Desmond Bagley - Flyaway / Windfall

She looked at me squarely. ‘What of your opinion?’

I lied. ‘I am of the same opinion. If you want my advice you’ll go straight to Sir Andrew McGovern and tell him you’ve reconsidered and you’ll take the Canadian job after all.’

‘And Paul?’

‘There’s nothing you can do about Paul, as I said before. He’ll be found, but it’s better for you to leave it to the professionals. I’ll write to you in Canada.’

She nodded. ‘Perhaps that would be the best thing to do.’

‘One thing – I wouldn’t mention to Sir Andrew that this is my advice, or that you’ve even seen me. My firm and Sir Andrew aren’t on very good terms right now; he’s fired Stafford Security and is setting up his own security organization for the Whensley Group, so I think any mention of me would be tactless, to say the least.’

Her eyes widened. ‘Was this because of Paul?’

‘Not at all. It happened before …’ I stopped short. It hadn’t happened before I knew about Billson. Brinton had sprung it on us at the board meeting on the afternoon when I had just returned from Franklin Engineering. I picked up quickly. ‘Nothing to do with your brother at all, Miss Aarvik.’

When she had gone I stared at the ceiling for a long time. Then I opened the bedside cupboard, stripped the lead foil from Brinton’s bottle of scotch, and poured myself three fingers. Brinton may have been right about it tasting better with Malvern water, but it tasted even better neat. I suddenly really needed that drink.

I soon became very damned tired of that hospital and especially of the food. I had just been served a so-called lunch which began with a watery soup which looked like old dishwater and ended with an equally watery custard which resembled nothing on God’s earth when my doctor walked in, full of that synthetic bonhomie which is taught in medical schools as the bedside manner.

I thrust the tray under his nose. ‘Would you eat that?’

He inspected it, his nose wrinkling fastidiously. ‘What’s wrong with it?’

‘That wasn’t the question,’ I snarled.

His eyes twinkled. ‘Well, possibly not,’ he conceded.

‘That’s good enough for me,’ I said. ‘I’m discharging myself.’

‘But you’re not ready.’

‘And I never will be if I have to eat this slop. I’m going home to get some decent food in my belly.’ For all Gloria’s faults she wasn’t a half-way bad cook when she wanted to be.

‘The food can’t be all that bad if you’re beginning to feel your oats.’ I glared at him and he shrugged. ‘All right, but the prescribed regimen is another week’s rest and then I want you back here for inspection.’

I said, ‘Where are my bloody trousers?’

So I went home by taxi and found Gloria in bed with a man. They were both naked and he was a stranger – I’d never seen him before to my knowledge but Gloria had a lot of odd friends. There weren’t any fireworks; I just jerked my thumb at the bedroom door and said, ‘Out!’ He grabbed his clothes and disappeared, looking like a skinned rabbit.

In silence I looked at the heap of tousled bedclothes into which Gloria had vanished. Presently the front door slammed and Gloria emerged, looking aggrieved and a little scared. ‘But the hospital said …’

‘Shut up!’

She was stupid enough to ignore me. She informed me at length about the kind of man I was or, rather, the kind of man I wasn’t. She embroidered her diatribe with all the shortcomings she could find in me, culled from seven years of married life, and then informed me that her bedfriend hadn’t been the first by a long shot, and whose fault was that? In short, she tried to work up the familiar instant Stafford row to the n th degree.

I didn’t argue with her – I just hit her. The first time I had ever hit a woman in my life. An open palm to the side of her jaw with plenty of muscle behind it. It knocked her clean out of bed so that she lay sprawling in a tangle of sheets by the dressing-table. She was still for a few moments and then shook her head muzzily as she pushed against the floor to raise herself up. She opened her mouth and closed it again as she caught my eye. Her fingers stroked the dull red blotch on her face and she looked at me unbelievingly.

I ignored her and walked to the wardrobe from which I took a suitcase from the top shelf and began to pack. Presently I broke the silence. ‘You’ll be hearing from my solicitor. Until then you can have the house.’

‘Where are you going?’ Her voice was soft and quiet.

‘Do you care?’

She had nothing to say to that so I picked up the suitcase and left the bedroom. I went downstairs to my study and unlocked the bureau. As I took out my passport I was aware of Gloria standing by the door. ‘You can’t leave me,’ she said desolately.

I turned my head and looked at her. ‘For God’s sake, go and put on some clothes,’ I said. ‘You’ll die of pneumonia.’

When I put the passport and a few other papers into my pocket and walked into the hall she was trudging disconsolately up the stairs. As I walked towards the front door she screamed, ‘Come back, Max!’

I shut the door gently on her shout, closing an era of my life. Sic transit Gloria mundi . A lousy pun but a true one.

I suppose if I hadn’t left Gloria I wouldn’t have gone on with the Billson case. Billson himself had ceased to be a security matter and was merely a half-way maniac gone on an ancestor-worshipping bender. He was of no concern to anyone but himself and, possibly, Alix Aarvik.

But I had left Gloria, which put me in a somewhat ambiguous position. It had already been agreed that I would take a holiday, partly for my own benefit and partly to give free rein to Jack Ellis. The trouble was that I didn’t feel like a holiday; I couldn’t see myself toasting on the sands of Montego Bay, as Charlie had suggested. And so the devil found work for idle hands.

Besides, I had been assaulted, and if nothing else demanded that something should be done, company policy did.

So I asked Jack Ellis to come and see me at my club. Ellis had joined us four years earlier – young, bright and eager to learn. He was still young, but that didn’t worry me; Napoleon was only twenty-six when he was General of the French Army in Italy and licked hell out of the Austrians. Jack Ellis was twenty-seven, something that might hinder him when negotiating with some of the stuffier chairmen of companies, but time would cure that. In the meantime he was very good and getting better.

I took him aside into the cardroom which was empty in the afternoon. For a while we talked about his job and then I brought him up-to-date on the Billson story. He was puzzled as anyone about the whole affair.

‘Jack,’ I said. ‘I want you to find Billson.’

He gave me an old-fashioned look. ‘But he’s not our pigeon any more. Apart from the fact that Whensley are running their own show now, Billson is out of it.’

I said, ‘When this firm was started certain rules were laid down. Do you remember Westlake, the security guard we had at Clennel Enterprises?’

Ellis’s face was grave. ‘I remember. It happened just after I joined the firm. Shot in the leg during a pay-roll snatch. He had to have it amputated.’

‘But do you remember what happened to the man who shot him? We got to him before the coppers did. We handed him to the law intact, although I’d have dearly loved to break his leg. We also made sure that the story got around. And that’s the rule, Jack – we look after our own. If any gun-happy bandit hurts one of our men he knows he has to cope with the police and our boys. And to coin a phrase – ”we try harder”. Got the picture?’