Alan Williams.

Holly of Hollies.

The Touch.

One.

London. Some time in the imminent present.

It began on that day in November when Charles Rawcliffs wife, Judith, put their telephone number in the local newsagent's window in Battersea, advertising for a babysitter. Among the first to call that evening was a man who gave his name as Mason. After Judith had confirmed that he was ringing the right number, she asked to speak to Mrs Mason. The man apologized and explained that he was the applicant, and added that he was a bomber-pilot, stationed at RAF Benson, Oxfordshire, and was up in London on a six weeks'

training course. He didn't know anyone in town, and thought he might fill the odd evening by getting out of his digs to do some homework, and make a bit of tax-free pocket-money on the side. He gave his full name as Flight-Lieutenant Terence Mason; he was married and had three children of his own.

Judith was amused by the idea: after all, what was wrong with a grown-up man looking after her two-year-old son, even if he was training to drop bombs on people? He had sounded pleasant and sensible, and she agreed to see him at seven the next evening. But first, without consulting her husband, she got the number of RAF Benson and checked with the Duty Officer. Yes, they had a Flight-Lieutenant Mason, but he was away from camp at the moment. Yes, he was in London for a course on Aerial Control. If it was a personal matter, he would have to refer her to 'Mason's Commanding-Officer. She thanked him and hung up.

The candidate arrived punctually at seven. Charles Rawcliff had just arrived back from the office and had poured his first cautious whisky, while Judith was upstairs putting their son, Tom, to bed.

The man in the doorway was stocky, clean-shaven, with short hair and a healthy complexion. He looked as though he took care of himself. He was wearing a black leather 'b.u.m-freezer' and carried a rolled umbrella. His shoes were cheap and highly polished.

'Good evening. I'm Terry Mason. I talked to Mrs Rawcliff yesterday - about a baby-sitting job.' His manner was awkward, deferential.

'Come in. Charles Rawcliff. Drink?' Flight-Lieutenant Mason followed him down the hall and hooked his umbrella over the back of one of the kitchen chairs. 'I won't, thank you. But tea or coffee would be fine.'

'Sit down, please. My wife said you're with the RAF. What do you fly?'

'Oh, anything they give us - which isn't much these days. Occasionally one gets a crack at a Phantom, even a Harrier - but usually it's just Buccaneers.'

'Dear G.o.d, you're not still flying those things? They won't stop the Russians for long!'

'I know, it is rather scandalous. But that's strictly off the record. It's still a free country, except for us blokes in uniform.' Mason grinned, gaining self-confidence. 'We're only allowed to have opinions at election time.'

Rawcliff stood waiting for the kettle to boil. 'I used to fly myself. Civil.

Nothing flashy. In fact, distinctly downmarket. Mostly package-tours for the Great Unwashed Ma.s.ses down to the polluted Mediterranean.' He was about to add that he'd been trained himself in the RAF - what seemed a long time ago now - and that he'd become something rather more special than a salaried pilot flying routine missions for NATO. But it would involve too many explanations, many of which were best avoided, especially in front of a total stranger.

Rawcliff poured the young man a mug of Nescafe, and stiffened his own whisky.

'I've gone respectable now," he added, without irony: 'Got a wine merchants'

place across the river. We like to pretend it's Chelsea, but it's really Fulham.'

'Very nice,' Mason said: 'being your own master, with your own business, I mean.'

'Don't you believe it! I'd swap with you, any day of the week. Nice secure job, all found - no worries with VAT and b.u.m creditors and staff who fiddle the books, and trying to unload a case of over-priced Beaujolais on some innocent fool by pretending that it hasn't been pumped through the pipe-line from Algeria. Besides, you can still fly.'

'Can't you? I mean, haven't you still got your licence?'

'Oh yes. I even renew it every year. But it costs money to fly for pleasure.'

