"Yes, why not? I'm going to open a bottle of wine and pour us a gla.s.s. Then I'll make dinner."

Caroline smiled appreciatively. "Thanks. What'll you make?"

"Risotto, I think," said Jo.

Chapter 60: Outside Fortnum & Mason.

Rupert Porter walked back down the corridor in the Ragg Porter Literary Agency in a state of mild astonishment. He was normally not one to allow another to have the last word, but he had found himself completely at a loss when Andrea, the agency's receptionist, had casually referred to her conversation with the person if it was really a person who had been sitting in the waiting room. It was a thoroughly ridiculous situation, and as he returned to his office, he went over in his mind each absurd development.

At the heart of it all was Errol Greatorex, Barbara Ragg's American author, who claimed and it was an utterly risible claim to be writing the biography of the yeti, the Abominable Snowman of the Himalayas. But Greatorex was no random crank; he had a significant body of publications behind him, including two travel books that had won awards in Canada and the United States, and had been published in London too, by a reputable publisher. He had also written for popular geographical magazines and the Melbourne Age, all of which amounted to a perfectly respectable set of credentials.

Greatorex's career suggested that he must have developed a healthy degree of intellectual caution. How, then, Rupert wondered, could somebody like him swallow the claim of some fakir that he was a yeti, of all things? Surely the whole point about yetis was that they were an intermediate primate not quite h.o.m.o sapiens, even if given to walking erect and leaving intriguing footprints in the snow. That was the legend, but, like all legends, it could hardly stand up to the investigative standards of our times. There were no mysteries left, none at all; not in an age of satellite photography, when the remotest corners of the globe were laid bare by unsleeping, all-seeing cameras. The Loch Ness monster, the yeti, Lord Lucan all of these would have been seen if they really existed.

Yet many people were gullible, and when you combined this inherent gullibility with a wish to believe in things beyond the ordinary you ended up with a whole raft of myth. Errol Greatorex was either a charlatan, cynically prepared to exploit his credulous readers, or he was himself the victim of an even greater charlatan this Himalayan type pretending to be the yeti. And it might not be all that difficult; one had only to be tall yetis had always been thought to be on the tall side and markedly hirsute. There were plenty of hairy people around, and one might expect that some of them were tall. So if a tall, hairy person, although h.o.m.o sapiens, were to come up with a story of being taken from a remote valley and put in some mission school, there to be educated by ... by Jesuits, perhaps, who had always claimed, "Give us the boy until the age of seven and we will give you the man", might one not say the same thing of a yeti? "Give us the yeti until the age of seven ..." Rupert frowned. He was not sure whether the Jesuits ever actually said that. Perhaps it was one of those chance remarks, dropped as an aside, that were seized upon and magnified out of all proportion. Had Margaret Thatcher ever really said, "There's no such thing as society"? That statement had gone on to haunt her, although what she had in fact said and Rupert had this on good authority, although very few people knew it was, "There's no such thing as hockey". It was a curious remark to make, and she certainly should not have made it, but it was not the same as saying that there was no such thing as society. Had people heard her correctly and understood that she was talking about hockey, they might have been forewarned that she would go on to say a number of other very peculiar things.

He reached his office, and stopped. Thinking on these matters had made him momentarily forget about what Andrea had said to Errol Greatorex in the reception. She had said that the tall hairy person had gone off to do some shopping and would meet him in front of Fortnum & Mason at twelve. He looked at his watch. It was now ten o'clock, which meant that in two hours anybody who just happened to be walking along that particular section of Piccadilly would actually see this person who claimed to be the yeti. Even if there were other people waiting outside the shop and there were many, he imagined, who met friends at midday outside Fortnum & Mason it would not require a great deal of skill to identify a yeti, or a soi-disant yeti, among them.

Rupert smirked. If he went there himself, he could see this impostor. He could then tackle la Ragg when she came back from her jaunt to Scotland and reveal to her that he had investigated her so-called literary scoop and discovered it to be a squalid fraud like so many much-vaunted publishing sensations.

Shortly before twelve, he left the office. As he walked past Andrea's desk, he stopped, on impulse, and told her where he was going.

"I'm just off to Fortnum & Mason," he said. "I might b.u.mp into that ... person who was here with Errol Greatorex."

Andrea nodded. "All right."

"If anything happens to me, Andrea," he said quietly, "you will remember what I said, won't you? Fortnum & Mason. Greatorex."

