The Python Project

by Victor Canning

  He did both. I gave it to him straight. The full and complete story. I didn’t keep a thing back from him and that was paying him a compliment which I handed out to very few in my life. Always I had found it paid to keep a little back as a form of insurance, but with Olaf glaring at me from his red-rimmed blue eyes I dished out the full truth, and I finished, ‘The first thing you have to do is to try and trace that ship. Red funnel, blue band. I’ve a friend at Lloyds and I’ll make an appointment for you. He’ll fix it so that you can see the shipping movement lists for the last two weeks. From your own sources you can find out what shipping lines operating in the Med carry those funnel markings. Can you do that?’

  ‘Yes, possibly. Yes, certainly.’

  ‘Even if it’s an Iron Curtain vessel?’

  ‘They are all registered.’

  ‘Good. Let me know where you are staying and don’t ever telephone me—and don’t telephone anyone else unless you do it from a call box.’ I flicked my hand to the desk phone. ‘That’s tapped.’

  ‘It’s not possible! In a democratic country?’

  I didn’t answer because both statements were wrong and there’s something touching about the naivety of nice people who think they live in the best of all possible worlds.

  I got rid of him at the cost of half a bottle of rum and told him to come and see me the next day if he had anything to tell me. When he had gone I went out, exhausted, bound for Miggs’s place and a quiet glass of Guinness. In the outer office Mrs Burtenshaw said, ‘That was Olaf, wasn’t it?’

  ‘You know him?’

  ‘Hilda has shown me photographs. What is he doing here, and where is Hilda?’

  I didn’t feel up to another involvement, so I said, ‘He had to make a flying visit to London on business. Something extremely important. Hilda’s waiting for him in Cairo.’

  ‘That sounds very odd.’

  I knew it did. It was the first time I’d ever called Wilkins Hilda in front of her sister or anyone else.

  ‘He’s going back, probably tomorrow. I think it’s something to do with him trying to get a job in this country with the Port of London Authority—he couldn’t ignore it. If he gets it and can live here . . . well, that would be fine, wouldn’t it?’

  She looked at me doubtfully, and then said, ‘Hilda never told me he was a drinking man. I’m rather surprised.’

  He’s not usually. It’s just that he’s come from the heat of Africa and needs a little rum to keep out the cold in England.’

  It was the best I could do. I went out before she could develop any further lines of enquiry.

  I fell into the battered cane chair in Miggs’s office over the garage and gymnasium and, limp as a rag, said, ’I’ve changed my mind. Fix me a stiff whisky and soda, and don’t ask a lot of awkward questions. Just let’s have a little normal chit-chat about the market price of hot cars and the current rate for heroin.’

  Miggs grinned and began to set out the drinks.

  ‘You look flaked,’ he said as he put a drink in my hand.

  ‘I am.’

  ‘I’ll give you an hour’s work-out after lunch.’

  ‘You won’t.’

  He sat down opposite me, his big red face like a fat autumnal sun, and fished in one of his waistcoat pockets.

  ‘Got a message for you. Someone phoned here, yesterday. Didn’t know you were interested in cage birds.’

  ‘I’m not. Though I did once look after Mrs Meld’s canary for two weeks while they went to Southend.’

  ‘Ankers, his name is. Keeps a pet shop up near St Giles’s Circus. The address is there.’ He handed me the slip of paper.

  It just had the name and the address on it.

  ‘He must have got me mixed up with someone else.’

  ‘No. He said he had a new consignment of African finches and other stuff in and thought you’d like first look at them.’

  ‘He’s mad. I don’t know any Ankers, and I don’t want any birds, caged or otherwise.’

  ‘Come off it—you don’t have to let me in on your secrets. You must know him. He said he’d got a copy of that book you wanted too.’

  ‘What bloody book?’

  ‘Wrote it down on the back of the paper.’

  I turned the paper over. Written on the back was ‘Saraband Two by R. Duchêne’.

  I sat up smartly and said, ‘Well, I’m damned!’

  Miggs grinned even wider. ‘He said you would be pleased. What is it—some dirty piece of work, guaranteed to rouse the dullest appetite?’

  ‘Something like that,’ I said.

  ‘Any time between two and three of an afternoon, he said.’

