The End Game (14 page)

Bob Cheverton said, “I can’t see the sense in it, Trombo. We’ve played straight with them on twenty consignments or more. We’ve paid them their money. Why should they cheat on this one?”

“I didn’t say they
were
cheating. I said they might have been. Myself, I don’t believe it. They’re businessmen. How would it pay them to short-change us? Very well. So let us look at the alternative. Your new man, Morgan, removed the real stuff and put in this substitute. I do not blame Collings. One man couldn’t keep an eye on another man all the time, day and night. If he was clever with keys and had his wits about him, he
could
have lifted this consignment. Next point. We know that it did not come back to England with him. So what did he do with it?”

Bob Cheverton said, “He might have had an accomplice. Someone on the Continent he passed it to.”

“I don’t believe it,” said Ronald. “He’s a loner.”

“I don’t believe it for another reason,” said the man called Trombo. “The market for the stuff is
here,
in London. He has hidden it. Somewhere in or around Florence. When the heat is off, he’ll go back for it. He can afford to wait. We can’t. So we must find it. Or buy another package.
And buy it quickly.”

There was silence in the room. Everyone there knew what he was talking about. Their consignments went to half a dozen doctors whose dubious medical ethics allowed them to sell it on, at exorbitant prices, to the addicts who craved it, begged for it, lived for it. If they could not satisfy their patients, they could be in trouble. A man or woman, screaming and raving, who thought the doctor was holding out for a higher price. A patient who was capable of killing the doctor and wrecking his surgery in a mad search for the white crystals that meant the difference between temporary happiness and intolerable misery.

Bob said, “Buying a package in London will be very expensive. Perhaps impossible, in the time available.”

“Right,” said Trombo. He awarded him the bright smile which a teacher gives to an intelligent member of the class. “In that case, the answer must be that we find the original package. Yes?”

“Somewhere round Florence,” said Ronald. “What a chance!”

“You forget something,” said Trombo. “What does the proverb say? He who hides can find—or can be made to find. Well?”

The four men looked at him. In an emergency there was no doubt who was leader.

“We could ask Mr Morgan to tell us what he has done with our property. If we asked him in the appropriate way, I think he would tell us. The disadvantage of that method is that it would be slow. He might give us information which subsequently proved to be misleading. This would not, ultimately, do him any good, but it would cause undesirable delay. Or we can send him to look for it. You will ask him to conduct the additional tour to Italy. The one Watterson was going to take.”

“Won’t that make him suspicious?”

“Not if Watterson is unable to take it himself. You can arrange that, surely?”

Ronald had already started dialling. Bob said, “It’s no good. You won’t find him at home. Not at this time of night. He’ll be out on the booze.”

But the telephone was answered. They could hear that it was a woman’s voice. Ronald was saying, “Oh, I am sorry. When?” And after a long explanation, “I see. It must have been a great shock. You’ve got our number. If there’s anything we can do to help, just give us a buzz.”

He rang off and said, “That was his sister. Watterson had a stroke. Luckily she was on the spot and got him into hospital.”

“Lucky in lots of ways,” said Bob. “Now we don’t need any excuses.”

Trombo said, “When does your next trip leave?”

“In two days’ time.”

“Very well. When he gets to Italy he will be under professional observation. Either he will lead the observers to the hiding place. He will be given every possible chance to do so. Or if, by the end of the trip, he has not done so, then our Italian colleagues will remove him to a quiet place and will persuade him to divulge the necessary information.”

“Suppose he won’t tell them?”

“Why suppose anything so stupid? Do you want me to explain to you the methods by which they will cripple him?”

“No,” said Bob thickly. “I expect you’re right.”

Ronald Cheverton said, in his gravelly voice, “And suppose he refuses the trip. He’s done his six trips. He’s due a fortnight off.”

“Invite him round tomorrow. He should by that time have got over the effects of the unfortunate experience he suffered when leaving your office. Indeed, it will have left him short of cash. You will be sympathetic. Offer him a substantial bonus if he will take this extra trip.”

