The Melting Man rc-4 Read online

  Before I undressed, I got out my four thousand dollars and hid the notes spread flat under the linoleum. If I were going to do the proper thing and all was to be right between us I knew hat I would be back here soon. And if things didn't go right, well, it would still be here. After all, every winning fighter is entitled to his fairly won purse money.

  * * *

  I was down at the Hotel Mont Arbois by eight o'clock the next morning to get my parcel before it was collected by the mail. I was too late. The post had gone. Well, I should just have to collect it at Evian — where I had posted it to myself poste restante. I drove slowly in the Facel Vega, wondering why I was throwing away the chance to collect a few more easy thousands for myself. So far as I could see it wasn't going to do me any good. I couldn't even detect the slightest beginning of any spiritual change in myself. Why was I doing it? Clearly, just to get a good standing in Julia's eyes. Some day, I thought, I might find myself in circumstances where I could do something out of pure principle, and no strings attached. It would be interesting to see how I felt then.

  I parked the car round the back and hurried into the kitchen, looking forward to coffee and eggs and bacon. There was a good smell of coffee from the pot on the stove, but no sign of breakfast or Julia. I went up to her bedroom. The bed was made, but all her clothes and her suitcase had gone. In my room the bed had been made up.

  I went down to the big main room, puzzled. On the table where the drinks were an envelope was propped against one of the bottles. I tore it open.

  It was from Panda Bubakar.

  Honey-boy,

  We've borrowed your Miss Julia for an indefinite period. Don't fuss, we'll take good care of her. Tell her pappa that he can have her back just as soon as you return you-know-what. Ritzy pyjamas you wear.

  A hatful of kisses. Yum-yum!

  Panda.

  I went into the kitchen and poured myself some coffee and sat on the table, thinking.

  I had an idea that all this had stemmed from Durnford trying to free himself from the Turk's Head he'd got tangled in. He was prepared now to do anything to muck O'Dowda up and wasn't giving a thought to any consequences. If he couldn't get the parcel from me he was prepared to help Najib to get it. Anything so long as O'Dowda didn't get it.

  I called the Château de la Forclaz and got him.

  I told him where I was and went on, 'Did you know Miss Julia was going to be here?'

  'Yes. Before she left she asked me to forward any mail to her there.'

  'And you told Najib where he could find her?'

  'What I do is my own business.'

  'Well, all I can say is don't go out in any speedboat with Tich Kermode. You've made a real old muck of things. Where's O'Dowda?'

  'He's back here and he wants to see you.'

  'I'll bet he does. Tell him I'll be along pretty soon. Has he read Julia's letter?'

  'What letter?'

  'The one in which she says she's finished with him.'

  After a pause, he said, 'Yes.'

  'Pity.'

  I rang off.

  O'Dowda, knowing now that Julia had cut adrift from him, wasn't likely to consider that Najib and company had any great bargaining pawn in her. O'Dowda wanted that parcel badly. He wouldn't care a damn what happened to Julia — and plenty could happen to her because Najib was playing for high stakes on the General's behalf.

  I fried myself an egg and did some more thinking. It didn't get me anywhere. Then I went up and packed my things, including the ritzy pyjamas. I had a fair idea why Panda and Najib had not waited for me to come back from the hotel.

  They weren't interested in talking to me. They would go straight to O'Dowda himself.

  Only one thing was clear to me. I had the parcel, and I didn't intend that any harm should come to Julia. That meant that I would have to hand it over to Najib. O'Dowda wasn't going to like that, and neither was Aristide. Both of them would do all they could to stop me. For the time being I decided that it would be best to leave the parcel sitting waiting for me at the Evian post office until I had got things straightened out.

  I locked up the chalet and drove off in the Facel Vega. It was a good thing that I hadn't got the parcel with me. Just this side of Cluses, I was flagged down by a couple of police types on motor cycles. They were very polite, checked my papers, and then went over the car inch by inch. Disappointed, they asked me where I was going. I wasn't quite sure, but to keep them happy I said the Château de la Forclaz. They waved me on with a couple of gallant Gallic flourishes and sat on my tail for the next ten miles. But they must have been busy on the radio because, as I came down to Thonon on the side of the lake, a couple of fresh motor-cycle types appeared, slowed me down, took up station one at bow and one at stern, and escorted me into the town and on to the Quai de Rives where they pulled up. Aristide was waiting in a shabby old blue saloon.

