The Melting Man rc-4

by Victor Canning

  I went back to my room, panting up the spiral stairway to my turret, anxious to pack and be away. Waiting for me was Miss Zelia Yunge-Brown.

  She was sitting in a chair by the window, in a blue anorak and a blue skirt and wearing heavy walking shoes, looking as though she'd just come back from a long tramp through the pine woods.

  I said, 'So you finally decided to come ashore?'

  'Yes,' She put up a hand and ran it through one side of her dark hair and did a little brow-knitting act; no smile on her face, but not, I thought, as cold and glacial as she had been at our last meeting.

  She stood up as I dumped my case on the bed and began to pack my pyjamas which some flunkey had already laid out.

  'I was stupid about the Max Ansermoz letter. I should have guessed that was what you wanted me to do. You must have enjoyed yourself.'

  I said, 'Between ourselves, Max is dead.'

  'Dead?'

  'Yes. You want me to look unhappy about it?'

  'But you—'

  'No, I didn't do it. But Max is dead and I'm dry-eyed about the whole thing. I'm only interested in a motor car. So's your father.'

  'Stepfather.'

  'Well, yes, if you're sticking to niceties. He knows nothing. Nobody knows anything, except me — and for some things I have no memory at all. Now stop doing an ice-maiden act on me. Write it off to experience and get into gear again.'

  'You have said nothing to anyone?'

  'That's right.'

  She was a big girl, and she was embarrassed suddenly, and she wasn't very good at carrying it off. For a moment I was afraid that she would come across and embrace me, crushing me in those lovely long strong arms. However, she got it under control and slowly held out a hand to me.

  'I am very grateful to you.'

  She had my hand in hers and now I was embarrassed. 'Just forget it.'

  I got my hand away. She clumped to the door in her heavy shoes and paused before going out.

  'I wish there was something I could do to show you how grateful I am.'

  I said, 'You could try smiling again. It's a knack that comes back easily.'

  'It's not easy to smile in this house. It has too many memories for me… of my mother. I have decided to go away and get a job.'

  'I'm all for the job. You'll land one easier though with a smile on your face. Try it.'

  It came back easily. She gave it to me, a slow warm smile that was followed by a little shake of her head and then a laugh. Then she went.

  I snapped the lid of my case down, glad that Max was dead.

  In the hallway, down a long perspective green and white marble slabs Durnford was waiting for me. He came up to me with the practised glide of one used to walking in marble halls, and said, 'You're going?'

  'Be glad,' I said. 'Besides, I don't like staying in a waxworks. I presume you've heard from the boss that I'm reinstated?'

  'Yes.'

  'In that case, could I have the list of people who were staying here before Miss Zelia took off with the Mercedes.'

  He handed me a sheet of paper and said, 'I think you should know that I had been given strict instructions from Mr O'Dowda that I was never to make that guest-list available to anyone.'

  'Then why me?'

  'That's not a question I'm prepared to answer.' I slipped the paper into my pocket and gave him a cocked-eyebrow look.

  'You don't like him, do you?'

  'He is my employer.'

  'You'd like to see him come a cropper, a real trip-up, flat on his face?'

  He gave me a thin smile then, and said, 'I'm hoping for more than that. And I've been waiting a long time. Contrary to what you imagine, I have no animosity towards you. I think you may turn out to be the deus ex machina.'

  'What you mean is that if I find the car, you hope that I will walk off with whatever is in it. Or hand it over to someone else?'

  'Possibly.'

  'You really hate his guts, don't you? Tell me, have you ever written any anonymous letters about him to Interpol or Scotland Yard?'

  'Why should I?' He was well in control.

  'It's just a thought I had. Anyway, whatever game you are playing I think it's a dangerous one. You watch it, unless you want to end up in the waxworks with all the others.'

  I picked up my case and went outside to my car. Standing alongside it was Julia.

  She said, 'Was everything all right?'

  'Fine. Your father almost trusts me, Zelia's grateful, and Durnford is full of hints. What are you registering?'

