He said how could he do his business without a blower and a clean shirt?" "Oh, don't look at us like that, darling." "He'd had everything we'd got a long time ago." "We pulled tricks for him more than was natural." "Three times a day for him sometimes." "He was very lucky to have you both." "Did he talk about me at all in the last few days?" "Only at the end." ""Tell my boy Magnus we'll both be ambassadors soon."" "And after that?" "He says, "There's enough in them files to see you right, girls, till you join me."" "There wasn't, though." "Did you ever see an old green filing cabinet?" "Syd Lemon's got that." "Your dad had it sent over when he went on one of his last little trips." "He never got it back." "Couldn't afford the van, I'd say." "It was purely personal." "Love letters." "I peeked in once." "Yes?" "Jack, do you know what's happened to Magnus?" "Who the bloody hell's that?" "Syd, it's Magnus." "Who?" "Speak the Queen's English, you bloody fool!" "Magnus, Syd." "Magnus Pym." "Hello, Syd." "Hello, Titch." "I'm sorry about that." "I have to these days." "All sorts of foreigners about, selling things." "Good to see you after all these years, Titch." "Do the honours for us." "In that corner." "Open the door." "Go on." "Open the door." ""Syd," he said..." ""can't afford a gold watch just now." ""I'm afraid there's a temporary problem of liquidity about your pension..." ""..but there's an article of furniture in my possession..." ""given us a lot of fun down the corridor of years..." ""worth a bob or two." ""I'd like you to have it as a small token."" "I did time for Rick." ""Lemon," he said..." "He always called me by me surname when he wanted something very badly." "Playing the guv'nor, I suppose." "Like he'd make out he was a colonel instead of a lance corporal." ""Lemon," he said," ""they get me on my signature, these documents." ""Now, if I was to say it's not my signature," ""and you was to say you forged it," ""nobody would be the wiser, would they?"" ""Well, I would, Rick," I said." "Still did it, mind." "Don't know why." "We all did things for Rick." "We was all bent, Titch, but Rick was very bent indeed." "It took me a long time to realise that." "Still, if he came back, I bet we'd do the same again and more." "Bet we would." "What do you want, Titch?" "Come on, Titch." "You've come to con me into something." "Get on with it." "No." "It's all right, Syd." "It's legal." "I'm his heir, aren't I?" "All his papers are mine now." "He never let nobody see in there." "I'm going to write a book." "I need the papers to get things right." "There's some bad things in that cabinet." "The truth's in there, Syd." "Your dad never held with books." "Syd..." "Rick always said that one day he'd see everyone right, didn't he?" "He's dead." "Let him have his peace." "For HIS sake, Syd." "Settle it all up." "How he always wanted." "I'll have it collected." ""A package for Canterbury," they'll ask for." "In a day or two." "Yes?" "Hang on, I'm going over." "Right." "Listen." "He WAS at Heathrow." "He'd checked in for the flight." "He'd got his boarding card." "After that, vanished." "I'm going to Vienna in the morning." "First flight." "What the hell are you here for, Pym?" "It must be 25 years." "Hello, Sef." "Sorry to barge in." "Hope you don't mind." "No, no." "Don't mind at all, old boy." "Want a drink?" "Scotch do?" "Scotch, Steggie." "Fetch him a Scotch, will you?" "What do you want in your Scotch?" "Ice?" "Water." "He'll want water." "Bring him some water." "Put a jug on that table next to his chair." "Then he can help himself and you can go away." "You can top mine up, too, while you're at it." "I thought we were going to the Albion." "I can't go now." "I have to talk to this chap." "What the hell do you want, Pym?" "A bed for the night?" "A crash pad for old times' sake?" "It suits me, old boy." "Steggie, you go to the Albion and I'll join you there later." "Charmed, I'm sure" "Well, then." "When you're ready" "Steggie bother you at all?" "Think I've gone to the devil?" "Sef, I'm sorry." "I shouldn't have done it." "It was such a bloody lousy thing to do." "God, I've been so ashamed ever since." "I'm sorry, Sef." "I mean it." "What the hell are you talking about?" "Your initials, Sef." "At school." "I carved your initials on the wall in the staff lavatory." "Out of bounds." "Flogging offence." "It was me, Sef." "Look here, old boy." "I always knew you did it." "You cocked it up, too." "You bloody fool." "You put a hyphen between the S and the B and we don't have one." "I told the old bugger." "Made not a blind bit of difference." "He still flogged me." "I remember how I felt at the time." "I was God." "I was Hitler." "My eyes went blurred, my ears were ringing... ..that I'd done it to my best friend." "Then I buried my penknife behind the cricket pavilion... ..and at evening line-up, your name was called..." "..and he took you behind the mahogany door and we all heard you getting it and I counted the strokes." "I'm sorry, Sef." "I don't think we should go through life wearing hair shirts about something we did at our private 40 years ago." "And besides, I wasn't very nice to you, was I?" "Always ragging you about your father." "It's a pity he never got into parliament." "We'd have had jolly good fun together." "He's dead." "That's what I'm doing in London." "Funeral...all that." "I'm sorry, old boy." "No wonder you're a bit pissed." "I understand now." "The last time I saw you really ossified was at Oxford." "Six of us put away a case of your father's port." "It was the first time, you see?" "Carving your initials." "First betrayal." "The start of everything." "I had to tell you, Sef." "You started me off." "You came before Brotherhood." "The excitement of it all." "I felt so