Die Rich Die Happy c-2

by James Munro

  "We must go, princess," he said.

  "We can't," said the girl. "We'll be killed. All these cars—" Sherif's hand came round her elbow. Wide-eyed with fear, she faced the impossible task of going over a zebra crossing to enter a tube station, to be carried in a machine that went through a hole in the ground.

  e e o

  It had been terrible. You went into a great hall like a desert, a hall that contained nothing but machines and people, and the people pushed and scurried, the machines made their noises and vomited tickets and coins. Selina clenched her fists so tightly that the nails broke the skin, and willed herself to go down, down with Sherif, on the staircase that moved, to the empty platform, to stand near the shining serpents of track until the red monster roared up, halted, the doors slid open, and she must go inside. Her legs went rigid then; she could not move, until Sherif had said: "It is God's will, princess. If you do not do this thing, we shall both die." She had moved then, endured the alternation of blackness and hght; how beautiful the platforms were—open, spacious, gleaming; how terrible the tunnel, with its blackness so close to her, and the carriage a tube inside a tube. For half an hour she endured it, and then Sherif took her arm once more, the doors opened, and she was free to step outside, to get out of the blackness, up to street level and more cars, which seemed so harmless now, after the enveloping dark.

  Sherif had hailed a taxi then, and after that ride they had walked, through streets that were mean and grubby, where the grit crunched under her feet and she could smell the river nearby. They had gone to a boarding-house, and the owner, a Chinese with a permanent smile as meaningless as the register Sherif signed, showed them a room. Sherif took it at once, and paid in advance. The room contained a bed, a chair, a table with a basin and jug of water, a towel hke tissue paper, and a cupboard. The cupboard was locked. The room cost five pounds a day.

  "You will be safe here," said Sherif. "The Chinaman never betrays his guests. That is why he is so expensive." He looked in his wallet. "I paid for three days," he said. T have only five pounds left. Have you money, princess?"

  Selina dug into the pocket of her pants, poured a shining golden stream on to the rickety table.

  Sherif said: "My father used to tell me about the old days. The way the great ones hved. Gold in one hand, death in the other. And they offered both as princes should. You belong in those times, princess."

  "You have served me well," said Selina. "Why?"

  "First because I feared you," Sherif said, "then because I admired you. Also I think that Schiebel will kill me.

  "Go on," Sehna said.

  "I believe in everything he has done for Zaarb," said Sherif. "But I think the cobalt scheme is wrong—wicked. I do not think he should give the cobalt to China or to

  anyone else. I would stop him if I could, and I believe he knows this. What am I to do, princess?"

  "Let my father protect you," said Selina.

  "I hate everything about your father," said Sherif. "I hate everything about you—except your courage."

  "Go away, then," said Selina. "Start again elsewhere. Here." She picked up a handful of coins, held them out to him. He took them, and mumbled his gratitude.

  "It is only money," said Selina. "The way you escaped —that was good. It deserves a reward."

  "Schiebel taught me that way," said Sherif.

  She looked at him more closely: a weak man, but gifted, intelligent, and with a sense of duty that tormented his weakness.

  "You should kill Schiebel," she said.

  "I can't," said Sherif.

  "It would be better for you, and for what you believe, if Schiebel died." Sherif nodded. Selina said: "I want you to help me find a man called Craig."

  « · «

  Loomis stuck his thumb on the bell-push and held on. After ten seconds he began to jab at it as if it were a face he disliked. After twenty-five seconds Craig's voice said: "Yes?" and Loomis said: "It's me, dammit." The door opened slightly then, and Loomis saw no one. He pushed the door open, and went inside, and found Craig was behind him, the Smith and Wesson a weight in his hand.

  "You take a hell of a time to open a door," Loomis snarled, then he noticed that Craig wore no coat or tie, one shirt button was undone. In the secrecy of his mind, he scored a point to Craig. When the doorbell rang, Craig dressed, because clothes were armor; he put on shoes, because shoes were weapons, and he waited by the door with a gun. Craig was the best he had, because his thoroughness was absolute. If only he weren't so bloody sentimental. He looked at the bedroom door and frowned.