  She said, 'Why is it that you can't talk to me without being cross or vulgar?'

  'It's something you do to me. There's nothing I'd like better than a beautiful relationship but I always seem to knock on the wrong door.'

  She lit a cigarette as I put my case in the car.

  I paused at the door before getting in and said, 'Don't do anything stupid like trying to follow me.'

  'It wasn't in my mind. Where are you going, anyway?'

  'To find Otto Libsch. Any messages?'

  She gave me a quick, almost apprehensive look. 'Why should there be?'

  'I had the impression that you knew him, or something about him.'

  'I don't know why you should think that.'

  'No? I'll tell you. When you came to my room that first night, there was more on your mind than just protecting Zelia. When I mentioned his name in Turin, it was no surprise to you, and right now you haven't said you don't know him. Don't worry, I'm not going to force anything from you. I just want to find a car. That's my brief.'

  'Did you mention him to Zelia?'

  'No. The less said to her about either of them the better. But I mentioned him to your father, naturally, and his big happy face remained quite unchanged. Now, do you want to talk about Otto, or do I get moving?'

  She blinked at me a little and bit her lip. Then she shook her head, and said, 'There's no point. Absolutely no point whatsoever… it couldn't change things from being what they are.' Then, her manner hardening, she went on, 'You go. Go and find your car. That is important. That's money, that's business. Things that really count in this life.'

  She turned abruptly away from me and made for the house. I drove off, not pleased with myself, knowing that she needed help, and knowing too that it was no moment for me to get involved in anything else. This car business was all my hands could hold at the moment — particularly with Interpol sticking their noses in.

  CHAPTER SIX

  'And Laughter holding both his sides.'

  (Milton)

  I drove without hurry south from Evian. In Grenoble I went into the Post Office and found the Botin for the Gap-St Bonnet district and turned up Max Ansermoz's number at the Chalet Bayard. I rang through — it was now about seven o'clock — and the phone rang for ten minutes without being answered. That was good enough for me. With any luck the only living thing in the house was the white poodle and by now it must be damned hungry.

  I had a quick meal in Grenoble, and then went south down the N85 towards St Bonnet and Gap. I didn't try to push it. This was my second night on the road and my eyelids had begun to feel like heavy shutters that every bump in the road brought down. I pulled up for a couple of hours' sleep somewhere around a place called Corps, and then drove on to the Chalet Bayard. I came to it at dawn with little wisps of mist lying between the trees and the air full of bird-song, which shows how isolated the place was because normally if a bird gives out with an aria anywhere in France some chasseur promptly blows its head off.

  The front door was still open and I walked straight in and was greeted by the poodle lying curled in an armchair. A few days without food had taught it manners and it came to me, trembling and with all the bounce gone from it. I gave it some water in the kitchen — the cat had disappeared, which didn't surprise me, cats can knock spots off any dog in the independence and survival stakes — and then fed it a bowl of scraps which I had scrounged in the restaurant where I had fed. In half an hour I knew it would be its same
old jaunty, face-licking self. While it was tucking in I went upstairs and had a bath and shave, and then came down and carted Max's typewriter and some of his stationery to the round table, and wrote a letter to Otto. I had to write it in English because my French would never have been good enough to fool anyone that it had come from Max. And the fact that it was in English wouldn't matter to the people who opened it because I guessed they wouldn't know much about the way Max usually wrote to Otto.

  The letter read:

  My dear Otto,

  Going off like that with the Mercedes almost landed me in a great deal of trouble, and I have been very angry.

  I decided to have nothing more to do with you, until yesterday it came to my attention — through Aristide, you will remember him, always two ears to the ground—

  (That was safe enough for Mimi and Tony when they read it because they would assume Aristide was some genuine nark known to both Otto and Max.)

  — that you in fact used the car to pull off a neat little job in your usual line with a companion who — from Aristide's description, and you know how reliable he is in the matter of police dossiers — sounds just like the Turin type, Tony Collard, you were telling me about. I presume he did the respray.

