Our Game

And so it was for me each time I entered the priesthole and revisited my little treasure hoard of keepsakes: the diaries I should not have kept but, having done so, kept still; old encounter sheets, unsanitised operational logs, jottings dashed off in the cool of conspiracy, uncensored debriefing tapes, and here and there whole files ordered for destruction by the Top Floor and so certified—only to be spirited into my private archive, partly for the enlightenment of posterity, but partly as a piece of personal insurance against the rainy day I had always feared might come and now had: when some misperception on the part of my employers, or some foolish act of my own, would cast a crooked backward light on things that I had said and done in honour.

And finally, as well as my papers, I had my personal escape kit for the event that nothing, not even the record, could protect me: my reserve identity in the name of Bairstow, comprising passport, credit card, and driving licence, all legitimately acquired for some aborted operation, then kept back and artificially extended by myself, to be tested and retested until I was confident that the Office quartermaster had ceased to be aware they still existed. And serviceable, you understand. We are talking of the Office functioning on home soil, not some cheapjack forger taking a one-time risk. Each of them fed into the right computers, credit rated and proofed against outside enquiry, so that, provided a man had his tradecraft about him, and I had—and his money, and I had that too he could live a whole other life more safely than he could live his own.

* * *

A sinuous cloud of freezing mist curled at me out of the brook as I crossed the footbridge. Reaching the wicket gate, I disengaged the latch and lowered it to its housing. Then I rammed the gate back as fast as I could, causing an indignant shriek to add itself briefly to the night sounds. I stole up the path and through the old cemetery that was Uncle Bob's last resting place, to the porch, where I groped for the keyhole. In total blackness I guided the key into the lock, gave it a sharp twist, shoved the door, and stepped inside.

Church air is like no other. It is the air the dead breathe, humid, old, and frightening. It echoes even when there is no sound. Feeling my way to the vestry as quickly as I dared, I located the cope cupboard, opened it, and, with my palms flat on the ancient stones, wriggled up the spiral staircase to my sanctuary and put on the light.

I was safe. I could think the unthinkable at last. A whole internal life that I dared not acknowledge, let alone explore, until I was secure inside the confines of my priesthole, was once more open to my scrutiny.

Mr. Timothy D'Abell Cranmer: How do you say? Did you or did you not, on or about the night of September 18, at Priddy Pool in the County of Somerset, murder by battery and drowning one Lawrence Pettifer, formerly your friend and secret agent?

* * *

We are fighting, as only brothers can. All my gentling and cossetting of him, all the careless insults I have swallowed whole—beginning with his sneering asides about Diana, my first wife; continuing for twenty more years with gibes about my emotional inadequacy, about what he calls my rent-a-drool smile, and my good manners that do duty for a heart; and culminating in his wanton theft of Emma—all my cancer-giving forbearance, has turned outward in a pent-up, furious revolt.

I am showering blows on him and probably he is hitting me back, but I feel nothing. Whatever is hitting me is merely an obstruction on the path to him, because I am going to kill him. The intention I have come with is about to be fulfilled. I am hitting him as we hit when we are boys, wild, heaving, artless blows, everything we are taught not to do at combat camp. I would tear him apart with my teeth if my fingers weren't strong enough for the job. All right

! I am shouting. You called me an espiopath, now you've got a bloody espiopath! And between whiles, without the least hope of getting an answer, I am shouting the questions at him that have been burning my soul ever since Emma left me: What have you done with her? What lies have you told her about us? I meant what truths. What have you promised her that she can't get from me?