Paradise Spells Danger

by George B Mair

  ‘So what are you going to do?’

  ‘Hand you over to my Turkish friends. They will perhaps let Moogie’s hair grow and then set her to work in the sort of brothel she had in mind when she threatened me in a letter which you can find in the pocket of this jacket. On the other hand they may simply kill you all. Mustafa was trained in a place where people took an even more realistic view of life and death than you do.’ He paused. ‘Before we separate would you care to answer just one question. Where were you educated?’

  Tom reacted slowly but decided to play for time. ‘Singapore, London School of Economics, University of Minnesota and Berlin. My subjects are political philosophy and agrarian ecology.’

  ‘Then the best of agrarian ecological luck,’ said Grant. ‘And now forgive while I really do go to the loo before phoning old Mustafa. If you have any other bright ideas say them in English, or Harry, who isn’t squeamish, will knock you off immediate.’

  He was lifting the telephone to make his call when Tom interrupted. ‘May I have two minutes, doctor?’

  ‘You wish to say something?’ There was an aura of violence in the room which worried Grant who sometimes preferred to operate by instinct rather than reason. ‘If so, just talk, don’t move or make Harry twitchy.’

  ‘For crissake, David, quit talking,’ said Frank. ‘Let’s get outa here.’

  ‘In two minutes,’ said Grant. ‘And as from now. The floor’s yours, Tom.’

  ‘I was foolish. I apologise and agree to your proposals in detail.’

  Krystelle had been watching with unusual concentration at a play of conversation she didn’t as yet completely understand. But she could interpret communication signals like a wild animal and was alert for trouble. ‘Lay off, David,’ she said. ‘Tom’s got five aces if we let him start playing.’

  The man forced a smile. ‘I said I was stupid and I apologised. Can we not forget that I was trying to play a last chance? Would you not have done the same?’

  ‘Man,’ said Krystelle, ‘we would be doin’ ’xactly what you’re doing now. An’ still trying for a last chance. Forget it.’

  ‘It will save trouble if we agree,’ said Grant. ‘Even Mustafa would have his work cut out to control this lot. Better an inconvenient couple of days off-loading them as I suggested than either murder or passing the buck to other people. Okay, Tom,’ he said, ‘you’re on. Agreed.’

  He carried the phone into the room and contacted Mustafa. The housekeeper was alive but in an intensive care unit at the nearest hospital. The courier would leave for Brussels within the hour and deliver the papers with David Grant’s compliments to an address which was slowly dictated over the line and double-checked for error. ‘And suggest you get these trick doors sealed up. Sooner the better.’ Grant smiled as Mustafa told him what he could do with his suggestion and hung up. ‘Phase one,’ he snapped. ‘Now we sweat this out till Mustafa phones back and says the papers have left.’

  ‘But right now they will be at his house. So near,’ sighed Tom, ‘and yet so far.’

  ‘Cigarette?’ asked Grant.

  Tom seemed to relax. ‘You are a civilised man, doctor. How very kind. But may I have one of my own? They are in my hip pocket. A gold case given when I left Berlin. It is very precious because the lady who bought it was a much loved friend.’ He held up his wrists. ‘If you could get one. The doctors say I must use only menthol with filters. A chest trouble.’

  Grant cautiously drew out the case and studied it carefully. It was well worn and the name ‘Leni’ was engraved across one corner.

  ‘You still don’t trust me. You think it is a bomb, or a gas or something.’

  ‘I think you will have one of mine,’ said Grant.

  ‘Sorry. No. My chest, doctor. But I understand perfectly. And, as usual, you are taking no chances.’

  There was an undercurrent of sarcasm which made Grant pause. The cigarette case had suddenly become important. Yet he knew that it would be madness to open the thing.

  ‘You know something, David?’ Krystelle’s eyes were sparking with excitement. ‘That guy just worked a real fast trick. He got us so scared of the case dat nobody ain’t gonna touch it any more.’

  ‘So?’ Grant knew that when Krystelle’s accent slipped up bad that she was ready for trouble.

