CHAPTER 18 MARCH                                                       Rosa spent the last weekend with him at Burnside Cottage, busying herself with domestic things. Allan tried to help her do things he didn't think needed doing but eventually gave up and left her to it. She had brought food and made supper but the sexual thing between them did not arise. She seemed just to want to chat. Allan did not know and did not ask what story she told her husband, but as they sat with cocoa mugs by the fire she told him that she was intending to leave Maurice.          ‘I'm going to leave Gairnock altogether,’ she said. ‘My mind's made up. There is nothing left there now.’          ‘Where will you go?’          ‘Wensley has suggested that I get a fellowship at a University. There is an MCI fellowship grant and he says he will put my name forwards. I think I will take him up on it.’          ‘You've often said that that was what you wanted most but you won't be able to work in the field.’          They both knew which field he meant.          ‘That doesn't matter to me any more. It's run its course. I'm tired fighting political battles. I just want a quiet life with something to keep my mind occupied. Will you keep in touch Allan?’          So he told her his plan about using Hamish as a post-box address. She looked very puzzled.          ‘Why? I mean why go to all that trouble. You don't seriously think anyone would get their noses into my correspondence?’          ‘I think they might.’          She was mystified and a little annoyed. ‘This is paranoia Allan.’          And so he told her - not every last detail, just enough - about Tommy Harkness being a police informer and about Chalmers and about the possibility that there was a conspiracy within MCI. She was angry.          ‘Why didn't you tell me Allan?’          ‘I didn't think it would be safe for you.’          ‘I'm not a child. I'm your boss for heaven's sake!’          ‘You're more than my boss Rosa.’ She blushed at that. ‘And I'm only telling you now because you're getting out of MCI and I want you to take sensible precautions.’          ‘You've changed Allan,’ she seemed deflated. ‘When you came you were just about the shyest thing I'd every seen. But now you seem to be bursting with self confidence and ready to run the whole show.’          ‘It's all your fault Rosa.’          She came over and sat on his lap.          ‘What have I done,’ she said running her fingers through his hair. ‘I've created a monster.’ She leaned back, looking into his eyes. Her hands slid down the sides of his face to his shoulders.          He said, ‘Are you by any chance measuring me for a neck-bolt?’                   *      *      *      *      *          He had packed everything. As he looked round the old place he was surprised by his own sadness at the thought of not seeing it again. Two boxes, mostly of books and climbing gear, and his big suitcase had already been despatched. Only his rucksack and an airline hold-all remained with enough stuff for the last night. And the microcomputer of course.          Rosa had offered to run him to the airport in the morning. He ran his hand over the smooth wooden back of the kitchen chair, browned with age and polished with use like a saddle. The wall above the mantlepiece looked naked without the picture of the Arisaig sands - the picture Rosa had given him. Only a picture postcard remained. A montage of `Bonny Loch Lomond' and the scribbled note from `Uncle Bob'. Tonight. Chalmers wanted to meet him at the lay-by tonight. Probably to say cheerio.          On the kitchen table the patch where he had removed the password was scrubbed clean.          The microcomputer sat incongruously in the centre. It had a cream and brown plastic case, and it jarred. Not a single other item of plastic was visible, only seasoned wood, stone worn with age, black iron and chipped china. The computer was squat and modern and ugly and ...... and threatening. It had not occurred to him before how alien it was in these surroundings. He remembered the words Jocylin had used ... most eavesdropping gadgets these days are made to look like electric sockets .... they would look out of place here.          The micro looked very out of place and as he looked at it the conviction grew that it was a malevolent presence.          The screws turned easily under the blade of a kitchen knife and the top of the case lifted easily too, exposing the expected array of chips and printed circuit boards and cables of multicoloured wire. Without a schematic it was impossible to read the circuit but he could identify the main components - transformer, battery voltage-multipliers, processor chip, memory chips and the like. No sign of anything like a microphone, but there was this square black chip, roughly the size of pack of playing cards. No identifying label and very few connector tags. He could think of no function which would need a chunk of silicon that size. A monitoring device? It was an interloper. The interior of the case was custom built to hold the layout, but a section of stiffening panel had been cut away crudely to accommodate the big black chip and the board it was mounted on had been piggyback on another. The layout had been modified after the machine left the factory.          