They both looked up as Rawcliff's wife came in, carrying Tom. The child's small, semi-continent body was trussed and zipped up in his scarlet jump-suit, ready for bed. At the sight of Rawcliff he let out a shriek of pleasure, followed by a wild babble while his mother had to duck back to avoid his tiny flailing fists, as he struggled to reach out and grab Rawcliff's hair.

He was their only child so far, after they had married late, both for the first time - Judith Rawcliff being nearly ten years younger than her husband.

She was a tall, fine-boned girl, dark, with beautiful wrists and ankles, and a clear-skinned, calm-eyed purity about her. A quiet face which seemed to reject her obvious s.e.xuality, to chasten it with a wilful, even stubborn authority.

But it was her wrists, and her long slim ankles which Rawcliff remembered noticing first when she'd come into his shop - nearly three years ago now - and asked him for some table wine. She'd wanted something good but cheap; and he'd known at once that he wouldn't be able to fob her off with any rubbish.

It was therefore no surprise when he learnt that she was a professional working girl - a fully-fledged executive with one of the big multinational computer corporations. 'Judith, love - meet Flight-Lieutenant Terence Mason' -and he caught, her cold glance at his diminishing gla.s.s of whisky, before she turned on Mason her wide-eyed smile. 'My wife, Judith, and our son, Tom,' Rawcliff concluded, while Mason repeated that he had three children of his own, and was sure he could handle even a little rascal like this.

Rawcliff had stood back, the proud father. It was an overwhelming, almost unnerving pride - a feeling which, like the whisky in his hand, seemed sometimes to hold a special threat: a reminder, perhaps, that both wife and child were too good for him - that he would never be able to live up to them, and had never deserved them in the first place."

Tom was shouting for a kiss from his father, and Rawcliff had to perform the ritual pantomime of swooping, growling bear-hug, ending with a smacking kiss on his son's wet little lips. G.o.d, how he loved that child. It seemed almost indecent, in a man of his age - pulling forty, as he preferred to think of himself - which is a good age, providing one was on top of things.

Tom was finally carried off to bed, protesting, clutching his nearly bald, one-eyed teddy; and soon after, Rawcliff and his wife left Flight-Lieutenant Mason alone in charge of the house, with the promise that they'd be back by 11.30, at the latest.

Out in the car Judith said, 'I think he's rather sweet.'

'Probably good enough at his job. And useful if the house caught fire, or somebody tried to break in.'

'I heard you tell him that you've still got your licence.' She took her hand off the gear-shift and squeezed his arm. 'Don't worry about the business, Charles. Something'll turn up.'

Over the next month Flight-Lieutenant Terence Mason baby-sat for them about twice a week. He was the easiest, the most accommodating of men: it didn't matter at what hour they returned, the scene was always the same. Mason would be sitting in the study, working at his figures, with the hi-fi playing soft cla.s.sical music. He always wiped the records before and after playing them, and washed up the cups he used. He never accepted a drink.

Occasionally he reported that little Tom had woken up, but he had always known exactly how to get the baby off to sleep again. Once he had bought him a rubber turtle which rolled over on its back and wiggled its legs in the bath; but this was his only gesture of intimacy. He had few resources in the way of conversation, which made it all the more surprising when, one evening on which he was not scheduled to 'sit', he called Rawcliff from a pay-phone and asked if he could come round and 'talk something over in private'. He sounded as sober as ever, and very serious.

Rawcliff agreed, with a mixture of misgiving and curiosity. His first thought was that Mason was going to touch him for money. Until now the only awkwardness that he and Judith had experienced with the man was getting him to accept any money at all for his services. He always said, 'Really, it should be me who's paying you.'

Before he was due to arrive, Rawcliff said to his wife, 'Give me half an hour alone with him, to find out what he's on about. If it starts getting embarra.s.sing - woman or wife trouble, for instance - I may call you in to draw on your wisdom.' , Mason arrived, as always, on the dot. The only difference was that he was carrying a bag which turned out to contain a bottle of whisky.

'I'm awfully sorry, am I b.u.t.ting in?' 'Not at all Terry - I wouldn't have asked you round if you were.' He led the way into the study. 'What's the meaning of the bottle?'