Andrea nodded again. Why was he making such a fuss? What did he imagine could possibly happen to him at Fortnum & Mason? He's very peculiar, she thought. I won't be surprised if they cart him off one of these days not in the least surprised.

Chapter 61: In Fortnum & Mason.

It did not take half an hour to walk from the Ragg Porter offices to Fortnum & Mason. In normal conditions, when the throngs of visitors milling about Piccadilly Circus were not too thick, it would take barely ten minutes to make the journey; when the streets were crowded, one might need a little longer. It depended, too, on how quickly one walked Rupert was a quick walker, especially now, when he was keenly impatient to see whether there really would be a yeti outside the famous store. And understandably so: who would not find their pace quickening with the knowledge that there lay before them the chance of seeing that most elusive of creatures, the Abominable Snowman?

Of course Rupert knew full well and reminded himself as he made his way that whatever he was going to see outside Fortnum & Mason, it was not going to be a yeti. If a mysterious tall figure did indeed turn up, then that was all he would be a mysterious tall figure. And if Rupert had the chance to see him at close quarters, and he intended to ensure exactly that, he was certain that his suspicions would be confirmed. Fraudsters and tricksters were usually rather ba.n.a.l types, he told himself, and this tall figure would probably be revealed as coming from Croydon, or Tooting, or somewhere like that. He would definitely not be Himalayan.

At a quarter to twelve, Rupert found himself opposite Fortnum & Mason. Ahead of him, hanging from the facade of the Royal Academy, were great banners, fluttering in the breeze, advertising the current show. Rupert was a member of the Friends of the Royal Academy and made a point of going to all the exhibitions. He had not seen this one and for a moment, forgetting his mission, he wondered whether he should wander in and see The Later Bonnard. But then he reminded himself why he was there, and looked back over the road to the stately grocery shop with its copper-green windows and elaborate chiming clock. His eye moved upwards to the warrant-holder's display of royal arms between the third and fourth floors. He could not make out any legend below the device: perhaps they provided fruitcake to the palace, or chocolate, or even something prosaic like b.u.t.ter. It would be something like that, he thought something needed for the thousands of sandwiches that the palace served each year at the garden parties. Rupert had read that the official figure for sandwiches fed to guests each year was eighty thousand, with the same number of slices of cake being served. It was profoundly inspiring: eighty thousand sandwiches what other country, he wondered, came even near that?

He looked at his watch. He could hardly loiter on the pavement for fifteen minutes; apart from anything else, he wanted to be inconspicuous so as to get a good look at the stranger. Yetis were notoriously shy creatures, and if one were to appear in front of Fortnum & Mason and see somebody loitering on the pavement opposite, he would be bound to take fright. But then this was not a yeti, Rupert reminded himself. Even so, he did not want to be spotted by Errol Greatorex, who he knew was due to arrive there at midday, and accordingly he decided to cross the road and enter the shop. He could easily spend fifteen minutes looking at the displays of olive oil or some such; there was a lot to see in Fortnum & Mason. Then, when the time was ripe, he would sidle towards the front door to see whether Greatorex's mysterious companion had arrived.

Although the shop would be busy at lunchtime, when people from nearby offices took the opportunity to buy something in their lunch hour, it was still a little early for lunchtime crowds when Rupert went in, and there was no more than a handful of people walking along the aisles of the s.p.a.cious food hall. He did not have a sweet tooth, and so the shelves of chocolates and sugared almonds held no charms for him. He was drawn instead to a display of china bowls of Patum Peperium; that was much more to his taste. These bowls, with their lids decorated with Victorian hunting scenes, were considerably larger than the normal white plastic containers of the famous anchovy paste. Rupert picked one up to admire it and found that it was surprisingly heavy. He replaced it carefully, but as he did so his sleeve caught a neighbouring bowl and sent it crashing to the floor. The heavy china container shattered with an astonishingly loud report rather like that of a gun being fired. Rupert gasped as he saw what he had inadvertently done.

In a very short time not more than ten seconds an a.s.sistant in a formal black suit appeared to investigate. The a.s.sistant glanced at the mess on the floor, and at Rupert.

"Are you all right, sir?"

Rupert nodded. 'I'm terribly sorry ..." He gestured to the shattered bowl; large pieces of broken china stuck out of the exposed brown lump of anchovy paste.