  ‘Thanks.’

  ‘When you’ve finished with it I’ll borrow it.’

  ‘You won’t.’

  He reached for my glass which, to my surprise, was already empty. I was getting Olafs complaint—but I made no struggle against it. A little Dutch courage was just what I needed at this moment.

  CHAPTER 9

  Blowing Hot and Cold

  I was there at fifteen minutes past two—and left at fifteen minutes past three. In that time I had been given my instructions by Saraband Two, and also had been forced into buying an African parrot for the knock-down price of ten pounds. Its vocabulary’ was knockdown too; limited but forceful. I gave it to Miggs on my way home.

  The pet shop had two dirty bow-fronted windows, and inside it was as dark as a cave and smelt like a kennel. The doorbell rang as I went in and closed the door behind me.

  A raucous voice screamed, ‘Shut it! Bloody shut it!’

  I said into the gloom, ‘If you use your eyes you’ll see I’ve shut it.’

  ‘Sad thing! Bloody sad thing!’ the voice screamed.

  I saw then that the owner was a parrot in a large and tarnished cage hanging just inside the door. In a tall, wire-framed enclosure that ran down the middle of the shop five or six dozen small tropical birds huddled together in groups, swopping chirping, nostalgic memories of their homelands. Bags of hound meal, fish and bird food were stacked on the floor and dusty shelves. Dog leads and collars, rubber bones and poodle jackets hung from the ceiling. On either side of the door at the back of the shop were cages with long-haired rabbits and short-haired guinea pigs. In a long glass tank a shoal of goldfish moved slowly round and round in an endless gavotte.

  The parrot yelled, ‘Get that hair cut! Get that bloody hair cut!’ For want of company, I said, ‘I like it this way.’

  For answer it blew me a raspberry. At this moment a man about three foot six high, bald as an egg, with a badly coloured shell, shuffled out of the gloom to one corner of the far end of the shop, and blinked at me through steel-framed glasses. He might have been for sale himself. Genuine dwarf, hardly used, look lovely in any front garden. He wore a green baize apron of the kind that went out with butlers’ pantries, a wool cap, khaki-coloured, that went out with the First World War, and a collarless shirt that had once been white. He could have been any age from seventy up.

  He squinted at me, and then at the parrot, and said, ‘Dirty-mouthed little sod, ain’t he?’

  ‘Company to have around, though.’

  ‘Come off an Esso oil tanker. Second cook ’ad ’im. Been all over the world, ’e ’as, and talks like it.’

  The parrot, knowing he held the centre of the stage, said sadly, ‘Nellie . . . Bloody Nellie . . .’

  ‘Are you Mr Ankers?’ I asked the dwarf.

  ‘Unhappily, yes.’ He had a gulping kind of voice, as though he were holding back a sob all the time.

  ‘I’m Carver. You left a message with a friend of mine.’

  ‘Ah, yes. In that case you won’t want to be bothered with small stuff like Zebra finches or black-headed mannikins, will you. Not even a Spreo starling or a Shama. Right?’

  ‘Right.’

  ‘No. The one for you is Alfred there. Genuine African, five years Esso-cook trained, live to be a ’undred. Company for yer old age. Gentle in ’is ways, too. Only bit
es when ’ungry. Fifteen pounds knock-down price.’

  ‘I don’t want a parrot. You know what I want. I’m Carver.’

  ‘I know you don’t want a parrot, but you got to ’ave one or you don’t get through that back door. I ’as to ’ave my perks, don’t I?’

  ‘Do you? I’m here by invitation.’

  ‘Makes no odds.’ He switched from a sob to a sigh, shook his head, and went on, ‘It’s an understandin’ I ’ave with ’em. Got into trouble, I did, years ago with ’em. ’Ad a ’old over me since and used me. Used me cruel. But I said that’s all right—just so long as I get me cut off that kind of visitor. So don’t ask any that won’t act straight and upcoming about buying. Fifteen pounds. Last a lifetime. Give all your friends a good belly laugh.’

  ‘I should buy a parrot when I don’t want one? Just to get through a door to see someone I don’t want to see?’

  ‘That’s the long and short of it, mate. Anyway, what’s wrong? You taken against Alfred?’

