Two men had emerged from the sole substantial shelter in the camp, a small pavilion erected in the lee of a huge boulder which had shielded it from the worst of the storm. One was grey-bearded and bent with the weight of years, the other young, slim, upright, with still, watchful eyes set in a narrow clean-shaven face.
Suddenly the fat man sank to his knees and prostrated himself with his face pressed against the young man’s sandals.
‘Have mercy, great Prince,’ his muffled voice pleaded. ‘Like the gods you are clearly descended from, take pity on this poor miserable wretch whose only hope for life and succour lies in your infinite generosity.’
The young man didn’t look impressed.
‘What’s this you’ve brought us, Achates?’ he asked.
Succinctly the guard commander told his story.
‘So, a Greek, you say? And probably a spy?’
A cry of protest rose from the recumbent man, cut off sharply as Achates pressed the point of his sword into his neck.
‘Could be. Shall I set him on a griddle over a slow fire for half an hour till he’s ready to tell us?’
A murmur of approval went up from the listening men, but the Prince said gravely, ‘This is not how our religion has taught us to treat the wayworn traveller who comes as a guest in our midst. Let food and dry clothing be brought, and when he is refreshed, I shall talk to him to discover what manner of man he is and his purpose in coming here.’
The fat man began to gabble fulsome thanks, but the Prince silenced him with a sharp movement of his foot and went on, ‘Nevertheless, heat up the griddle in case I am not satisfied.’
The Prince disengaged his foot and Achates prodded the Greek upright with his sword. Two young women came forward, one with some clothing, the other with a bronze platter piled high with steaming food.
‘That smells grand. I’m right grateful, lord. Only I need a hand to eat with.’
‘Only one?’ said Achates, raising his weapon. ‘Which would you like to keep?’
‘Nay, not so hasty,’ said the Greek, starting back. ‘Hang about.’
He flexed his broad shoulders, took a deep breath, bowed forward, his body hunched, and with a single convulsive movement, he snapped the length of cloth which bound his wrists.
At this moment the doorbell rang and Ellie, dragged back from the dangerous world of her imagination to the equally dangerous world of her life, knocked over the cup.
‘Fuck!’ she said, jumping up and shaking the coffee from the keyboard.
Amazingly, when she finished, the screen still displayed her story but for safety’s sake she saved and switched off.
The doorbell was ringing again.
Even the knowledge that Detective Constable Dennis Seymour was sitting in his car right opposite the house didn’t prevent her from checking on the bellringer from behind the curtains like any suburban housewife in a sitcom.
It was her friend, Daphne Aldermann, full of eager curiosity after having been intercepted and checked out by the watching policeman. After a short hiatus to pour herself and her guest a nerve-soothing Scotch – once you got on Dr Dalziel’s books, you followed his prescriptions to the bitter end – she had launched into the narrative with mock-heroic gusto, and thence to the calmer pleasures of self-analysis. As a long-time opponent of all forms of violent action, she felt it necessary to explain in detail to Daphne, who had no objection whatsoever to a bit of violence in a good cause, what had provoked her to physical assault.
‘It was using Rosie that did it,’ she said. ‘It was my own guilt feelings that really exploded, I suppose.’
‘Your guilt feelings?’
Daphne wasn’t Dalziel and she certainly wasn’t that nebby infant, Novello.
She gave her a version of the confession she’d rehearsed when talking to the Fat Man, ending with, ‘So you see what a mixed-up cow I’ve turned into. I feel like that base Indian – in Hamlet, is it? –who threw away the pearl richer than all his tribe. Only I got it back.’
‘Othello, I think. And the point was he had no idea that what he’d got had any value at all. And you didn’t throw Rosie away anyway,’ said Daphne Aldermann sensibly. ‘And you’ve always been a mixed-up cow, so no change there.’
It was, she felt, in her relationship with Ellie Pascoe, her avocation to be sensible. In upbringing, outlook and circumstance, the two women were light years apart. But the mad scientist of chance had chosen to set their opposing particles on a collision course some years earlier, and while a great deal of energy had been released, it had been through fusion rather than fission.
Ellie looked ready to meet her head-on in battle, but in the end diverted to a minor skirmish.
‘You sure it’s Othello?’ she said truculently. ‘I thought the nearest you privately educated lot got to literature was carrying the Collected Works on your head during deportment lessons.’
‘You’re forgetting. They made us learn a classic each morning between the cross-country run and the first cold shower,’ said Daphne. ‘So OK, something bad happens to our kids, we feel responsible. Mothers are programmed that way. Or conditioned – let’s not get into that argument.’
‘I know that. But knowing doesn’t stop you feeling. And being shocked how much you feel. Why ever I did it, I still can’t believe I actually assaulted those people.’
‘Oh, come on,’ said Daphne, with all the ease of a natural supporter of corporal and capital punishment. ‘They had it coming. God knows what they were going to do with you, but if they get caught, probably they’ll get off with writing a hundred lines and probation. At least as he smiles at you out of the dock, you’ll be able to think, I left my mark on you, mate!’
Ellie laughed and refilled their glasses. It had been one of the mad scientist’s better ideas to have Daphne call round that morning. As soon as she saw her, Ellie realized that of all her friends, here was the one best suited to the circumstances. With Daphne she could get serious without getting heavy, and her different world view provided a stimulating, if sometimes infuriating, change of perspective.
They drank and Daphne said, ‘So, how’s Rosie? Did she get a whiff of all the excitement?’
‘We tried to keep it from her, but you never know what they pick up, do you? I was tempted to keep her off school today, but that would have confirmed there was something going on. Anyway, the holidays start tomorrow, and she made such a fuss about getting back after her illness, she’d have been brokenhearted to miss the fun of the last day.’
‘Children’s hearts are made of one of the least frangible materials known to man,’ said Daphne with a mother-of-two’s certainty. ‘Especially girls’. I seem to recall breaking mine on an almost daily basis but somehow surviving without resort to Dr Christian Barnard. You too, I bet.’
‘Perhaps. I never lost my best friend when I was Rosie’s age, but,’ said Ellie.
There’d been two girls stricken by the meningitis bug. The other, Rosie’s classmate and best friend, Zandra, had died.
Daphne grimaced and said, ‘I was forgetting that. Sorry. It’s funny, a child’s grief, unless you’ve experienced it yourself, you don’t think about it much… but she was keen to get back to Edengrove, you say? I’d have thought…’
‘Me too. We’ve talked