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as well as a camel-backed settee that would serve as a second bed.
    I filled the basin of the wash
stand from a cracked ceramic pitcher as soon as we were alone.   Sarah gasped when I stripped off my shirt and
I was expecting yet another lecture on propriety.   Instead she came over and began to examine purple
and yellow contusions covering my torso.
    “These are serious injuries,” she
said.   “You say Alistair Fox had this
done to you?”
    “It isn’t as bad as it looks,” I
said.   “That guy Flowers is a
professional.   He knows how to inflict
pain without causing any real damage.”
    “I may have something that will
help,” she said.   She began to rummage,
yet again, in her handbag and came out with a tin of something called Featherstone’s Zum-Buk Ointment which she applied to my bruises with
surprisingly gentle fingers.   It was on
my tongue to ask what other surprises she had in that bag of hers, a baby grand
piano maybe, but I kept quiet.   This was
the first sign she had shown of anything resembling human feeling and I didn’t
want to spoil the moment.
    I had thought I would sleep forever
but I woke up on the settee four hours later with a crick in my neck and an
Oxfam-sized hunger.
    “I was beginning to think you would
never wake up,” Sarah said.   “The kitchen
stops serving at nine.   Are you hungry?”
    “I could eat a buttered doorknob,”
I said.

    S arah had
gone for a walk to check out HMIS headquarters while I was sleeping and the
results of her scouting expedition were discouraging.   Not only was the place surrounded by an
eight-foot stone wall but it was ringed with surveillance balloons like the
ones we had seen in the newsreel back at the Brompton Road Kinescope.
    Sarah seemed to be expecting some comment
on the situation and I suddenly realized my recent enforced exploits had given
her the mistaken notion I was a man of action.   I kind of liked the image so I washed down the last of my fish and chips
with a mouthful of dark ale and tried to look as though I was deciding among
several plans of approach.
    It was at this point that I became
aware of a nearby conversation between two familiar voices.   Sarah was about to speak but I touched my
finger to my lips and rolled my eyes to the glass partition behind me.
    “Is there any chance of another
pint?” said a voice from the next booth whose deep, sonorous tones could only
belong to Schrödinger.   “And possibly
some more of that delightful shepherd’s pie?”
    “You should think yourself bleedin ’ lucky you got anything,” said his companion.   I had only heard ‘Mister Flowers’ speak once
or twice but I was pretty sure it was him.
    “It was good of you to provide
sustenance,” Schrödinger said.   “Especially after the trouble we had with my caravan.”
    “If it was down to me, we’d ‘ av left it,” Flowers said.   “But Fox says you’ll be needing it for what he has in mind.
    “And what might that be?”
    “Ask him yourself when we get
there.   Hurry up and finish that pint.”
    I touched my finger to my lips one
more time and pointed to the side door.   We
were outside in the forecourt a moment later next to Schrödinger’s caravan.
    “Do you think it is open?” Sarah
asked.
    “Only one way to find out,” I said.

Chapter XX:
    A
Trojan Horse – A Surprise Meeting
    M ax the cat
did his best to escape when we opened the back doors of the caravan but Sarah grabbed
him by the scruff of the neck and soothed his wounded feelings with ear
scratches and traditional feline endearments along the lines of ‘Is he a pretty
boy then?   Oh yes he is.’   A soppy look of devotion appeared on the
animal’s battle-damaged face and he began to purr so loudly I was afraid he
might give us away.
    We had just gotten ourselves hidden
in the space beneath the day bed when the cab door opened and the caravan’s
primitive suspension system creaked with the weight of someone getting in.
    “Just follow