The Way to Dusty Death

by Alistair MacLean

  ‘I don’t mean that and you know it. I mean your drinking.’

  ‘Me? Drink?’ Harlow’s face was its usual impassive self. ‘Who says that?’

  ‘Everybody.’

  ‘Everybody’s a liar.’

  As a remark, it was a guaranteed conversation-stopper. A tear fell from Mary’s face on to her wrist watch but if Harlow saw it he made no comment. By and by Mary sighed and said quietly: ‘I give up. I was a fool to try. Johnny, are you coming to the Mayor’s reception tonight?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘I thought you’d like to take me. Please.’

  ‘And make you a martyr? No.’

  ‘Why don’t you come? Every other race driver does.’

  ‘I’m not every other driver. I’m Johnny Harlow. I’m a pariah, an outcast. I have a delicate and sensitive nature and I don’t like it when nobody speaks to me.’

  Mary put both her hands on his. ‘I’ll speak to you, Johnny, you know I always will.’

  ‘I know.’ Harlow spoke without either bitterness or irony. ‘I cripple you for life and you’ll always speak to me. Stay away from me, young Mary. I’m poison.’

  ‘There are some poisons I could get to like very much indeed.’

  Harlow squeezed her hand and rose. ‘Come on. You have to get dressed for this do tonight. I’ll see you back to the hotel.’

  They emerged from the café, Mary using her walking stick with one hand while with the other she clung to Harlow’s arm. Harlow, carrying the other stick, had slowed his normal pace to accommodate Mary’s limp. As they moved slowly up the street, Rory MacAlpine emerged from the shadows of the recessed doorway opposite the café. He was shivering violently in the cold night air but seemed to be entirely unaware of this. Judging from the look of very considerable satisfaction on his face, Rory had other and more agreeable matters on his mind than the temperature. He crossed the street, followed Harlow and Mary at a discreet distance until he came to the first road junction. He turned right into this and began to run.

  By the time he had arrived back at the hotel, he was no longer shivering but sweating profusely for he had not stopped running all the way. He slowed down to cross the lobby and mount the stairs, went to his room, washed, combed his hair, straightened his tie, spent a few moments in front of his mirror practising his sad but dutiful expression until he thought he had it about right, then walked across towards his father’s room. He knocked, received some sort of mumbled reply and went inside.

  James MacAlpine’s suite was, by any odds, the most comfortable in the hotel. As a millionaire, MacAlpine could afford to indulge himself: as both a man and a millionaire he saw no reason why he shouldn’t. But MacAlpine wasn’t indulging in any indulgence at that moment, nor, as he sat far back in an over-stuffed armchair did he appear to be savouring any of the creature comforts surrounding him. He appeared, instead, to be sunk in some deep and private gloom from which he roused himself enough to look up almost apathetically as his son closed the door behind him.

  ‘Well, my boy, what is it? Couldn’t it wait until the morning?’

  ‘No, Dad, it couldn’t.’

  ‘Out with it, then. You can see I’m busy.’

  ‘Yes, Dad, I know.’ Rory’s sad but dutiful expression remained in position. ‘But there’s something I felt I had to tell you.’ He hesitated as if embarrassed at what he was about to say. ‘It’s about Johnny Harlow, Dad.’

  ‘Anything you have to say about Harlow will be treated with the greatest reserve.’ Despite the words, a degree of interest had crept into MacAlpine’s thinning features. ‘We all know what you think of Harlow.’

  ‘Yes, Dad. I thought of that before I came to see you.’ Rory hesitated again. ‘You know this thing about Johnny Harlow, Dad? The stories people are telling about his drinking too much.’

  ‘Well?’ MacAlpine’s tone was wholly noncommittal. It was with some difficulty that Rory managed to keep his pious expression from slipping: this was going to be much more difficult than he expected.

  ‘It’s true. The drinking, I mean. I saw him in a pub tonight.’

  ‘Thank you, Rory, you may go.’ He paused. ‘Were you in that pub too?’

  ‘Me? Come on, Dad. I was outside. I could see in, though.’

  ‘Spying, lad?’

  ‘I was passing by.’ A curt but injured tone.

  MacAlpine waved a hand in dismissal. Rory turned to go, then turned again to face his father.