Was it possible that the device held some record of the work he had done on the machine? He had done no hacking with the micro, just his theory stuff. Legal, but private. And the machine had to be handed back 'for maintenance'. Pulverising it would be too drastic and hard to explain. Something more subtle. Something which could be put down to simple chip-failure.          He opened the drawer of the kitchen table - a blue paper-clad battery oozing pus and caked in verdigris, one yellow rubber kitchen glove for the left hand and with the index finger missing, a length of string with two knots in it, a length of baling wire folded into a hank, three coloured marbles of various sizes, a rusty tin-opener, a dried-up bottle of blue-black ink, assorted cutlery all of different patterns, mostly bent and with broken handles - Yuri Geller cast-offs perhaps - and two panic-stricken spiders.          He picked up the baling wire and bent it several times until he snapped off a section about six inches long. The rubber glove was too small to admit his hand but he could get his fingers into it. Holding the wire between thumb and second finger he leaned over the machine, switched it on and identified the power-pack. He found the high tension point which served the screen display and touched one end of the wire on to that point. Then he touched the other end on to each of the connection tags of the mysterious chip. A thin wisp of smoke ascended from the chip and there was a slight smell of burning.          When the smoke had dissipated there were no external signs of damage. He screwed the top of the case back on and closed the machine. It was ready for return. Rosa had a machine like his. He would explain to her, on the way to the airport how he had dealt with the problem. She would be amused. He looked at his watch. Plenty time for a nap before he set off for the lay-by to meet Chalmers.                   *      *      *      *      *          He woke with a start. It was black dark. Match. Damn! He should have been at the lay-by already. Anorak. Bike out of the shed. Switch on headlamp. Nothing. He hit it with the side of his hand and the light came on but it flickered as he bounced down the track. A mist had formed.          *      *      *      *      *          A bridge. He had passed the lay-by. He stopped and walked back. The lay-by was twenty yards back, an old loop of road which had been by-passed like an ox-bow lake when they had straightened out the corner approaching the bridge. It dived away from the road behind bushes and trees.          There was a car. A Ford Sierra. Dark green. He leaned the bike against a tree. The courtesy light came on as he opened the door of the car. There was a briefcase in the back seat, its contents spilled across the seat and on the floor. Papers, a pair of leather gloves, a pocket calculator. Gold initials `R.C.' tooled into the leather. There was a rubber torch in the door pocket.          He took the torch and flashed it about. Bushes dripping with moisture. Soft drinks cans and fast-food packages littering the verge. Dark trees, tops lost in thick mist. A barbed wire fence with a style. A narrow path leading from the style up an embankment towards the railway line. Footprints in the mud. Lots of them. Sheep wool and shreds of grey cloth hanging on the uppermost wire at the style.          Allan gave a low whistle and waited. The sound of water dripping. Far away the noise of a car horn. He stepped over the style and followed the footprints. The path became black and gritty, covered in cinders. It climbed a steep bank between gorse bushes. Another fence at the top. No style. He flashed the torch beyond. Lank foliage. Brambles. Black sleepers. Railway lines glinting silver in the torch beam. A bundle of material lying on the line. Clothing. He stepped over the fence and took a closer look. A body.          Fawn windproof jacket, grey trousers, shoes, brown, brightly polished. Allan looked down at his own shoes. Covered in mud with a dusting of black ash. He looked again at the body. No head.          He wretched. A white object a few yards down the line to the right. A head. Neck and jaw smashed and bloody. Hair wet and plastered down on to the skull sequined with fine water droplets. Eyes open. Staring. Bob Chalmers.          He wretched again, an acidic taste in his mouth. He stepped quickly back over the fence.          Beside the Sierra he stood for a while trying to think. He heard water dripping from the trees. What had he touched? The door handle on the outside. The door pocket. The torch. There was a box of kleenex on the passenger seat. He opened the door again, took a tissue and wiped the things he had touched. He kept the torch.          He set off but stopped half a mile down the road and threw up.