  "Company?" he said.

  "Board meeting," said Craig. "You'd better take the

  chair."

  "The Busoni person?"

  Craig nodded, went inside the bedroom door, whispered for a while, then came out and locked the door from the outside.

  "I don't think she'd better see you," said Craig. "She's sensitive."

  He glowered at Loomis, then grinned, reluctantly. "You bastard," he said.

  Loomis chose the biggest chair and sat, cautiously. The chair groaned, but held.

  "You found out we planted her, did you? I had to be sure about this one, son. It's important, d'you see? I couldn't leave it to a boozer." He leaned back in the chair and clasped his great hands over his paunch.

  "Big excitement at AZ Enterprises," he said. "Looks as if the Sehna person may have escaped."

  "She went back to the Haram," said Craig. T put her on the plane."

  "No," Loomis said. "She got as far as Aden, we know that. Then she reached Zaarb. There was a bit of a disturbance at her hotel, I gather. People killed, that sort of thing. There was a very British sort of chap involved in it too, so I hear."

  "Schiebel?"

  Loomis nodded.

  "I think he's here, too, Craig. He has to be. He can't just let Naxos go."

  "But how did he get in?" Craig asked. "Couldn't you have had a watch out for him?"

  Loomis cocked his head on one side, and grinned round his beak of a nose. He looked like a monstrous, world-weary parrakeet.

  T did, son," he said. T knew it wouldn't do any good but I did it anyway. Just in case he changed his technique. But he hasn't. The Zaarb Embassy had a packing case dehvered last week. Bloody big one. Hundred-and-forty-four-piece dinner service. Sent from East Germany via Zaarb. That's the third this year. They must eat the bloody plates. I think they were both inside it. After that they'd send her to the AZ place."

  "And now she's escaped?"

  "We think so, son. We've had the place watched, d'you see? Chap coming off duty spotted a couple of Arabs in the tube station. Tall, thin man called Sherif—we know

  him. Had an Arab-looking girl with him. Beautiful. Wore slacks and a sweater. Scared stiff of the tube." "Did he foUow them?"

  "Of course not," said Loomis. "He'd had no instructions and he'd finished his shift." He scowled. "Policemen," he said. "But, anyway, he heard where they were going— Wapping. I got a search out now, Craig. We got to find her."

  "Why the hell didn't you tell me this before?" said

  Craig.

  The answer was as fast as a reflex.

  "Because it's none of your bloody business. You work for the department; you know what I want you to know and that's all, son. Besides"—he raised his voice effortlessly as Craig tried to speak again—"you're a sentimentalist. I have to watch that. It slows you up." He looked at the door Craig had locked.

  "Why tell me now?" Craig asked, and thought how smug Loomis could appear. That was his size of course. Whatever expression Loomis chose it was inevitably bigger than anyone else's.

  "I want her back, son," said Loomis, "and so do you. Got any ideas?"

  "I thought she'd have tried to contact me anyway."

  "Maybe she can't," Loomis said. "She's got Sherif with her. And even if she's free, where does she start looking? You're not in the telephone book—and even if she went to the police—they wouldn't help her. They can't. Only Special Branch knows we exist, a
nd they aren't allowed to tell where we are. If she did get that far they'd hold on to her of course, but it's dicey, son. And anyway, the only coppers she knows are the ones in Zaarb. And they arrested her. She just might not fancy the police."

  "East End?" said Craig. "That where the tube went?"

  Loomis nodded. "Down by the docks. Know anybody

  there?"

  "It's possible," Craig said. "If he's still in business. Chap I met years ago, as a matter of fact. Versatile sort of fellow but a little bit shy. Not at all keen on policemen. They'd like to arrest him, you see. He's a criminal."

  "I don't care if he writes rude words in ladies' toilets," said Loomis. "All I want him to do is find Selina."

  Craig unlocked the bedroom door, and went in.

  When he came out he wore a coat and tie, and the gun was no longer visible. Loomis came out of his chair like a rhino leaving a mudbath, and they went down to his car.

  The sign outside the door said: "Arthur Candlish, Boats." It was an elegant handmade sign of teak, with neat, precise lettering. It looked considerably more valuable than the building it adorned. Loomis stared at the sagging door, the low, grimy wall of unpainted brick.

