But even as he stood there by the window, nodding slowly and contentedly to himself for a few moments, it was Browne-Smith who still dominated his thoughts. It had always been “Browne-Smith” with him-not even “Malaria” Browne-Smith, as though such familiarity might compromise his eternal antagonism. There would be only a few more nights now when he would have to dine in Hall with that odious man; just a few more lunches, occasionally standing awkwardly proximate over the cold buffets; only one more College meeting, at the beginning of next week- the very last one. For the Trinity Term was almost over now; his last term, and very soon his last day and his last hours; and then the moment (when it came) of looking down for the very last time on that immaculate lawn…

George Westerby was collectively conscious of all these things as he stood watching from his first-floor window on that chilly early morning of the 11th July. What he did not know at that time-what he could not have known-was that Lonsdale College was never again to welcome Browne-Smith within its quiet quads.

CHAPTER FOUR

In which we hem a tantalizing glimpse of high-floss harlotiy.

The taxi-driver knew the street, and Browne-Smith settled himself in the back seat with a heightened sense of excitement. He would have wished to savour these moments longer, but in less than five minutes the taxi pulled up at the kerb of Number 29, a large four-storied balconied building in a fashionable terrace just behind Russell Square. In general, although the original brickwork on the lower reaches of the walls had been smutted by traffic-fumes and smoke, the house seemed to have maintained its elegant fagade with comparative ease. The black door, with its polished brass knobs and letter-box, was framed by white pillars; and the woodwork of the windows was also painted white, with neatly kept window-boxes adding their splash of greens and reds. Black railings, set in concrete, were stretched along the front; behind which, after a gap of about five feet, the wall of the house continued down to a basement. On these railings a board had been affixed:

Luxury Apartments for Sale or to Let

Please apply: Brooks and Gilbert

(Sole Agents) Tel. 01-483 2307

Viewing by appointment only

Browne-Smith walked up the three shallow steps, and pressed the single bell, apprehensively fingering the blue card that was now in his inside jacket-pocket. He waited. But he had heard no sound of ringing on the other side of the great door, and he could see no sign of life. At this moment, and for the first time, the idea filtered into his mind that he might have been cruelly duped for the silly fool – the silly old fool – that he was, in going along with the whole disreputable and dishonourable business. He turned to look at the busy street and saw an aristocratic female disembarking from a taxi only a few doors away. No, it wasn’t too late even now! He could just forget it all, hail the taxi…

But the door had opened silently behind him.

‘Can I help you?’ (That West Country intonation again.)

‘I’m a friend of Mr Sullivan’s.’ (Hardly the customary tone of his Mods tutorials-hesitant and slightly croaky.)

‘You have an appointment?’

He took out the small, oblong card and handed it to her. The typewritten legend was exceedingly brief, but also (as Browne-Smith saw it) exceedingly significant: ‘Please admit bearer’-nothing else, except for that little constellation of asterisks clustered hi the top right-hand corner.

The woman stood aside and beckoned him over the threshold, closing the door (again noiselessly) behind them. ‘You’re an important client, sir, and we welcome you.’ She smiled appropriately as they moved through the large entrance hall, carpeted in a light-olive shade, with the same carpeting leading up the wide staircase which faced the front door. She turned to him as she walked on ahead up these stairs, and Browne-Smith noticed her inappropriately ugly teeth as she smiled again. ‘All blue cards are on the first floor, sir. I’m afraid we haven’t got our full complement of girls just for the moment-it’s the evenings usually that we have our busiest time. But I’m sure you won’t be disappointed in any way. No one’s ever disappointed here.’

On the first landing, she turned to him again, her eyes assessing him shrewdly, like a tailor mentally measuring some wealthy customer. Then, after looking along the corridor to left and right, she appeared to decide where the most appropriate prospects lay, for she opened the door immediately across the landing with a brusqueness which seemed clearly to betoken her mistress-ship of the establishment.

At a table immediately inside the room on the left sat a woman of some forty summers, blonde and big-breasted, wearing a low-cut, full-length purple gown; and, as the lady of the house introduced her client, she stood up and slowly smiled.

‘You’re free, I think, this afternoon, Yvonne?’

‘Thees eevening, also, madame, eef you weesh it.’ The blonde smiled bewitchingly again, showing her beautifully even teeth. She was exquisitely made up, a moist lipstick marking the contours of her sensuous mouth, her hair piled immaculately on top of her finely-boned head.

‘Is Paula free, too?’

‘She weel be, madame. She ‘ave a client for lernch, but she weel be free aftair.”

‘Well-’ (madame spoke directly to Browne-Smith) ‘-if you’re happy to stay here with Yvonne, sir?’

He swallowed and nodded his unequivocal assent.

‘Good. I’ll leave you, then. But you are to have everything you want, sir-I hope you understand that? Absolutely everything.’

‘I’m most grateful.’

She turned to go. ‘You must know Mr-er-Sullivan very well, sir?’

‘I was just able to do him a little favour, that’s all. You know how these things are.’

‘Of course. And you promise to let me know if there’s anything that Yvonne here can’t-’

‘I don’t think you need worry.”

Then madame was gone, and the back of Browne-Smith’s throat felt parched as he fought to stem the flood of erotic imaginings that threatened to swamp him. He had little help from the woman who, briefly resuming her seat in order to make some entry in a red leather-bound diary on the table, leant forward as she did so and revealed even to the most casual glance that beneath her dress she was wearing little else-at least above her rather ample hips.

‘I am weeth you now, sir.’ She rose from her chair and walked round to him. ‘Let me take your coat.’

Browne-Smith took off the light brown summer raincoat he had worn continuously since leaving Oxford, and watched her as she folded it neatly over her left arm, slid her right hand under his elbow, and guided him over to a door at the far end of the room.

Compared with the somewhat austere and sparsely furnished room they had just left, this inner room was lavishly and (to Browne-Smith’s tastes) rather luridly equipped. Two blood-red lamps, affixed to the inner wall, cast a subdued light around, and thick, yellow curtains, drawn fully across the single window, cut out all but the narrowest chink of natural light. The other furnishings were gaudily provocative with a cohort of multi-coloured cushions covering the long, low settee, and, behind that, bright yellow sheets and pillows on the widely welcoming bed, its coverlet already turned back. Opposite the settee was a tall, well-stocked, drinks cabinet, its doors standing open; and beside it a film projector, pointing a protruding snout towards the white expanse of wall to the left of the curtained casement. Pervading all was the heavy, heady smell of some sweet scent, and Browne-Smith felt a semi-permanent, priapic push between his loins.