The a.s.sistant seemed uninterested in the apology. "The important point is that you are all right, sir. That's what matters." He bent down and began to pick pieces of china out of the paste.

"Please let me help," said Rupert, crouching down to join him. As he did so, he noticed a movement at the end of the aisle, behind the a.s.sistant. A tall man wearing a light olive-green overcoat had walked round the end of the line of shelves and was looking in his direction. Then, as quickly as he had arrived, he vanished.

Rupert stood up. The man he had seen was very tall, and although he had been unable to make out his face, he had had a distinct impression of facial hairiness.

The a.s.sistant straightened up too. "We'll clear this up in no time," he said. 'It's very easily done." He paused. He had noticed that Rupert was staring down the next aisle, and appeared agitated.

"Have you seen something, sir?"

"I'm sorry," said Rupert. "I have to go."

He stepped forward, unfortunately into the Patum Peperium. It was soft underfoot, and it flowed out to cover the sole of his right shoe, creeping fishily up the sides.

"Do be careful, sir!"

Rupert looked down in dismay. His shoe was covered in thick anchovy paste.

The a.s.sistant looked concerned. "Can I get you a cloth to clean up, sir?"

Rupert shook his head. "No," he said, craning his neck to get a better view of the tall figure disappearing out of the front door of the shop. "I shall be fine."

"Your shoe is very ... messy, sir. I really think ..."

Rupert brushed the a.s.sistant aside, and strode off, leaving anchovy-paste footprints behind him.

"Really, sir, if you wouldn't mind ..."

He did not hear the objection. It was the yeti he was sure of it. The yeti had been in Fortnum & Mason and was now leaving. Rupert pushed his way past the other shoppers. "Sorry," he muttered. "I really must go. Excuse me."

He would have to follow the yeti. He was not going to let him get away.

Chapter 62: a la recherche d'un yeti perdu.

The yeti walked at an unnaturally fast pace. It was only to be expected, thought Rupert, as he struggled to keep up with his quarry; years of loping across the snow plains of the Himalayas presumably gave him an advantage over others when it came to the firmer, less challenging pavements of Piccadilly. But Rupert was determined that he would not let him out of his sight, and did not care if people stared at him as he broke into a run. Plenty of people ran in London; they ran for buses, they ran to keep out of squalls of rain, they ran for reasons known only to themselves. London, he thought, was used to everything, even to the sight of a suavely dressed man Rupert had always been a natty dresser pursuing a tall, lolloping figure out of the stately premises of Fortnum & Mason and into the crowds.

Fortnum & Mason. A thought suddenly occurred to Rupert as he pushed his way out of the front door of the shop Ratty Mason. When they were at school together he had never asked Ratty Mason what his father did, but now he remembered a chance remark that the other boy had made. "My old man's got a shop. Quite a big one actually." He had said this when they were sitting together in Rupert's study eating toast made on the battered toaster that he kept, against the regulations, in a cupboard. And the toast, he now remembered, was spread with ... Patum Peperium! The memory came unbidden, and was, like many such memories, richly evocative. Proust's hero's memory of Sunday mornings at Combray, when his aunt Leonie used to give him little pieces of madeleine cake dipped in her tea, had later been evoked by the taste of such a cake; for Rupert, perhaps the trigger was also a food, in this case Patum Peperium. He and Ratty Mason had eaten toast and anchovy paste; now here he was, all these years later, outside Fortnum & Mason, with anchovy paste on his shoe. It was all very powerful. And could the shop that Ratty Mason had referred to have been the centuries-old Fortnum & Mason? Was Ratty Mason's father a member of the same Mason family?

It was a complex line of thought. Such thoughts, though, are readily entertained by the human mind, so great is its capacity to wander off at a tangent. Now, as Rupert looked about him on the Piccadilly pavement to locate the vanishing figure of the yeti, he remembered something else that Ratty Mason had said. This time the remark had no a.s.sociation with Patum Peperium as they had not been eating toast but doing a compulsory cross-country run he (Rupert), Billy Fairweather, Snark, Ratty Mason and Chris Walker-Volvo. The memory seemed so fresh: he could see them, all five of them, slowing down from their running pace as they went out of sight of the gym master, with the sun coming up over trees that were touched with soft rime it was a clear day in winter and their breath hanging in small clouds in the cold morning air. Five friends as they then were five boys on the cusp of sixteen, whose lives would turn out very differently, but who then thought that they would somehow be together for ever. And Billy Fairweather had made a chance observation about his father belonging to a club of some sort, and then Ratty had said, "My dad's a mason." Rupert had bent down to pick up a stick that was lying on the ground in front of him and had broken off a bit of this stick and thrown it across the field. "Useless throw," said Billy Fairweather, and Rupert turned to Ratty and said, "Of course he's a mason, Mason." Something had happened at that moment something that distracted their attention and they had started to run again, because they had to finish the course within a certain time or the gym master, a peppery figure who had been a fitness instructor in the Irish Guards, would make them do the run all over again.