  ‘Maybe I don’t like Johnny Harlow. But I do like Mary. I like her more than any person in the world.’ MacAlpine nodded, he knew this to be true. ‘I don’t ever want to see her hurt. That’s why I came to see you. She was in that pub with Harlow.’

  ‘What!’ MacAlpine’s face had darkened in immediate anger.

  ‘Cut my throat and hope I die.’

  ‘You are sure?’

  ‘I am sure, Dad. Of course I’m sure. Nothing wrong with my eyes.’

  ‘I’m sure there’s not.’ MacAlpine said mechanically. A little, but not much, of the anger had left his eyes. ‘It’s just that I don’t want to accept it. Mind you, I don’t like spying.’

  ‘This wasn’t spying, Dad.’ Rory’s indignation could be of a particularly nauseating righteousness at times. ‘This was detective work. When the good name of the Coronado team is at stake – ’

  MacAlpine lifted his hand to stop the spate of words and sighed heavily.

  ‘All right, all right, you virtuous little monster. Tell Mary I want her. Now. But don’t tell her why.’

  Five minutes later Rory had been replaced by a Mary who looked simultaneously apprehensive and defiant. She said: ‘Who told you this?’

  ‘Never mind who told me. Is it true or not?’

  ‘I’m twenty-two, Daddy.’ She was very quiet. ‘I don’t have to answer you. I can look after myself.’

  ‘Can you? Can you? If I were to throw you off the Coronado team? You’ve no money and you won’t have till I’m dead. You’ve got no place to go. You’ve no mother now, at least no mother you can reach. You’ve no qualifications for anything. Who’s going to employ a cripple without qualifications?’

  ‘I would like to hear you say those horrible things to me in front of Johnny Harlow.’

  ‘Surprisingly, perhaps, I won’t react to that one. I was just as independent at your age, more so, I guess, and taking a poor view of parental authority.’ He paused, then went on curiously: ‘You in love with this fellow?’

  ‘He’s not a fellow. He’s Johnny Harlow.’ MacAlpine raised an eyebrow at the intensity in her voice. ‘As for your question, am I never to be allowed any areas of privacy in my life?’

  ‘All right, all right.’ MacAlpine sighed. ‘A deal. If you answer my questions then I’ll tell you why I’m asking them. OK?’

  She nodded.

  ‘Fine. True or false?’

  ‘If your spies are certain of their facts, Daddy, then why bother asking me?’

  ‘Mind your tongue.’ The reference to spies had touched MacAlpine to the raw.

  ‘Apologize for saying “mind your tongue” to me.’

  ‘Jesus!’ MacAlpine looked at his daughter in an astonishment that was compounded half of irritation, half of admiration. ‘You must be my daughter. I apologize. Did he drink?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I don’t know. Something clear. He said it was tonic and water.’

  ‘And that’s the kind of liar you keep company with. Tonic and bloody water! Stay away from him, Mary. If you don’t, it’s back home to Marseille for you.’

  ‘Why, Daddy? Why? Why? Why?’

  ‘Because God knows I’ve got enough trouble of my own without having my only daughter tying herself up to an alcoholic with the skids under him.’

  ‘Johnny! Alcoholic! Look, Daddy, I know he drinks a little – ’

  MacAlpine silenced her by the gesture of picking up the phone.

  ‘MacAlpine here. Will you ask Mr Dunnet to come to see me? Yes.
Now.’ He replaced the phone. ‘I said I’d tell you why I was asking those questions. I didn’t want to. But I’m going to have to.’

  Dunnet entered and closed the door behind him. He had about him the look of a man who was not looking forward too keenly to the next few minutes. After asking Dunnet to sit down he said: ‘Tell her, Alexis, would you, please?’

  Dunnet looked even more acutely unhappy. ‘Must I, James?’

  ‘I’m afraid so. She’d never believe me if I told her what we found in Johnny’s room.’

  Mary looked at each in turn, sheer incredulity in her face. She said: ‘You were searching Johnny’s room.’

  Dunnet took a deep breath. ‘With good reason, Mary, and thank God we did. I can still hardly believe it myself. We found five bottles of scotch hidden in his room. One of them was half empty.’

  Mary looked at them, stricken. Clearly, she believed them all too well. When MacAlpine spoke, it was very gently.

