‘No, I want your answer now. I’ve already spent too much time on this whole affair. I have operatives to look after all over the world, and they need me as much as you do. Just coming up here today is taking me away from important work. I am offering you the best chance you will get. Give me your address and within two or three days I will come to you.’

‘What’s Cashbone’s role in all this?’

‘He’s not part of it. He’d probably kill me if he found out what I’m doing. This is just me.’

‘But Cashbone’s still here. I can’t see him, but I feel his presence.’

‘Oh, come off it, Wilde. Cashbone is on to other stuff. He can’t hang around Cambridge for the rest of his life any more than I can.’

Wilde’s back was alive with pain, his mind flooding with doubts. He let out a long sigh, then nodded. Trust. It was a word the priests in Elizabethan England must have considered every day of their fugitive lives. Who to trust?

‘No,’ he said. ‘I’m sorry, Eaton, the answer’s still No.’

Chapter 38

CHAPTER 38

The return journey was the most dangerous. It was easy to slip out of Trinity Villa unseen, because no one was observing his departure. But once at college, he could not be sure that the gates weren’t watched by Cashbone again, or someone employed by him.

And so he took great pains about the return journey. He still had not retrieved his motorbike from Girton, so he walked to the far corners of Cambridge to find empty spaces where he could be certain he was not watched; only then would he double back.

After the shoot-out, he had been taken to hospital, where he had stayed for twenty-four hours. From there he had been taken to Girton, to the home of Rupert and Edie Weir. In the early hours, when the roads were deserted and they could be certain they were not spied on, Rupert had driven him to Trinity Villa. Since then, he had been to the telephone kiosk and shops close by, but this was only the second time since then that he had been to college.

He went south and strolled along the Cam all the way to Grantchester, before cutting east and northwards again towards the railway station. He felt uneasy without being sure why. Grantchester Meadow had been almost empty. A couple of dog walkers, no one else. At the station, he bought a platform ticket and went through the barrier, then halfway along as though waiting for the London train to arrive. The platform filled up with passengers. Just before the train began to pull in, he left the platform and waited to see if anyone else came back through the barrier. No one did. He was in the clear.