  "You sure this feller's any good?" he asked.

  "I'm sure," said Craig, and pulled on a rusty bell chain. It screamed its lack of oil, extended a foot and a half, then contracted back to normal in a series of convulsive jerks as its bell clattered. Loomis liked it. A man in a white apron opened the door. In his hand was a chisel. He looked at Craig, and the chisel's cutting edge no longer faced them.

  "John," he said. "Nice to see you. Arthur will be pleased—he's in the office."

  He led the way along an alley of worn brick, moving down to a workshed filled with boats of every kind: punts, canoes, outriggers, skiffs, prams, and sailboats, too, including the most beautiful cutter Loomis had ever seen. The men who worked on them were slow yet sure in their movements, and Loomis could sense at once the pleasure their work gave them.

  At the bottom of the shed a tiny slipway led to a dock, and beyond that was the river. Near the slipway was a glass cage of an office, and here Craig led the way.

  The man inside wore a blue-serge suit and a bowler hat of antique cut that Loomis found endearing. He was a lean, big-boned man of fifty, who remained unimpressed by Loomis, who was piqued, and addressed Craig in a dialect Loomis found unintelligible.

  "Arthur's a Geordie," Craig explained, then began making similar noises himself. Candlish produced rum from an unlabeled bottle, and poured three generous tots.

  "You want a girl?" he said to Loomis, and Craig snorted. "Got a picture?"

  "You'll get one tonight," said Loomis.

  "Arab. Not many Arabs round here. Not like back home." He winked at Craig. "Still, we'll do what we can. I'll ask around. Put the lads on to it. We do a lot of work round the river."

  T believe you," said Loomis, and looked at the unlabeled bottle.

  "I'm a Free Trader," said Candlish. "Always have been. Voted Liberal all me life."

  Craig wrote a telephone number on a piece of paper.

  "Ring me here if you get anything," he said.

  Candlish mouthed the letters and numbers slowly, then burnt the piece of paper.

  "You got a good lad here," he said to Loomis. "I used to go fishing with his da. You ever want anything, just come and ask. I'm not cheap, but I'm reliable."

  "I'm obliged to you," said Loomis, and finished his rum. It was a hundred proof.

  "You're welcome," said Candlish, and finished his.

  Craig said: "We'd better be off then."

  Loomis didn't move.

  "This is confidential," he said.

  "John and I have done business before now. It's always been confidential," said Candlish. Loomis stood up then.

  * Chapter 20 *

  They needed money. Sherif had looked for Craig in the phone book. There were many Craigs, including seven Johns and twelve J's. Sherif had rung them all, and by midnight all had answered. He had addressed each one in Arabic, but none had understood, none was the Craig she sought. Then they had talked of the police, but Selina remembered Zaarb, and was wary. Sherif was afraid that Schiebel might hear of him. He thought at last of an advertisement in a newspaper, and she agreed to that. It was why they needed money. They took turns to sleep and watch, and next morning, Sherif went out to change some of the coins.

  In a sense, Sherif died of bad luck. Schiebel had gone through Selina's luggage, and found that the necklace was missing. He had asked questions at the tube station too, and the clerk had remembered Selina, and the tickets to Wapping. Schiebel sent men there to watch jewelers' and pawnbrokers', and to ask questions. One of them saw Sherif as he came out of a pawnbroker's, and Sherif saw him. To Sherif, there was only one chance of escape. The watcher must be overpowered, knocked out until Sherif could disappear. He attacked at once, and a small crowd of connoisseurs watched, and hoped there wouldn't be any coppers along to spoil it. They hadn't seen two Arabs fight before.

  Sherif fought hard, making up in determination what he lacked in skill, and the watcher, surprised, struck out as he had been taught, feeling his knuckle jar as his hand clenched round a solid plug of lead. Sherif fell toward him, and the watcher lashed out again, two appalling blows, one to the head, the other to the heart; then Sherif fell, and the watcher turned and ran, and the way he ran was as dangerous as his fighting. No one tried to stop him. Sherif had been murdered—that was obvious to the crowd. A broken rib had pierced his heart and he was dead, fifty pounds spilling from his pocket.