Rupert spotted the yeti. The shambling figure had moved speedily in the direction of Piccadilly Circus and then, so quickly that had Rupert not been sharp-eyed he might not have noticed, he went through the front door of Hatchards book shop. The sight cheered Rupert: Hatchards, where he was a regular customer, was home ground. Rupert knew the staff there, as he would often accompany one of his authors to do a lunchtime signing. This meant that not only was he familiar with the layout of the shop which would give him an advantage over the yeti, who presumably did not know the place but also he knew that there was only one way out, for the customers at least. If he waited by the front door, just inside the shop, then the yeti would not be able to leave without walking past him. And that would be the moment when he would see his face for the first time, and would even be able to accost him and find out whether he really was a yeti which he certainly would not be or whether he was an impostor which he certainly would be. That would put la Ragg's gas at a peep! "Your so-called yeti," he would say. "I met him, you know. In Hatchards, no less. Himalayan section, of course, looking at the mountaineering books." Ha! That would be funny. And la Ragg, who blushed easily, would look furtive, and Rupert would go on to say, "You really need to be more careful, Barbara. Representing this autobiography stands to make us look very foolish indeed."

And Barbara Ragg would be chastened, which is how Rupert liked her to feel. It was all very well getting possession of that flat which had been intended for him, but where was the satisfaction in having a comfortable although ill-gotten flat when you were such a rotten failure at work, a soft touch for every crank and charlatan with a dubious ma.n.u.script about a yeti, of all things? Where was the satisfaction in that? Nowhere, though Rupert. Nowhere.

He went into Hatchards. Roger Katz, the legendary bibliophile, was standing just inside the door. He had just finished talking to a customer, and he smiled when he recognised Rupert. "Ah, Rupert," he said. "I've got just the book for you."

Rupert looked over Roger's shoulder into the shop beyond. Where had the yeti gone?

"Did you see anybody?" Rupert blurted out. "A very tall chap. This tall." He raised a hand to well above head height.

Roger nodded. "Yes, I did, actually. He went upstairs, I think. Strange-looking fellow."

"I have to find him," said Rupert. "Will you come with me?"

Roger shrugged. "Yes, of course. One can usually locate a person quite easily." He paused, and gave Rupert an enquiring look. "Who is he? A friend?"

"It's complicated," said Rupert. "More complicated than you can imagine."

Chapter 63: Meeting Stephanie.

Had Hugh's mother had a brood of other children, her relationship with Hugh might have been an easier one. But he was an only child and an only son, and for a mother in such a position it is not always easy to accept that another woman will eventually enter her son's life and, if all goes according to plan the plan being that of the other woman take him away. This common conflict, so understandable and so poignant, is played out time and time again, and almost always with the same painful result: mother loses. It is so, of course, if mother is overt in her attempt to put off the almost inevitable; if she is covert, then she stands a chance, admittedly a remote one, of introducing into her son's mind a germ of doubt that the woman he has chosen might not be the right one for him. That takes skill, and boundless patience, but is a course fraught with dangers for the relationship between mother and future daughter-in-law, let alone for that between mother and son.

Stephanie, of course, adored Hugh what mother could not? Her adoration was founded on precisely those qualities that Barbara had discerned in him and that had drawn her to him his gentleness, his kindness, his masculine vulnerability. Stephanie knew that she should let go of him, should welcome other women into his life, but she found it almost impossible to do. If only she could like his girlfriends; but how, she wondered, do you like people whom you quite simply do not like?

She had been dreading this meeting with Barbara; on a number of earlier occasions Hugh had brought girlfriends home to whom she had found herself taking an almost immediate dislike a dislike that she had great difficulty in concealing. This had been picked up on by her husband, as for all his apparent equanimity and farmerly appearance Sorley had an astute sense of atmosphere. "You judge these poor girls too quickly," he had said of one of them, a sound engineer from Glasgow. "How can you tell? You really must give her a chance."