'I'm afraid it's rather by way of a farewell present.' Mason blushed under his ruddy tan. 'You wouldn't mind, would you, as I'm strictly not on duty tonight, if I joined you in a gla.s.s?'

'For Christ's sake, Terry, it's your booze, not mine!' Rawcliff fetched two tumblers and a jug of water from the kitchen. Mason took his drink thin, and sipped it like a liqueur.

Rawcliff had already found that the pilot's presence in the house had a combined disadvantage. The young man not only made him feel his age - he also reminded Rawcliff of what he was missing. For Mason would soon be returning ,to base, to the pressurized perspex coc.o.o.n of a fighter-bomber. Nothing particularly dramatic or hazardous, perhaps - they no longer flew by the book these days, they flew by computers, which was Judith's territory, Rawcliff recalled sourly - but during a few wonderful hours Mason would be up there in the icy blue-black emptiness, streaking along at Mach Two, a tiny disciplined G.o.d above the clouds. Free.

Rawcliff had been like that once. Better, he'd been his own man - taken out of uniform and trained almost to breaking point, then let loose as a licensed trouble-shooter, to enjoy all the bogus virility symbols that such a role seemed i to demand: a convivial drinker who made free with his loins, while remaining strictly short on emotional commitment. But all that had been in the past - well before Judith and Tom.

He looked across at Mason, sitting tense and alert in front of him, gripping his pale whisky. Flight-Lieutenant Mason was a sensible chap - wary of the demon drink. He also " looked trim and fit. And while.Rawcliff himself was still a powerful, well-built man, he was made aware that his good looks had sagged, that there were loops under his eyes and a thickening round his waist - all the marks of late-found domesticity and the daunting burden of parenthood.

Mason was moving his gla.s.s round between his fingers, clearly nervous.

Rawcliff said: 'You told me you had something you wanted to talk about in private. Well,' is this private enough?'

'I'm awfully sorry,' Mason began, 'but I shan't be able to come to you after this week. I've been called back to base.'

'We shall be sorry too. But that's not what you came to talk about, surely?'

.'No. Charles, I came to ask your advice. I've just had rather a funny experience and I don't know quite what to ; make of it. You see, we Service chaps lead rather a cloistered ' life - we don't get around like you London fellows.'

Rawcliff stood up. 'Let me freshen your drink, then you can tell me all about it. Judith'll rustle up something for us to eat. Right - fire away.'

'Well, as I told you, I don't know London, and a few ! evenings ago I found myself at a bit of a loose end. 1 went to a pub in Knightsbridge where I'd heard that some of the chaps from base go when they're up in town. I'm not much of a drinking man, but I thought I'd go on the off-chance I might b.u.mp into somebody I knew. 'As it happened, I was in for a bit of a surprise. I'd hardly been in there for a few minutes when I caught sight of an ail-too familiar face - and one I hadn't expected to see in a hurry. Belonged to a chap called Thurgood.

Ex-Flight Lieutenant Oswald Thurgood - with the emphasis on the Ex. You know how it is in the Services - everyone conforming, not much room for individuality - so when someone does step out of line, he does it in a big way. Thurgood was one of those. As mad as a hatter. Really bonkers - almost certifiable. For periods he just used to lie on his bunk staring at the ceiling. Sometimes he got these headaches which would keep him off-duty for days at a time. That was usually the signal for him to reappear arid do 'something crazy.

'I hadn't seen him for over eighteen months - since the Christmas before last, to be exact, when he finally went over the top. It was Christmas Eve and most of us family chaps were out of camp, in married quarters. Thurgood wasn't married - still isn't, as far as I know. Anyway, he suddenly grabbed an old Hunter - strictly a training job - and took her up and did a couple of loops over Benson, then buzzed several villages round Wallingford, and finished up clearing the Officers' Mess with about ten feet to spare. He was a d.a.m.ned good pilot. But, as I said, not quite right in the head. His secondary job was radios - b.l.o.o.d.y mad about them, he was. Built all his own equipment, and used to spend hours picking up places like Albania and Chad.

