Bernard Cornwell - Wildtrack

Still, why should you care about unemployment?”

“For God’s sake!” Her insouciance angered me.

“Nick.” She touched my hand. “He’s a very, very angry man.”

“He hasn’t got a shred of proof!”

“There can’t be proof of a perfect murder.” I sipped the whiskey that was drowning in crushed ice. “Who was Nadeznha Bannister in love with?”

“Goodness knows.” Jill-Beth shrugged. “Charlie doesn’t know, or won’t say.”

“But that’s part of Kassouli’s evidence,” I protested. “A love affair that no one even knows existed, a weather map that doesn’t describe the sea conditions, and the probability that she’d have been wearing a safety harness. That’s it, Jill-Beth! On that thin basis he’s predicating murder!”

“You got it, Nick.”

“You can’t believe it,” I challenged her.

She stirred her drink with a lobster-shaped swizzle stick. “I work for Kassouli, so I guess I’m predisposed to believing what he wants me to believe. But if I weigh the evidence?” She stared up at the net-hung ceiling. “Yeah, I guess it was murder. I mean, who’s to know?

Bannister doesn’t want a divorce, he’s kicking around with that new blonde of his, he knows Nadeznha will give him grief with the taxman, so he pushes her over the edge five hundred miles out on the return leg? I’d call that the perfect murder.”

“It isn’t me who lives in La-la land,” I said bitterly. “Kassouli goes on about unquiet souls? About ghosts?”

Jill-Beth smiled. “La-la land, my dear Nick, is where everything is simple, where the virtuous always triumph, and where honour rules. This isn’t La-la land. You’re dealing with a guy who’s very angry, very frustrated, and who wants justice. He only has two children; one’s crippled, one’s dead, and he can’t have any more.”

“Why can’t he have any more?” I asked.

Jill-Beth ordered herself another drink. “Dorothy’s got cancer.

Dying very slowly.”

“Jesus.” I flinched.

“Yassir loves her very much. He’s given sixteen million to cancer research. Is that mad?”

“No.”

“He built a whole research wing around her in Utah. He read somewhere that Utah has the lowest rate of cancer in America.” She shrugged, as if to show that nothing Kassouli could do would save his wife. “Yassir isn’t mad, Nick, but he’s very, very determined.

Hell, all he’s got left now is his son, and you’ve seen him.”

“Surly,” I commented.

“Sky-high, you mean.”

It took me a second or two to realize what she implied. “Drugs?” I sounded astonished.

“Drugs, though he hides it from his father.” She stirred her drink.

“People envy Kassouli. He’s rich. But he’s been dealt a bad hand with his family, and he wants to hit back.” I looked at her, and I thought how very American Jill-Beth was; bright-eyed, firm-faced, shining hair, and it struck me how like Nadeznha she must be. Yet this lovely girl was condoning murder.

She would deny it, but I was convinced that Kassouli planned murder. “Suppose I went to the police?” I said. “Suppose I tell them that you’re trying to make me an accessory to piracy on the high seas? Or murder?”

“Try it,” she said cheerfully.

“They’d have to believe me,” I said, without too much conviction.

“How many peasants like me get invited to Kassouli’s house?”

“Lots of people.”

“I can prove you flew me over here!”

“Your ticket was paid for in cash. If necessary we’ll say that you met me in Devon and followed me here because you were besotted by my beauty. You wouldn’t be the first guy to bug me like that.” She grinned. “I’m empowered to increase the offer to four hundred thousand dollars. One hundred thousand in cash when you agree, and the rest after completion. Payable in any tax haven and in any currency you like.”

“I’m not helping you. When I get back to England I’m moving Sycorax to a hiding place. Somewhere a long way from Bannister and a long way from you.”

She ignored me. “I’ll be over in England soon, Nick. I’ll get in touch, OK?”

“You won’t find me.”

She touched my forearm. “Don’t be a pain, Nick. Chivalry died with Nadeznha. Stay with Bannister, say you’ll navigate his boat, and buy yourself a calculator that goes up to four hundred big ones.” She picked up the menu again. “You want to eat?” I shook my head.

“OK.” She slid off the stool, her new drink untouched. “I’ll see you soon, Nick, and I’ll have one hundred thousand dollars cash with me. If you’re not there, then kiss a lot of British jobs goodbye.

Safe home.”

I turned as she reached the door. “Why me, Jill-Beth?” She paused. “Because you’re there, Nick. Because you’re there.” She smiled, blew me a kiss, and went.

I felt like a frog that had sought out the princess, been kissed, but stayed a frog all the same. In short, I felt damned foolish. And up to my neck in trouble.

The Honourable John Makyns, MP, pretended that he was not embarrassed by lunching with his wife’s cast-off husband, but I noted how he had chosen one of the West End’s less prestigious clubs for our meeting. “I thought you were a member of Whites?” I teased him.

“The food can be better here,” he lied smoothly, then waved his fish knife towards the trompe l’oeil ceiling. “And it’s an amusing place, don’t you think?”

“Side-splitting. Is Melissa well?”

“Very well, thank you.” He paused. “I probably won’t mention to her that we’ve lunched.”

“Don’t worry, I won’t either.”

He gave me a quick smile of thanks. “Not that she dislikes you, Nick. You mustn’t think that.”

“But she might think we were swopping dirty secrets?”

“Something like that, I suppose.” He seemed rather sombre, but perhaps that was understandable. It isn’t every day that you’re telephoned from Heathrow to be told that a major foreign industrialist is declaring economic war against your country. The Honourable John broke off a piece of an over-baked bread roll that he thickly smeared with butter. “How was America?”

“Hot, shining, busy.”

“Quite. It is like that, isn’t it?” He fussed over the choice of wine and recommended the lamb to me. I ordered it, then listened as he told me a long and disjointed story about his mother’s kitchen garden and the problems of finding craftsmen who could repair Tudor brickwork. He was avoiding the subject, which was Yassir Kassouli.

He’d tried to ignore the subject on the telephone, but as soon as I threatened to call the Fleet Street newspapers he had hastened to suggest this luncheon. He was still evasive, though, asking about Devon, the weather in America, my health and my opinion of the lamb.

“I’ve tasted better out of cat-food tins.”

“They’re rather proud of their lamb here.” He was hurt.

“Tell me about Kassouli.” I decided to cut through to the reason for our meeting.

“Ah.” The Honourable John speared a piece of meat with his fork and energetically sawed at the gristle with his knife. “Kassouli did approach HMG. Not officially, of course. As a private citizen of a foreign state, Kassouli has no diplomatic standing, you understand?”

“But he’s rich, so Her Majesty’s Government listened?” He frowned at my crudity, but nodded. “We like to be accommodating to influential foreigners. Why shouldn’t we be?”

“Indeed.”

He was still frowning. “But we really could not help him.”

“What did he want?”

The Honourable John shrugged. “I think he wanted us to put Bannister on trial, but there really was no cause, nor justification, nor reason.”