  ‘De guy wants us to leave it dere. He really wants it sittin’ right there. Now for why would that be? An’ ah’ll tell yo’. Dere’s only one t’ing makes sense. A bleep. He’s gotten a built-in bleep so dat some guys outside can get a fix. Or maybe you triggered an alarm. The marines should be here mos’ any moment.’

  Harry with Frank had sprung into action even before Grant. Ankle halters were loosened and Frank marched the whole party into the tunnel through the secret entrance at gun-point. Grant was closing the door into the room when a crash of breaking wood inside the house proved that they had made it with only seconds to spare. He felt the wall slip into position and snibbed home the two bolts. The hinged stone flaps fell into place and the floor had already slipped up to normal level through the action of a built-in counter-poise which Mustafa explained many months later.

  The tunnel was lit by feeble electric light. ‘Move,’ he said to Frank. ‘Stairs ahead and two men on duty. Stop at the bottom. If we walk too far we’ll land in Topkapi during visiting hour. We’re here till closing time but there’s better light further on.’

  The middle door was open and Grant organised his party in the well-lit passage beyond, pausing only to close the entrance. ‘Your last card, I think,’ he said to Tom. ‘And very well played. It deserved to come off.’

  ‘An unusual device,’ said Tom. ‘Triggers the bleep as an alarm whenever it is laid down horizontally. Which you were good enough to do. But now I suppose it must be the Turks. A pity. Especially for Moogie, you may say, but actually this is working quite well for her.’

  ‘Why?’ Grant was suddenly suspicious.

  ‘Because, like you, she has talked too much. When she is on a solo mission like this morning we make sure she carries a built-in radio device about which, of course, she knows nothing. There is one in the handle of an umbrella for example. And another in the handle of the bag she used today. Because we would never allow her off on a mission like today’s without monitoring what she is doing. The thing works well up to five kilometres, so we were in touch. And able to time our arrival for the most favourable moment. So although we have made mistakes we haven’t really been too stupid. But Moogie seems to be politically unreliable. She is too emotional, and like M’m’selle Krystelle I find it difficult to believe that she was acting all the time when she was making love. I suspect that she is possibly perverted. And she certainly became useless to us when she showed that she was willing to answer your questions. People of her seniority, doctor, haven’t enough experience to be allowed to answer questions of any kind. Yet she allowed herself to be rather cunningly grilled by yourself when her instructions were that she was to do something rather different.’

  ‘Such as what?’ snapped Grant.

  ‘Tell him, Moogie. Show him.’ Tom’s voice was very persuasive. ‘You know that you may be sent to a brothel. But you also know that even if you were our people would still find you and render a bill. Why don’t you do what must be done? It is very easy, you know.’

  Frank raised his gun. ‘What gives, man?’

  ‘Nothing,’ said Grant quietly. ‘Let them work this out in their own way.’

  Tom looked at him politely. ‘You are very understanding, doctor. So why don’t you show him what you ought to have done, Moogie?’

  The girl’s face was set like a mask and her eyes were half closed. ‘May I speak first to David Grant and his concubine?’

  ‘Why not?’ Tom sounded very content.

  ‘I did hate my father. He did make my mother lonely. His money wasn’t enough. We needed his love. He failed us even when she asked for his company. He did tell me you were coming to Bangkok and he had often spoken of you in letters. It
is true that I did think of you very often as family. But one part of me hated you because you were my father’s friend. After we met it was difficult to remember that I ought to hate you and sometimes I thought I was in love with you. If I hadn’t loved you with one part of my heart I wouldn’t have answered your questions here. And I wouldn’t have done some of the things we did when we were alone. Maybe I am a little mad. I grew up with trouble. Politicals have been busy in Thailand for more than ten years. My mother became a party member because she knew that my father was a capitalist spy. She taught me many things and a man you know as Tom taught me other things. Like how to be a good party member and a good guerilla fighter.’ She looked Grant straight in the eye. ‘I was good until I met you and it was you who made my life complicated. It was madness to think that I would be allowed to love a political enemy. It was madness to think I could take you away from your own woman. But you are not a pig dog. And I apologise.’ She looked at her fingers and at the glowing emerald which lay against one finger ‘This ring is very special.’ She slowly lifted it towards her mouth as though to kiss it.

