The Ghosts of N-Space - Barry Letts [4]
As he slumped to the floor, Max’s other guests discovered that they suddenly had an excellent view down the barrels of a pair of semi-automatic rifles. The luxurious velvet hangings were good for more than keeping out the draughts.
13
The monkish figure by the fireplace watched impassively. He had not moved or made a sound.
But what was that curious little noise, from the far end of the room? Why, it was a bubbling giggle of delight –
coming from the lusciously scarlet lips of a face topped with wayward blonde curls, peeping through the crack of the door.
14
Two
When Sarah restarted work the next day on the Greatest British Novel of the Twentieth Century, she still had no answer to the embarrassment of Garcia’s opportune arrival at the scene of the shooting. So she decided to act on the principle that if she ignored it, it might go away. This proved an excellent strategy. Everything fell into place with surprising complaisance. By midday the end of the storyline was hull down on the horizon.
Just a few loose ends, thought Sarah. She could tie everything up as neatly as any gift-wrapped parcel and then go back to sort out Garcia and his too convenient relative.
But as she neared the end, she found herself slowing down. If it was all going to work, she had to decide who was the old man’s real heir; and the only character she had left who fitted the bill was his gardener – and that was an even more unlikely coincidence than Garcia’s fortuitous stroll down Scunthorpe High Street.
Very funny, mate, she said to her unconscious muse.
Laugh? She could have died laughing, if she hadn’t been so near to tears.
Just wanting to walk away from the whole silly mess, she made an executive decision that it was lunchtime and set off towards pasta, vino and Jeremy.
15
There was no sun today. Matching the grumpiness of Sarah’s mood, the lowering sky was set off by the rising wind. And that went with her general feeling of rattiness, didn’t it? Maybe there was something in the good old pathetic fallacy, after all. Yeah, and that’s what she was, too. Pathetic. Just because she’d written the odd magazine piece that was worth a nod, what made her think she could –
At which point she rounded the corner of the hotel, head down against the bluster of the incipient gale, and ran straight into Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart.
Afterwards, Sarah castigated herself for not greeting him with something a little more intelligent – or cool at least
– than ‘Whoops!’ Not that his own remark was very much more sophisticated. ‘Miss Smith – ah – Sarah!’ he said, as he released the arm he had grabbed to steady her.
‘I thought it was you,’ she said. ‘Yesterday. On the boat.’
‘Mm. It is Sarah, isn’t it?’
The Brigadier peered uncertainly at her as though she had grown a ginger beard or something since they last met.
‘Of course it is,’ she said.
‘Well, you never know, do you? You might be a…’ His voice trailed away as he peered at her again, frowning.
‘You’re quite sure you’re not a… but then you wouldn’t know if you were, would you? Damn silly idea.’
16
He turned, shaking his head, and made his way past her.
Sarah watched him go. What on earth was the matter with the man?
Even the pleasure of the tacit ‘told-you‐so’ to Jeremy (who still didn’t believe her) was not enough to erase the Brigadier’s extraordinary behaviour from her mind. It remained with her throughout a plate of penne amatriciana, so large she couldn’t finish it, and a half litre of vino rosso which she irritably shared with her sceptical companion.
But then, as they were paying the bill, vindication: a cry from Jeremy, ‘Hey, look! There he is!’
She swung round to see the man himself, carrying a suitcase now, boarding the ferry. He’d plainly spotted her; in fact, he caught her eye; and with a strange, almost shifty, expression