Alexander McCall Smith - The Dog Who Came In From The Cold

“No,” said Dee, her voice cracking with excitement. “This is for real, Martin. And look, more are coming in.”

Then the telephone began to ring, and more orders were taken. For the entire day Martin remained glued to the telephone, writing down the address of each customer and noting down how many bottles were wanted. Many took two; several took more than that, intending to send the remedy out to sudoku-addicted friends abroad.

At the end of the day, in a state of utter exhaustion, the two of them switched off the computer and disconnected the telephone.

“That’s that,” said Dee. “Now we have some breathing space we must get more staff.”

Over the following week, Dee and Martin took on four people full-time. A further advertisement was booked in the newspaper, and this time the response was even larger. Then, at the end of the week, Richard Eadeston, the venture capitalist who had invested in the project, came to see them.

“Fantastic trading,” he said. “Stellar performance. Well done!”

Dee was almost too tired to talk. “Not bad,” she said.

“Not bad?” mocked Richard Eadeston. “Seriously good. Grade One fab.”

“Thank you,” said Dee.

“And here’s the really good news,” said Richard Eadeston. “We’ve been approached by somebody who wants to put an offer to you. I don’t think that you’ll be able to turn it down, frankly.”

“Try me,” said Dee.

“If you are prepared to sell the business,” said Richard. “I’m authorised to offer you four and a half million pounds for it. That includes the intellectual rights to the product. “

Dee closed her eyes. Four and a half million pounds. Three quarters for Richard Eadeston and his company, and a quarter split between her and Martin. Martin had not invested as much as she had, and therefore would not get as much return; but it would still be a lot.

She opened her eyes and looked at Martin. “What shall we do?”

Martin shrugged. “Maybe we should sell,” he said. ‘But then again, maybe we shouldn’t.”

“Should I flip a coin?” asked Dee.

“Why not?” replied Martin. “I’ll go along with that.”

Dee took a pound coin out of her pocket. “Heads we sell,” she said. “Tails we keep the company.”

The coin spun up in the air and was caught by Martin, who slapped it down on the top of his wrist, shielding it from view with his left hand. Then he exposed the coin.

“Sell,” he said.

Dee nodded. “We’ll sell the product,” she said. ‘Lock, stock and barrel.”

“Very wise,” said Richard. “Well done.”

Martin did not think that he deserved congratulation. He had produced nothing in any physical sense and yet here he was being offered a great deal of money. So this, he thought, is capitalism. It was a strange feeling.

“That’s a lot you’ll be getting,” she whispered.

Martin looked at her, his eyes fixed on hers. “A hundred thousand?”

“Yes, at least. Like it?”

Martin did not know what to say. He felt disconnected, and empty. He was not sure he wanted that much. It seemed such an impossibly large sum of money.

“Be grateful,” said Dee. “Your life is about to change.”

Martin thought she was right. His life was about to become different, although just how different he did not yet know, and would not know for another few months.

Dee, by contrast, knew exactly how her life would change. She would buy a flat now and get out of Corduroy Mansions, would go to live in her own place. It was all very well living with a whole lot of others when one was young and impecunious; now things were different. My own place, she thought, with deep pleasure. All I want is a flat somewhere … Wouldn’t that be loverly … loverlee!

Tilly Curtain told William to stay exactly where he was, in the coffee bar on Brook Street.

“Has Ducky gone?” she asked.

“Yes.”

“Are you sure?” she asked. “Sometimes he pretends to go, but still hangs around.”

William looked around the coffee bar, then rose to peer out of the window. There were a few people on the street outside, but none of them, as far as he could see, was Sebastian Duck.

“The coast seems quite clear,” he said.

Tilly Curtain arrived fifteen minutes later. Without taking off her coat, she sat down opposite him at the table. “All right,” she said. “Listen carefully. We know Freddie de la Hay is alive. Our ops people are monitoring the signal from the transmitter under his skin. He’s fine.”

William reached out impulsively and took her hand. “I’m so relieved,” he said.

“Yes. So am I. I’m … well, I’m fed up with all the lies, all the compromises. I’ve had it.”

William watched her. He was not sure whether to raise the issue of her working for the Belgians. Perhaps he could hint that he knew and see if she took it up. “Everybody tells lies,” he says. “States operate on the basis of lies. They claim to be above it all, but there are tawdry lies underpinning everything, aren’t there? Even the Belgians …”

She stared at him. “Did he say that? Did he say that I was a Belgian double agent?”

William lowered his eyes. “He did.”

Tilly sighed. “He’s made the accusation before. He’s told people I’m a Belgian mole. There’s just no truth in it, William. And you know why he says it? It’s because he himself is a Belgian agent! I’m sure of it.”

William made a gesture of helplessness. “A world of mirrors reflecting mirrors,” he said.

“Exactly,” said Tilly. “But enough of that. Let’s go and get Freddie de la Hay.”

They left the coffee bar and travelled by taxi to a street on the edge of St John’s Wood. “He’s in a mews house down there,” said Tilly. “I’ve already done a quick recce. It has a garden gate at the back. We can enter unobserved that way.”

William followed her. There had been light rain, but it had stopped and London seemed bathed in a curious misty white light. He had got into the taxi without thinking; now he asked himself whether it was all about to end for him too. Had Duck been right? Was this woman he hardly knew working for the Belgians? In a shifting, confusing world, anything could be true; anything could be false.

They made their way into a garden. There was a pergola; a bench; a child’s ball that had dropped in from a neighbouring garden and remained unretrieved. Fear makes us leave things where they are, thought William; makes us leave them the way they are.

Tilly was ahead of him, crouching behind a bushy wisteria. She made a sign for him to join her. “Look,” she whispered. “Look up there.”

William studied the back of the mews house, his gaze travelling up. There was a small dormer window in the roof, an afterthought child’s bedroom, perhaps. He squinted. There was a movement behind the glass, but it could just have been the sun, which had come from out of the clouds, breaking through that misty light and glinting off the glass. The sun upon glass can be like sun on the water – a movement, a liquid dash of gold, of silver.

“Freddie de la Hay,” whispered Tilly.

William looked again. His heart was thumping hard within him, as hard as a hammer. He felt as he had felt when he was about to be beaten as a boy. They had beaten him. Beaten him. That awful, horrid history master.

Freddie de la Hay. It was Freddie de la Hay, his nose pressed up against the glass. And even though no sound could reach him, William knew that Freddie had seen him.

“We must get him out,” William said. “Is that door locked?”

“Locked and alarmed,” said Tilly. “But are you prepared to climb up on the roof? Its pretty low, if I give you a hike up you could break the window and get him out. Could you do that?”