Алистер Маклин - Borrowed Time

‘Good. The sooner the better.’ Arberry made a wan smile. ‘Apart from any other consideration, I want to go on enjoying the sight of the sunset, and being able to walk in my gardens when I feel like it.’

Mike and Sabrina returned to the cabin an hour after Philpott had gone to see Arberry. Ram greeted them like long-lost family. He told them to sit down and do nothing. Drinks first, he insisted, then he would prepare them a meal.

‘It was bad, what happened to Lenny,’ Ram said as he dropped the lemon into Sabrina’s gin and tonic. He brought the glasses to the couch where they were flopped out side by side. ‘Dare I ask if you got the ones who did it? When we spoke on the phone, the details were rather sketchy.’

Sabrina looked at Mike. ‘I think you understand what happened better than I do.’

‘It was one of Seaton’s men that shot Lenny,’ Mike said. ‘But no, we didn’t retaliate. And for a while it looked like we would never be in a position to do that.’

Mike recounted his meeting with Seaton, and the turnaround in events when Mike accused him of being involved in the new trade.

‘He let us go,’ Mike said, ‘because he had to underline that he’s not like the new people. Not anywhere near as savage or murderous as they are. He overstated the difference, of course. He’s just another kind of savage, the traditional kind. But he didn’t want me or Sabrina thinking of him in the same terms as the new guys.’

‘And that was all?’ Ram said. ‘He let you go because he didn’t want you to think too badly of him?’

‘There was something else,’ Mike said. ‘Or I should say, I sensed something else. But I don’t know what it was.’

‘That whole episode was doomed,’ Sabrina told Ram. ‘Apart from Lenny’s death, I mean. The ambush flopped, I got septicaemia and even had hallucinations, and after one bad deal and another we came out with what we stood up in. I even managed to lose a police Range-Rover.’

‘I know about that.’ Ram did an eye-roll. ‘Mr Philpott will have something to say, I believe. On top of the cost of the ambush operation, he’s had to sanction a payment for replacement of the vehicle.’

‘We have to put it all behind us,’ Mike said. ‘The answer or answers to our problems are here, right here in the Vale of Kashmir. We have to knuckle down, decipher the answers and take appropriate action.’

‘You make it sound like a straight matter of spit and elbow grease,’ Sabrina said. ‘We don’t even know where to start.’

‘We will, don’t worry.’ Mike tasted his Jim Beam and smacked his lips. ‘Ram, tell us, what’s the boss doing here?’

‘I think he made an error of judgement, too. But he’s working hard to make up for it.’

‘Has there been word from Amrit?’

‘Nothing. But you wouldn’t expect anything, would you? He must be due at the Chinese border any time now.’

‘If he’s made it.’

The fax machine in the corner rang twice, then began to gurgle. A second later the red URGENT light came on and paper rolled from the front of the machine.

Mike got up and looked at the cover sheet. He read it aloud as it fed out on to the tray.

‘ “Urgent facsimile message from H. Lewis, World Health Organization, for the attention of M. Philpott.” ’

‘What’s it say?’ Sabrina said.

‘You want me to read the boss’s confidential fax?’

Sabrina tilted her head. ‘Is there any way I could stop you?’

Mike was already reading, his eye racing across the type as fast as it came out of the machine. ‘Oh, my,’ he said, and looked up at Sabrina and Ram.

‘What?’ Sabrina demanded. ‘What does it say?’

Mike stared at the fax again. ‘My,’ he said. ‘My oh my …’

Amrit Datta stood by a cracked stucco pillar behind a grain store that occupied half the length of the street. It was a pillar marked with a dab of brown paint near its foot. This was where he had been told to stand. Or he believed it was. The store was in the dirtiest part of the border town of Boyding. It was an area where only beggars, burned-out opium zombies and superannuated street prostitutes gathered at this hour of night.

Amrit had taken a while to convince himself this was the spot. The daub of paint was so casual, so accidental-looking, and it was faded, too; it was difficult to believe anyone would designate a mark like that as an identifying characteristic.

But there were other markers, also part of the specified rendezvous point. Opposite the rear of the grain store was a coal brazier that the derelicts gathered round to warm their hands; it was exactly where he had been told it would be. And there was the boarded-up coffee stall, the Chinese laundry – also boarded up – the halfhearted painting of Siva on a wall by a little candle shop. This was the place, all right. Amrit just couldn’t believe he was expected to transfer ownership of 200,000 dollars’-worth of highly refined drugs in such a dump.

After a time he was aware a man was watching him. He was dressed as shabbily as Amrit, which meant nothing, since Amrit was certainly not what he appeared to be. He waited, and after a few minutes the man came across.

‘You want to buy kif?’ he whispered.

Amrit stared at him. That was not the magic phrase. He thought he should give the man another chance; maybe he was nervous, or just forgetful.

‘What did you say?’

‘Kif,’ the man said, producing a waxy brown wad. ‘Very cheap, very best stuff. All the way from Egypt.’

‘Go away,’ Amrit said.

The man looked offended. ‘You can’t afford it, right?’

‘I said go away. Do it now. Go.’

The man waggled his head. ‘Go away. Do it now,’ he mimicked. ‘What are you, beggar boy, some kind of big-shot in disguise?’

Amrit saw that this could get awkward. It could even ruin the set-up. He looked around. No one was paying any attention to them. It had started to rain and people were huddling in doorways and bunching around the coal brazier.

‘Listen …’ Amrit drew his gun from the folds of his shirt. ‘I’m not a big-shot in disguise. I’m a man who’s come out to kill someone, I don’t care who. Do you want to be the one? I don’t mind, I promise.’

He cocked the gun. The man stared at it, his mouth working soundlessly.

‘Disappear, or stay here and check out the afterlife.’

The man turned and ran.

Amrit used his foot to edge his sack into the cover of the overhang and stepped back a pace to keep the worst of the rain off himself. He looked at the Pepsi-Cola clock on the side of the old coffee stall. It was still working, he could see the sweep hand moving. It said ten to midnight. He was supposed to wait between 11:30 and midnight. What happened if nobody showed? What did he do then?

‘Wares from the vale of beauty?’ a sing-song voice said.

Amrit spun, saw nobody for a moment, then realized the man was on the other side of the pillar. He was Chinese in appearance, half turned away from Amrit. He looked, in fact, as if he didn’t even know Amrit was there. But he had used the right phrase.

‘Precisely the wares you desire,’ Amrit said, supplying the other half of the transaction code.

The man turned, came round the pillar and held out an open linen bag. Amrit pulled the first consignment from his sack and dropped it in the bag.

Nothing is happening , he thought, glancing quickly around. There was nothing. Nobody. Another second and this man would be gone. So would the batch of drugs.

The man tucked the bag under his flowing coat and moved away. Amrit felt his heart sink. He watched the man reach the end of the street and turn the corner. He was gone. Amrit stared at the empty street, shiny with rain.