Gavin Lyall - Midnight Plus One

I glanced at Ginette; she shook her head. She hadn't heard of him, either.

Maganhard said coldly: 'And even if a court decided that he wasnot entitled to this certificate, that would not bring back Caspar's holdings either.'

I asked: 'How much would Caspar's holdings be worth, now?'

He lifted his shoulders. The companies we control are valued very low – because, of course, all the profit is directed to Caspar. But we would be selling not just our shares, butcontrol of these companies. That might make the prices ten times what they are now. One might guess -at thirty million pounds.'

After a time I wagged my head to show that I understood. I didn't, of course. You can't understand a sum like thirty million. Perhaps Maganhard and Heiliger and Fiez hadn't really understood it, either. When you start playing around with that sort of money in dark corners, you shouldn't be surprised at the people you meet in dark corners.

'I see,' I said. 'Thirty-four per cent of that would keep a man in beer and cigarettes until his pension came due.'

He stood up. 'Do you now understand enough to get me to Liechtenstein safely?'

'At least I've got a better idea of the odds against it.'

He bowed to Ginette, frowned at me, and went away.

Ginette shoved back from the table and swung to face me. 'Well, Louis?'

'Well, Ginette?'

'What do you believe of this – fairy-tale?'

'Maganhard's story? I'll give you odds it's true. If he had any imagination, he'd have seen this sort of trouble coming.'

'But this Belgian – Calieron – can he do this thing? '

'With bearer shares you can do damn nearly anything. They shift the burden of proof: you don't have to prove you own them – somebody's got to prove you don't. Jesus, the trouble these people go to just to make trouble for themselves.'

She cocked her head at me, puzzled.

I said: 'People like Heiliger – and Maganhard. They spend their lives wrapping up their money in bearer shares, Liechtenstein registrations, numbered Swiss bank accounts -all so that the tax man can't find it. Then they drop dead -andnobody can find it. Nobody inherits anything off these characters; the banks hang on to most of it. How d'you think Swiss banks get so rich? Some of them have still got Gestapo funds they've refused to reveal. You think they're keeping it-for the Gestapo? The hell. They're just keeping it.'

'I did not realise you knew so much about High Finance, Louis. You must be a millionaire by now – no?' She smiled at me. 'I would like a, cognac, please – and not a lecture on how the English would make it.'

I gave her a look and went across to a tray of fat, dusty bottles that Maurice had left on the long sideboard. I found a 1914 Croizet and tried to pour but there was only a dribble left.

'Sorry,' I said. I was, too; I would have liked a drop for myself. I don't much like the sweet modern brandies, but I've no prejudices against a 1914.

She frowned. That bottle was opened only a week ago. I have taken perhaps a glass a day.'

'Maybe Maurice has got the taste.'

She tinkled the little bell. After a while, Maurice padded in. I walked away over into the patch of brilliant sunlight slanting through the french windows, and stared down into the valley, not listening.

The garden below the gravel terrace was a steep slope of coarse, close-cut grass ending in a mass of laurels and monkey-puzzle trees that hid the road. And up beyond it, the hazy blue hills on the far side of the Rhône, very calm and gentle. From here you couldn't see the dead men and crashed cars and the people running round biting each other's tails and sweating into telephones.

Ginette said: 'All is solved, Louis. Maurice gave your friend Mr Lovell a glass – and he took several glasses.'

I stood in the sunlight feeling as cold as a corpse's toes. She was smiling cheerfully.

'It only needed that,' I said. 'Only that.'

He looked like a man sitting out on the terrace in the sun, taking occasional small sips at a glass of whisky, chatting with Miss Jarman. And why should he look anything else? There was no reason why I should have expected to find him in a dark back room with the bottle tilted to his face. He didn't have to be a fast drinker. All he had to be was continuous. He'd go on sipping until he dissolved.

But that's the only difference.

His face had loosened up, and his wound didn't seem to be troubling him. He'd changed into a black wool shirt that hid the bandages. The girl, parked on another white-painted metal garden chair, was wearing a flame-coloured silk blouse, a skirt of expensive oatmeal tweed.

Harvey stood up as we came across. A smooth, balanced movement.

I said: Turned out wet again, hasn't it?'

'It's been a long trip, so far.' He smiled crookedly, and offered Ginette his chair. She shook her head politely and leant against a tall flowerpot in the shape of a Grecian urn.

I said:'So far is right. We aren't there yet. We're starting at midnight.'

He slanted his eyebrows. 'Not spending the night?'

'I want to cross at Geneva at first light. Will you be ready?'

Miss Jarman was looking at me with a curious frown. 'Do you think he should rest, with his wound? I think so.'

Harvey said gently: 'I don't think he meant that.'

She frowned again. 'Well, what did you mean, Mr Cane?'

'Tell us what you mean, Cane,' Harvey said, still wearing his twisted smile.

'I mean the man's an alcoholic! ' I snapped. 'By midnight he'll be a puddle singing Sweet Nellie Dean! '

The Psychological Approach, of course.

The girl came out of her chair like a loosed spring. 'Who told you that?' she demanded. 'Why shouldn't he have a drink? He got hurt!'

It surprised me. I hadn't quite expected her as Harvey's defence counsel. I calmed down a bit. 'All right. So he got himself shot. But he's still a three-shifts-a-day boozer.'

She turned to him. 'Is that true, Harvey?'

He shrugged and smiled. 'I just wouldn't know. I ain't been psychoanalysed except by Professor Cane here.'

She swung back to me. 'What makesyou so sure, then?'

I shook my head wearily. 'Just hang on and make your own analysis. By midnight he'll be as much use as a kid with a cap pistol.'

He seemed to shudder – and the little revolver was pointing at my stomach. The glass in his left hand was quite steady. Half a bottle of 1914 brandy and a layer of Scotch on top must have slowed him up a little – but at least he hadn't reached the stage when your resistance to alcohol cracks and you can hit the stratosphere on just two glasses.

I let out a long breath and stared down at the gun. 'You must try that sometime when I'mexpecting to have guns pulled on me by my friends.'

He chuckled. 'Like midnight?'

He slid the gun back into his belt-holster and pulled his shirt down over it.

Then he seemed to notice the silence.

For some time nobody said anything. Then Ginette brought her hand from behind her back and flipped a small gardening hand-fork into a flowerbed. It hit spikes first with a small crispthud. Harvey's eyes opened a little wider.

She said calmly: 'I was playing these sort of games before you were, Mr Lovell – and when they mattered a great deal more.'

Harvey looked carefully round at each of us. Miss Jar-man was watching him with a slight, perplexed frown. Then he drained his glass quickly and nodded. 'I get it. Maybe the Professor was being a bit more subtle than I figured. So – what d'you do now, Professor? Sit on my hands the rest of the day?'

'You could take a couple of pills and get to bed.'

'You don't want to stick around and play watchdog?'

I shook my head. Miss Jarman said: 'Harvey – is ittrue?'

He banged the glass down on the metal table. 'If the Professor says so.' Then he walked in through the french windows, and his face was a mask again.