Colin Forbes - The Janus Man

`Why should I mind?' He turned to Diana. 'My wife, Renee, has gone back to France. Didn't like England. I didn't like her cooking. Garlic. With everything. Upsets my stomach.' He patted it. `We're much happier now.'

`You have some… help?' Diana enquired.

'The Doukhobor lady. Absolute treasure. Comes in daily. When I'm here she cooks as well as cleans. No garlic.'

`Still, it must have been a traumatic experience,' Diana ventured, her tone sympathetic. `I'm sorry.'

`Sorrow doesn't come into it.' Dalby held his glass up to look through it. 'You get these little local difficulties. Like losing a member of your staff. You just reorganize. Cheers!'

He spoke as though a shop had stopped stocking his normal cornflakes for breakfast. You simply changed to another brand.

`Your back garden looks really glorious,' she went on, staring out of the French windows.

`Come and have a look.' Dalby jumped up. `If you find one weed you get a bottle of champagne. Tweed, know you're not interested in gardens. Pile of Country Lifes over there. Have a look at the house if you like. Biggish place. Four beds, three recep., my study, two bathrooms. Back soon!'

Diana followed him into the hall, clutching her handbag under her arm. Tweed could hear their conversation as they walked along the hall.

`What is a Doukhobor lady?'

`My nick-name for her. Very lat. Arms like tree trunks. Always wears a head-scarf. Looks like a Doukhobor. A Russian religious sect. Fled from Russia to places like Canada before the Second World War. Escaping religious persecution…'

The voices faded. Tweed stood up, walked quietly into the hall. He peered into the dining-room which overlooked the back garden, walked on. Dalby's study was at the end near the front door. He gently pushed open the half-shut door.

A small, square room, the single sash window overlooking the front porch and masked with a heavy net curtain. Tweed glanced at the piles of papers, the files, neatly arranged. Insurance policies and proposals, all headed General amp; Cumbria Assurance Co. Ltd. Excellent camouflage.

He turned to the bookcase placed against the inner end wall. Histories and travel books – Switzerland, Italy and Spain. Dalby's sector. But none on Libya or the Middle East – the forward penetration zones. More of the same on Scandinavia, Canada and the US. Nothing to do with his sector. More camouflage.

Leaving the study, pulling the door half-shut again, he went into a large rectangular-shaped kitchen looking out over the back garden. Modern equipment – dark blue formica cupboards and worktops. Eye-level cooker.

On the worktop next to the sink was a wooden chopping- block. An array of French beans, neatly chopped, lay under a wire-mesh cage. Tweed stared round, seeking a chef's knife. A magnetic knife rack was attached to the wall above the sink supporting a row of various knives. No chefs knife.

Through the windows, between two tall evergreen trees he saw Diana talking with Dalby. He was now wearing a smart grey jacket which matched his trousers. Tweed wandered back into the sitting-room. Compared with Masterson, Lindemann and Grey, Guy Dalby at home was exactly the same as he was at work. Normal was the word which sprang into his mind as he sat down again after collecting a Country Life at random. Completely normal.

`Freshen up your glass?'

Dalby skipped into the room, followed by Diana, who now had a single rose projecting from between her breasts. She had a dreamy look as she sank into her arm chair.

`Not for me, thank you. I'm driving,' Tweed replied. 'Find a weed?' he asked Diana as Dalby replenished her glass. `Nary one. And I looked!'

`No champagne then,' Dalby said crisply. 'Thought that I was safe.' He refilled his own glass, sat down and gestured towards the French windows. 'We could have gone out that way, but it would have taken an hour to deal with the security locks.'

`Your Doukhobor lady is coming back?' Tweed enquired. 'I saw signs of a meal being prepared in the kitchen.'

`That was me. It's her day off, blast the woman. I hate cooking.' He smiled briefly. 'Never do anything in life if you can get someone else to do it for you. The road to achievement. And may I ask when can we all get back to our respective headquarters, get on with something worthwhile?'

He was the only one of the four who had asked that question. A sign of his impatience. Again, par for the course with Dalby. `Soon,' Tweed replied. 'I'll be in touch.'

`Are the natives friendly round here?' Diana asked.

`Not if I can help it. Bunch of robots. Don't know why those little yen men have to invent mechanical versions. I'm surrounded with them.'

`Robots? I don't believe I understand,' Diana queried.

`See the keep-fit merchants walking past that window at the front every weekday. And it's quite a hike to Woking station. All dressed alike. Regulation uniform. Brief-case at the ready. Executives they call themselves. Work for one of the big corporations up in town. A lot in oil, as they say. At a party they even talk alike, use the same jargon. Like a code language only the initiated understand. Robots. Maybe they manufacture them on some huge conveyor belt at a secret factory.'

`What an absolutely lovely description. But it must be lonesome for you,' she suggested.

`I'm hardly ever here. The Doukhobor has a key. Keeps the place up to scratch while I insure the world against imaginary perils.'

`Imaginary?'

`Guy is a cynic,' Tweed explained. 'And I think we'd better get back. We have a dinner date. With a couple of pheasants.'

`Then I'm ready!' Diana jumped up out of her chair. 'You must excuse my manners,' she said to Dalby and smiled with her eyes half-closed. 'It's just that I adore pheasant.'

`Mustn't keep the gentleman waiting then.' Dalby stood up. `Bathroom before you go?'

`Yes, please. No! Don't show me. I saw it. Off the hall by the front door…'

There was a brief silence between the two men as they waited. Dalby walked over to the French windows, right hand thrust into his jacket pocket, thumb protruding. It reminded Tweed of pictures he'd seen of Hitler. The drooping catlick served to heighten the impression.

`I'll be glad to get back to Bern,' Dalby said quietly. He turned suddenly, grunted with pain and grabbed at his right kneecap, stooping over. Then he straightened up and shook his head.

`Touch of arthritis. Catches you when you least expect it. Ah, here is your lady…'

He escorted them to their car, shook hands formally with Diana and opened the door for her. He said 'Goodbye,' left it at that as she swung her legs inside and made sure her dress had come in with her. Tweed nodded, got behind the wheel and turned into the drive beyond the house leading to a double garage, backing out again into the road.

Dalby stood quite still, then turned on his heel, went back inside the house and closed the door as Tweed drove off. They had passed through West Byfleet, heading back to London, when Diana made her remark.

`He was very quiet when we left.'

`That's Dalby. He'd said "Goodbye", observed the courtesies, so there was nothing to add. Very sparing with words, our Guy. What did you think of him?'

`Very balanced, very normal… What's the matter?' Tweed had swerved slightly on a deserted stretch of straight road. Normal. The very word he had himself applied to Dalby.

He glanced at the rose at her breast.

`Nothing. Go on.'

`Oh, it's the rose!' She was amused. 'It doesn't mean a thing.

I made a big fuss about his roses. He asked me in his clipped way whether I'd like one to take back. I said yes. He went into a shed he's got right at the end of the garden, came out with a pair of garden gloves and secateurs. He snipped off a rose, used his gloves to break off the thorns and handed it to me. Then he went off back to the shed to leave the gloves and clippers. He couldn't have been more matter-of- fact.'