Twice Shy

She came with me to the lilac-shrouded front door to let me out, and I shook her thistledown, hand and drove away.

The Red Sea parted for Moses, and he walked across.

CHAPTER 7

On Thursday I trundled blearily round school, ineffective from lack of the sleep I'd forfeited in favour of correcting the Upper V's exercise books. They too, like William, had decisive exams ahead. One of the most boring things about myself, I'd discovered, was this sense of commitment to the kids.

Ted Pitts didn't turn up. Jenkins, when directly asked, said scratchily that Pitts had laryngitis, which was disgraceful as it put the whole Maths department's timetable out of order.

'When will he be back?'

Jenkins gave me a sour sneer, not for any particular reason but because it was an ingrained mannerism.

'His wife telephoned,' he said. 'Pitts has lost his voice. When he regains it, doubtless he will return.'

'Could you give me his number.'

'He isn't on the telephone,' Jenkins said repressively. 'He says he can't afford it.'

'His address, then?'

'You should ask in the office.' Jenkins said. 'I can't be expected to remember where my assistant masters live.'

The school secretary was not in his office when I went to look for him during morning break, and I spent the last two periods before lunch (Five C, magnetism; Four D, electrical power) fully realising that if I didn't send computer tapes to Cambridge on that very day they would not arrive by Saturday: and if no computer tapes arrived at Cambridge main post office by Saturday I could expect another and much nastier visit from the man behind the Walther.

At lunchtime, food came low on the priorities. Instead I first went out of school along to the nearest row of shops and bought three blank sixty-minute cassettes. They weren't of the quality beloved by Ted Pitts, but for my purpose they were fine. Then I sought out one of Ted Pitts's colleagues and begged a little help with the computer.

'Well,' he said hesitantly. 'OK, if it's only for ten minutes. Straight after school. And don't tell Jenkins, will you?'

'Never.'

His laugh floated after me as I hurried down the passage towards the coin-box telephone in the main entrance hall. I rang up Newmarket police station (via Directory Enquiries) and asked for whoever was in charge of the investigation into the murder of Chris Norwood.

That would be Detective Chief Superintendent Irestone, I was told. He wasn't in. Would I care to talk to Detective Sergeant Smith? I said I supposed so, and after a few clicks and silences a comfortable Suffolk voice asked me what he could do for me.

I had mentally rehearsed what to say, but it was still difficult to begin. I said tentatively, 'I might know a bit about why Chris Norwood was murdered and I might know perhaps roughly who did it, but I also might easily be wrong, it's just that…'

'Name, sir?' he said, interrupting. 'Address? Can you be reached there, sir? At what time can you be reached there, sir? Detective Chief Superintendent Irestone will get in touch with you, sir. Thank you for calling.'

I put the receiver down not knowing whether he had paid extra-fast attention to what I'd said, or whether he had merely given the stock reply handed out to every crackpot who rang up with his/her pet theory. In either case, it left me with just enough time to catch the last of the hamburgers in the school canteen and to get back to class on the dot.

At four, I was held up by Louise's latest grudge (apparatus left out all over the benches- Martin would never do that) and I was fearful as I raced along the corridors the boys were not allowed to run in, and slid down the stairs with both hands on the bannisters and my feet touching only about every sixth tread (a trick I had learned in my far-back youth), that Ted Pitts's colleague would have tired of waiting, and gone home.

To my relief, he hadn't. He was sitting in front of the familiar screen shooting down little random targets with the zest of a seven-year-old.

'What's that?' I said, pointing at the game.

'"Starstrike". Want a go?'

'Is it yours?'

'Something Ted made up to amuse and teach the kids.'

'Is it in BASIC?' I asked.

'Sure. BASIC, graphics and special characters.'

'Can you List it?'

'Bound to be able to. He'd never stuff it into ROM if he wanted to teach from it.'

'What exactly,' I said frustratedly, 'is ROM?'

'Read Only Memory. If a program is in ROM you can only Run it, you can't List it.'

He typed LIST, and Ted's game scrolled up the screen to seemingly endless flickering rows.

'There you are,' Ted's colleague said.

I looked at part of the last section of the program, which was now at rest on the screen:

410 RESET (RX, RY): RX = RX-RA: RY: RY-8

420 IF RY › 2 SET (RX, RY): GOTO 200

430 IF ABS (1. 8- RX) › 4 THEN 150

460 FOR Q = 1 TO 6: PRINT(r) 64 + 4. V, "…";

A right load of gibberish to me, though poetry to Ted Pitts.