Peter O'Donnell - Cobra Trap

Then, in the closing seconds of the woman's exhortation, when Pike was croaking, "No… please… no," the atmosphere among the spectators changed from one of dazed incredulity to something akin to awestruck pleasure. The monster they had long feared and fawned on was being destroyed, and like human jackals they found relish in this.

Pike was on his knees, barely conscious, hands held up before his face. The woman stepped back and took some sheets of paper from her haversack. "Right, Jamie," she said with a glance towards her husband, "Let's have a wee song." She moved around, thrusting papers into reluctant hands, and looked coldly at the barman. "We're stubborn folk for the Lord, and it's a song we'll have now from you good people, else it'll mean our comin' back each night till we've stirred the spirit in yer souls."

The barman had drawn breath to protest, but her last words changed his mind. Stupefied by the concept that this visitation could afflict him nightly, and unable to think of any other action he could take, he looked balefully round at his clientele and muttered hoarsely, "Sing. Sing, for Christ's sake!"

The concertina wheezed an introduction, then launched into the verse of Yes, Jesus Loves Me. Led by Jamie and Jeannie, too dazed to resist, the pub regulars began to sing, feebly at first, but then, exhorted by the barman and under the woman's menacing eye, with greater effort. Pike still knelt, the singers grouped roughly behind him. The woman pinched his ear hard. "Sing up, ye glaikit tattiebogle!" she commanded stridently, and Pike began to open and close his swollen mouth in wordless mime.

After one chorus she gave orders for him to be carried outside. The young oriental followed, saw him dumped on the pavement, called for an ambulance on his phone, then listened happily to the renewed singing within for a few moments before making for his car. Two minutes later the greyhaired couple emerged from The Black Horse, walked to the corner and disappeared.

Weng waited, but nobody followed, and as soon as he heard the ambulance arriving he drove off.

At nine o'clock that evening Modesty Blaise and Willie Garvin called at Kempton Road Hospital. They had changed their clothes in a hotel room and removed padding, wigs, and coloured contact lenses they had worn as Jamie and Jeannie McNally. Modesty had removed the thin strips of lead she had worn inside her gloves along the little finger edges of the hands.

Dr Ramsey said, "Aren't you the couple who were here a week or two ago when that poor blind girl's husband got beaten up at The Black Horse? "

Modesty said, "Yes, that's right. We happened to be passing tonight and called in to say that Professor Collier's doing very well and to thank you. We'd like to make a contribution to your staff fund, or to anything for the hospital. Can we leave you and Sister to decide?"

She handed the young doctor a cheque. He looked at it and whistled. "This is very generous, Miss Blaise." Suddenly a huge grin spread across his face. "As a matter of fact we're having rather a good nightshift tonight." He glanced at Sister beside him, who nodded, then went on, "This is off the record. We're over the moon because that Black Horse thug himself was brought in an hour ago, and somebody's beaten the living daylights out of him. You'll never believe this, but apparently it was some old religious bird who duffed him up."

Dr Ramsey shook his head in disbelief. "Pike didn't tell us, he hasn't said a word—oh, not because he's stoic, he's just plain traumatised! But when our ambulance chaps picked him up a couple of his cronies were standing around outside where they'd dumped him—ex-cronies maybe, because they seemed quite psyched up about it and weren't doing a thing for him. Anyway, they said this old couple had come in to sing hymns, and Pike hit the man, then slapped the woman and she went for Pike and fairly beat the—er, you know—

"Beat the shit out of him," said Sister happily. "He has just about the same injuries as he caused your friend. It's amazing."

Dr Ramsey lowered his voice. "And Pike's crying," he said with delight. "She's broken the bastard."

Modesty and Willie looked at each other in astonishment, then at Dr Ramsey. Willie said, "Well, I'm sure that will help speed up our friend's recovery."

"And we can tell him tonight," said Modesty. "He's staying with us. Thank you very much, doctor."

At noon next day Inspector Brook was in his office with Inspector Harry Lomax watching the tape and listening to the sounds for the third time running. When Brook turned the TV off Lomax wiped his eyes and said, "It's my best day since I joined the force, Brookie. Tell her if she ever wants to murder someone she can come and do it on my patch for free. What in God's name is a glaikit tattiebogle?"

Brook said, "According to Willie it translates as a clumsy scarecrow, but it's much more scathing than that in the vernacular. A Glaswegian called Jock Miller ran her transport section for The Network, and Willie says she picked it up from him."

"Well, give 'em my very best," said Lomax. He nodded towards the screen. "But I can't tell my boys who they really are?"

"No way, Harry. That was Jamie and Jeannie McNally, who came and went, nobody knows where from or to. Wasn't it bloody marvellous, though?"

Lomax grinned. "Pike's deader than if they'd killed him. He won't dare show his face in the East End again. Look, can I have copies of that tape? I could push them around a few pubs on my patch where they'll love seeing Pike getting duffed up. Could do us a bit of good."

"I'll ask her," said Brook, "but if she says no, that's final, Harry."

Lomax lifted a hand. "It's final. I owe her more than that." He hesitated. "Any chance of meeting her?"

Brook looked doubtful. "She doesn't like a lot of attention, or thanks either. I can't go to her and say my old mate Harry Lomax is dying to meet her. But… well, if ever something crops up, a window of opportunity as they say, I'll do what I can."

"Thanks. But don't forget." Lomax got to his feet and stood gazing at the blank screen thoughtfully. "You can tell her one thing, though. She'll know it, but tell her anyway. Whoever the big boys behind Pike are, they won't have to guess who Jamie and Jeannie were. By now they'll know exactly what happened, and they'll know those two were Modesty Blaise and Willie Garvin. Nobody can disguise style, Brookie, and what happened at The Black Horse reeks of their style."

It was ten days later when Modesty rang Willie at The Treadmill. He was working out solo in his combat room behind the pub, and her call was put through to him there.

" 'Allo, Princess, what's new? Has it been confirmed about Dinah's baby?"

"Yes, and I'm so pleased for them after what happened last time."

"Me too. We'll stand guard this time, no messing. You still getting calls from Old Alex?"

"Three last week. He says everybody's very kind, but there's no hint of his memory coming back and I don't think he's happy."

"Fishes out of water usually aren't."

"I know. But listen, Willie, I've rung because something pretty weird happened an hour ago. I had a call from Sir Angus McBeal."

" What?"

"Yes, what indeed."

McBeal was a very rich man, a director of a number of companies. His activities were closely watched by the City, for if McBeal decided that a particular investment was a Good Thing then the City was inclined to follow. What was known to perhaps only three other people in the world beside Modesty and Willie was that Sir Angus McBeal was also one of the four directors of Salamander Four, probably the world's most formidable criminal group outside the Mafia.

There had been a time when Salamander Four accepted a contract for the obscene killing of the Colliers from a client seeking leverage over Modesty and Willie. It was a Dead Man's Handle contract, unstoppable even though the client had been killed. Modesty had confronted McBeal and told him that his life would be forfeit if the Colliers were harmed, also the lives of his three European codirectors, Chard, Gesner and Pereda. The same applied, she had said, if any attempt were made to dispose of her or Willie Garvin, pointing out that she and Willie were highly experienced in not getting killed, while McBeal and his colleagues were not.