Десмонд Бэгли - Running Blind

‘And I’d get in the way,’ she said flatly.

‘You’re a civilized person,’ I said. ‘Very law-abiding and full of scruples. I doubt if you’ve had as much as a parking ticket in your life. I might manage to retain a few scruples while I’m being hunted; not many, but some. But when I’m the hunter I can’t afford them. I think you might be horrified at what I’d do.’

‘You’d kill,’ she said. It was a statement.

‘I might do worse,’ I said grimly, and she shivered. ‘It’s not that I want to — I’m no casual murderer; I didn’t want to have any part of this but I’ve been conscripted against my will.’

‘You dress it in fine words,’ she said. ‘You don’t have to kill.’

‘No fine words,’ I said. ‘Just one — survival. A drafted American college boy may be a pacifist, but when the Viet Cong shoot at him with those Russian 7.62 millimetre rifles he’ll shoot right back, you may depend on it. And when Kennikin comes after me he’ll deserve all he runs into. I didn’t ask him to shoot at me on the Tungnaá River — he didn’t need my permission — but he can’t have been very surprised when I shot back. Hell, he would expect it!’

‘I can see the logic,’ said Elin. ‘But don’t expect me to like it.’

‘Christ!’ I said. ‘Do you think I like it?’

‘I’m sorry, Alan,’ she said, and smiled wanly.

‘So am I.’ I stood up. ‘After that bit of deep philosophy you’d better have breakfast. I’ll see what Sigurlin can offer.’

I left Laugarvatn at eight that night. Punctuality may be a virtue but it has been my experience that the virtuous often die young while the ungodly live to a ripe age. I had arranged to meet Jack Case at five o’clock but it would do him no great harm to stew for a few hours, and I had it in mind that the arrangement to meet him had been made on an open radio circuit.

I arrived at Geysir in Gunnar’s Volkswagen beetle and parked inconspicuously quite a long way from the summer hotel. A few people, not many, were picking their way among the pools of boiling water, cameras at the ready. Geysir itself — the Gusher — which has given its name to all the other spouters in the world, was quiescent. It has been a long time since Geysir spouted. The habit of prodding it into action by tossing rocks into the pool finally proved too much as the pressure chamber was blocked. However, Strokkur — the Churn — was blasting off with commendable efficiency and sending up its feathery plume of boiling water at seven-minute intervals.

I stayed in the car for a long time and used the field-glasses assiduously. There were no familiar faces to be seen in the next hour, a fact that didn’t impress me much, however. Finally I got out of the car and walked towards the Hotel Geysir, one hand in my pocket resting on the butt of the pistol.

Case was in the lounge, sitting in a corner and reading a paperback. I walked up to him and said, ‘Hello, Jack; that’s a nice tan — you must have been in the sun.’

He looked up. ‘I was in Spain. What kept you?’

‘This and that.’

I prepared to sit down, but he said, ‘This is too public — let’s go up to my room. Besides, I have a bottle.’

‘That’s nice.’

I followed him to his room. He locked the door and turned to survey me. ‘That gun in your pocket spoils the set of your coat. Why don’t you use a shoulder holster?’

I grinned at him. ‘The man I took the gun from didn’t have one. How are you, Jack? It’s good to see you.’

He grunted sourly. ‘You might change your mind about that.’ With a flip of his hand he opened a suitcase lying on a chair and took out a bottle. He poured a heavy slug into a tooth glass and handed it to me. ‘What the devil have you been doing? You’ve got Taggart really worked up.’

‘He sounded pretty steamy when I spoke to him,’ I said, and sipped the whisky. ‘Most of the time I’ve been chased from hell-and-gone to here.’

‘You weren’t followed here?’ he asked quickly.

‘No.’

‘Taggart tells me you killed Philips. Is that true?’

‘If Philips was a man who called himself Buchner and Graham it’s true.’

He stared at me. ‘You admit it!’

I relaxed in the chair. ‘Why not, since I did it? I didn’t know it was Philips, though. He came at me in the dark with a gun.’

‘That’s not how Slade described it. He says you took a crack at him too.’

‘I did — but that was after I’d disposed of Philips. He and Slade came together.’

‘Slade says differently. He says that he was in a car with Philips when you ambushed it.’

I laughed. ‘With what?’ I drew the sgian dubh from my stocking and flipped it across the room, where it stuck in the top of the dressing-table, quivering. ‘With that?’

‘He says you had a rifle.’

‘Where would I get a rifle?’ I demanded. ‘He’s right, though; I took the rifle from Philips after I disposed of him with that little pig-sticker. I put three shots into Slade’s car and missed the bastard.’

‘Christ!’ said Case. ‘No wonder Taggart is doing his nut. Have you gone off your little rocker?’

I sighed. ‘Jack, did Taggart say anything about a girl?’

‘He said you’d referred to a girl. He didn’t know whether to believe you.’

‘He’d better believe me,’ I said. ‘That girl isn’t far from here, and she has a bullet wound in her shoulder that was given to her by Philips. He was within an ace of killing her. Now, there’s no two ways about that, and I can take you to her and show you the wound. Slade says I ambushed him. Is it likely I’d do it with my fiancée watching? And why in hell would I want to ambush him?’ I slid in a trick question. ‘What did he say he’d done with Philips’s body?’

Case frowned. ‘I don’t think the question came up.’

‘It wouldn’t,’ I said. ‘The last I saw of Slade he was driving away like a maniac — and there was no body in his car. I disposed of it later.’

‘This is all very well,’ said Case. ‘But it happened after Akureyri, and in Akureyri you were supposed to deliver a package to Philips. You didn’t, and you didn’t give it to Slade either. Why not?’

‘The operation stank,’ I said, and went into it in detail.

I talked for twenty minutes and by the time I had finished Case was pop-eyed. He swallowed and his Adam’s apple jumped convulsively. ‘Do you really believe that Slade is a Russian agent? How do you expect Taggart to swallow that? I’ve never heard such a cock-and-bull story in my life.’

I said patiently, ‘I followed Slade’s instructions at Keflavik and nearly got knocked off by Lindholm; Slade sent Philips after me into Asbyrgi — how did he know the Russians were holding a fake? There’s the Calvados; there’s...’

Case held up his hands. ‘There’s no need to go through it all again. Lindholm might have been lucky in catching you — there’s nothing to say all the roads around Keflavik weren’t staked out. Slade says he didn’t go after you in Asbyrgi. As for the Calvados...’ He threw up his hands. ‘There’s only your word for that.’

‘What the hell are you, Jack? Prosecutor, judge and jury, too? Or have I already been judged and you’re the executioner?’

‘Don’t fly off the handle,’ he said wearily. ‘I’m just trying to find out how complicated a cock-up you’ve made, that’s all. What did you do after you left Asbyrgi?’

‘We went south in the wilderness,’ I said. ‘And then Kennikin pitched up.’

‘The one who drinks Calvados? The one you had the hassle with in Sweden?’

‘The same. My old pal, Vaslav. Don’t you think that was bloody coincidental, Jack? How would Kennikin know which track to chase along? But Slade knew, of course; he knew which way we went after we left Asbyrgi.’