‘Do you know what?’ said Ivor Butcher once we were seated in the car. He was looking around the dashboard anxiously. I pointed to the second knob from the left. He pulled it and the windscreen wipers started. He nodded. Windscreen-wiper motors mar tape recordings.
‘What’s the trouble?’ I asked.
‘I’m being followed,’ he said.
‘Really,’ I said.
‘Straight up,’ he said, ‘I wasn’t sure until today. Then I phoned you.’
‘I don’t know why you phoned me,’ I said. ‘There’s nothing I can do.’ I paused. ‘It’s gone too far for me to interfere.’
‘Too far?’ said Ivor Butcher. ‘What’s gone too far?’
‘I don’t know anything about it,’ I said, like I’d said too much already.
‘You mean the Portuguese business? The Spanish bloke and all that?’
‘What do you think?’ I said. ‘You’ve been dabbling in pretty big stuff. Can’t Smith help you?’
‘He says he can’t. What’s going to happen now?’
I tapped him on the shoulder and said, ‘You know I could get into a lot of trouble just talking to you.’
Ivor Butcher said, ‘Yeah,’ in varying permutations about twelve times. At what I considered the appropriate interval I said, ‘It was because you gave us false information that things really came to a head. You know,’ I said casually, ‘became treason.’
Ivor Butcher repeated the word treason a few times, changing it from a statement to an interrogative, transcribing it to a minor key and pitching it an octave higher each time. ‘You mean that I could be shot?’
‘No,’ I said, ‘this is England after all. We don’t do things like that. No. You’ll be hanged.’
‘No.’ Ivor Butcher’s voice came back like an echo and he leaned heavily against the passenger door. He had fainted. The man with the gorilla mask left his friend and asked if he could help. ‘My friend isn’t very well,’ I told him. ‘It’s all that heat and noise and strong drink. Perhaps a glass of water would help.’ It took gorilla-head a long time to push his way through to the kitchen. In the meantime Ivor Butcher shook his head and breathed heavily.
‘I’m sorry,’ he said, ‘you must think I’m a terrible neddie.’
‘It’s all right,’ I told him, ‘I know exactly how you feel.’ I knew.
‘You’re a good sort, you are,’ he said. ‘Do you think I should make a proper statement? Smith paid me practically nothing for what I did. I’m just small fry.’ He closed his eyes at the thought.
I said to make a proper statement would be a sensible idea. Then gorilla-head came back with a jam-jar of water.
‘There aren’t any glasses left in the kitchen,’ he said in his echoing voice.
He offered the water to Ivor Butcher, who said, ‘He’s the one,’ in a shrill, frightened voice and lost consciousness again.
‘Is that girl with the smudged mascara still in the kitchen?’ I asked.
‘Yes,’ said gorilla-face. ‘She says Elvis Presley is a square.’ His voice echoed.
‘Why don’t you go and see if you can’t talk her round?’ I said, ‘because you needn’t continue with this surveillance any longer.’
‘Very good, sir,’ he said.
‘And Tinkle Bell,’ I said, ‘take that mask off, it makes your voice echo.’