  He got out, dismissed the police, and came back to me and invited me across the road for a drink. He ordered a Pernod for himself and a beer for me and gave me a warm smile. The cornflower in his buttonhole was faded and he had cut himself in a different place on his chin shaving.

  'Nice job you did at the golf course,' he said.

  'I thought it was neat.'

  'You have girls all over France you can call on for help?'

  'Quite a few — but I'm not giving away any addresses. I'm not in a giving-away mood.'

  'Pity. You spent last night with this Miss Julia Yunge-Brown?'

  'Yes. She's a cordon bleu cook, and we had tranches de mouton with brandy. I don't know how she cooked it, but it took about two hours.'

  He nodded. 'Could have been a la Poitevine. Should have had garlic with it. If only a touch.'

  'It did.'

  'Where is she now?'

  'I don't know. I went for a stroll before breakfast and when I got back she had gone. A friend of ours left this note.'

  I handed him Panda's note. He studied it without emotion and then put it in his pocket. 'What is so special about the pyjamas?'

  'The design is made up of the flags of all nations.'

  'Julia picked up the parcel for you, of course? I should have thought about the Auberge du Pere Bise. And now you have safely disposed of it?'

  'Yes.'

  'Good. I would not want to think that anyone else could get their hands on it. That would be unfortunate for you.'

  'Naturally, until I can hand it over in exchange for Julia.'

  He shook his head.

  'You are taking far too chivalrous a view.'

  'If I didn't she could end up floating in a lake. General Gonwalla, fond though he may be of girls, isn't all that soft-hearted. He wants to keep his power seat warm, so he won't mind who he shoves out into the cold.'

  'Power, politics — they are the bane of my life. It is nice to concentrate on simple things like murder, theft, forgery. Unfortunately one cannot always choose. I have the strictest instructions to obtain the parcel. Following your request, my organization have agreed to make a payment for it.' He sighed. 'Until now, I thought that it would be a simple matter of bargaining between the two of us. You would not have got the price Gonwalla or O'Dowda might have paid, but since your heart is in the right place I know you would have foregone the extra profit in order to do me a favour. Now it is very much complicated by this kidnapping — and becomes very difficult for you.'

  'You think so?'

  'I know so, and so do you. I must have the parcel for my employers. They insist, ruthlessly. Gonwalla may be ruthless and O'Dowda, too, but theirs is a personal form of ruthlessness. It does not approach the ruthlessness of an amorphous organization like a government or group of governments using a perfectly legitimate international organization. No individual would be personally responsible for the girl's death — not that we shan't try to find her and release her, of course — because it would be a bureaucratic necessity. It is very sad, is it not?' He drained his Pernod and called for another.

  'You expect me to hand
the parcel over and let what may happen happen to Julia?'

  'That's what I've been saying.'

  'You know that I won't bloody well do that!'

  'I know that you will try to find a way around it.'

  'What way?'

  'That is up to you. I have no objection to anything you do, so long as I get the parcel. If I don't get it, you know, of course, what will happen to you?'

  'Go ahead. Frighten me.'

  'It will be out of my hands, of course. Happily another department will deal with it, so I shall have no guilt feelings. But you will be eliminated — out of pure bureaucratic pique, of course. I don't suggest that they will do it in any sadistic way, or make it particularly lingering. They will do it quickly and it will look like an accident. You are not naive enough to think I'm being flippant about this?'