"But she has a piercing in her nose," Stephanie said. "You must have noticed. And her tongue too. Did you see the stud right in the middle of it?"

Sorley shrugged. "The world's changing," he said. "Aesthetic standards change. What's unattractive to us may be just the thing for Hugh and his generation we have to remind ourselves of that, you know."

"But her tongue," Stephanie persisted. "What's the point? And presumably it traps particles of food." Or could trap her son, she thought with horror. What if they were kissing and the stud got caught between a gap in Hugh's teeth? What then?

Again Sorley had urged her to be tolerant. "But does it really matter if our son's girlfriend traps particles of food?" He smiled as he spoke. Who among us has never trapped particles of food? Indeed, that was part, surely, of being human; an inevitable concomitant of our imperfection.

At least Barbara Ragg had no piercings. That was noted with relief by Stephanie, who cast a quick glance at the other woman's tongue when she first spoke to her. Barbara noticed her future mother-in-law looking into her mouth, and was momentarily concerned. What was this a dental examination? Or was it the way country people, many of whom were incorrigibly horsey, looked at prospective members of the family, examining the mouth in the same way that they might look into the mouth of a horse being considered for purchase. Surely not?

She, in return, ran a quick eye over Stephanie. Hugh's mother was in her mid-fifties, she decided, but had weathered well. She was dressed more or less as Barbara would expect somebody like her to dress, sporting as she did an olive-green tweed skirt with a navy blue cashmere top the sort of outfit worn by legions of country women in comfortable circ.u.mstances. Had she stepped out of a station at a point-to-point she would, Barbara thought, have raised no eyebrows. And yet there was something slightly exotic about her, a quality that Barbara perceived immediately, a hint of greater depths than such women usually showed.

This impression was strengthened as Stephanie showed Barbara to her room. "We call this the Cadell room," she said, pointing to a pair of pictures above the fireplace. "My grandfather knew Bunty Cadell rather well. He gave him these paintings. They used to be in my parents' drawing room in Montevideo, when we were there."

Barbara looked at the paintings. One was a small study of a woman in an extravagant hat; the other a picture of a yacht moored in a Mediterranean harbour.

"You lived in Uruguay?" said Barbara with interest. "Hugh didn't tell me."

Stephanie stared out of the window. "Hugh doesn't speak much about South America. Ever since ..."

She did not finish the sentence, but moved across the room to open the door of the wardrobe. "I've cleared this out for you," she said briskly. "One gets so much clutter, and guests are a good reason to sort it out." She smiled brightly at Barbara. Clearly there was to be no more discussion of South America.

Barbara found herself wondering about Stephanie's accent. She had a.s.sumed that she was Scottish, but there was something else there, a suggestion of French, perhaps; just a hint. Now she remembered something that Hugh had said about his mother a chance remark that she had not paid much attention to, but now came back. She had been educated in Switzerland, he had said. There had been a school outside Geneva.

But what had happened to Hugh in Colombia? Stephanie had said that he did not like to talk about it, but he had certainly talked to Barbara, although not at great length. She decided that there might not be another opportunity to raise the matter, and so she would ask.

"Did something bad happen to Hugh in Colombia? He once told me-"

Stephanie moved quickly to her side. "Did he?" she asked with urgency. "Did he tell you?"

"Well, he started to," said Barbara. "He began a story about being on that ranch near Barranquilla. But then ..."

"What exactly did he say?" Stephanie was staring at her imploringly. Barbara noticed her eyes. They were a very faint green, like those of a Tonkinese cat. They were innocent eyes, and they now begged for information, their gaze as eloquent as any words.

"He didn't tell me much," Barbara said.

Stephanie seemed relieved, and Barbara realised that her relief came from learning that Barbara did not know what had happened. That, she thought, suggested that Stephanie herself knew, but would not tell.

"You know, don't you?" she asked. "Did he tell you?"

Stephanie turned away. "You must excuse me," she said distantly. "I have to check on something in the kitchen. I should not like to serve burnt offerings on your very first day here."

Chapter 64: Inconclusive Conversation.

Dinner was served at seven o'clock.

"We like to eat early in the summer months," Stephanie said to Barbara. "The evenings here are so lovely so long drawn out. It gives us a chance to get things done after the meal."

"Such as going for a walk," said Hugh. He looked at Barbara invitingly. "Would you like that?"

"Of course."