Алистер Маклин - Prime Target

He closed the archive, removed the floppy key and tapped in the UN server number. At the prompt he entered the UNACO password for Mailbox Access. The picture of a padlocked box came up and he typed his personal access code. The lid of the box popped open and the information balloon told him he had a message waiting.

He addressed the compressed JZ file to C.W. Whitlock and uploaded it. The transfer took less than twenty seconds. Next he downloaded the waiting message. It was from Whitlock. Mike read it, groaned, read it again and memorized the address given at the end.

He scrapped the open message together with the copy of the compressed file that remained on the screen. When he had emptied the electronic trash the computer was just as he had found it. Before he left the apartment he put the floppy disk back inside the chair and switched off the lights.

At the door he paused, feeling a powerful impulse to leave some sign of his visit. As always he resisted, and left.

The Lodge Hill Burial Ground was landscaped like a golf course. Oaks, mature cypresses and willows were grouped at careful intervals across five undulating acres lined with row upon row of headstones in marble, sandstone and granite. Dark red cinder footpaths criss-crossed the lawn-smooth terrain, with broader, shiny blacktop roadways for funeral traffic.

The burial service for Harold Gibson took place on Sector 9 in the south-west of the cemetery, close to a resplendent lone willow planted by his own subscription twenty years before. More than sixty mourners were in attendance, making a dark cluster around the chrome-and-black catafalque on which the coffin sat beside the open grave.

‘For man walketh in a vain shadow,’ the minister said, reading from a prayer book with purple-edged pages, ‘and disquieteth himself in vain. He heapeth up riches and cannot tell who shall gather them. And now, Lord, what is my hope? Truly my hope is even in thee.’

The widow, Ginny, a small plump woman with bright orange-red hair, stood with a handkerchief pressed against her mouth, her black silk coat flapping in the warm breeze. Around her, standing apart from the main gathering of mourners, a group of eight or nine grim-faced men stared at the coffin as if it might tell them something. Behind them a clutch of obvious henchmen stood in tight formation, heads bobbing as they continually looked around them, daring trouble to show itself, thick necks straining against tight white collars.

One member of the group, Don Chadwick, a squat, wide-bodied man with small eyes, nudged the taller man beside him.

‘Who’s that?’

Emerett Pearce looked cautiously around him. ‘Where?’

‘There, over there on the right,’ Chadwick said.

Pearce watched as Malcolm Philpott, wearing a black suit, edged into the group and moved nearer Ginny Gibson.

Pearce stiffened his lips so they wouldn’t move when he spoke. ‘How should I know who he is?’

‘He’s not a friend of the family, that’s for sure.’

‘Keep your voice down.’

The minister was nearing the end of the main part of the service, prior to the body being moved into position for burial. He raised his voice, taking advantage of the fine resonance obtainable at this part of the cemetery, as long as the sound was loud enough.

In a pause the sound of a camera motordrive could be clearly heard. People began to look in the direction of the sound, a hillock some distance behind the spot where the minister stood. C.W. Whitlock was standing there, wearing a sober grey suit and a black necktie. He was taking photographs of the funeral group, panning the camera as he kept his finger jammed on the shutter release.

‘He is seriously annoying me,’ Don Chadwick finally announced. ‘Soon as this is over, I’m going to find out what the hell he thinks he’s doing.’

Other people were muttering. Men looked at each other, frowning, shaking their heads. Malcolm Philpott sidled alongside Don Chadwick.

‘Mr Chadwick?’ he whispered.

Chadwick glared at him.

‘Forgive me for butting in like this…’

‘What is it?’

‘My name is Beamish, I’ll introduce myself properly after the service. I just wanted to say, I overheard what you said and I understand your concern. I can tell you about that man over there.’ He pointed to Whitlock, who was still shooting. ‘He is a journalist. He has taken it upon himself to expose what he calls the machinations behind Harold Gibson’s death.’

‘Yeah?’

‘If I were you, I wouldn’t approach him in public. A suggestion only, of course, but it’s based on my own experience of the man.’

‘I see.’

Philpott slipped back into the group behind Chadwick.

The minister had paused to clear his throat. He raised his hand towards the sky before continuing. ‘Oh spare me a little, that I may recover my strength, before I go hence and be no more seen.’

The widow emitted a tiny squeak and dabbed her eyes with the handkerchief.

‘Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost. As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end. Amen.’

The undertaker’s men, frock-coated and wearing black leather gloves, stepped forward and expertly manoeuvred shiny struts at the side of the catafalque. The coffin swung slowly and gracefully away from the structure on a slender framework and settled on the lip of the grave. Ginny Gibson howled.

Whitlock stopped taking pictures and slowly unhooked the camera strap from around his neck. He put the camera on his shoulder, stood looking at the group by the graveside for a minute, then turned and walked away up the hill towards the trees bordering the eastern sector of the cemetery.

Chadwick watched him go. He turned and looked at Philpott, who had his eyes closed and his hands clasped as the minister spoke.

‘Saviour, thou most worthy judge eternal, suffer us not at our last hour, for any pains of death, to fall from thee.’

The coffin shuddered a second then slowly descended into the grave. Ginny began to sob into her soaked handkerchief. Another woman standing nearby put out a hand to touch her shoulder and had it violently shaken off. Ginny moved to the graveside and watched until the coffin touched bottom. Then she turned to the minister, her face anguished.

‘What will I do without him?’

The minister didn’t appear to know. He took a handful of earth from a shovel brought by an attendant and threw it into the grave. It hit the coffin with a hollow drumming sound. He read again from his prayer book.

‘Forasmuch as it hath pleased Almighty God of his great mercy to take unto himself the soul of our dear brother here departed, we therefore commit his body to the ground.’

‘Cremated and buried,’ Don Chadwick whispered, grinning stiffly. ‘Harold was always the extravagant one.’

When the service was over the mourners fanned out, heading for their cars. Don Chadwick and Emerett Pearce crossed the cinder path and took a short cut through the trees to the wide central road, where Chadwick’s Bentley was parked. The Puerto Rican chauffeur opened the door as they approached. Chadwick let Pearce go first and paused with one foot inside.

‘What is it?’ Chadwick was looking along the road behind the car. Pearce looked out the back window. ‘That’s him, isn’t it? The guy that spoke to you?’

‘Uhuh.’ Chadwick waited until Philpott was within earshot then he called to him, ‘Could you use a lift?’

Philpott quickened his stride and reached Chadwick out of breath.

‘Most kind,’ he panted. ‘I was hoping I would catch you before you left.’

‘Are you going back to the Gibson place?’

‘Well, I’m not sure it would be proper.’