  I wasn't. He was pressuring me, but behind the pressure was a fact, a simple, frightening fact. They would do just as he was promising. As a bureaucratic necessity. I would have to go. It was a straightforward situation. I had the parcel. If I gave it to Najib in return for Julia — then I would go. If I gave it to O'Dowda (which I couldn't see myself doing) — then it was ditto, with the addition of Julia. And if I gave it to Aristide, which I could do by motoring a few miles up the lakeside, then Julia would go because Gonwalla would have to make someone pay for the trouble that lay ahead of him. All I had to do was to find some way of getting my hands on Julia, freeing her, and then handing the parcel over to Aristide. That was all. Simple. I ordered myself a Pernod. Beer was too insipid in the circumstances.

  Aristide watched me in silence. I downed the Pernod much too fast and stood up.

  'I will have to think about this.'

  'Naturally. You have my telephone number. Just call me.'

  'And what,' I asked, 'are you doing about the other aspect of this O'Dowda affair?'

  He shrugged his shoulders. 'That is a simple matter of murder. I have had instructions to leave it in abeyance until this far more important matter is settled. You are, I imagine, going to the château?'

  'Yes.'

  'Then please don't mention to O'Dowda our interest in this affair. That is between us.'

  'Of course, I wouldn't do anything to embarrass you.'

  He grinned. 'That is the correct attitude.'

  It would have been nice to sock him on the nose before leaving. But it wouldn't have done any good. He had nothing to do with it. He was just a cipher. He took his pay and went through the prescribed motions and when he went home at night everything dropped from him, leaving him stainless. Just wipe the knife down with a wet rag and you couldn't tell that it had been used. As long as the correct official form had been made out, endorsed by the right department, and neatly filed in the correct cabinet, then there was nothing to worry about.

  I drove along the lake as far as Evian, and then I phoned the château and got hold of Durnford. I asked if O'Dowda was around. He wasn't. He had gone to Geneva for the day. I told Durnford I was coming along to see him.

  The last person I wanted to run into at the moment was O'Dowda.

  I parked on the gravel outside the château, went in and across the big marbled floor to Durnford's office. He was sitting in a swivel chair, staring at a green filing cabinet, smoking, and, from the ash scattered down his waistcoat front, he'd been in that position for a long time. He just cocked his head at me as I came in and then went on staring.

  I sat down and lit a cigarette. There was a photograph behind the desk of O'Dowda on the shores of some loch holding up a pike that must have gone all of thirty pounds.

  I said, 'This is a purely private talk between us. We won't go into the muck-up you've made of things. We'll just stick to some straight answers — from you. Okay?'

  He nodded and then reached down and produced a glass from an open desk drawer at his side. He took a generous swig, blinked his eyes at the filing cabinet and put the glass back.

  'How long have you been on that?'

  'Since lunchtime.'

  'Then just knock it off until we've finished our business. First of all — have you had any communication from Najib Alakwe today?'

  'No.'

  'Did you know that he's grabbed Julia — and she isn't coming back until I hand over the parcel from the car?'

  'No.' He didn't seem much interested. Well, whisky can Hunt the susceptibilities of the best of us.

  'When you've wanted to get in touch with Najib in the past, how have you done it?'

  He said, 'That's my business.'

  I said, 'It's my business now. I want to know and I'm in the mood where I don't mind beating up a man some years older than myself. So give.'

  He considered it for a while, then turned and fished in another drawer and passed a card across to me. I looked at it and wondered how many different kinds Najib had. It was the usual Mr Najib Alakwe, Esquire, of the import, export and specialities line, but this time there was an address in Geneva. I had to turn it over. You never knew what gem the Alakwe brothers were coming up with. I wasn't disappointed. The motto read: A bon entendeur il ne faut que demi parole. Well, I was hoping to have more than half a word with Najib — and soon.

  Without looking at me, he said, 'All you had to do was to let me have the parcel, or destroy it.'

  I said, 'I was going to destroy it — but you spoilt that. Things are a bit more complicated now.'

  He shook his head. 'You would have kept it. Made money from it. I know you.'

  'That's what I thought myself — but it didn't work out that way.' I stood up. 'You want some advice?'

  'Not particularly.' He sounded completely apathetic, not the crisp number I had first known.

  'Pack up and get out of here, get a long way away from O'Dowda. You were going to do it once with her and he bitched you. You should have done it on your own after that.'

