The Book of Air and Shadows

security firm Paul had engaged. The driver, one Brown, was an agent of said firm and according to Paul an ex-SAS piano wire artist. He did not impress me, being rather slight and weaselly in appearance. At the hotel I had rather too much to drink-understandable under the circumstances, I believe-and went to bed. In the morning, far too early, I awoke to a crushing headache, a foul, dry tongue, and my brother, dressed in his clericals, with the information that we were moving immediately. Apparently, his security team had spotted some bad guys and we needed to shake them. I allowed him to get me together and in short order we had picked up Crosetti, who seemed to have turned into a hostile little twerp overnight. He was barely civil on the ride to Oxford.
    I may have dozed but awoke to Paul’s voice describing something he had found at some church in the old City. He thought it was the grille Bracegirdle had used to encipher the letters, which I suppose was a major find, but, frankly, I could not work up much interest at the time. I am a man of settled habits, as I believe I have indicated, and zooming around in cars in foreign parts holds no attraction. I noticed young Crosetti’s eyes were shining, though, and I might have drifted back to sleep were it not for Paul’s mentioning that this grille had been swiped by a young woman. Who else could it have been? I dismissed out of hand Crosetti’s opinion that it could also have been Carolyn Rolly. The crime had Miranda’s prints all over it: the innocent come-on, the inveigling into the confidence of the perhaps lonely curate, the swift, violent denouement…Miranda! I didn’t even bother to argue with him. I recall thinking that we have the ciphers so she had to come to us with her grille, and I recall a sense of anticipation such as I have rarely known, like a kid on the way to a carnival.
    We approached the outskirts of Oxford as it was, getting on toward noon, and I was growing hungry. I mentioned this to Paul and he told me that we were to meet Oliver March in a country pub. Shortly after this information passed, Brown started to drive like a lunatic, swerving across four lanes of the M40 at the last moment to shoot onto the A40 and then quickly leaving that for a local road, just west of Oxford.
    Crosetti asked him if he were trying to lose our pursuers and Brown replied, “No, just one of them.” After this we roared down smaller roads, throwing up rooster tails of water and mud and tossing us all around unmercifully. I caught a look at my companions, who seemed to be enjoying the ride, and perhaps also enjoying my increasing discomfort. Then, after a particularly jarring turn down what looked like a farm track, Brown halted the car, leaped out, popped the trunk, and dragged from it a long black nylon bag. I left the car too, staggered over to a low fence, and was sick for a good long time. When I recovered, I heard the sound of an approaching vehicle and looking in that direction saw our Brown under a bare roadside willow, with a huge exotic-looking rifle propped in a crotch of that tree and pointing down the road. A blue BMW drove toward him at speed and when it was about a hundred yards away he shot it. Its engine made expensive breaking noises and the car rolled to a stop, with steam rising from its hood. Brown put his rifle back in its bag and noticed me standing there goggling and dabbing at my mouth with a handkerchief.
    “Are you all right, sir?” he asked.
    “I’m fine. Did you just shoot somebody?”
    “No, sir, just the vehicle. This is a Barrett rifle, sir, nothing like it for stopping a car. Father Paul wanted some privacy for this meeting.”
    I stared at him and he took my elbow. “We should get back in our car now, sir.”
    We did and drove off down some more little roads until we came to a perfect little English village, whose name I have quite forgotten: Dorking Smedley? Inching Tweedle? Something like that; and pulled up in the yard of what looked like a coaching inn off the cover of a fancy biscuit package: thatched roof, black Tudor beams, heavy, purplish, leaded glass, the kind of place Dick Bracegirdle used to frequent for a pint of malmsey. We all trooped inside except for Brown, who waited with the car, talking into a crackling radio.
    Inside it was dim and cozy, with a fire in the grate. A large man with unfashionable red sideburns was behind the bar, and when he saw us he nodded and gestured to one side, where there was a