  I looked at Alfred. He pulled the skin down over one eye in the lewdest leer I’ve ever seen.

  ‘I think he’s charming. You take a cheque?’

  ‘Cash.’

  ‘You guarantee if he bites I don’t get psittacosis?’

  ‘If he bites it’ll be bleedin’ painful—that’s all I guarantee.’

  I handed him two fivers.

  ‘Fifteen,’ he said.

  ‘Ten is what you get. You’ve led me enough of a dance.’

  For a moment his eyes came up to me, the glance shrewd, calculating and a little unsettling—and at that moment it wasn’t taking much to unsettle me. Then he shrugged his shoulders.

  ‘All right. Bloody soft-hearted I am. Through the door, up the stairs, first door on the right.’ He put a hand on my arm. ‘Listen, you look a spunky kind. Cheeky, sort of. Don’t try miffin’. Saraband’s very high up, and they got ways. Nasty ways if you come the old acid. I know.’

  ‘Thanks.’

  I made for the door.

  From behind me Alfred shouted, ‘So long, old cock!’

  ‘Don’t worry,’ I called, ‘I’ll be back—I hope.’

  I went up a stairway lit by one bulb. The wall on my left was covered with graffiti which normally I would have spent some time over. All I got was one gem—The Pope is the secret head of the Mafia.

  Two flights up, a radio was going full blast. Clear above it a voice yelled, ‘Charlie! Bloody Charlie—where are you?’ It could have been another parrot.

  I found the first door on the right, adjusted my tie nervously, took a deep breath and went in without knocking.

  The room was neat and tidy; just two chairs and a kitchen table. Anyone could keep a room like that ship-shape. There was a window that looked out to a blank wall three feet away. Sitting behind the table was a grey-haired woman who must have been in her sixties. She wore a neat blue suit and a tan-coloured blouse and there was a small blue hat on the table in front of her. She had one of those healthy, wise, happy faces that belong to favourite aunts, and on one hand I saw a nice dress ring, blue-enamel set with a cluster of pearls. Her earrings matched the ring. A wealthy favourite aunt who didn’t neglect her looks and spent freely on clothes. She gave me a charming smile and put her cigarette down on the ashtray in front of her.

  ‘Mr Carver?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Do please sit down—and get over your surprise.’

  I sat down on the other chair and began to get over my surprise.

  ‘Did that horrible Ankers make you buy something?’ Her voice was strictly Cheltenham and Girton and stands-the-clock-still-at-ten-to-three-and-will-there-be-honey-or-something-for-tea. Maybe, I thought, I am dreaming and back to the age of fourteen and she’s going to take me out to a matinee of The Sound of Music, and then tea at Fortnum’s afterwards.

  ‘A parrot,’ I said. ‘Called Alfred. Ten pounds.’

  ‘He’s incorrigible. If you wish we’ll refund the money. We’re glad to always . . . that is, with our more indigent callers.’

  ‘Don’t bother. I’ll send the parrot to Mr V. E. Semichastny. Its language should be useful in brushing up the idiomatic English of his K.G.B. boys.’

  ‘And girls.’ She gave a clear tinkle of laughter—bright, and even a little coquettish, the way aunts are with favourite, and fast-growing nephews. Damn it, I was beginning to like her. To keep things in perspective, I deliberately thought of poor old strangled London-Scottish tie, and of Wilkins. My frown showed.

  Full of understanding, she said, ‘Now the surprise is over and you want to get down to business?’

  ‘That’s why I’m here. For instructions. Though personally I can’t see why one of your Embassy people from Kensington Palace Gardens couldn’t have gone straight to Sutcliffe with whatever proposition you have to make.’

  ‘No? It’s simple. If anything goes wrong we wish to be able to say truthfully that there has been no official contact at any state department level. And anyway, most successful diplomatic matters are usually initiated by an unofficial, private approach.’

  ‘Since when was kidnapping classified as a diplomatic move?’

  ‘Since, I suppose, Mr Carver, Helen of Troy’s time—or well before, no doubt. Do I detect a note of antagonism in your voice?’

  ‘I’m trying to get it there. I think this whole business stinks.’