  ‘I am sorry. We all know how fond you are of him. We took the bottles away, incidentally.’

  ‘You took the bottles away.’ Her voice was slow and dull and uncomprehending. ‘But he’ll know. He’ll report the theft. There’ll be police. There’ll be fingerprints – your fingerprints. Then – ’

  MacAlpine said: ‘Can you imagine Johnny Harlow ever admitting to anyone in the world that he’d five bottles of scotch in his room? Run along, girl, and get dressed. We’ve got to leave for this bloody reception in twenty minutes – without, it seems, your precious Johnny.’

  She remained seated, her face quite without expression, her unblinking eyes irremovably fixed on MacAlpine’s. After a few moments his expression softened and he smiled. He said: ‘I’m sorry. That was quite uncalled for.’

  Dunnet held the door while she hobbled from the room. Both men watched her go with pity in their eyes.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  To the Grand Prix racing fraternity of the world, as to seasoned travellers everywhere, a hotel is a hotel is a hotel, a place to sleep, a place to eat, a stopover to the next faceless anonymity. The newly-built Villa-Hotel Cessni on the outskirts of Monza, however, could fairly claim to be an exception to the truism. Superbly designed, superbly built and superbly landscaped, its huge airy rooms with their immaculately designed furniture, their luxurious bathrooms, splendidly sweeping balconies, sumptuous food and warmth of service, here one would have thought was the caravanserai nonpareil for the better-heeled millionaire.

  And so it would be, one day, but not yet. The Villa-Hotel Cessni had as yet to establish its clientele, its image, its reputation and, hopefully and eventually, its traditions and for the achievement of those infinitely desirable ends, the fair uses of publicity, for luxury hotels as for hotdog stands, could be very sweet indeed. No sport on earth has a more international following and it was with this in mind that the management had deemed it prudent to invite the major Grand Prix teams to accommodate themselves in this palace, for a ludicrously low nominal fee, for the duration of the Italian Grand Prix. Few teams had failed to accept the invitation and fewer still cared to exercise their minds with the philosophical and psychological motivations of the management: all they knew and cared about was that the Hotel-Villa Cessni was infinitely more luxurious and fractionally cheaper than the several Austrian hotels they had so gratefully abandoned only twelve days ago. Next year, it seemed likely, they wouldn’t even be allowed to sleep stacked six-deep in the basement: but that was next year.

  That Friday evening late in August was warm but by no means warm enough to justify air-conditioning. Nevertheless, the air-conditioning in the lobby of the Hotel-Villa Cessni was operating at the top of its bent making the temperature in that luxuriously appointed haven from the lower classes almost uncomfortably cool. Common sense said that this interior climatic condition was wholly unnecessary: the prestige of an up and coming status symbol said that it was wholly necessary. The management was concerned with prestige to the point of obsession: the air-conditioning remained on. The Cessni was going to be the place to go when the sun rode high.

  MacAlpine and Dunnet, sitting side by side but almost concealed from each other’s sight by virtue of the imposing construction of the vast velvet-lined arm-chairs in which they reclined rather than sat, had more important things on their minds than a few degrees of temperature hither and yonder. They spoke but seldom and then with a marked lack of animation: they gave the air of those who had precious little to get animated about. Dunnet stirred.

  ‘Our wandering boy is late on the road tonight.’

  ‘He has an excuse,’ MacAlpine said. ‘At least, I hope to hell he has. One thing, he was always a conscientious workman. He wanted a few more extra laps to adjust the suspension and gear ratios of this new car of his.’

  Dunnet was gloomy. ‘It wouldn’t have been possible, I suppose, to give it to Tracchia instead?’

  ‘Quite impossible, Alexis, and you know it. The mighty law of protocol. Johnny’s not only Coronado’s number one, he’s still the world’s. Our dear sponsors, without which we couldn’t very well operate – I could, but I’ll be damned if I’ll lay out a fortune like that – are highly sensitive people. Sensitive to public opinion, that is. The only reason they paint the names of their damned products on the outside of our cars is that the public will go out and buy those same damned products. They’re not benefactors of racing except purely incidentally: they are simply advertisers. An advertiser wants to reach the biggest market. Ninety-nine point repeater nine per cent of that market lies outside the racing world and it doesn’t matter a damn if they know nothing about what goes on inside the racing world. It’s what they believe that matters. And they believe that Harlow still stands alone. So, Harlow gets the best and newest car. If he doesn’t, the public lose their faith in Harlow, in Coronado and in the advertisers, and not necessarily in that order.’

