Алистер Маклин - Borrowed Time

‘I hope your mom uses the cash to do you both some good.’

Sabrina turned away, running her fingers through the stuff in the bag, aware that something else was missing.

Then a terrible pain hit her. She dropped to her knees and rolled on her side, gasping. The boy was standing, one empty hand outstretched, staring down at her. As he turned and ran, Sabrina reached behind her, clenched her teeth and pulled the Swiss Army knife from the back of her thigh.

‘Aah! God! Aaow!’

She pushed herself up and turned at a commotion in the other room. She saw the feet scamper out the front door, the boy and his mother. They were off like the wind, with enough money to stay away for a while, or to just go and live somewhere else for good.

Sabrina stood up, grunting, feeling the stiffness in her leg. She got a field dressing and an ampoule of wound wash from the zippered pocket in the bag.

‘I used to call it my lucky Swiss Army knife,’ she grunted.

The kid had used the longest, sharpest blade. Judging by the margin of blood on the polished steel, it had gone in three full centimetres. It felt like he had used a bayonet, but on the plus side there wasn’t much bleeding. Sabrina pulled up her skirt and squirted the antibacterial on to the wound.

‘Oh hell, hell, hell!’ A fresh agony hit her. ‘Son of a bitch!’

It burned like a blowtorch. She distracted herself by tearing open the dressing wrapper with her teeth, and as the pain diffused away and left behind only the nagging throb of punctured muscle, she tried once again to tell herself that, on balance, she had been pretty lucky.

Philpott picked up the red phone on the second ring and waited for the scrambler noise to subside.

‘Sabrina? Where in God’s name have you been?’

‘There was a hitch, sir. I’m truly sorry, I would have been in touch sooner if it had been possible.’

‘Something wrong with the phone, is there? We can always get a replacement to you if you think you need one.’

‘The phone’s fine, sir. I just encountered a little setback, and what with one thing and another, my call-in got delayed. I’ve already smacked my wrist on your behalf.’

‘Quite right. Are your problems sorted out now? Can I rely on you sticking to our agreed schedule from here on?’

‘Yes, sir, you can.’

‘Fine. Be careful.’

He put down the phone and immediately the black one beside it warbled. He picked it up, glancing at the clock. He had planned to leave half an hour ago.

‘Philpott.’

‘Thomas Lubbock.’

Philpott’s eyes narrowed. A call direct from the Director of Policy Control could only mean the pressure was being turned up.

‘What can I do for you?’

‘Pencil a date in your diary.’ Lubbock’s voice was cold and offhand, a model of rehearsed detachment. ‘Wednesday, March twelfth. Techniques-and-procedures review.’

‘I don’t think I can manage that date,’ Philpott said.

‘I wasn’t offering you an option.’

‘Of course you weren’t,’ Philpott said smoothly. ‘You haven’t the authority to do anything like that.’

‘I …’ Philpott listened, relishing the break in Lubbock’s flow, the crack in his composure. ‘I would point out that the Secretary General has agreed the date–’

‘You’ve spoken to him?’ Philpott injected a note of surprise.

‘I have spoken with one of his staff …’

‘Ah.’ Philpott let that hang in the air. ‘Look here, this is what we’ll do. I’ll speak to the SG in person and let him know that I’d favour another date. He can then convey the message to his staff, one of whom will no doubt get back to you. If your revised date doesn’t suit me either, maybe I should suggest to the SG that I decide on a date and time myself.’

Lubbock was silent for five seconds. When he finally spoke it was clear he had trouble controlling his voice. ‘I’m sure you enjoy this, Philpott,’ he said. ‘I can tell you’re the type that likes games. But I would suggest – and you’d do well to note – that you’re about to discover that a frivolous administration cannot survive in this organization.’

‘Good of you to call.’ Philpott hung up. He picked up the receiver again and tapped in Whitlock’s extension number. ‘Come in, C.W. I need to have a word.’

Whitlock appeared at once.

‘The Arno Skuttnik enquiry,’ Philpott said. ‘Is it a solid one, or are we chasing bubbles?’

‘It has promise.’ Whitlock updated Philpott on the photograph, the mysterious woman, the growing mystery of the dead porter’s connection with Adam Korwin, and the question of the handwriting on the picture. ‘It could work against us, of course,’ he added. ‘At this stage who can say?’

‘You think, nevertheless, that it could be something of substance, either way?’

‘Definitely.’

‘Then follow it. But now I want you to make it a priority. Lubbock is starting to lean. Or he’s trying to. Sooner or later I’ll have to accede to a techniques-and-procedures review. When I do, I don’t want to go in there on the defensive.’

Whitlock nodded. ‘If there’s ammunition to be found, I’ll do all I can to find it. But…’

‘What?’

‘Fingers crossed I don’t find a booby trap instead.’

It had been a long and eventful day, but not the kind Mike favoured. He had ended up tired, footsore and dejected, and he had gained nothing. He had come back to base with more questions than answers, and that was not the way things were supposed to work.

He sat swirling his drink, watching Ram Jarwal read the faxes that had accumulated while they were out.

‘It’s depressing to think,’ Mike said, ‘that the death of the man they found down the slope this morning, and the death of Reverend Young, are everyday statistics by now. Just records on paper, with nothing being done about them.’

‘Containment is beyond the police now, never mind catching villains,’ Ram said, turning from the fax machine. ‘They tidy up the consequences of crime and administer the paperwork.’

‘Reverend Young seemed to think this was still a pretty civilized and well ordered area.’

‘He worried that the troubles in the region would soon make it as bad as the rest of Kashmir,’ Ram said. ‘The fact is, in the space of a year things deteriorated a lot more than he realized. The only difference here, right here on the west side of the Vale, is they have community spirit, and that gives them the backbone to maintain something like independence.’

‘Independence is hard to lick.’

‘Sure,’ Ram said, ‘but criminals and the political agitators are on the case. They’re wearing away the stability, erasing the civilizing factors …’

‘Factors like Reverend Young.’ Mike shook his head. ‘Philpott should be out here seeing the situation for himself. This stuff would chivvy him into action. He’s all for pulling out major stops when he thinks civilization is under threat from the barbarians.’

‘I’ve heard about Philpott.’ Ram brought the bottle of Jim Beam and topped up Mike’s glass. ‘English, isn’t he? Used to be at Scotland Yard.’

‘Technically Scottish, I believe. He had several years as a Detective Chief Superintendent and Joint Chief of the Special Branch. That gave him a solid point of view on the subject of government security.’

‘An old school disciplinarian?’

Mike shook his head. ‘He’s nothing you can hang a label on. He’s a champion of democratic government, but he feels democracy hasn’t been correctly defined or formulated. It needs to lean towards benign dictatorship.’

‘So he’s kind of right-wing.’

‘Kind of,’ Mike said. ‘But like I told you, it’s hard to label him. He’s an individualist. He believes, for example, that a man or woman with a cop’s background is better at gathering results and evaluating them than even the best government man.’