Snatched by Bill James

Flounce’s own account often told by him with many a chuckle in the executive dining room. Security had managed to keep that group of avengers at the Hulliborn main door, but after a while Flounce, disturbed by their shouting, had come down from his suite and invited them in. After his denials of polluting the girl, he had insisted they all search the museum for her together. Gradually, he had turned the occasion into a kind of educational tour, graced by his personal commentary. This had lasted five hours and took them almost until morning opening time. Certainly, it was daylight before the party escaped, and by then some men had worried about being seen with offensive weapons. The girl was not found.
    Her mother had grown so fascinated by Flounce that she persuaded her husband to make a heavy contribution to the Hulliborn Building Fund. Flounce’s gorgeous arrogance, learning, charm and sombre handsomeness, despite the scar near his eye – or, possibly, that handsomeness augmented and made more interesting by the scar – all these no doubt helped captivate the woman. At the conclusion of the trek, Butler-Minton had urged them to come with him for a repeat saunter through Geology, because he’d missed out a few pre-Mesozoic rocks, but had grudgingly consented to their leaving once he had the cheque.
    This was probably the first time the Preservatives cupboard in Birds had been turned to emergency use, and probably Nev had remembered it from Flounce’s account, accounts, of the night. Flounce had hidden the girl in there and then marched the seekers everywhere else in the building. While he and the rest were immersed in a forty-minute, two-part video on ancient tombs, the baseball bats and flails laid aside, the girl had let herself out of the cupboard, dodged Security, and got a taxi home to bed. Flounce said that as she dressed in the dark she accidentally knocked over a bottle of dye on one of the shelves and was splashed by its contents. As a result, the colour of some body hair was permanently changed to that of the Arctic tern’s plumage: grey-white, but a
lively
grey-white, not an age sign.
    The girl’s mother, obviously still impressed by him, had telephoned Flounce several times over the next few months, suggesting a meeting to discuss the Mesozoic rocks, but he had been able to discourage her, without in the least giving offence, or so he maintained, citing pressure of work and a 1957 loin injury received in Ethiopia. ‘Get this, Lepage: one should always strive not to be rude or cold to people, and especially not to frantic, sex-starved old boots,’ Flounce had said. ‘It was a
Lolita
situation, wasn’t it – the mother assuming in her need and foolishness that I could be interested in her, rather than the daughter?’
    â€˜Victory out of seeming setbacks,’ Lady Butler-Minton said on the phone now. ‘Opportunism, yes, but occasionally a justified, worthwhile opportunism, not something cheap, shallow, and furtive – though he could certainly do it that way, too. An all-rounder. I know you have learned and will learn from him. He had a great belief in you. Always said you were … what was the word? Ah, yes,
sturdy
.
I’m sure that was it – sturdy.’
    This wasn’t the term that Lepage remembered as most often on Flounce’s lips to describe him, though the core sound came close. ‘Thank you so much, Penny,’ he said.
    Julia returned with the tea tray.
    â€˜I still talk to Eric every night,’ Lady Butler-Minton murmured, ‘usually in the gym. I do a couple of snatch episodes with the weights, then rest and perhaps ask his views on matters general, discuss old times – topics such as those absurd Harvard people in 1971, or the dear Wolverhampton rat trainer, or Mrs Cray and the windsock. It’s nice to realize I might not be the only one in touch with him like that, George.’
    â€˜Indeed