‘Adiós.’ With the faintest of bows, Galazarga turned and walked swiftly from the room.
After the door had swung shut behind him, Derek subsided back into his chair and began to retrace their conversation in his mind. He was still engaged in this process when, a few minutes later, Frank Griffith appeared in front of him.
‘I saw him leave,’ the old man said, lowering himself into the seat Galazarga had occupied and staring intently at Derek. ‘How did it go?’
‘It went.’
‘When will we have Delgado’s answer?’
‘Within twenty-four hours.’
‘And what will it be?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘What do you think it will be?’
‘I don’t think.’ He looked straight across at Frank. ‘You’ve told me often enough since we left England to wait and see. Well, you should be glad. Now, that’s all I’m capable of doing.’
19
EIGHT HOURS LATER, Derek’s vigil in his room – which he dared not leave in case Galazarga tried to contact him – was wearing on his nerves as well as his patience. A one-sided conversation with Frank and a static-ridden call to Charlotte had failed either to calm or to cheer him. Now, as the evening advanced and the chances diminished of Galazarga being in touch before morning, he decided solitude was no longer tolerable. A visit to the bar, though it did not promise unbounded gaiety, at least constituted a change of scene. Without looking in on Frank for fear the old curmudgeon might object, he set off, pausing at reception en route to emphasize where he could be found.
Galician beer having proved a disappointment, he opted this time for spirits, of which Spanish measures proved gratifyingly generous. Halfway through his second substantial cubalibre, he was beginning to imagine he really was a match for Galazarga and his elusive employer when a strikingly attractive dark-haired girl in a black combination of mini-skirt, polo-necked sweater and bolero jacket sat down at his table.
‘Er … Hello,’ Derek said, with a frown of puzzlement.
‘Buenos tardes. Mr Fairfax?’
‘Er … yes.’
Her voice fell to a whisper. ‘I am Yolanda Delgado Vasconcelez. I must speak with you. It is very important.’
‘What?’ Derek could hardly believe his ears, but there was no doubting her seriousness. Nor her sincerity, to judge by the frankness of her gaze. ‘But … I was told …’
‘That I was in Switzerland?’ She nodded. ‘I am supposed to be. I would still be there now if my grandfather had not …’ She leant closer, her eyes wide and imploring. ‘I must not be recognized, Mr Fairfax. If he knew what I was doing, he would be very angry.’
‘Your grandfather?’
‘Of course. But I cannot let this go on. Surely you see that.’
‘I … I’m not sure I—’
‘I know about your letter. And your meeting with Norberto Galazarga. I know why you are here.’
‘You do?’
‘Could we go somewhere else?’ She glanced round. ‘Somewhere more … discreet?’
‘Well, I—’
‘I can help you.’ She placed her hand over his where it rested on the table. ‘But only if you help me. Will you come with me?’
Where to?’
‘Not far.’ She looked over her shoulder again. ‘But it has to be now. Will you come?’
‘I …’ What manner of help she was offering him he could not guess. But he knew also he could not turn his back on it. The chance of a swift end to Samantha’s ordeal – and to his – was too tempting to resist. ‘All right. Let’s go.’
She did not accompany him to the bar to pay, but waited by the side-door that led directly out of the hotel. When he followed, she went ahead, a black-clad figure hurrying into the Santiago night. It was dry now, but still misty, the street-lamps and cathedral floodlights blurred and subdued like nurses’ lanterns. The city seemed older and more watchful than by day, its senses sharpened by darkness, its purposes concealed.
They headed downhill, away from the plaza, turning right and then left along deserted dimly lit streets. Before they had reached the end of the second of these, Derek began to regret leaving the warmth and security of the hotel. It would be all too easy to become lost in this cobbled maze of ancient by-ways. Sobered by the coolness of the air, he suddenly began to wonder if Yolanda might be leading him into some form of trap. A noise behind them made him swing round abruptly. But there was no trace of anybody in or between the shadows.
‘Don’t worry,’ said Yolanda, looking back at him as if she had read his thoughts.’ It’s just down here. A little café I know where we can talk without being overheard.’
