Alistair MacLean - Fear is the Key

"Wait here," he said curtly. He moved ahead of us, opened a door, peered in, had a good look round, then beckoned. "All right. In."

We went in. The room was big, over twenty feet long, and luxuriously furnished. Red carpet from wall to wall, red drapes framing square rain-blurred windows, green and red chintz covered armchairs, a cocktail bar lined with red leather covered stools in one corner, a Formica-topped table to seat eight near the door: in the corner opposite the bar, a curtained-off alcove. The dining-room of the suite — internal doors opened off right and left-hand walls — where the general roughed it when he came out to the oil-rig.

Vyland was there, waiting for us. He seemed to have recovered his equanimity, and I had to admit that that smooth urbane face with its neatly trimmed moustache and distinguished sprinkling of iron-grey at the temples belonged right there in that room.

"Close the door," he said to Larry, then turned to me and nodded towards the curtained alcove. "You eat there, Talbot."

"Sure," I agreed. "The hired help. I eat in the kitchen."

"You eat there for the same reason that you saw no one on your way through the corridors coming here. Think we want the drilling-rig crew running around shouting that they've just seen Talbot, the wanted murderer? Don't forget they have radios here and the chopper delivers papers every day… I think we might have the steward in now, General, don't you?"

I went quickly to my seat at the tiny table behind the curtain and sat down. I felt shaken. I should have felt relieved to know that Royale had not been suspicious, that he'd merely been checking to see that the coast was clear before we went into the general's room, but I was more concerned about my own slip-up. My attention was so taken up with immediate problems that I had forgotten that I was playing the part of a murderer. Had I been a genuine and wanted killer, I'd have kept my face hidden, walked in the middle of the group and peered fearfully round every corner we'd come to. I had done none of those things. How long would it be before it occurred to Royale to wonder why I had done none of those things?

The outside door opened and someone, a steward, I assumed, entered. Once again it was the general who was the host, the man in charge, with Vyland his employee and guest: the general's ability to switch roles, his unfailing command of himself in all circumstances, impressed me more every time I noticed it. I was beginning to hope that perhaps it might be a good thing to let the general in on something of what was happening, to seek his help in a certain matter, I was certain now he could carry off any deception, any duplicity where the situation demanded it. But he might as well have been a thousand miles away for any hope I had of contacting him.

The general finished giving his orders for lunch, the door closed behind the departing steward and for perhaps a minute there was complete silence. Then someone rose to his feet and crossed the room and the next I heard was the sound of bottles and glasses clinking. Trifles like murder and forcible coercion and underwater recovery of millions weren't going to get in the way of the observance of the customs of the old Southern hospitality. I would have taken long odds that it was the general himself who was acting as barman, and I was right: I would have taken even longer odds that he would pass up Talbot the murderer, and I was wrong. The alcove curtain was pushed back and the general himself set down a glass before me: he remained bent over my tiny table for a couple of seconds, and the look he gave me wasn't the look you give a known murderer who has at one time kidnapped your daughter and threatened her with death. It was a long, slow, considering, speculative look: and then incredibly, but unmistakably, the corner of his mouth twitched in a smile and his eye closed in a wink. Next moment he was gone, the curtain falling into place and shutting me off from the company.

I hadn't imagined it, I knew I hadn't imagined it. The general was on to me. How much he was on to me I couldn't guess, any more than I could guess at the reasons that had led to the discovery of what he knew or suspected. One thing I was sure of, he hadn't learned from his daughter, I'd impressed her enough with the necessity for complete secrecy.

There was a rumble of conversation in the room and I became aware that it was General Ruthven himself who held the floor.

"It's damnably insulting and utterly ridiculous," he was saying in a voice that I'd never heard before. A dry, icy voice that I could just see being brought to bear for maximum effect in quelling an unruly board of directors. "I don't blame Talbot, murderer though he is. This gun-waving, this guarding has got to stop. I insist on it, Vyland. Good God, man, it's so utterly unnecessary and I didn't think a man like you would go in for cheaply melodramatic stuff like this." The general was warming to his theme of making a stand against being shepherded around at pistol point, or at least against constant surveillance. "Look at the weather, man — no one can move from here in the next twelve hours at least. We're not in the position to make any trouble — and you know I'm the last man in the world to want to. I can vouch personally for my daughter and Kennedy."

The general was sharp, sharp as a needle, sharper than either Vyland or Royale. He was a bit late in the day in making Ms stand against surveillance, I guessed what he was really after was the power of freedom of movement — possibly for himself, even more possibly for his chauffeur. And, what was more, he was getting it. Vyland was agreeing, with the reservation that when he and Royale went in the bathyscaphe the general, his chauffeur and Mary should remain in the room above the pillar along with the rest of Vyland's men. I still had no idea how many men Vyland actually had aboard the rig, but it seemed likely that apart from Larry, Cibatti and his friend there were at least three others. And they would be men in the mould of Cibatti.

Conversation broke off short as a knock came again to the door. A steward — or stewards — set down covers, made to serve but were told by the general to go. As the door closed he said: "Mary, I wonder if you would take something to Talbot?"

There came the soft sound of the rubbing of chair legs on the carpet, then Kennedy's voice, saying: "If I might be permitted, sir?"

"Thank you, Kennedy. Just a minute while my daughter serves it out." By and by the curtain was pushed to one side and Kennedy carefully Said a plate in front of me. Beside the plate he laid a small blue leather-covered book, straightened, looked at me expressionlessly and left.

He was gone before I had realised the significance of what he had done. He knew very well that whatever concessions in freedom of movement the general had gained did not apply to me, I was going to be under eye and gun for sixty seconds every minute, sixty minutes every hour and that our last chance for talking was gone. But not our last chance for communication, not with that little book lying around.

It wasn't strictly a book, it was that cross between a diary and an account book, with a tiny pencil stuck in the loop of leather, which garages and car-dealers dole out in hundreds of thousands, usually at Christmas time, to the more solvent of their customers. Nearly all chauffeurs carried one for entering up in the appropriate spaces the cost of petrol, oil, services, repairs, mileage and fuel consumption. None of those things interested me: all that interested me was the empty spaces in the diary pages and the little blue pencil.

With one eye on the book and one on the curtain and both ears attuned to the voices and sounds beyond that curtain I wrote steadily for the better part of five minutes, feeding myself blindly with fork in left hand while with my right I tried to set down in the briefest time and the shortest compass everything I wanted to tell Kennedy. When I was finished I felt reasonably satisfied: there was still a great deal left to chance but it was the best I could do. Accepting of chances was the essence of this game.