'Well, after that last escapade, there was a Camp Inquiry, and as a result Thurgood was given the order of the boot. After that he just disappeared - until I b.u.mped into him the other evening. I'd rather expected him to be in jail or an asylum by now. Well, he did look pretty odd in that pub. It was real November weather, if you remember - yet there was Oswald Thurgood, looking like he was dressed for Wimbledon or the Henley Regatta. White ducks, blue blazer, clipped moustache - the works! Very smart and prosperous, too, he looked. It was only his eyes that gave him away - sort of black and staring; I've never seen eyes like them before.

'Well, he remembered me, and we had a couple of beers together. He was on his own, and told *me that he had" a hi-fi and audio shop in the West End. Said he was making a packet.' Mason leaned forward and sipped his drink. 'I don't know quite how to explain this, but he'd put on the most extraordinary Oxford accent. You know, plum in the mouth, all that. And very loud. I found it quite embarra.s.sing. I was really glad when he suggested we left the pub and went on to eat.

'He had a big flashy Range-Rover outside, which he said he'd bought through a friend on the fiddle. We went to one of those Chinese places up in Soho. I'm not very keen on Oriental food, but the stuff there was pretty good.

Fortunately it was mostly full of Chinese, who didn't seem to notice Thurgood's accent. He ordered wine, and I must admit I got a bit tiddly. I tried to ask him what he'd been doing with himself, but he was very cagey.

Then he started asking me a lot of questions - general stuff, about my work at the base and the planes I flew and which I preferred. He also started getting a bit personal - asked me if I was happy in the Service, or wanted to get out and try my hand at something more exciting.

'Suddenly I knew he was fishing. He started mentioning money - saying that a pilot's life is like a boxer's or a racing-driver's. It takes a lot of knocks, and it doesn't go on forever. You have to grab the big opportunity, he said.

'Well, I'd drunk a bit of wine and I rather went along with him. Before I knew what I was doing, I was telling him that I was sick of the camp in Oxfordshire, and the married quarters, and I wanted to get out into the world and see a bit of life before it was too late, and earn some decent money. Hemanaged to get me quite excited. Suddenly he went off to make a telephone call. He was away about ten minutes, and when he came back he had that funny staring look, although he didn't seem at all drunk. And when he started talking again, I realized that he'd dropped the Oxford accent. He asked me what I was doing next evening - yesterday. I told him I didn't know. I was thinking perhaps you might need me, although I didn't let on about my job with you. 'Well, the outcome was that I arranged to meet him again next evening - same pub, same time. As it was, you didn't need me to baby-sit, and I had nothing else to do. I suppose, to be honest, I was a bit curious. I was sure by now that Thurgood was after something. I was also on my guard - I had to remember, after all, that I was - and still am - a serving Officer in Her Majesty's Forces, which hardly makes me a free agent. Still, there's no rule against having a drink with a former colleague, even if the fellow had been cashiered for being cuckoo.

'Thurgood turned up on time, dressed in tweeds this time, and what looked like an Old School tie - though I bet he didn't even get into the local Grammar.

Evening cla.s.ses in radio-electronics would have been more his style.

'Once again, he insisted on buying all the drinks, and dinner afterwards. He'd dropped the Oxford accent completely, thank G.o.d, and had become sort of quiet and evasive. He didn't talk a lot, but from what he did say I got the impression that he hadn't been up to much good since he'd been kicked out of the RAF. He'd been in some trouble with the police in Canada, then again when he got back to England - something to do with possessing a firearm - but it wasn't at all clear. There's nothing straightforward or clear about Thurgood, except his craziness. Nothing about him seems to connect up, if you see what I mean?

'All of which should have warned me off him - only I don't mind admitting that I'd had rather a lot to drink. I .wasn't drunk, but I'd certainly had more than I'm used to -probably because Thurgood was beginning to make me a bit nervous.