  He looked up suddenly, his eyes blinking.

  'How did you know that?'

  'It was a guess — until this moment.'

  'He murdered her.'

  'I'm inclined to agree. But there's nothing you can do about it. After what you've done, and when he learns the full story, you need to be thinking about your own skin.'

  He said, 'I think I may kill him.'

  I said, 'I wish I could think that was a firm promise. But when the whisky is finished your only concern will be how to get rid of a hangover.'

  'Tich Kermode did it. He's an evil bastard — worse than O'Dowda. They get drunk sometimes, those two. Shut themselves up in that bloody great waxworks room with all the people O'Dowda hated. You can hear them laughing and pounding around. I kept it from the girls for years and years… but they knew in the end… That's why they've left him.'

  I made for the door. Then, a thought occurring to me, I said, 'Have you got a gun?'

  'Gun?'

  Why do drunks always have to give off echoes?

  'Yes, a gun. It could be that I might need one — and for sure you won't.'

  I think he fancied that I might be going to use it on O'Dowda because he cooperated by opening another drawer and tossing a gun to me. It's not an action I like. Guns are full of gremlins. I looked at it and said, 'What the hell's this?'

  'It's all I've got,' he said, as he handed over to me a box of ammunition.

  It was a .22 compressed-air pistol, powered by a Sparklet compressed air tube which gave about forty shots at somewhere around a muzzle velocity of four hundred feet per second. It could be nasty and looked like the real thing. I'd used one in Miggs's shooting range before. I hoped that it would be good enough to impress Najib and make him hand over Julia.

  I went back to the car and sent up a fine shower of gravel going down the long drive. I wanted to be clear of the place before O'Dowda got back.

  It was dark as I rode into Geneva. The address I had was in a cul-de-sac just off the Rue des Vollandes and not far from the Gare des Eaux-Vives. It was a top-floor flat and had a blue door painted with diagonal yellow stripes and when I thumbed t
he bell-push chimes inside played a simple melody that was vaguely familiar.

  As I stood there trying to remember what it was, the door opened and Najib appeared. He'd gone back to his old style of dressing, ginger shoes, cream linen suit, red shirt and a yellow tie with garlands of multi-coloured roses trailing over it. It was a bit of a shock but I kept the air pistol firmly pointing at him.

  'I'd like to come in,' I said.

  The brown face beamed, the smudge nose crinkled, and the whiter shade of white teeth flashed.

  'Certainly, Mr Carver. Damn glad to see you again. Welcome to not so humble abode.'

  I said, 'You lead the way and cut out the music-hall patter.'

  He went ahead of me down a softly carpeted hallway into a large sitting room. Not so humble it was. The furniture was all upholstered in black velvet, the carpet was pearly grey with great whorls of red in it. The curtains were green and the walls were covered with a paper that imitated great chunks of granite with thick white plaster marks in the joins. There was a sideboard nearly six feet long, covered with bottles and the things that go with them, a long table untidy with magazines, the covers of which were showing a lot of female flesh, and the place reeked of Turkish tobacco.

  Najib turned, waved a hand around, and said, 'You like? No? Tastes differ. Some people say, just like a whore's parlour. Personally I have found many such parlours very comfortable and entertaining. What is your favourite tipple, sir?'

  'My favourite tipple,' I said, 'is a large whisky and soda which I'll fix in case you have any poison around. Personally I'm hoping that it's not a drink I shall have to linger over because I want my business cleared up smartly. Also, please cut out all the babu talk. You're probably a D.Litt. and, no doubt, could start at Chaucer while I pegged off at Shakespeare and beat me handsomely through to T. S. Eliot. So let's stick to a reasonable syntax, Najib, eh?'

  He gave me that big, wide-open smile, and said, 'Actually, it's BSc (Econ.) but I have not neglected the arts. Also, we should get the names right. I am disappointed that you have such a bad memory for faces. I am Mr Jimbo Alakwe, Esquire.'

  I was so surprised that he went and fixed my drink for me while I got over it. When I had recovered and the drink was in my hand, I said, 'What the hell are you doing here?'