clever." "I was me." "Who's this Brotherhood, old boy?" "The Brotherhood." "Name I give the people I work for, some of them." "Can't talk about that, Sef." "Are you in secret work these days?" "I'm not surprised." "Who isn't?" "I've got to set the record straight, Sef." "Everyone." "The Brotherhood, the other lot, Mary." "I'm clear with you, aren't I, Sef?" "Clean slate?" "What do you mean?" "Free?" "Free?" "Of what?" "Who?" "What?" "What?" "Where is he?" "He's anywhere in the world, or out of it." " Who's in Edinburgh?" " No one." "They think he went there." "Shuttle from Heathrow." "Tall man with a heavy briefcase." "Perhaps he just went through the motions." "The same as he checked in for Vienna, but didn't follow his suitcase." "Laying funny trails for us." "Has he ever vanished before and you not told me?" " No." " I want it straight, Mary!" " I've got the whole of London at my throat." " Never." "No." "I swear." "Did he ever talk of going over?" "A little dacha by the Black Sea?" " Don't be a fool." " Well, you rang very fast when he didn't show." ""Jack!" "Jack!" "Where's Magnus?"" " Were you expecting this?" " I was expecting HIM!" "What about his drinking?" " Less than before." " Less than Corfu?" "Miles less." "How about yours?" "Other women?" "I wouldn't know." "How could I?" "If he says he's out for the night, he's out for the night." "It could be a woman, it could be a Joe." "I thought women could always tell the difference." "Not with men like you and Magnus, they can't, Jack." "What about that briefcase he was carrying?" "He didn't take it from here." " Did he take it from the embassy?" " I suppose so." "He rushes off to London to bury his father but calls in the office on the way, or rather, well out of his way..." "I didn't know that." "Listen, Mary..." "There's no disappearance." "Nothing abnormal." "He's staying on in London for talks." "End of message." "It mustn't get out, Mary." "You know that, don't you?" "Yes." "I guessed." "There's his Joes to think of." "There's everything to think of, far more than you can know." "London is stiff with theories, begging for time." "Nothing to the Americans - nothing to anybody - but for God's sake, nothing to the Americans." "God damn it, Mary." "Magnus is my best boy." "What the devil have you done with him?" "Someone's kidnapped him." "I know they have." "Well, well." "That would make you feel better, would it?" "A kidnapping?" "Now, why do you say that, dear?" "What's worse than a kidnapping, I wonder?" "Now..." "What have you done now?" "I won't have it!" "Take it back." "Don't be a silly girl, Miss D. Of course I won't take it back." "Open it, dear." "It's you that's the silly one." "Isn't he, Toby?" "Wasting his money." "He ought to be saving it!" "Oh!" "Who's P?" "25th September, 6.30pm." "P." "There was a P on the 16th as well." "That's not P for Pym, is it?" "Can't be." "Who's this P, Mary?" "I don't know." "A Joe, I suppose." "I don't know." "It's in your writing but it's his meeting." "If I go back further, there'll be more dates with this P, will there?" "Magnus didn't keep a diary of his own." "He said it was insecure." "He'd say, "Put down I'm meeting P."" "He made you write the entries for him?" "He said if anybody looked, they wouldn't know which were his dates and which were mine." "It was part of sharing." "Explain." "He couldn't tell me what he was doing, but he could show me that he was doing it and when." "He wanted me to know." "Know what?" "Know that he had another life." "An important one." "Know that he was being used." "Used?" "By you!" "By the Firm!" "Who do you think?" "Get off my back, will you?" "Excuse me, Mr Brotherhood." "Would you care to pop upstairs a jiffy, sir?" "John and Sylvia Illegible of Wimbledon." "They're in computers." "Jeremy Squiggle and Simon Squiggle." " Couple of lover boys?" " They were not, Mr Canterbury." "They watched the football on the television." "Come and have your cup of tea." "Any interesting casuals?" "Runaways, honeymooners, nosy parkers?" "Casuals!" "You know I won't take casuals." "Tell you every time you come, but it's in one ear and out the other with you, isn't it, Toby?" "I said to Celia Venn..." "I said, "Mr Canterbury will never change."" " Who on earth's Celia Venn?" " Dr Venn's daughter, silly!" "She's taken the top flat at Sea View." "She wants to paint the sea." "Any other comings and goings?" "Mr Cook moved out of Rose Mount after his wife died." "He couldn't take it." "He's allergic." "Anyone moved in yet?" "We found it on a ledge in the chimney, sir." "Where it joins the main flue." " It was in this shoe box." " Not a speck of dust on it." "Just reach up and it's there." "Dead handy." "You wouldn't need to move the chest once you'd got the knack." "It's for the Firm." "It's for his work for you." "Of course." "I'll tell London." "No problem." "Just because he didn't tell me about it doesn't mean there's anything wrong." "It's for in case he gets landed with documents." "In the house at weekends." "It's for his Joes." "If they bring him documents, you fool!" "And if he's got to turn them round at short notice." "What's so fucking sinister about that?" "As Mary says, for photographing documents." "On this very chest, I should think." "There we are, sir." "Czecho?" "Could be Russian but..." "I'd say Czech." "That's only where they're made." "Who's dishing them out is another matter." "That's the lot, Jack." "Roses?" "Poppies?" "Poppies..." "Poppy?" "Begins with a P." "P for Poppy, maybe." "Maybe not." "Any thoughts?" "In your diary, dear." "Magnus said, "Write down I'm meeting P."" "I think you're a bad girl, Mary." "I think you know a lot more than you've told me." "I think he's a bad man." "And I'm wondering whether you're bad together." "You shit!"