Алистер Маклин - Borrowed Time

Things had gone badly wrong. He realized that in this situation, he had no idea what he should do. It wasn’t his show, after all. He was the bait, not the angler …

His heart thumped as a police officer appeared at the corner for one fleeting moment, holding up his thumb. He winked at Amrit and vanished again. Amrit swallowed back a grin.

It’s working! God, it’s working!

He realized that in his anxiety and distraction he had wandered out into the full downpour, and now he was soaked. He didn’t care. His heart thrummed in him now. It was working! He was a crucial part of a big-time operation and it was ticking over like clockwork.

Suddenly, in that instant, standing there with rain pouring down over him, he knew that he never wanted to do any other job. The work had its rotten times, its rotten hours and days, but when the brilliant, winning moments came, they wiped the slate clean and he knew there was nothing else in the world he would ever want to do.

‘Wares from the vale of beauty?’ a voice said from the other side of the pillar.

Amrit turned, getting his sack ready. ‘Precisely the wares you desire,’ he replied, and allowed himself one swift, secret, gleeful grin.

When Philpott returned to his car, which was parked a few metres outside the gates of Arberry’s mansion, he found a reception party waiting. Mike and Ram were in the back; Sabrina was in the front passenger seat.

‘Well, well…’ Philpott nodded to them each in turn as he climbed in. He was pliant on sherry and a couple of stiff brandies. He smiled with less restraint than usual. ‘What were you trying to do? Frighten me to death, perhaps? Where’s your transport?’

Sabrina pointed to the jeep on the other side of the avenue.

‘Oh.’ Philpott shut the door. ‘I thought you might have come by Range-Rover.’

‘We came because your buddy Harry Lewis sent you a fax,’ Mike said. ‘We couldn’t be sure where you’d go after seeing Dr Arberry, and since you’re not carrying a mobile…’

‘Sorry,’ Philpott mumbled. ‘A change of climate and scene and my memory deserts me.’

‘Well, since the message was something you should know about straight away, we decided to come and wait for you.’

‘And what is the message?’

‘Harry Lewis carried out a curiosity check on who’s been funding the Arberry Foundation,’ Mike said. ‘And guess what?’

‘What?’

‘Nobody has.’

Philpott took a deep careful breath. ‘What do you mean?’

‘No corporation anywhere in the civilized world has donated money to Dr Arberry, or claimed relief on donations to any such foundation.’

‘But surely–’

‘Lewis has been thorough,’ Mike said. ‘He’s checked with international banks, charitable trusts, finance foundations and the IRS.’

‘The bottom line is this,’ Sabrina said. ‘Dr Arberry runs an ambitious, expensive, multi-faceted medical foundation, but nobody finances it.’

‘One other thing,’ Mike said. ‘The for-your-eyes-only message from Mr Lewis, which we naturally took the liberty of reading in full, points out that Simon Arberry is a doctor all right, but he’s a doctor of pharmacology. He’s a drug designer.’

Philpott peered at Mike in the gloom. ‘What turn are your thoughts taking?’

‘I’ve had time to reflect, sitting here waiting for you,’ Mike said. ‘Now I’m thinking Arberry could be the source and substance of the whole refined drug trade.’

Philpott groaned softly.

‘I’m thinking,’ Mike continued, ‘that he could easily fund his conspicuous good works out of the small change from a trade in top-line drugs. It would be a brilliant cover and terrific PR rolled into one.’

‘His only worry,’ Philpott said, caught up in the unfurling logic, ‘is that other villains, the traditional traffickers of the territory, are getting close to uncovering his game. So he handles that by bumping off an employee or two and appealing – or getting a friend to do the appealing – to the UN to fight off those terrible bandits.’

‘Beautifully devious,’ Sabrina said. She looked at Mike. ‘How do you prove it?’

‘The same way I prove anything. First of all I convince myself. That gives me the thrust to get proof that’ll stand up to scrutiny.’

‘And have you convinced yourself Dr Arberry is our baddie?’

‘You could say so. The driver I shot–’

‘The one we left for the vultures,’ Sabrina said.

‘Yeah, him. Remember I said I’d seen him some place before?’

‘Sure.’

‘Well it came back to me. He answered the door and served at table the night Ram and Lenny and I had dinner at Arberry’s house. The butler. And the woman with the memorable eyes who drove the car away?’

‘Surrounded by all those boxes,’ Sabrina said, ‘just like the kind that high-grade amphetamines are supplied in …’

‘Right. Well she served at table, too. She’s Arberry’s maid.’

‘All this speculation,’ Philpott sighed.

‘No, sir,’ Mike said. ‘Something harder than that.’

‘Where are the drugs manufactured, then?’ Ram said.

‘Arberry has acres of farm and forest land,’ Sabrina said. ‘Growing the necessary crops wouldn’t be a problem. Could he maybe be making the stuff in his clinics and labs and teaching units?’

‘Nah.’ Mike shook his head. ‘I can always spot a man who enjoys a risk. When the doc showed Lenny and Ram and me the gilded cavern, he was really showing off, and maybe at the same time he was showing his skin to the wind – you know, taking a delicious risk. I’d bet anything that cave’s the spot. There, or somewhere damn near there.’

‘What do we do?’ Sabrina said. ‘Go take a look?’

‘Right now,’ Mike said.

Sabrina started to open the door, then turned back to Philpott. ‘Sir, why did you say you thought we might have come by Range-Rover?’

‘I presumed you’d got it back.’

‘Sorry?’

‘The police vehicle you managed to lose. I saw it a few minutes ago, on my way back to the car.’

‘Where?’

‘Parked at the gates there, by the trees.’

‘Must be another one,’ Mike said.

‘What, with police code plate A1? I’m hardly likely to forget that, am I? Especially since I had to write it out on the triplicated cash transfer forms I signed to pay for the ruddy thing.’ Philpott sniffed. ‘Good job I haven’t processed the forms yet.’

‘But sir,’ Sabrina said, ‘we didn’t find the Range-Rover again.’

‘Eh?’

‘We didn’t–’

‘Hell’s teeth!’ Mike threw open the door. ‘Sabrina! Come on!’

The Golden Cavern smelled like a slaughterhouse.

The last time Mike had seen it there had been lights shining from every angle, making the pyrite rocks sparkle so brightly that they hurt his eyes. Now a solitary floodlamp threw dark shadows into the craggy lower reaches and highlighted the spreadeagled, mutilated bodies scattered across the rocks.

‘God almighty …’

It took seconds to register. Mike stood with Sabrina at his shoulder, automatically counting the dead: seven, maybe eight. All of them men, all wearing white coats splashed and smeared with their blood. It had only just happened: the fresh warm smell was unmistakable.

‘Look,’ Sabrina breathed.

In a deep, hollowed-out corner of the cave Dr Arberry crouched, hugging himself, staring at a point behind a huge glittering rock. As Mike and Sabrina watched, Paul Seaton stepped into the light. He brandished a long curved sword, its blade clotted with blood and tissue. He turned and nodded slowly to Mike.

‘My timing’s a tad out.’ Seaton pointed the sword at Dr Arberry, who went on staring at him as if he was frozen that way. ‘I had to wait for the doctor’s visitor to leave. Then I brought him along to witness the cancelling of his empire. I was going to add him to the pile. You, or whoever, were supposed to find nothing here but dead people and a wrecked factory.’