'Anyway, just as we were finishing dinner he went out again and made another telephone call. When he came back, he told me we were both going to a party.

He didn't ask if I wanted to go - it was more by way of an order. Perhaps it was because of the drinks, and because Thurgood was paying again, but I didn't argue. I thought it best just to go along with him and see what happened.

'Outside we got into his Range-Rover and he drove like a madman out to the City, to a big complex of modern flats, which I think is called the Barbican.

All Thurgood would say was that the party was being given by a pilot-friend of his - a civilian who ran his own flying taxi-service.

'Well, as it turned out, the fellow wasn't doing too badly for himself in Civvy Street! I reckoned he must have been making five times what a Wing Commander gets. Thurgood and I finished up in a penthouse flat with suede wallpaper and a lot of modern furniture in chrome and black leather. The taxi-pilot was called Jim Ritchie. Young handsome chap - obviously didn't have a care in the world. Good clothes -you know, fancy open-necked shirt and gold bracelet. Trendy, I suppose you'd call him. And very friendly. First thing he did, as soon as I was in the door, was give me a socking great brandy in a gla.s.s half the size of a football.

'Thurgood had said it was going to be a party, but the only other people there were two girls - one of them coloured. Both very pretty and exotically dressed, though Ritchie almost ignored them. I can't even remember being introduced to them. He only spoke to them to ask for more drinks or coffee, or to fetch cigarettes. 'I don't mind telling you, it was a very odd sort of party. At first I thought that I might be in for some sort of orgy -you could never tell with a fellow like Thurgood, although he wouldn't have been the type to take part. He'd have been more the one to organize it. As it was, he just stood by the door watching us, like a sort of manservant, while the taxi-pilot, Ritchie and I sat in the leather armchairs and the two girls wandered about in the background, smoking and listening to a lot of that soul-music on the hi-fi.

'I don't quite know how to explain it, but the whole scene was a bit unreal.

What made it more.so was that Ritchie was so friendly, so natural - so ordinary. I mean, he was so confident and relaxed, and he seemed to take me so much for granted. He and the girls were also being very generous with the brandy. It took me a bit of time to realize that he was pumping me - that I was telling pretty well my whole lifer story. The whole curriculum vitae, just as though it had come out of my file. Ritchie was particularly interested in the technical details of my flying career - he didn't interrupt much but when he did, it was to ask all the right questions.

'The drink had loosened me up, and I didn't mind boasting that I was an all-round pilot, Cla.s.s A-l fitness, and with full flying experience, on all types of aircraft. Then Ritchie started asking me a bit about my private life.

He mentioned how boring it must be at base-camp, and what I needed was some fresh air - "the chance to stretch my wings", he said.

'As with Thurgood the night before, I was sure all this was leading up to something, and I was about to ask him straight-out what the h.e.l.l they both wanted with me, when the outside buzzer went. Ritchie let in a small dark man in a fur-lined overcoat. He had a b.l.o.o.d.y great diamond ring on one hand and what looked like a solid gold watch that told the time in all the big cities of the world.

'He didn't look English - more the Mediterranean type, Greek or Maltese. Or maybe Jewish.' Then he added hastily, 'Ritchie introduced him as John Newby.

He had a slight accent when he spoke - very smooth, very confident. And like Ritchie, obviously doing very well for himself, thank you. He also smelt of perfume.

'The first thing he did was to tell Thurgood to drive the two girls home. As soon as they left he sat down and took out a little black cigar and smiled and said - and I can remember his words exactly - "I think it's a scandal that you RAF boys are paid so miserably, when our whole civilization must ultimately depend upon people like you." I must say, I thought this was pitching it a bit high, and I mumbled something about everyone having to make the best of what they've got in this life, and at this Newby became very excited, and started waving his cigar around and saying, "That's just what I'm getting at, young mail! But nothing ventured, nothing gained. Flying should be an exciting business. It can also be a profitable business - as Jim here will tell you!"