“And if he still refuses?”

“When you make the offer, McVee and two of his friends will be on the premises. If he refuses, you can immediately adopt the alternative solution. Our friends may not have the finesse of the Italians, but they are not inexpert in extracting information.”

McVee’s small mouth opened, and he uttered a sound like a gentle kiss.

David was not unconscious for more than a minute. As the lightning flashes in front of his eyes slowed down and the mist cleared a little, he realised that he was being handled by at least two men. They had taken his coat right off and were now pulling down his trousers. He wondered vaguely about this and decided to let it ride. There was very little he could do about it.

Hands slid inside his open shirt and felt his body. He grunted and tried to roll over. Other hands pinned his shoulders to the ground. The floor was cold against bare skin. Hands were sliding down now, inside his legs. His shoes and socks had already been pulled off. He wanted to be sick, but realised that if he showed any signs of coming back to life he would be hit again.

He decided not to be sick. He contented himself with groaning.

There was a muttering of voices which went on for a long time. Then his coat and trousers were dumped on top of him, and there was the tip-tap of footsteps going away.

Three men, he thought.

He sat up cautiously. His head was opening and shutting like a frenzied oyster, but the lightning flashes had died away. He had been concussed often enough on the rugby field to recognise the familiar symptoms.

Either you were going to be sick or you weren’t. You weren’t. All right. What about trying to get dressed before you die of cold? The trouble was that his coat and trousers seemed to have been turned inside out. It took him several minutes to overcome this minor difficulty. Socks and shoes next, but don’t bend forward too far or too suddenly.

Now try standing up. Hold on to that door handle whilst the floor stops rocking.

He had been dragged into the open entrance hall which served a block of offices. A notice, inches from his eyes, said, “Happy-Go-Lucky Food Products.” A fine time to talk about food.

His wallet had gone, but there were coins still in one of his trouser pockets. Enough for a train fare, if he could walk as far as the station.

Stop being feeble, Morgan. Of course you can walk.

The exercise seemed to do him good. By the time he reached Holborn Kingsway Underground Station he was able to buy his ticket and get past the barrier without causing any comment. The back of his neck was stiff and sore, and his head was still throbbing, but the rhythm was slowing down. Perhaps he hadn’t got concussion after all. Perhaps it was just a stiff neck. He repeated this to himself a number of times.

“An important point, David, bach. A vital point.”

He was still saying it as he opened the door of his hotel room. The point was that if he was concussed, he ought not to drink spirits. If he wasn’t, a stiff whisky was exactly what any reasonable doctor would have ordered.

He poured himself out a stiff whisky, sat down in the shabby armchair in front of the gas fire and drank it. It seemed to do him no harm. He poured out another, but did not drink it at once.

He wanted to think.

He knew, of course, why he had been slugged and searched. He knew that the taking of his wallet was the merest blind. He wondered what would happen next.

What he really needed was comfort. Someone to hold his hand.

Susan was on the point of going to bed when the telephone rang. She said, “Yes. Who is it?” in her senior-secretarial voice.

“It’s me.”

“Oh, God! Not again. What do you want now?”

“What I want, love, is someone intelligent. Someone to hold an intellectual conversation with.”

“Don’t you ever give up?”

“This is only the second time I’ve telephoned you this month.”

“Only the second? It seemed like a lot more often. What do you want?”

David appeared to be considering the question. Then he said, “I need help. Help and comfort, in great therapeutic doses.”

“Why don’t you get it from that dishy blonde you’ve been seen going round all the Holborn bars with. Who is she, anyway?”

“No names, no pack drill. As we used to say when I was in the army.”

“When were you in the army? And where?”

“Out East. The gorgeous East—palm trees, palanquins, Pepsi- Cola.”

“If you enjoyed it all that much, I can’t think why you troubled to come back.”

“The end of that chapter in my life is a sad one. It was the Colonel’s daughter. A beautiful girl of no more than eighteen years with a taste for romance.”