  Well, dear Otto, my friend, since I virtually provided the car and as times are never as good as they should be, I've decided that I should have my cut. And no argument.

  I shall be here for the next two days, and shall expect you. If you don't turn up I shall let Aristide — to whom I owe a favour — have a few details of you and this Tony Collard, and where to find you. (My love to the delightful Mimi, by the way, though how you stick that baby I can't think. Not your style.) I am sure Aristide will promptly find a market for such information with the police. So don't let me down, dear friend. I promise to be reasonable about my share — but don't think I don't know how much you two got away with.

  Salutations.

  I found a wad of cancelled cheques in the bureau and without much care forged the signature 'Max' to the letter. I addressed it to Otto Libsch at Mimi's flat and then drove into Gap and sent it express. When I got back I was greeted by the poodle, all its elastic reset, gave it a stroll through the pines and then shut it up in the kitchen.

  Back in the main lounge I settled down with a large glass of Max's brandy and pulled out Durnford's sheet of paper, which I had already glanced at, knowing that it demanded a lot of thought. Before I could start on it, the ginger cat walked in from nowhere and came and sat in the empty fireplace and stared at me, accepting a new owner without comment.

  The list of guests was in Durnford's handwriting. The château had been given over to them completely for five days. Durnford commented (the list was full of little comments, as though he were aching to say more, willing to wound but afraid to strike) that O'Dowda often let business associates and friends have the use of the château. Not all the guests had stayed for the full five days. The principal guest was a General Seyfu Gonwalla. Durnford commented that he did not have to tell me who he was. He did not. The General had stayed there in strict incognito — none of the servants had known who he was. (For my money, it was probable that he had made the trip to Europe in strict incognito, too.) He had stayed four out of the five days, missing the first, when there had only been one guest, the General's aide-de-camp, who had preceded him to see that all the appropriate arrangements had been made. And, surprise, surprise, the aide-de-camp was named as Captain Najib Alakwe. (I'd chewed that one over for a long time during the night drive, and for my money again, Najib had to be a Jekyll-and-Hyde character, though at the moment I didn't know which of the two I had had dealings with.) Najib had stayed the full five days. The next guest, and she had stayed for the middle three days, was a Mrs Falia Makse (strict incognito). She was, Durnford noted, the wife of the Minister of Agriculture in General Seyfu Gonwalla's government. Also for the middle three days there had been present a Miss Panda Bubakar. There was no comment against her name — though I could have made one. For the last two days only — and no comment also — there had been present a Mr Alexi Kukarin. And that was the lot.

  At the bottom of the sheet, Durnford had added a note:

  You realize that in giving you this information I am very much putting myself in your hands. I do so because I flatter myself that I am a good judge of character. The secret apartment in the Mercedes is behind the large air-intake opening on the right-hand side of the facia board. You just unscrew the circular vent with an anti-clockwise movement. You will, of course, destroy this communication. So far as the Press, etc., are concerned, no one knew of the presence of the above guests at the château.

  I destroyed it then and there, burning it in the fireplace while the cat watched without much interest. That I did destroy it didn't necessarily mean that Durnford was a good judge of character. It simply struck me as a sensible thing to do with people like the Alakwe brothers, Aristide, Tony Collard and so on around.

  I sat back and gave some of my attention to the rest of the brandy. The other part I gave to O'Dowda and General Seyfu Gonwalla. If I were right, Gonwalla, as Head of State, was the guy who now thought he should have the twenty thousand pounds' worth of bonds. Odd that O'Dowda thought not, yet gladly lent him the château for a five-day conference, if that were the word for it.

  I reached back and picked up the phone and booked a call to Wilkins in London. It came through much later.

  Wilkins said, 'Where are you?'

  'France.'

  'I know that, but where?' She sounded cross and clucking like a disturbed mother hen.

  'A chalet in the Haute Savoie, very comfortable, with a white poodle and a marmalade cat, well, ginger, to keep me company. No women — glad?'