'Ritchie just sat and grinned at me. I noticed that he wasn't drinking much, and Newby wasn't drinking at all.

'I said something about it being all very well for freelance pilots in Civvy Street, but in the Services you had to keep to the rules. And Newby said, "Sometimes rules are meant to be broken." Then he went on at once to ask me, just as Ritchie had done, about my private life - whether I was married and had children, and so on. I was getting a bit fed up with this line of questioning - and I was also unsure of just how much this chap Newby really knew about me. I supposed that Thurgood must have given some sort of report to Ritchie before we'd met that evening, 'Then Newby asked me about myarrangements for leave. I told him I had three weeks due to me, but that normally I have to give at least two months' notice. Newby pressed me, and I told him that under special circ.u.mstances, such as pleading domestic difficulties, I might be able to take all three weeks almost at once.

'He and Ritchie looked satisfied. Then Newby asked me if I had ever flown a Hercules C-130 - one of those heavy four-engined turbo-prop American transports, some of them over twenty years old, and still working. d.a.m.n great carthorses that can lift off and land with over twenty tons of pay-load on a three-hundred-yard strip - cruising speed at around three hundred and twenty knots, and a maximum range, with external fuel-tanks, of 4,700 miles.

'Again they both seemed pleased with my answers. Ritchie then fired off a lot of questions, most of them fairly technical. Where had I flown a Hercules?

Over what sort of terrain? What sort of weather conditions, and what pay-loads? Did I have experience of landing one on rough ground, with the statutory minimum of 300 yards? Above all, could I handle a Hercules solo?

'I pointed out that a Hercules carries a full crew of four. But Ritchie dismissed this - a full crew included radio and radar operators, and a co-pilot. "Luxuries," he said, which sounded a bit funny, coming from someone in the plush taxi-service racket.

'Anyway, the brandy had made me a bit c.o.c.ky, and I told them I was sure I could handle a Hercules on my own - after all, what did I have to lose? - and Ritchie went on to ask how I was at low-flying, and I said I could easily manage fifty feet, but would prefer if it was over water or flat country, and he looked at Newby and said something about "doing their best to manage it,"

and they made a little joke about it. Still very friendly, they were.'

'Yes, I'm sure they were.' It was Rawcliffs first comment since Mason had begun his story, and he regretted it at once. The young pilot, in his eagerness to unburden himself, needed no prompting. At first Rawcliff had listened to him with a mildly patronizing patience - the older, wiser man, following Mason, in his lonely innocence, as he was lured, without subtlety, by the mad-eyed Thurgood to the suede-walled penthouse with its jazzy girls and soul-music and balloons of brandy, and the taxi-pilot, Ritchie, with his drip-dry ladykiller smile, and the oily foreigner, Newby, with his flashing diamond, both paying court to him as the heroic underdog defending the Faith amid the dreary huts and regulated wastes of an RAF camp, when just look what he was missing. Forget the rules. Rules were made to be broken.

And slowly, even without realizing it, Rawcliff had been drawn into Mason's place, sharing his frustrations, his feelings of inferiority, with the dawning of an uneasy excitement.

The house around them both was very still. Judith and Little Tom, safe upstairs, were for the moment forgotten. 'Go on,' Rawcliff said quietly. 'How much?'

'What?' Mason blinked dully: it was as though he were reliving that night in the Barbican penthouse all over again.

'How much did they offer you?' Rawcliff repeated.

'They didn't tell me straight out. But Newby did say that the moment I agreed, there would be a down-payment deposited for me in one of those Swiss bank accounts. No tax. Pretty heady stuff for a bloke like me - more the sort of thing you read about in books. I must have looked rather shaken, because Ritchie gave me a refill of brandy; then I managed to ask Newby how much Istood to get at the end of it. He told me it wouldn't be a fortune, but a very comfortable sum, thank you, by English standards.'

Rawcliff interrupted again: 'Did this man Newby say what he did for a living?'

'No. I just a.s.sumed he was some sort of business man.'

'Did he strike you as crooked?'