He groaned inwardly, gritted his teeth and stabbed at the Play button so roughly that he missed it and ejected the cassette by mistake. He put it back in and pushed the Play button more carefully. Beep. «Oh, Susan, hi, it's Gordon,» said the answering machine. «I'm just on my way to the cottage. It's, er…» He wound on for a couple of seconds. «…need to know that Richard is on the case. I mean really on…» Richard set his mouth grimly and stabbed at the Fast Forward again. He really hated the fact that Gordon tried to put pressure on him via Susan, which Gordon always stoutly denied he did. Richard couldn't blame Susan for getting exasperated about his work sometimes if this sort of thing was going on. Click. «…Response. Make a note to Susan would you please, to get an „Armed Response“ sign made up with a sharp spike on the bottom at the right height for rabbits to see.»
«What?» muttered Richard to himself, and his finger hesitated for a second over the Fast Forward button. He had a feeling that Gordon desperately wanted to be like Howard Hughes, and if he could never hope to be remotely as rich, he could at least try to be twice as eccentric.
An act. A palpable act.
«That's secretary Susan at the office, not you, of course,» continued Gordon's voice on the answering machine. «Where was I? Oh yes. Richard and Anthem 2.00. Susan, that thing has got to be in beta testing in two…» Richard stabbed at the Fast Forward, tight-lipped.
«…point is that there's only one person who's really in a position to know if he's getting the important work done, or if he's just dreaming, and that one person…» He stabbed angrily again. He had promised himself he wouldn't listen to any of it and now here he was getting angry at what he was hearing. He should really just stop this.
Well, just one more try.
When he listened again he just got music. Odd. He wound forward again, and still got music. Why would someone be phoning to play music to an answering machine? he wondered.
The phone rang. He stopped the tape and answered it, then almost dropped the phone like an electric eel as he realised what he was doing. Hardly daring to breathe, he held the telephone to his ear.
«Rule One in housebreaking,» said a voice. «Never answer the telephone when you're in the middle of a job. Who are you supposed to be, for heaven's sake?»
Richard froze. It was a moment or two before he could find where he had put his voice.
«Who is this?» he demanded at last in a whisper.
«Rule Two,» continued the voice. «Preparation. Bring the right tools. Bring gloves. Try to have the faintest glimmering of an idea of what you're about before you start dangling from window ledges in the middle of the night.
Rule Three. Never forget Rule Two.»
«Who is this?» exclaimed Richard again.
The voice was unperturbed. «Neighbourhood Watch,» it said. «If you just look out of the back window you'll see…»
Trailing the phone, Richard hurried over to the window and looked out. A distant flash startled him.
«Rule Four. Never stand where you can be photographed.
Rule Five… Are you listening to me, MacDuff?»
«What? Yes…» said Richard in bewilderment. «How do you know me?»
«Rule Five. Never admit to your name.»
Richard stood silent, breathing hard.
«I run a little course,» said the voice, «if you're interested…»
Richard said nothing.
«You're learning,» continued the voice, «slowly, but you're learning. If you were learning fast you would have put the phone down by now, of course. But you're curious — and incompetent — and so you don't. I don't run a course for novice burglars as it happens, tempting though the idea is. I'm sure there would be grants available. If we have to have them they may as well be trained.
However, if I did run such a course I would allow you to enrol for free, because I too am curious. Curious to know why Mr Richard MacDuff who, I am given to understand, is now a wealthy young man, something in the computer industry, I believe, should suddenly be needing to resort to house-breaking.»
«Who —?»
«So I do a little research, phone Directory Enquiries and discover that the flat into which he is breaking is that of a Miss S. Way. I know that Mr Richard MacDuff's employer is the famous Mr G. Way and I wonder if they can by any chance be related.»
«Who —?»
«You are speaking with Svlad, commonly known as „Dirk“ Cjelli, currently trading under the name of Gently for reasons which it would be otiose, at this moment, to rehearse. I bid you good evening. If you wish to know more I will be at the Pizza Express in Upper Street in ten minutes. Bring some money.»
«Dirk?» exclaimed Richard. «You… Are you trying to blackmail me?»
«No, you fool, for the pizzas.» There was a click and Dirk Gently rang off.
Richard stood transfixed for a moment or two, wiped his forehead again, and gently replaced the phone as if it were an injured hamster.
His brain began to buzz gently and suck its thumb. Lots of little synapses deep inside his cerebral cortex all joined hands and started dancing around and singing nursery rhymes. He shook his head to try and make them stop, and quickly sat down at the answering machine again.
He fought with himself over whether or not he was going to push the Play button again, and then did so anyway before he had made up his mind. Hardly four seconds of light orchestral music had oozed soothingly past when there came the sound of a key scratching in the lock out in the hallway.
In panic Richard thumped the Eject button, popped the cassette out, rammed it into his jeans pocket and replaced it from the pile of fresh cassettes that lay next to the machine. There was a similar pile next to his own machine at home. Susan at the office provided them — poor, long-suffering Susan at the office. He must remember to feel sympathy for her in the morning, when he had the time and concentration for it.
Suddenly, without even noticing himself doing it, he changed his mind. In a flash he popped the substitute cassette out of the machine again, replaced the one he had stolen, rammed down the rewind button and made a lunge for the sofa where, with two seconds to go before the door opened, he tried to arrange himself into a nonchalant and winning posture. On an impulse he stuck his left hand up behind his back where it might come in useful.
He was just trying to arrange his features into an expression composed in equal parts of contrition, cheerfulness and sexual allurement when the door opened and in walked Michael Wenton-Weakes.
Everything stopped.
Outside, the wind ceased. Owls halted in mid-flight. Well, maybe they did, maybe they didn't, certainly the central heating chose that moment to shut down, unable perhaps to cope with the supernatural chill that suddenly whipped through the room.
«What are you doing here, Wednesday?» demanded Richard. He rose from the sofa as if levitated with anger.
Michael Wenton-Weakes was a large sad-faced man known by some people as Michael Wednesday-Week, because that was when he usually promised to have things done by. He was dressed in a suit that had been superbly well tailored when his father, the late Lord Magna, had bought it forty years previously.
Michael Wenton-Weakes came very high on the small but select list of people whom Richard thoroughly disliked.
He disliked him because he found the idea of someone who was not only privileged, but was also sorry for himself because he thought the world didn't really understand the problems of privileged people, deeply obnoxious. Michael, on the other hand, disliked Richard for the fairly simple reason that Richard disliked him and made no secret of it.
Michael gave a slow and lugubrious look back out into the hallway as Susan walked through. She stopped when she saw Richard. She put down her handbag, unwound her scarf, unbuttoned her coat, slipped it off, handed it to Michael, walked over to Richard and smacked him in the face.