  She said, 'I thought you must be dead.'

  'Why?'

  'Because that Mr Jimbo Alakwe was here this morning offering to buy out your share in this firm.' She paused, enjoying the moment to come. 'He said that with imaginative and efficient running he could make a real success of it.'

  'He's a comic — but not as much as he would like people to think. Anyway, I'm alive and kicking, and I want a precis of all the press comments you can get on General Seyfu Gonwalla, Mrs Falia Makse, and possibly though I doubt it, a Miss Panda Bubakar. And I particularly mean the outer-edge comments that run near libel. You know the kind of stuff, "great and good friend of". Also — I hope you're getting all this down?'

  'The tape is on, naturally.'

  'Also any record you can find of dealings, difficulties or troubles that any of O'Dowda's companies, especially that United Africa job, may have had, or are having, with Gonwallas regime. Also, ring Guffy, or invite him out for a coffee and Danish cakes, and see if he'll admit that at some time or the other, meaning fairly recently, he's had some more anonymous letters suggesting that O'Dowda is worth investigating from a personal point of view, that is to say—'

  'You needn't elaborate. But I doubt if Superintendent Foley would tell me anything like that.'

  'You try. He goes for blue-eyed redheads. Or offer to darn his socks, the heels are always gone.'

  'Is that all?' The old tartness was back.

  'No,'. I gave her the telephone number of the chalet, so that she could ring back, and went on, 'And don't fuss. I'm well and happy and not lonely. In fact I've an interesting guest arriving soon who will be able to tell me, possibly under duress, where the Mercedes is located. Isn't that good?'

  'You sound,' she said, 'too pleased with yourself. That means you're probably up to your neck in trouble.'

  'Well, so what? That's life. Didn't the OT expert on it say that Man is of few days, and full of trouble?'

  'Or else you've been drinking. Goodbye.'

  She was right, of course. It's funny how you can sit in a chair occupied with your thoughts and the brandies go down unnoticed.

  * * *

  I had a great night, ten hours of dreamless sleep with the poodle at the foot of the bed and the cat on the spare pillow.


  The cat woke me by kneading determinedly on my chest, and when I blinked at it said it was time to let him out to forage for his breakfast which I could hear singing in the nearby scrub. The poodle slept on, knowing there was no point in moving until I was down slaving away in the kitchen at his and my breakfast.

  After that it was a matter of waiting and taking what precautions I could. The moment my letter arrived in Turin I was sure that Mimi and Tony would open it. Tony would come, as fast as he could, to make sure that Max never got anywhere near grassing on him to any Aristide. If the letter arrived by first post, it meant Tony could be at the chalet by the evening. If by the afternoon post, then he could make it by midnight or early morning. Whenever he came I just couldn't afford to be sleeping and not give him a welcome.

  I spent the morning making a reconnaissance of the surroundings of the chalet. At the back, which I had not noticed on my first visit, well up in the pines, was a wooden shack which held a small Volkswagen saloon, Max's. I ran it down to the front of the chalet and put my Mercedes in its place. I didn't want Tony arriving and being confused by the sight of the Mercedes. Then I went down to St Bonnet and bought some supplies, but I had to cuff the poodle out of the car — my car — because someone in the place might recognize it.

  When I got back the telephone was ringing. But instead of Wilkins it was some French woman asking for Max. It took me a little while to put over to her that Max was away in Cannes on a property deal and had lent me the chalet for a few days.

  We all three had lunch together, sharing everything except a bottle of Clos-du-Layon vin rose. After that we took a long siesta, very long, until it was gin-and-Campari time, strictly one, because there was soon to be business ahead. Then I shut the animals in the kitchen, found a warm hunting coat of Max's, borrowed his twelve-bore and a handful of shells, and went and sat in the Mercedes where I could catch the lights of any car coming up the road to the chalet. I didn't want to be inside when Tony arrived. It wasn't going to give me any points as a host, but I felt that for this visit protocol could be dropped.