It was scarcely even dark. A month after the equinox, to the day. One of those seemingly endless summer evenings that made him want to be out at Mimram, on the verandah, looking westward, all the windows open, a bottle of Pouilly-Fumé, Tommy Beecham turned up loud … “Summer Night on the River” … “A Song of Summer” … not stuck in London.
He sat an hour watching the light vanish, undecided. It was Friday night. He could just drive out. Nothing to stop him. Or he could stay and get up at dawn. Drive north on empty roads. His car keys were not in the drawer of the hall stand. He picked up the Macintosh he’d worn in that day’s brief morning shower, the one he’d just walked home in. The keys were in the left-hand pocket, but his black policeman’s notebook wasn’t.
He thought back to where the coat had been hung. On a peg in his office? If it had fallen out he’d surely have noticed. On the bed in Burgess’s bedroom? Oh bugger. He could easily have missed it there. The last thing he wanted was his notebook falling into the hands of one of Burgess’s disreputable friends.
He went in search of it. Across Soho, to Mayfair and Bond Street once more.
The party was winding down. Only stragglers left. Men like Burgess who only left when they were thrown out. Not that Burgess would ever throw anyone out. A dozen men, not a woman in sight, were hunched around the ashtrays, cavemen around a campfire, talking loudly, no one listening to anyone, flicking fag ash everywhere, spilling whisky, nodding off, throwing up.
Burgess was not among them.
“Where’s Guy?” elicited no response.
Troy asked again.
“Fucked if I know. Bedroom mos’ likely.”
That was what Troy had feared.
He tapped lightly on Burgess’s bedroom door. Then he tapped a little louder. Then he eased the door open.
A bedside reading lamp cast its arc halfway across the room. Burgess was stretched out on his back, snoring intermittently, stark naked, half-priapic, the cock just beginning to wilt.
On the floor was the discarded uniform of a Royal Navy commander. Three rings and a loop on the cuffs, a peaked cap with a dash of scrambled-egg braid. Burgess had got lucky, sex with a sailor. Troy’s idea of lucky would be to find his notebook and get out without Burgess waking up.
It was on the floor, half-hidden by a chest of drawers. As he picked it up the pile of bedding next to Burgess moved. The sheets and blankets slipped to the floor in a cotton avalanche. A man he’d never seen before sat bolt upright, as naked as Burgess, and saluted Troy.
“Captain on the bridge!”
He stayed rigid, as though cast in plaster. It occurred to Troy that pissed as he was, naked as he was, the man was at attention, as erect as his cock, waiting for Troy to return his salute.
Troy saluted.
“Aye, aye, sir.”
And with that he fell back on the mattress, cock waving like a hoisted pennant.