“Then a liar like you should have suited her down to the ground.” There was a long pause. “I say, are you all right? You sound a bit funny.”

“Three doctors have advised on my case, all men of experience. They all advised whisky.”

“My advice, which I give you for nothing, is that you should go to bed.”

“But who with?”

“Alone, for once in a way.”

“Big deal.”

“Look, David. You’re fun to talk to, sometimes, when you’re sober. When you’re tight, which I think you are now, you’re just a dead bore.”

“A hard woman. Harder than rock. Harder than chilled steel. A soothsayer at Portmadoc once warned me to beware of hard women.”

“Stuff and nonsense.”

“What’s stuff and nonsense?”

“What you’ve been talking for the last five minutes. I’m tired. I’ve got a lot of work to do tomorrow.”

“In that case,” said David with dignity, “I shall terminate our conversation forthwith. If you wish to renew it, you can do so through the usual channels.”

“
Good
night.”

“Good night.”

David replaced the receiver. He still looked sad, but not as sad as he had been. In fact, he looked rather pleased with himself.

“My dear fellow,” said Bob Cheverton, “of course you must report it to the police.”

“A useless and troublesome exercise,” said David. “I know exactly what they’ll say. ‘Can you describe your assailants, sir?’ And when I confess that I never even saw them, they’ll say, ‘Of course, that makes it very difficult, sir. We’ll do what we can.’ And then they’ll do damn all.”

“But they got all your money.”

“They were kind enough to leave me enough to get home by Underground.”

“Naturally, we’ll help out. An advance against your next bonus or a loan. Just as you like.”

“That’s very kind of you.”

“The least we can do. Particularly as you’re helping us out.”

David had agreed, with surprisingly little demur, to take the forthcoming Italian trip.

“Poor old Watterson,” he said. “I only met him on that one occasion, but I can’t say I’m greatly surprised. It wasn’t simply the amount of alcohol he consumed. It was the speed with which he put it down. Like a desert sucking up rainwater after a long drought.”

“Sad,” said Bob. “Very sad. Well, if you’re quite sure you’re up to it, we’ll look forward to seeing you here tomorrow morning. We’ve a full coach load for you.”

“It should be a most interesting trip,” said David.

It was at about this time that Susan received two letters, both of them with the Salisbury postmark.

“My dear Susan,”
wrote her grandmother.
“I so much enjoyed your last visit—all too short—and hope you will soon be coming down again. A number of the people you met have spoken kindly of you. You seem to have made a great impression on old General Wheeler and an even greater one on young Mr Preston, our most recently joined vicar-choral.”

Susan vaguely remembered a tall, serious young man with unruly elbows and knees.

“I called yesterday on Rebecca Woolf, who must also be counted as one of your admirers. She seems to regard you as a great expert on Meissen china—surely a
new
departure for you? I had no idea you were a collector. I did my best with her, but I am afraid I still find her an excessively dull conversationalist. I learned nothing about her husband that I had not heard many times before. You said you found her interesting. I wonder what you found to talk about.”

In other words, said Susan, you tried to pump her, and she was too clever for you.

“The weather remains hot. What a pity that our one wet afternoon should have spoiled your tennis for you. Your loving grandmother.

“P.S. You left behind in your room an elementary guide to the collection of china. You must remember to pick it up next time you come. I won’t bother to post it to you, since I imagine that, as a collector, you must have a large library of more advanced works.”

“Cat,” said Susan.

The second letter was from Rebecca Woolf. After a number of opening comments on the weather, a Meissen cup and saucer which she had picked up for a fraction of its real price and the Series Three Communion Service, which had just been introduced in the cathedral and of which she disapproved (“a sort of
conversazione
with the Almighty”), she continued:

“Yesterday, I had a state visit from your grandmother. It was not actually preceded by trumpeters on horseback, but I felt that her calling on me raised me quite a number of steps up the social ladder. We did not have a very interesting conversation. However, after she had gone a thought occurred to me. You were kind enough to be genuinely interested in my late husband ….”