V 02 - Domino Men, The by Barnes-Jonathan Page A

last time.  Might I interest you in a new window?”
    “No,” I said flatly.  “You might not.”
    “And that’s your final answer?  Your answer is no?”
    “Absolutely.”
    The caller said nothing.  There followed a long silence as the truth of it smacked me in the face and slapped me viciously around the chops.
    “On second thought…”
    “What?”  She sounded utterly exasperated, like a teacher hand-holding a spectacularly dim-witted child through their ABCs.  “What’s your answer now?”
    “The answer is yes,” I said, cautiously at first, then growing in confidence.  “The answer is yes!”
    The line went dead.
    Abbey was looking at me as though I was mad.  “Who on earth was that?”
    The doorbell began to jangle, hectically, insistently, without pause — the kind of ring you’d expect if someone was being murdered on your doorstep.
    “Stay there,” I said, fueled by cocktail, birthday cake and the best kiss of my life, I strode to the front door and wrenched it open.
    A little old lady stood outside.  With her prim demeanor, outsized glasses and neatly curled hair, she looked as though she ought to be running the jam stall at the church fête instead of standing on my doorstep in Tooting after dark.
    Her right hand was pressed hard against the bell.  Mercifully, when she saw me, she let go.  “Your grandfather said you were intelligent.  Evidently, he was blinded by sentiment.”
    “Who on earth are you?”
    “You’re in the most terrible danger, Mr. Lamb.”
    “Didn’t I ask who you were?”
    “I’m an ally.  That’s all you need to know for now.  I assume your grandfather never told you about the password?”
    “My granddad’s in the hospital,” I said.  “He’s in a coma.”
    “But he laid plans, Henry.  I’m merely playing my part in the process.”  She peered past me into the house.  “Extraordinary.  It hasn’t changed one bit.”
    “What?”
    “You know by now, I suppose, who your grandfather was?  What he was?”
    “Chief field officer in the Directorate.  Mr. Dedlock’s number one.  The leading light in the secret war against the House of Windsor.”  She lowered her voice.  “More kills to his name than any other soldier.”
    “It’s all true, then?” I said softly.
    “All true, Mr. Lamb.  With a good deal of the really unpleasant detail still to come.”  She seemed to be surveying the street.  A battered car, effluent brown, grumbled past and she stared interrogatively at its driver.  “I mustn’t stay long tonight.  They’ll have put watchers on you.”
    “Watchers?”
    “Tell no one you’ve seen me.  Not even Dedlock.”
    “You know Dedlock?”
    “I know them all.  Knew them all, at any rate.”  She gave me a disgusted look, as though I’d just broken wind and laughed about it.  “What a hideous sweater.”
    “It was a present,” I said defensively.  Then, remembering the gravity of the situation:  “I think you’d better come inside.”
    “Not tonight.  The enemy is very close.  We’ll meet again soon,  Until then — tread carefully.”
    Before I could stop her, she was gone, trotting spryly into the dark.  I peered out at the street and could see no sign of those “watchers” she’d spoken about.  But I was careful to double-lock the door all the same before I went back into the sitting room, where Abbey, still aflutter from our kiss, was polishing off another slice of cake.
    “I was thinking,” she said, “how about we go to the cinema tomorrow?  I’m not sure what’s on—”  She saw my face.  “What’s happened?  Who was that?”
    “A ghost from the past,” I said, before, in a sudden surge of pessimism, adding:  “Or the shape of things to come.”

 
     
     
Chapter 9

     
    Somehow another night had passed, another cheerless journey had been endured with Barnaby and I had come again to the Directorate, back to that glass bubble and its impossible occupant.
    “You look