Len Deighton - Spy Hook

Inside this second perimeter fence there were three figures. At first they looked like a man with his two children, but when I got closer I could see it was a huge man with two Mexicans. They were guards. The white man had his belt slung under a big gut. He wore a stetson, starched khakis, high boots and had a shield-shaped gold badge on his shirt. In his hand he held a small transceiver. The Mexicans wore dark brown shirts and one of them had a shotgun. Like the chainlink fence, the men looked fresh and well cared for. One of the Mexicans opened the gate and the big man waved us through.

It was still another mile or more to where a cluster of low pink stucco buildings with red-tiled roofs sat tight just below the summit of the hill. The buildings were of indeterminate age, and designed in the style that Californians call Spanish. Passing a couple of mud-spattered Japanese pickups, Buddy parked the jeep in a cool barnlike building which already held an old Cadillac Seville and a Lamborghini. Buddy put on his stetson, looked at himself in the wing mirror to adjust the brim, and then took my bags. With my jacket over my arm, and sweating in the afternoon heat, I followed him. The main buildings were two storeys high and provided views westwards to the ocean. On the east side they sheltered a wide patio of patterned tiles and a pool about twenty-five yards along. The pool was blue and limpid, with just enough breeze from the ocean to dimple the surface of the water. There was no one to be seen except in the pool, where a slim middle-aged woman was swimming in the gentle dog-paddle style that ensures that your eye make-up doesn't get splashed. At the side of the pool where she'd been sitting there was a big pink towel, bottles of sun-oil and other cosmetics, a brush and comb and a hand-mirror. Leaning against the chair there was a half-completed watercolour painting of bougainvillaea flowers. Beside it there was a large paint box and a jar of brushes.

'Hello, Buddy,' called the lady in the pool without interrupting her swim. 'What's the traffic like? Hi there, Mr Samson. Welcome to La Buona Nova. '

Without slowing his pace Buddy called, 'We came up the PCH, Mrs O'Raffety, but if you're going to town, go through the canyon.' He swivelled his head for long enough to give her one of his sly, gap-toothed smiles. I waved to her and said thanks but had to hurry to follow him.

He went up two steps to an arcaded passageway which provided shady access to, and held chairs and tables for, three guest suites that occupied one side of the building. One of the outdoor tables still had the remains of breakfast: a vacuum coffee pot, a glass jug of juice and expensive-looking tableware of a sort that Gloria would have liked. Buddy opened the door and led the way into the last suite. It was decorated in a theme of pink and white. On the walls there were three framed landscape paintings, amateurish watercolours of local scenes that I was inclined to authenticate as O'Raffety originals.

'Mrs O'Raffety is my mother-in-law,' Buddy explained without being asked. 'She's sixty years old. She owns this whole setup.' He put the bags down and opening the door of the huge green and white tiled bathroom said, 'This is your suite. Switch the air to the way you want it.' He indicated a control panel on the wall. 'You've got time for a swim before lunch. Swim suits in the closet and a slew of towels in the other room.'

'Lunch? Isn't it a bit late for lunch?' The afternoon had almost gone.

'I guess, but Mrs O' Raffety eats any time. She said she'd wait for you.'

'That's very nice of her,' I said.

The large brown-tinted windows gave a view of the patio area. Mrs O'Raffety was still swimming slowly down the pool. There was a look of stem determination on her face. I watched her as she reached the deep end and steered round majestically, like the Queen Elizabeth coming in to Southampton. I could see her more clearly from here. The swimming produced a look of concentration on her face so that, despite the trim figure, and the Beverly Hills beauty treatments, she looked every bit of her sixty years. 'It's quite a place,' I said, realizing that some such response was expected from me.

'She'd get three million dollars – maybe more – if she wanted to sell. There's all that land.'

'And is she going to sell?' I said, hoping to find out more about my mysterious hostess, and why I had been brought here.

'Mrs O'Raffety? She'll never sell. She's got all the money she needs.'

'Do you live here too?' I asked. I was trying to guess at his position in the household.

'I have a beautiful home: three bedrooms, pool, Jacuzzi, everything. We passed it on the way up here: the place with the big palm trees.'

'Oh, yes,' I said, although I hadn't noticed such a place.

'My marriage went wrong,' he said. 'Charly – that's Mrs O'Raffety's daughter – left me. She married a movie actor we met at a benefit dinner. He never seemed to get the right kind of parts, so they went to live in Florida. They have a lovely home just outside Palm Beach.' He said it without rancour – or any emotion – as a man might talk of people he'd only read about in the gossip columns.

'But you stayed with Mrs O'Raffety?'

'Well, I had to stay,' said Buddy. 'I'm Mrs O'Raffety's attorney. I handle things for her.'

'Oh, yes, of course.'

'You have your swim, Mr Samson. The water's kept at eighty degrees. Mrs O'Raffety has to swim on account of her bad back, but she can't abide cold water.' He stared through the window to watch her swimming. There was a fixed expression on his face that could have been concern for her.

'And who is Mr O'Raffety?' I said.

'Who is Mr O'Raffety?' Buddy was puzzled by my question.

'Yes. Who is Mr O'Raffety? What does he do for a living?'

Buddy's face relaxed. 'Oh, I get you,' he said. 'What does he do for a living. Well, Shaun O'Raffety was Mrs O'Raffety's hairdresser: L.A…a fancy place on Rodeo Drive.' Buddy rubbed his face. 'Way back before my time, of course. It didn't last long. She gave him the money to buy a bar in Boston. She hasn't seen him in ten years but sometimes I have to go and get him out of trouble.'

'Trouble?'

'Money trouble. Women trouble. Tax return trouble. Bookies or fist-fights in the bar so that the cops get mad. Never anything bad. Old Shaun is an Irishman. No real harm in him. He just can't choose carefully enough: not his clients, his friends or his women.'

'Except in the case of Mrs O'Raffety,' I said.

For a moment I thought Buddy was going to take offence, but he contained himself and said, 'Yeah. Except in the case of Mrs O'Raffety.' The smile was noticeably absent.

'Since you're Mrs O'Raffety's attorney, Buddy, perhaps you could explain why I've been brought here.'

He looked at me as if trying to help, trying to guess the answer. 'Socializing isn't my bag,' said Buddy. He was silent for a few moments, as if regretting telling me about his employer and mother-in-law. Then he said, 'Mrs O'Raffety has a social secretary to handle the invites: weekend guests and cocktails and dinner parties and suchlike.'

'But just between the two of us, Buddy, I've never even heard of Mrs O'Raffety.'

'Then maybe you are here to visit one of Mrs O'Raffety's permanent guests. Do you know Mr Rensselaer? He lives in the house with the big bougainvillaea.'

'Bret Rensselaer?'

'That's correct.'

'He's dead.'

'No sir.'

Everyone knew Bret was dead. If Frank Harrington said he was dead; he was dead. Frank was always right about things like that. Bret died of gunshot wounds resulting from a gun-battle in Berlin nearly three years ago. I was only a couple of yards away. I saw him fall; I heard him scream. 'Bret Rensselaer,' I said carefully. 'About sixty years old. Blond hair. Tall. Thin.'