Arcadia

27

As he rattled up Walton Street on his way back from the railway station, Henry Lytten wanted nothing more than to get home, draw the curtains and shut out the entire world. He propped the old bike against the wall beside the house, picked the little bag out of the pannier at the front and gratefully, blessedly, opened his front door. Then, dropping everything into a pile on the floor of the dingy entrance, he went into his study. There he found Rosie, sitting in his armchair, looking at him.

‘Good heavens! You made me jump,’ he said. ‘What on earth are you doing here?’

‘I found Jenkins,’ she said. ‘I thought you’d like to know.’

He thought about that, then went into the kitchen to put the kettle on and came back again.

‘Have you been eating in my kitchen?’

‘I was hungry,’ she said, ‘and I didn’t want to go home.’

‘Why not?’

‘Look at me.’

Lytten obeyed; he rarely looked closely at women, and then he realised with a jolt that that was exactly what he was looking at. When he had left four days earlier, Rosie had been a gawky, awkward, girlish creature. What on earth had happened to her? Her hair was shorter and darker, her eyebrows... had they been plucked? Her nails were painted, her skin looked as though it had been polished. Even the way she sat and moved had changed.

‘I see what you mean,’ he said.

‘I’m going to get absolute hell from my parents, so I’ve sort of run away for a bit. This is the only place I could think of coming. And you should see Jenkins,’ she added. ‘He looks as though he has been on a long walking holiday in the mountains. I almost didn’t recognise him.’

Lytten grunted. ‘You’d better show me.’

Rosie led the way up to the spare bedroom, the one rarely used except as Jenkins’s morning boudoir. It was obvious that she had also used it last night.

On the bed lay a fine figure of a feline stretched out contentedly and snoring. ‘God bless my soul!’ Lytten exclaimed when he saw it. Jenkins was indeed transformed. Thin, sleek, healthy-looking, everything a cat should be and Jenkins never had been. His cat, he thought, had been born obese. ‘How on earth did that happen? Are you sure it’s him?’ He went over to inspect the beast, which rolled over in its sleep and hissed unpleasantly. ‘Yes, that’s him. Extraordinary. What do you think happened? More importantly, what has happened to you?’

Then the doorbell went again. Really, life was simply too much sometimes.

He opened the door, an air of distracted thought about him that was mingled only with a slight impatience at being disturbed by the tweedy but still quite beautiful lady standing there with a shopping bag by her feet.

‘How lovely to see you! I was just passing,’ she said. ‘Thought I’d drop in.’

‘Angela. How nice.’

‘You don’t sound pleased to see me.’

‘I am. Of course.’

He tried to indicate that this wasn’t a good time but she paid no attention, picked up the bag and advanced through his door.

‘You don’t have any milk in there, do you?’ he asked. ‘I’ve been away for a few days.’

‘I do wish you’d learn to look after yourself better, Henry. You’d starve to death if you didn’t have people to help you. I do have some milk in here somewhere. You can have some if you give me a cup of tea in exchange. I have some buns as well.’

She swept past him and headed for the grim little kitchen.

‘I need some things from the cellar, if that’s all right,’ she called over her shoulder. ‘How are you, my dear?’

‘Well enough. I had to go to Paris.’

‘That’s nice.’

‘Not really.’

He turned as he heard a movement behind him. ‘Ah!’ he said. ‘Have you two met? No; of course, you haven’t.’

Girl and woman regarded each other with what Lytten thought was a strange expression. Somewhat egotistically, he decided it must be a sort of possessiveness. Both wanted to talk to him and neither wanted the other there. He felt briefly rather pleased to have such a magnetic effect.

‘Rosie, this is Mrs Meerson.’

‘Angela, dear. Call me Angela.’

‘Miss Rosalind Wilson, who has just restored my cat to me in a quite inexplicable state of health.’

‘Cats do wander,’ Angela said wisely.

‘Not this one,’ Rosie replied. ‘As far as I can see, it must have been here all the time, locked in the cellar. It’s strange that it looks like a beast that has been wandering for months in the wilds, don’t you think?’

‘Yes, what have you got down there, Angela? Some sort of feline exercise bike?’ Lytten asked heartily.

‘Just bits and bobs.’

They chatted inconsequentially for the next half hour, both visitors blithely ignoring Lytten’s obvious desire that they should go away as quickly as possible. Eventually he gave up and took his bag upstairs to wash and get changed. When he got back, he found the two still sitting opposite each other, looking uncomfortable.

‘Henry,’ Angela said, following him into the kitchen. ‘We have a little problem. Rosie here is not here.’

Lytten scratched his freshly shaved chin. ‘Why not?’

‘There are things,’ she continued mysteriously, ‘that you have no need to know. Things which concern women. I’m sure you understand.’