  ‘Naturally. But that’s another argument. However, let me assure you that as long as you do as you are told, no harm will come to your secretary. You have a deep feeling of affection and loyalty to her. That’s nice to find these days—’

  ‘And very convenient for you.’

  ‘Naturally. One must make the most of the means at one’s disposal. Do smoke if you wish.’

  I lit a cigarette. As I did so she reached down to the side of her chair and brought up a blue suede handbag and opened it. She pulled out an envelope and slid it across to me. I saw that it was unsealed.

  ‘Are these the instructions?’

  ‘Those are the terms of the settlement which we wish to make with your Mr Sutcliffe.’

  ‘He’s not my Mr Sutcliffe. I like people who find they can only function if they have hearts.’

  She smiled, and nodded indulgently.

  ‘You can read them at your leisure. Of course, you won’t show them to anyone else except Mr Sutcliffe. I’d like you to deliver them within the next twenty-four hours.’

  ‘And when I see him—how much am I supposed to know? I mean about Duchêne and the other people involved? He’s quite capable of putting me under the lights and beating the facts out of me. I might have to tell him about this place and you.’

  ‘Yes, I understand that. I suggest you tell him all you know. There’s no need for deceit—and Mr Sutcliffe well understands the conventions which have to be observed. He is not going to do anything that will put William Dawson in jeopardy. This affair has now gone far above any cloak-and-dagger level. I rely not only on your good sense, but on that of Mr Sutcliffe as well. And believe me, Mr Carver, we have made a close study of both of you.’

  ‘Anybody who thinks he understands Sutcliffe is in for a shock. For instance, from what I tell him he might pick you up and make you say where Dawson is being held.’

  ‘It would be a waste of his time, because I don’t know where Dawson is—yet.’

  ‘I’ll bet.’

  She gave a graceful little shrug of her shoulders and stood up. ‘You’re from Devon, aren’t you?’

  ‘Yes.’ I was on my feet for a lady, a nephew well aunt-trained. ‘Honiton.’

  ‘Ah, yes—that’s where they make that lovely lace. Daddy used to take us to Devon for holidays when we were young. Torquay. They were wonderful days.’

  ‘Aren’t they now?’

  She gave me almost a roguish look. ‘Oh, yes, indeed.’

  I moved to the door to open it for her. ‘How did it go?’ I asked. ‘Cheltenham? Girton? Nice upper-class family?’

  ‘Yes.’


  ‘And how the jump from there to the K.G.B.?’

  ‘It was a personal matter—and a painful one at first.’

  ‘But not now?’

  ‘No. I thoroughly enjoy it.’

  ‘Even though you go round carrying a spray gas gun in your handbag?’

  She laughed. ‘You have quick eyes, Mr Carver. Yes, even though I do that. After all, you might have turned out to be an unpleasant customer.’

  ‘I might still.’

  She looked hard at me then, and something was touched off within which wasn’t often allowed to show in her face, but for a moment it was there, and it was something I’d seen before in Sutcliffe and Manston, something that gave one the feeling of standing naked, half-dead with fatigue, looking down into some greeny-blue ice gorge which just offered coldness while you fought off vertigo, and death when it overcame you. . . . They all came from the same mould.

  I opened the door for her and as she moved the look was gone. She gave me a charming, polite inclination of the head so that I almost put my hand out to thank her for a pleasant time.

  She said, ‘If you wish, you can stay up here and read the contents of the envelope. No one will disturb you.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  She went and I closed the door on her. I stuffed the envelope in my pocket, gave her three minutes and then went out myself. In the shop I collected Alfred. Outside the shop I picked up a taxi. As usual I got a talkative driver.

  ‘Where to, sailor boy?’

  He got more than he bargained for because Alfred took my side and suddenly began to scream at the top of his voice, ‘Bloody! Bloody! Bloody! Bloody!’

  He kept it up at intervals all the way to Miggs’s place. Happily Miggs was out, so I left Alfred for him with a note. As I went out, shutting the door behind me, I heard Alfred scream, ‘Shut that door. Shut that bloody door!’

  I went weakly to the tube station. Alfred and Saraband Two and Ankers in one afternoon were proving that I didn’t have the stamina I thought I had. And, to cap it all, there was Sutcliffe to come. The cup of life was fairly brimming over with dirty water.