  The silence in the tunnel was complete. Even the Turk standing near the middle entrance was staring as though hypnotised. The girl’s eyes were almost without expression as she lowered her hands to her sides. The emerald had gone. She opened her mouth and Grant glimpsed it lying on her freshly pink tongue just before she swallowed. ‘It looked very real. David, didn’t it? But it wasn’t a gem. Just another secret door. And I should have opened it without having to be told. Somehow death under orders is my last loss of face.’ She quivered slightly and the line of her neck seemed to stiffen. ‘It would have worked better and faster if I had crushed it first. But I wanted to live for just a few seconds longer. Was that silly?’ Grant saw that she was beginning to force herself, but there was nothing he could do. The girl deserved to die, but at least she would have the chance to die with dignity and he felt that if anyone interfered or said a word out of place he would strangle them with his own hands.

  ‘It wasn’t silly,’ said Grant. ‘You’ve got guts.’

  She forced a smile which somehow distorted her features as the poison’s effect began to accelerate. ‘I’m glad you spoke, David. It was bad luck to be on opposite sides.’

  Grant impulsively grasped her hands and felt her fingers fasten against his skin. ‘That’s nice,’ she said. ‘Civilised.’

  Her breathing was shallow and forced. A dribble of saliva lay against the corner of her lips and even under poor electric lighting her colour had changed, yet her eyes remained steady. Almost watchful. ‘Kill Tom,’ she said. ‘Dangerous. Important. Not . . . civilised.’

  Her pulse was feeble and beginning to race when she spoke for the last time. ‘Kill Tom.’ She was sitting on the tunnel floor leaning against the wall with Grant stooping over her when she died and slithered sideways. He lifted her a few paces away and laid her out straight while Krystelle closed her eyes. She was very thoughtful.

  ‘Dat was a very clear order, Tom. Anything to say?’

  ‘I am dangerous. But only when working. Now I have been out-thought. I am a prisoner.’

  Grant glanced at his watch. At least another hour before Topkapi would be clear enough to enter. And before the time was up Mustafa would have phoned the white house to confirm that the manuscript was on its way to Belgium. When there was no reply he would arrive at the double with enough men to cope. Or would he? ‘You’re not civilised, Tom,’ he said. ‘You hadn’t even the decency to congratulate her for having the nerve to do what you suggested.’

  Tom looked at Grant with genuine curiosity. ‘Do you expect a person to say “good-bye” or something to the executioner?’

  ‘She wanted you dead,’ said Krystelle. ‘And I second the motion.’

  ‘Me too.’ Frank’s manner was abrupt. ‘That kid had guts.’ He lifted his gun and thumbed off the safety catch. ‘I got instinct,’ he said and pulled the trigger. ‘And now, what the Hell happened back there, David. Who bust into that bloody house?’

  Grant’s ears were throbbing from the crash of the shot and he felt as though he was dreaming when Tom’s face seemed to dissolve into blood and what was left of the man jerked backwards along the tunnel, to collapse, twitching for a second, three paces away. ‘Easy, man.’ Krystelle was whispering by his side and her lips were close to his head. ‘Frank’s got a bug about narrow spaces. Claustrophobic. Can we get outa here?’

  Her voice and the touch of her fingers against his body eased Grant back to normal. The girl’s suicide had shocked him even more than Tom’s execution. He swiftly re-opened the middle entrance to the tunnel leading towards the white house and lifted Moogie’s body inside. A Turk helped Harry to lift Tom’s body while Frank drove the other three at gun point through the door and then watched carefully as Grant once again sealed the entrance from the main passage, watched the stone flaps fall into position and walked, for the first time, along the main tunnel towards the end which opened somewhere within the ruins of the Grand Vizier’s palace.

  ‘You know what you’re doing?’ Harry was padding alongside Krystelle and Grant like a cat while Frank brought up the rear.