Reassured, he followed her into the mouth of an alley to their left. But reassurance lasted no more than an instant. There were no beckoning lights of a café ahead, no lights in fact of any kind. He pulled up and was about to turn back when he was seized around the waist and dragged to one side. He was aware of two large men hauling him into a doorway, of shapes moving vaguely around and behind him, of muffled words in Spanish, of garlic on the breath of his assailants. All this came into his mind a fraction of a second before it was swamped by fear. Then he was slammed against a heavy wooden door, his arms pinned to his sides, a metal knocker grinding against his spine. The blade of a knife flashed in a shaft of light and he saw two faces close to his own, swollen and distorted by the shadows like pumpkin masks at Hallowe’en. And then a drift of cigar-smoke caught in his nostrils. Galazarga was standing a few feet in front of him, an overcoat slung like a cape around his shoulders.
‘We will resume our conversation, Mr Fairfax,’ he said in a tone of studied normality. ‘Without the need to guard our tongues so closely.’
‘What … What do you want?’
‘The map – along with the other papers.’
‘I told you: it doesn’t exist.’
‘We have searched your room. It is not there. I conclude you value it too highly to part with it. So, please be so good as to hand it over.’
‘I haven’t got it.’
‘¡Cachealos!’
Derek was pulled forward. One of the men twisted his left arm behind his back while the other began searching his pockets, handing the contents to Galazarga as he went. There was not much: wallet, passport, diary, pen, comb, keys, a half-finished packet of peppermints and a few crumpled tissues. Yolanda switched on a torch and trained the beam on the bundle of items while Galazarga sifted through them.
‘It does not appear to be here, Mr Fairfax.’
‘Of course it isn’t. It’s—’
‘You called at the pazo in the company of an elderly man. Does he have it?’
‘No. Neither of us does.’
‘What is his name, Mr Fairfax? Where is he to be found?’
‘I’m not answering any more questions.’
‘I rather think you are. Unless you want to end your days as Maurice Abberley did. The same knife that was held at his throat is now at yours.’
Glancing down, Derek saw the glistening blade, clasped in a large hand that rested heavily on his chest. Don’t try their patience a moment longer, his racing thoughts bellowed inside his head. Tell them Frank has the map. Tell them where he is. Tell them whatever you have to. ‘Listen, I—’
‘That’s enough!’ It was Frank’s voice, stern and unwavering. He was standing at the mouth of the alley, pointing a double-barrelled shotgun straight at Galazarga. ‘Release him now or I’ll fire.’ For a second, nobody moved. Then Frank said: ‘I mean what I say, señor. I’ve killed men before, most of them Spaniards. The thought of it doesn’t worry me. In fact, the thought of killing you is quite attractive. Any more delay and I may be unable to resist temptation.’
How Frank came to be where he was – how for that matter he had come by the shotgun – Derek was too amazed to consider. He was only glad – more glad than he could ever have imagined being – to see the old man’s implacable stare. If anybody could win this war of nerves, it was Fra
nk. He was outnumbered and could clearly be overpowered. But not before he had fired the gun. Galazarga had to believe he would do so. If he did not believe it, he might judge the risk worth taking. But Frank’s expression was unflinching, his grip on the gun unfaltering. And Galazarga was only a few feet from him. If he did fire, he could not miss.
For another second, Galazarga’s reaction remained in doubt. Then he parted his hands in a placatory gesture and said: ‘You have the advantage, señor.’ He turned to his men. ‘¡Dejálos-ir!’ They let go of Derek and stepped clear of him. The knife vanished.
‘Give him back his belongings,’ said Frank.
With a little shrug of assumed humility, Galazarga stepped towards Derek and dropped the items into his outstretched hands.
‘Now, all four of you, move past me into the street. Very slowly.’ Frank edged back to make way for them: the two leather-jacketed thugs, scowling ominously; the girl, head bowed; and Galazarga, pouting with irritation. ‘Walk away.’ He signalled the direction they should take with a nod. It was a continuation of the route Derek and the girl had been following before they turned into the alley. ‘Don’t run. Don’t stop. Don’t look round.’
Galazarga muttered something to his men which was evidently sufficient to secure their compliance. As they set off and the girl followed, he glanced back at Derek and inclined his head, as if in formal leave-taking. ‘Hasta luego, señores,’ he said, with the faintest of smiles. Then he fell in behind the others.
The sweat was cooling rapidly on Derek’s brow. He became aware of it for the first time, aware also of how badly his hands were shaking as he crammed his belongings back into his pockets. He stumbled forward to where Frank was standing. Galazarga and his companions were twenty yards away already, walking hard, obedient to their instructions.
‘Thank God you found me,’ Derek murmured.
‘Thank my opinion of you. I reckoned it was odds on you’d do something stupid. So, when I heard you leave your room, I thought I’d better keep an eye on you. And it’s just as well I did. As soon as I saw you leave the bar with the girl, I knew it would end badly.’