Lytten smiled nervously. ‘I do hope you are not going to give details.’

‘Good man!’ she said. ‘You have not seen Rosie. You have no idea where she is or who she might be with. She has a few things that need to be sorted out before she can be returned to her parents.’

Lytten began thinking about the Cold War.

‘It is very important,’ she went on. ‘I will deal with the situation, but I must have a little time to do so. Otherwise Rosie will be in considerable trouble. Her parents, her reputation, you know...’ she concluded airily.

‘I don’t know and I don’t want to know. You two do whatever you need.’

‘Thank you. So you give me your word? Even if her parents come round, friends, the police? Anybody at all. You haven’t seen her. Is that agreed?’

‘Well...’

‘Henry!’

‘Very well, if you insist. But you will have to do something in return. A sort of friend is coming in the next few days. Tomorrow, probably. Russian. I was wondering if you’d do a spot of translating.’

‘“A sort of friend”,’ she echoed. ‘Is this old business, dear?’

Lytten nodded.

‘Happy to oblige then. Let me know when and where.’

Angela dusted the crumbs off her dress, disappeared downstairs for whatever she had come for and then left, taking Rosie with her.

If Lytten thought that the disappearance of his two visitors meant that he would finally get some time to recover himself, then he was wrong. Scarcely half an hour later the doorbell rang again, and he stumped to the door once more.

‘What?’ he asked crossly. ‘I don’t want anything.’

A terrible thing, this country, he thought to himself underneath his annoyance. For he knew the man standing on his porch. Didn’t know him, of course, but could place the cheap, ill-fitting suit, the unhealthy complexion, the poorly cut hair, the way of standing.

Life is full of surprises. The man pulled out a small badge and showed it to him. Detective Sergeant Allan Maltby. ‘Would you mind if I came in, sir?’

Lytten cursed. Not that he took the police so very seriously, but it was a complication. A promise was a promise, however annoying.

‘By all means,’ he said, opening the door a little wider, adopting what he hoped was an air of mystification.

‘A report of a missing girl, sir,’ Sergeant Maltby continued, ‘called Rosie Wilson. No reason to think that it’s anything other than youthful irresponsibility at the moment.’

‘Could you tell me what has happened?’

‘Well, not much, frankly, sir. It seems she has been misbehaving, and had a row with her parents and stormed out. She hasn’t been seen since yesterday, and the parents called us. More to punish her than because they are really worried, I suspect. You know her, I believe?’

‘She looks after my cat sometimes. I have been away in France since Monday, and got back about an hour ago.’

‘So you haven’t seen her?’

‘No,’ he said baldly. He thought of some circumlocution to preserve the appearance of truth, but decided against. Years of experience had inured him to the rigours of bare-faced lies. ‘I am sure she is fine, though. She’s a good, sensible girl. She is probably just off with friends. They are like that at fifteen nowadays, I believe.’

‘Indeed they are, sir. Can I ask you to let us know?’

‘Of course. If she rings the doorbell, I will either call you or march her straight home.’

‘Kind of you, sir. I understand, by the way...’

Here the policeman — Lytten had not allowed him out of the little hallway, not because of rudeness but because Rosie had left her schoolbag in his study — hesitated with a certain air of knowingness.

‘Yes?’

‘I understand you work for the government, sir,’ he said.

‘Do I?’

‘I’m temporarily assigned to Special Branch, you see. One day a week. Great opportunity for me. Very exciting.’

‘Of course. You get to harass trade unionists, that sort of thing. Subversion and spies. Not much of that around here, I imagine.’

‘Not really, no,’ he said regretfully. ‘You are on our list, you see.’

‘How annoying. What list?’

‘Not as a subversive, sir, of course not. Wouldn’t say if you were. If you ever contact us, we look you up and know that you are to be listened to.’

‘There really shouldn’t be any such list, you know,’ Lytten said. ‘Sometimes I wonder which term is most inappropriate, “secret” or “intelligence”. Sometimes neither seems to be in evidence.’

‘Quite, sir. But if you ever need anything, if you see what I mean?’

‘I will ask for you specially, Sergeant Maltby. If it will help in any way, I will say what a splendid fellow you are as well.’

‘Oh, that would be kind, sir.’

‘In fact,’ he said, an idea suddenly coming into his head, ‘I may have something for you. I hope I can trust to your discretion. Shortly before I left England, I noticed a man watching my house. I saw him again as I let you in just now. If you would care to look through this window here...’ Lytten flicked the curtains back a little and peered out.

‘Aha!’ said Maltby, bending down to look through the narrow gap. ‘Six foot, dark hair, no glasses, overcoat on his arm. A bit foreign-looking. That the one?’

‘That’s the one. It may be nothing, but he concerns me. Would you oblige me and find out who he is, please?’