  ‘Ah, well. The days of miracles may not yet lie behind us. After all, he hasn’t been observed or known to take a drink in the past twelve days. Maybe he’s going to surprise us all. And there’s only two days to go to the Italian Grand Prix.’

  ‘So why did he have those two bottles of scotch which you removed from his room only an hour ago?’

  ‘I could say he was trying to test his moral fibre but I don’t think you would believe it.’

  ‘Would you?’

  ‘Frankly, James, no.’ Dunnet relapsed into another period of gloom from which he emerged to say: ‘Any word from your agents in the south, James?’

  ‘Nothing. I’m afraid, Alexis, I’ve just about given up hope. Fourteen weeks now since Marie disappeared. It’s too long, it’s just too long. Had there been an accident, I would have heard. Had there been foul play, then I’m sure I would have heard. Had it been kidnap and ransom – well, that’s ridiculous, of course I would have heard. She’s just vanished. Accident, boating – I don’t know.’

  ‘And we’ve talked so often about amnesia.’

  ‘And I’ve told you so often, without immodesty, that no one as well known as Marie MacAlpine, no matter what her mental trouble, could go missing so long without being picked up.’

  ‘I know. Mary’s taking that pretty badly now, isn’t she?’

  ‘Especially in the past twelve days. Harlow. Alexis, we broke her heart – sorry, that’s quite unfair – I broke her heart in Austria. If I’d known how far she was gone – ah, but I’d no option.’

  ‘Taking her to the reception tonight?’

  ‘Yes. I insisted. To take her out of herself, that’s what I tell myself – or is it just to ease my conscience? Again, I don’t know. Maybe I’m making another mistake.’

  ‘It seems to me that that young fellow Harlow has a great deal to answer for. And this is his last chance, James? Any more crazy driving, any more fiascos, any more drinking – then it’s the chopper? That’s it?’

  ‘That’s entirely it.’ MacAlpine nodded in the direction of the revolving entrance doors. ‘Think we should tell him now?’

 
Dunnet looked in the direction indicated. Harlow was walking across the Carrara-marbled flags. He was still clad in his customarily immaculate white racing overalls. A young and rather beautiful young girl at the desk smiled at him as he passed by. Harlow flicked her an expressionless glance and the smile froze. He continued on his way across the vast lobby and such is the respect that men accord the gods when they walk the earth that a hundred conversations died as he passed by. Harlow seemed unaware of the presence of any of them, for he looked neither to left nor to right, but it was a safe assumption that those remarkable eyes missed nothing, an assumption borne out by the fact that, apparently without noticing them, he veered direction towards where MacAlpine and Dunnet sat. MacAlpine said: ‘No scotch or menthol, that’s for sure. Otherwise, he’d avoid me like the plague.’

  Harlow stood before them. He said, without any inflection of irony or sarcasm: ‘Enjoying the quiet evenfall, gentlemen?’

  MacAlpine answered. ‘You could say that. We might enjoy it even more if you could tell us how the new Coronado is coming along.’

  ‘Shaping up. Jacobson – for once – agrees with me that a slight alteration in the ratios and the rear suspension is all that’s necessary. It’ll be all right for Sunday.’

  ‘No complaints, then?’

  ‘No. It’s a fine car. Best Coronado yet. And fast’

  ‘How fast?’

  ‘I haven’t found out yet. But we equalled the lap record the last two times out.’

  ‘Well, well.’ MacAlpine looked at his watch. ‘Better hurry. We have to leave for the reception in half an hour.’

  ‘I’m tired. I’m going to have a shower, two hours’ sleep, then some dinner. I’ve come here for the Grand Prix, not for mingling with high society.’

  ‘You definitely refuse to come?’

  ‘I refused to come last time out too. Setting a precedent, if you like.’

  ‘It’s obligatory, you know.’

  ‘In my vocabulary, obligation and compulsion are not the same things.’

  ‘There are three or four very important people present tonight especially just to see you.’