  ‘Switch it off,’ snapped Grant. ‘You’ll see in a minute. Maybe I talk too much but some people talk at the wrong time.’

  The stone-work became cracked and the roof more ragged as the slope rose through piles of rubble towards a flicker of daylight in the distance. The last few yards were half blocked with rubbish and decaying vegetation, blobs of earth, and broken plaster which had once marked entrance into a room now in ruins. The area was derelict and scrub with bushes covered most of the site.

  Frank took a deep breath and sat down on part of a fallen tree-trunk to dust his shoes and mop his clothes. ‘That joint gave me the screaming creeps, David. Did I sound mad?’

  ‘Kind of uptight,’ said Harry who was slowly slicking his hair and trying to estimate their position. ‘But not so much as me, David, man! You play cards too close for my taste. You kind of got me thinking maybe Frank was behind this lot. Aiming to collect some millions maybe. Until the dime dropped that you were pointing the finger at me.’

  ‘Complicated,’ said Grant. ‘I even got around to wondering about Krystelle for a thought or three.’

  ‘Feel free to tell us all about it some time.’

  ‘I’ll do that, Harry. And send a cheque for expenses. But right now I aim to see who broke into that house when Tom sent out the S.O.S. or whatever.’ Krystelle took his arm and he cut towards a gap in the wall near the one-time Sublime Porte, turned sharp right and angled into the narrow street which ended blind not far from the white house. A car was parked near the gate and he recognised one of Mustafa’s number plates. The place was deserted and the house quiet from the outside. They slowed pace and paused within sight of the short entrance drive. The front door was ajar and he could see Mustafa in silhouette against one window of a public room. He left Frank and Harry alert between the car and the entrance while Krystelle and he sauntered noisily up the gravel path. The Turk was alerted by one of his men and greeted them at the door. ‘You are a man of action, David. Not like in the old days when all they did was talk and talk or plot and plot. Or kill.’

  ‘It was the will of Allah,’ said Grant. ‘We came back to see if you had dropped in. I didn’t want you to worry when there was no reply to your phone call, or if you were puzzled about anything.’

  The old man fingered his worry beads. ‘I wasn’t anxious, David. But I was interested to see what had happened, so I dropped in with a few friends. English is an interesting language. How does a man “drop in”? By parachute? I shall never understand it.’

  ‘Many things are difficult to understand,’ said Grant. ‘We had to leave quickly because some visitors arrived, but I see they have left. A pity you missed them.’

  ‘There were some people here,’ said Mustafa. ‘I gather they came from south-east Asia. Men with strong political opinions and a good organisation.
’ He fingered his worry beads very gently. ‘The will of Allah often puzzles me. You will remember asking me to get a few packages of a certain medicine. Well, you never seemed to need it, but I brought a packet of two along with me this afternoon. Quite by chance really. They were still in one of my pockets. But they were useful. One way and another the visitors told us so many interesting things that they are staying on as my house guests for some time.’

  ‘Marvellous,’ said Grant. ‘And in case I forget you may find a few more interesting house guests in the last stretch of passage leading to this house.’

  ‘I’ll make a point of introducing myself.’

  ‘And I hope that your girls are now home again. They must have had a bad time.’

  ‘My daughter sends her greetings and my niece wishes you to dine with us en famille before you go away. I took the liberty to say that you would come in about two weeks. You see, I feel that you should have a little holiday. So many people want to speak with you about one thing or another! Interpol have you in mind on various counts. My more recent house guests must have told the truth, if you understand, and they think that someone will be coming from Siam to deal with you. Then the French police are anxious to discuss an explosion in your flat back in Paris. An American lawyer has been sending urgent telegrams to various addresses because of need to establish contact about the Cooper fortune and the Turkish police link you as a material witness with the death of the man Goodenough. Chiefly because your room was close to that of your friend Harry, where the body was found. And of course there is a warrant out for the arrest of Harry. Though they might find it difficult to make the charge stick. Even so, police formalities are always tiresome. So a cruise on my own yacht round the coast to Antalya or so might be wise, because it is going to take time to get the various man-hunts called off.’