Free Sleep and His Brother by Peter Dickinson Page B

dressed in his swimming trunks and playing backgammon with the Swede. But for the champagne, I thought, I’d have been on that boat. I just sat there. Five o’clock my police captain patient came and fetched me in his private car and took me up to the mayor’s office, where he and the mayor helped me fill in the papers for a new passport. After that we drank ouzo for a bit and I went back to the bar. Costa shooed a couple of sailors out of my table, and brought me the best food on his menu and a bottle of wine. No payment. He told me to come back to lunch next day, and said that he was so grateful for the improvement to his father’s spine that now I could have two free meals a day. My passport came back from Athens inside a week, and by then I’d found that my credit was good all over Iráklion.
    â€œTwo weeks later I was woken by the chauffeur thug with my breakfast. We drove round town and paid my debts, went to the British consulate and got my visa. I’d already found a greasy young woman who didn’t feel sick at the idea of going with the police captain, so I dropped in for a final crash session with my patient. A month before he’d have locked me up for what I told him about him and his wife, but I straightened him out and told him where to find the girl. Then we drove to the airport and the thug flew me to London in a twelve-seater jet. No trouble with those bastards in Immigration. Thanassi was in Canada, but the chauffeur drove me down here. The post was waiting for me, with a budget bigger than the Foundation’s whole income in the last five years.”
    â€œYou knew Mrs. Dixon-Jones already.”
    Dr. Silver gave him the same sharp stare as he had in the hall.
    â€œSomebody must have told you about the telepathy,” said Pibble, “and I don’t think it’s common medical gossip. She has some Minoan-looking scraps on her mantelpiece.”
    â€œI know the guy who makes them. Sure, they’re fakes, but they’re good fakes. Don’t tell Posey.”
    â€œI suppose the point of your story is that Mr. Thanatos is unpredictable, but you know how to handle him.”
    â€œCrude terms, Mr. Pibble, crude terms. The other point is that he is very powerful.”
    â€œWhy does he want to see me?”
    â€œAha! I fear I may have oversold you. We are his hobby, and he is not a patient man. But I was much cheered by that episode in the hall just now.”
    â€œOughtn’t we to go and look in the wood?”
    â€œSure,” said Dr. Silver, and moved on toward where the terrace disappeared into a tunnel of trees.
    â€œI’m not certain that I want to get involved with any of this,” said Pibble, awkwardly trying to match his step to the doctor’s big stride.
    â€œMakes you uncomfortable?” said Dr. Silver sympathetically.
    Pibble shrugged. It wasn’t the right word, but what was?
    â€œI, too, am not hardened to the children’s fate,” said Dr. Silver. “I think no one here is, which is extraordinary in a charitable organization.”
    â€œWhat about Rue?”
    â€œPerhaps. And yet he is likely to do most for them in the end.”
    â€œIt’s not only the children,” said Pibble. “At least not like that.”
    â€œAha! You feel I am exploiting them for my own purposes?”
    â€œWell …”
    â€œI am! I am!” cried Dr. Silver, beating his breast with a generous mea culpa gesture and almost laughing with pleasure. “But from my wicked selfishness spring all sorts of fringe benefits. The children are more comfortable and better fed. They will live a few months longer. Rue may even cure them with his scintillation counter. Posey is very unhappy about the whole shoot. She sent for you?”
    Something about the long self-revelation had warned Pibble that he would be expected to offer some revelation in exchange, so he was ready for this tiny trap.
    â€œNot