FIVE

It was a bright, clear morning, although rain threatened, and Grace Browning was enjoying herself on a track high up above the forest. She wore black biker’s leathers which Lang had provided and a rather sinister black helmet. Lang was riding behind her, wearing jeans and a bomber jacket but no helmet. Danger ran alongside them. After his initial instruction, it was fun to find how well she could handle the bike. He pulled in beside her, lit two cigarettes, and passed one to her.

“You’ve got flair. Typical actor, I suppose. Chameleon-like ability to take on anything at short notice.”

“Nothing typical about me, darling,” she said. “But I like physical things and this is fun.”

“Good. You’ve mastered the rudiments. We’ll take a twenty-mile run round the moor and back to the house. You’ll be amazed how quickly you’ll pick it up. Just one thing. There’s a very good reason why the Montesa is so popular with shepherds in mountain and moorland country. They’ll do half a mile an hour over rough ground if you want. On the other hand, you can go rather faster.”

He turned the throttle and zoomed away, and after a moment’s hesitation she went after him.

Curry returned to London on the Navajo the following day. After breakfast, Lang took Grace up into the forest to give her more practice on the Montesa.

After an hour, they stopped for a break and sat on the grass. He lit two cigarettes as always and gave her one. She lay on her back. “I like you, Rupert – I like you a lot.”

“Snap, my sweet,” he said. “Except I love you a lot.”

“Yet you’ve never put a hand on me once.”

“I know, my gorgeous one,” he teased her. “But you see I’m terribly faithful. Fell in love with Tom first time we met at Cambridge. Women – and please don’t get upset – don’t do the slightest thing for me.” He turned over and kissed her. “Having said that, I adore you. I suppose you think I’ve got a piece missing in my personal jigsaw.”

“Oh, Rupert, my lovely Rupert, don’t we all?” she said and kissed his cheek.

He rolled away and raised himself on one elbow. “The Navajo’s doing a return; bringing an old friend of mine down just for twenty-four hours. George is picking him up.”

“Who would that be?”

“Ian McNab. Used to be my company sergeant major in the Paras. He runs a gym in London. Karate, judo, aikido – all that sort of thing for those who want it.”

He paused and she said, “And something more?”

Rupert lit another cigarette. “Most martial arts and defense techniques generally are designed to help you defend yourself, ward the attacker off, that sort of thing. To come to terms with those techniques takes years of training. Ian McNab offers something quite different.”

“And what would that be?”

“His self-defense system is delivered with extreme prejudice. No point in using it except to kill or maim.”

“Good God!” she said.

“There we go again, you invoking the Almighty.” He stood up. “Come on, let’s get going.”

Ian McNab was surprisingly small, a gray-haired man of fifty with a broken nose and a pleasant, Highland voice.

“A great pleasure, Miss Browning. I was in Glasgow on business last year and saw you do that Tennessee Williams fella’s Cat on a Hot Tin Roof at the Citizen’s Theatre. Wonderful, you were.”

He wore a black tracksuit and trainers. Lang said, “Plenty of judo mats in the barn, Ian.” They left the house and walked across the yard. “The thing is, Miss Browning was attacked by a mugger last week. Shook her up badly. Luckily someone drove by, but it occurred to me that you could help her. Your special course. The seven moves.”

“Of course, Captain.” McNab shook his head. “The terrible times we live in.”

They went in the barn and he and Lang got a number of judo mats from a pile in the corner and laid them out together. He turned to Grace. “Right, miss. My system is special and it’s only to be used in extreme situations.”

“I understand.”

“You see, I can show you seven things to do which will always cripple, but may also kill. You follow me?”

“I think so.”

“For example, if you extend your knuckles in the right hand… you are right-handed I take it?”

“Yes.”

“Good. If you extend a punch under the chin at the Adam’s apple, then even a sixteen-stone rugby player will go down. You can also do it with stiffened fingers. The trouble is he could choke to death. That’s why I call my special course with extreme prejudice.”

“I see.”

“There’s another. The kneecap is one of the most sensitive parts of the human body. Again, let’s imagine our sixteen-stone rugby player. If you raise your foot in a struggle and stamp down on his kneecap, you’ll dislodge it and he’ll go down. You won’t kill him, but you’ll cripple him and very probably for life.”

“I see. Extreme prejudice again.”

“That’s right. No offense meant, miss, but there’s then the question of your attacker’s private parts.”

Grace laughed out loud. “There always is with men, Sergeant-Major.”

Lang laughed and McNab smiled. “Too true, miss. Then there’s the reverse elbow strike. Very lethal, that.”

She turned to Rupert. “Are you an expert in all this?”

“Now do I look the physical type, darling?” he said. “I’ve got phone calls to make. Give her the works for an hour, Sergeant-Major. I’ll see you later.”

He went out and McNab turned to Grace. “Right you are, miss. Let’s get started.”

Just before midnight she came down in her dressing gown and found Lang in the drawing room examining some faxes.

“Problems?”

“Government business, my love, particularly the Irish mess. Never goes away. Nightcap?”

“All right.” He poured two Bushmills and gave her one. “What about the Sergeant-Major?” she asked.

“Thought you very promising. He has a gym in Soho. He’d like to see you there when you can manage.”

“Sounds good to me.”

“I’m having the Navajo take him back to Gatwick tomorrow. It will return late afternoon. Bring Tom and Yuri Belov back with him.”

“That should be interesting.”

The wolfhound dozed in front of the fire. “He’s lovely,” she said. “Why do you call him Danger?”

“Well he can be pretty ruthless when roused!”

There was a portrait of a Regency buck over the fireplace. He wore a tailcoat, light buskins, and top boots. He bore an extraordinary resemblance to Lang.

“Who is that?” she said.

“An ancestor of mine. He was a Rupert too. He was the Earl of Drury and a great friend of the Prince Regent. The title was lost in the eighteen sixties when the male line died out. I’m descended from the female side.”

“What a shame. You could have been Earl of Drury.”

“True.”

“He looks very arrogant and there’s a restlessness to him. I sense it in you, Rupert.”

“He killed two men in pistol duels. Once faced up to the Duke of Wellington, who shot him in the shoulder.”

“You’d rather have been him than you?” she said with sudden insight.

“Yes, why not? Action, color, excitement. I mean, life’s such a bore, politics a joke.”

“But what about when you were in the Army? That must have had its moments.”

“Not real soldiering, Ireland. A sordid bloody mess. Woman poured a chamberpot full of urine over me once from a bedroom window, but enough of that.”

Rupert poured more whisky and sat sprawled beside her, gazing into the fire. He took her hand. “This is nice.”

“Very pleasant,” she said.

“As I’m not into women and you don’t exactly go for men in that way, I’d say we have a perfect relationship.”

She kissed him on the cheek and snuggled close. “I love you, Rupert Lang.”

“I know,” he said. “Isn’t it a shame?”