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Or a friend of your grandfather s perhaps? Janine giggled at
this, and Stevens felt betrayed. Well, continued the oil mon-
key, say good-bye to the nice old man and hello to your sugar
daddy, babe.
Butt out, pal. Stevens was only mildly surprised to find his
voice becoming ridiculously Scottish all of a sudden.
No offense, Jock old boy. The man looked across to Ste-
vens for the first time, his grin full of good teeth. That was al-
most the final straw. You don t mind, though, if I have a chat
with your niece, do you?
If you don t butt out, pal, I m going to butt in your teeth.
Oh yes, Jim, the macho act. This won t help your position with
Janine. Wit perhaps, some cutting riposte which would leave
the opponent reduced to rubble. He was a journalist, after all,
he should know a few comebacks. He racked his brain: none.
His fists began to squeeze themselves into little bon mots be-
neath the table, and his temporary filling throbbed with a whole
glucose-drip s worth of adrenaline.
It s OK, Jim, said Janine, trying to reason with the incom-
ing tide. Stevens knew that if he used force, he would lose her,
lose any kind of chance that he might ever have with her. But
then what chance did he have anyway?
When golden boy put his hand on her knee, three things
happened rather quickly. One was that Janine swiped the hand
away expertly, with the minimum of fuss and the maximum of
contempt. The second was that Jim Stevens leaned across the
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Watchman
table, pulled golden boy across it by his skinny leather tie, and
chopped him on the back of the neck as he fell, hoping that he
had laid some kind of rabbit punch upon his opponent s pale
flesh.
The man crawled a little way across the room, then got to
his knees, and finally, rubbing his neck, to his feet. His friends
were there beside him, and money began changing hands, as
though after a bet. The bar was quiet: some kind of happening
had just occurred, and everyone was humble with awe before the
participants.
It was only then that the third thing registered upon Jim
Stevens: someone had taken a flash photograph as he had tugged
at the man. He stared at the crew before him. Although he did
not recognize the blond, the others were definitely reporters.
Reporters. Of course they were, or he was Bruce Lee.
Thanks, people, said golden boy, still rubbing his neck.
Let s go. And with that the entourage left the bar, one of them
packing away his camera and lenses as he went.
What was all that began Janine, reddening as the clien-
tele continued to stare at her. A bouncer of professional wrestler
proportions was striding toward their table.
Don t ask, growled Stevens, and don t, for Christ s sake,
buy a tabloid tomorrow.
So you know about it then?
Cynegetics? Billy Monmouth laughed. Of course.
Why am I always the last to hear about everything?
For once, it was Miles who had insisted on lunch, and he had
insisted, too, that he should pay. Billy had shrugged, smiling,
briskly alive to the beginning of October, autumn seeming to
bring out the hunter in him.
Well, it s not the sort of thing I would gossip about nor-
mally. How did you find out about it?
Luck, really, said Miles. It doesn t matter.
They had eaten at a restaurant close to Holborn.
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Ian Rankin
How many are there working on Harvest? Billy had
asked.
Seven altogether, Miles had lied.
Seven, eh? A sort of combine Harvester, would you say?
Billy had laughed at his joke.
Yes, Miles had said, his mouth dry despite the Pomerol,
and I for one don t want to come a cropper this time.
A cropper, that s very good, Miles. But Billy had stopped
laughing, faced with the steel in Miles s voice and in his eyes.
What do you know about Cynegetics? Miles asked now,
waiting for the coffee and Billy s brandy.
Oh, not very much. Rumors mostly. Nobody s really sure
who s in it, you see, but the whole thing is probably run under
Partridge s direction.
Partridge?
Billy nodded. He was being cagier than usual.
It was set up under his directive, apparently. It s Partridge s
pear tree.
But why?
Paranoia, Miles. You know the firm.
During lunch, a litany of facts about beetles had played in
Miles s head. He thought of the death watch beetle, ticking like
a time bomb, and of the whirligig beetle, skating across the sur-
faces of ponds. Miles felt like a whirligig beetle, dizzy yet exhila-
rated. But he felt like a death watch beetle, too.
What was that, Billy? I was miles away.
I said that Jeff Phillips is rumored to have been transferred
to Cynegetics as from last week. Lateral promotion.
Good God. But Phillips is in on Richard Mowbray s little
scheme.
Then maybe the gossip is wrong. It sometimes happens.
But not often.
Billy smiled again, swirling the brandy around in his mouth
before swallowing. He cleared his throat to speak.
There s an exhibition on around the corner from here. I
was thinking of paying a visit. The gallery s run by one of our
old girls. Do you fancy it, or are you in a hurry?
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Watchman
Miles was in no hurry whatsoever.
It was a small gallery, brightly lit. The exhibition was of
Vorticist Painting, 1912 1916. Both Billy and Miles bought
the catalog, Miles hoping to surprise Sheila with this evidence
of culture, but then pulling himself up sharply when he remem-
bered why he was here.
While Billy hung back to have a few words with the overdressed
old lady by the door, Miles entered the Vorticist world. He found
the paintings forbidding, and waited for Billy to catch up.
Oskar Kokoschka used to live around the corner from us,
he told Billy, realizing too late how fatuous the remark must
seem.
Really? said Billy. Well, well.
They stopped at a line drawing of Ezra Pound.
That s where I got the name for Mowbray, said Billy.
Mauberley is a character created by Pound.
Oh?
Yes, old Pound was a bit of a fascist. Mad, too. Wrote some
of his best stuff after the Allies had declared him insane.
That probably says quite a lot about poetry, said Miles.
I agree. What is it Shakespeare says? The lunatic, the
lover, and the poet, are of imagination all compact. Something
like that.
Speaking of madmen and lovers, said Miles, I know about
you and Sheila.
Billy, studying the catalog with preternatural interest,
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