She frowned, confused. "You intend to go ahead with this lecture?"

"Oh yes. With all my social engagements. In this sort of game, they win if they can completely disrupt my life. That would force me either to come to terms with them, or to go on hiding forever. I'm reasonably safe in the open, in public places. You notice that they didn't bring the police with them just now. The big trick will be getting to and from the lecture, and keeping out of sight in the meanwhile. But I've been trained in this sort of game. So don't worry."

"What kind of advice is that?"

He smiled. "Well, don't worry too much anyway."

"Do you really think you can avoid them forever?"

"No. Not forever. But I'll get a chance to think. And I'll try to pick my own ground for meeting them."

"What are you going to do now? After I leave you?"

"I have to arrange some mechanical things. I don't have clothes. I don't have a place to stay. Once I've settled that, I suppose I'll go to the movies."

"Go to the movies?"

"Best place to lose yourself for a few hours. One of those porno houses where you can rent a raincoat."

"Rent a raincoat?"

"Never mind."

"What are you going to do about that man... we found? You can't just leave him there."

"I can't do anything else. Anyway, unless I miss my guess, he won't be there in an hour. They don't want the police in on this if they can help it. I wouldn't be much use to them in prison. No, they were supposed to walk in on me and get hard evidence. A photograph or something. Then they'd have the leverage to force me to work for them. But something went wrong-what, I don't know. Maybe we woke up too early and got out too fast. They'll have to drop back and think up something else. And I'm hoping that will take them a little while."

She shuddered. "I'm sorry. I try not to think of him... the man in your loo... but every once in a while the image of him-"

Jonathan looked up at her suddenly. "In my loo?"

"Yes. In your bathroom. What is it?"

"The man said a word just before he died. A name, I thought. I thought he said Lew, as in Lewis. Or Lou as in Louise. But he could have meant loo as in bathroom."

"What would that mean?"

Jonathan shook his head. "I haven't the slightest idea."

Just before they parted, after they had gone back over the arrangements for meeting after the Royal Institute lecture, Maggie made an observation that had occurred to Jonathan as well. "It's an odd feeling. The change of tone between this morning and the bantering in the restaurant last night. I can't help this curious sensation that we have known one another for years and years. In just a few hours we've been through laughter, and love, and all this trouble. It's an odd feeling."

"I admire the way you've braced up under this."

"Ah, well, you see, I've had practice. The troubles in Belfast got very close to me. The soul develops calluses very quickly. That's the real terror of violence: a body gets used to it."

"True." Indeed, he had surprised himself with the speed with which he had swung into the patterns and routines of a kind of existence he had thought was far behind him. "I'll see you soon, Maggie."

"Yes. Soon."

He stood in the red public telephone box and memorized the numbers of two railroad hotels.

"Great Eastern Hotel?" The operator's voice had the singsong of rote.

He pushed the twopence in. "Reservations, please."

At the Great Eastern, he reserved a room under the name Greg Eastman. Then he called the Charing Cross Hotel and reserved a room under the name Charles Crosley. Railroad hotels were the kind he needed. Quiet, middle class, very large, and used to transients. He would actually stay at the Great Eastern where a lift could bring him directly from the Underground station into the lobby, making it unnecessary to go onto the open street. His reservation at the Charing Cross was only for a pickup of clothes.

Next he called his tailor on Conduit Street.

"Ah, yes. Dr. Hemlock. May we be of service?"

"I need two suits, Matthew."

"Of course, sir. Shall we make an appointment for a fitting?"

"I haven't time for that You have my paper there."

"Quite so, sir."

"I need the suits this evening."

"Thisevening? Impossible, Dr. Hemlock."

"No, it isn't. You carry Bruno Piattellis, don't you? Pull a couple off the racks, and have one of your tailors alter them to my paper. Conservative in color, not too trendy in cut. You could do it in three or four hours, if you put two men on it."

"We dohave other commitments, sir."

"Double the price of the suit. And twenty quid for you."

The clerk sighed histrionically. "Very well, sir. I'll see what can be done."

"Good man. Have them delivered to the Charing Cross Hotel, to Mr. (he had to think for a second of the mnemonic device he had used for names) Mr. Charles Crosley."

The next call was to his shirtmaker in Jermyn Street. A little more pot-sweetening was necessary there because he despised ready-made shirts, and they would have to be cut from his patterns on file. But eventually he received their commitment to have six shirts delivered by five o'clock, together with stockings and linen.

Jonathan's last call was to MacTaint.

"Ah, is that you, lad? Just a minute." (The hiss of a phone being cupped over with a hand.) "Lilla! I'm on the phone. Shut your bleeding cob!" (An angry babble from off phone.) "Put a sock in it!... now, what can I do for you, Jonathan?"

"I'm going to mail off three hundred quid to you this afternoon."

"That's nice. Why?"

"I'm in a little trouble. I want a source of money that's not on my person."

"Police?"

"No."

"Ah. I see. Realtrouble. What do I do with the money?"

"Keep two fifty handy to send to me if I contact you. I'll probably be at the Great Eastern. My name will be Greg Eastman."

"The remaining fifty's for my trouble?"

"Right."

"Done. Keep well, lad."

Jonathan rang off. He appreciated MacTaint's professionalism. It was right that he accept the fee without whimpering protestations of friendship, and it was right that he ask no questions.

The telephone box was near an Underground entrance, and Jonathan took the long escalator into the tube. Until this trouble was sorted out, he would travel primarily through the anonymous means of the Underground.

He reemerged into the sunlight near Soho, and he made his way to a double-feature skin flick: Working Her Way through the Turkish Armyand Au Pair Girls in the Vatican.For four hours he was invisible in the company of the lost, the lonely, the ill, and the warped, who pass their afternoons in torn seats that smell of mildew, candy-wrapper litter under their feet, staring with frozen pupils at Swedish "starlets" moaning in bored mock ecstasy as they make coy orificial use of members and gadgets.