  * « *

  Craig spent a lot of time talking about Selina, describing her, commenting on each feature while Grierson listened and sometimes contradicted, and the artist Loomis conjured up, sketched and threw away, sketched and threw away again. At last he put down his charcoal and said firmly to Craig: "I'm not Graham Sutherland doing the Maugham portrait, you know. Not at the rates your department pays me. All we want is a recognizable likeness."

  Craig started again, and this time he tried to forget how much he had liked Selina, her courage, her beauty, her bewildering honesty. The artist, who was bearded and fat and skillful, drew on and on, and first her nose came right, then her chin, her mouth, her eyes, and the charcoal lovingly confined them in a perfect oval, blocked in the darkness of her hair. It was his eighty-seventh sketch, and it was Selina.

  "He's better than an Identikit," Loomis had said. "He puts some life into his stuff." Loomis was right.

  He came in and looked at what the artist had done, and leered at Craig.

  "Being sentimental has its compensations," he said. "Try and find her before Schiebel does."

  "What about you, sir?" Grierson asked.

  I'm going back to the nursing home," said Loomis. "Got to keep an eye on Mrs. Naxos. You stay here and help poor Craig. Too many girl friends—that's his trouble."

  He leered again and left them, and Grierson said: "Where do we start?"

  "There's only one way," Craig said. "We get our pictures and we go out and ask questions."

  Grierson sighed. "I'm afraid you're right," he said. "We'll probably have to walk about a great deal."

  Loomis came back in again.

  "You'll be on your own for a bit," he said. T want Craig to take Swyven to see his mommy."

  * « ·

  A Daimler ambulance pulled into the nursing home, and went through the elaborate charade of carrying out a blonde-haired dummy on a stretcher. Two men got inside with the dummy, another rode with the driver. All four were armed. The ambulance drove off, blue light flashing, and Craig waited. Half an hour later the driver's mate rang in to say that he was in the traffic on the London road, and there was nothing to report. Craig took out a Colt Woodsman and a soft leather harness, strapped it on, put on his coat. At the tradesmen's entrance a van waited: "Phee, Groceries and Provisions. The Best Things in Life Are Phee's." Inside the van was Swyven.

  He wore a pink suit, a white blouse
, pink high-heeled shoes and nylons. A white scarf was tied over his blond wig. In his lap was a handbag with the initials P.N. picked out in diamonds. Craig sat on a carton of evaporated milk, and said nothing. There was nothing he could say. Whoever had made Swyven up had done a wonderful job; soft long-lashed eyes, a luscious, troubled mouth; even his fingers had been manicured, the nails painted. The van started.

  "That's right, look at me," Swyven snapped. "I suppose this is that ghastly fat man's idea of a joke? And I thought he was going to be reasonable with me." Craig said nothing. He could think of nothing that could be said.

  "I told him everything," said Swyven, "and he promised I could see mommy. And now he's sending me to her— like this."

  And the voice went on in shrill, feminine complaint, and Craig said nothing, because to talk would mean involving Philippa, and Swyven was infinitely more expendable.

  The van pulled up, and Craig waited until the driver rapped on the cab's back panel, then got out at once. They were in a deserted country lane, and behind the van was a Mark 10 Jaguar. Craig helped Swyven down— in spite of his protestations, he couldn't cope with high heels—and into the car. He produced the keys, switched on, and the engine roared at once. He drove past the van on to a secondary road, and kept on going. He reached the roundabout for the London road, cut in front of a lorry so that Swyven gasped and shut up for once, then into the overtaking lane with his foot hard down. The car had the new 4.2-liter engine and it had been tuned by a master. The needle moved up and over, and still Craig kept his foot down, then flicked in the overdrive and the car seemed to leap, the traffic behind receded. Craig kept on going for five more miles, then eased back to ninety, eighty, seventy-five. Swyven squirmed in his seat.

  "More punishment I suppose," he said. "What could it possibly matter if someone saw you?"

  Craig eased down a little further.

  "Stop picking on me," he said. "Remember you're a lady."