Derek was too drained by fear to bridle at his words. Besides, they were all too accurate. ‘She claimed to be Delgado’s granddaughter. She claimed to want to help.’
‘She was a liar and an impostor. As you should have realized.’
‘I know. I’m sorry.’
‘Don’t be. We haven’t time for regrets.’
‘Where did you get the gun?’
‘I’ve had it ever since we left Hendre Gorfelen.’
‘So that’s why we couldn’t fly – because you were smuggling a gun into the country.’
Frank looked round at him. ‘I thought we might need one. And it seems I was right, doesn’t it?’
At any other time, Derek would have been enraged. But not now. Now, Frank’s methods were the only ones that seemed to make sense. ‘I never thought … I never expected …’
‘But I did. This was always likely to be their answer.’
‘They think we have the map.’
‘They can’t bear to think we don’t have it.’
‘How do we convince them?’
‘We don’t try.’ He pointed down the street. ‘They’re almost out of sight. We ought to be on our way. Before they have a chance to double-back.’ He bent to retrieve something from the pavement. It was a threadbare old coat, which he draped over the shotgun before clasping it to his side, stock uppermost.
‘Aren’t you going to unload the thing?’
‘Not until we’re out of danger. Come on.’ Frank set off back the way they had come, walking fast, eyes trained ahead. As Derek caught up, he said: ‘Move, boy. We don’t have long.’
‘For what?’
‘Packing our bags, paying the bill, retrieving Vicente’s statement from the safe-deposit – and clearing out of Santiago.’
‘To go where?’
‘It doesn’t matter. Somewhere they can’t find us.’
‘What if they follow us?’
‘With any luck they won’t know what we’re driving. If they do, we’ll just have to lose them.’
‘But … I don’t understand … What can we accomplish by leaving now?’
More than we can accomplish by staying. Like Galazarga said, we have the advantage. And we mustn’t lose it.’
‘The advantage? I still don’t—’
‘We’re going to call Delgado’s bluff, boy. We’re going to see whose nerve is really the stronger. And believe me, I don’t intend it to be his.’
20
‘HELLO?’
‘It’s me.’
Charlotte caught her breath, knowing Derek could only be telephoning her at Ockham House if something had gone drastically wrong. It was not yet ten o’clock on Thursday morning. Another nine hours were due to have elapsed before they spoke again. She wanted to ask what had happened, but could contrive no way of doing so without arousing the suspicion of any of Golding’s men who might be listening. And the recent increase in whirrs and clicks on the line had convinced her they were listening – all the time.
‘Don’t say anything,’ Derek continued. ‘Just be where you would be at seven – in half an hour. We’ll talk then.’
In his hotel room in Corunna, Derek put the telephone down and looked across at Frank, profiled against the picture-windowed vista of sea and sky. ‘So far so good,’ he said. ‘I wonder how she’ll react when I tell her what you have in mind.’
‘What we have in mind,’ growled Frank. ‘You agreed it was the only course left open to us.’
Derek could not deny he had. But that had been last night, after he had found his room at the Reyes Catolicos ransacked and they had quit the hotel in a panicky scramble; after they had driven fast along winding roads up into the hills north of Santiago and taken to rough forest tracks until they were sure nobody was following; after they had waited and watched for hours in the inky darkness until they were absolutely certain they had made good their escape. At dawn, they had headed for Corunna, the provincial capital, a modern city crouching grey and wind-scoured on the rocky rim of the Atlantic Ocean. Here, a busy urban populace had supplied much-needed camouflage and a couple of rooms in a high-rise hotel overlooking the sea an ideal sanctuary. And here Derek, his nerve and judgement patched together with food and rest and hot running water, had begun to question the strategy to which he had earlier given his unqualified consent.
‘Having second thoughts?’ asked Frank.
‘No. Not exactly. It’s just—’
‘It’s just you can hardly believe now that you were in that back-alley, with a knife at your throat. Or that sweet reason isn’t going to win Delgado over.’
‘I suppose so.’
‘Well, you were. And it isn’t.’
‘Will your way work any better?’
‘I’m not sure.’ Frank turned and stared out for a moment at the gulls wheeling and screeching over the harbour. Then he said: ‘But, if it doesn’t, nothing else will.’
Ten minutes after Charlotte had reached Derek’s house, the telephone rang and she found herself talking to him again, this time more freely. When she heard what form Delgado’s answer had taken, she did not know who to feel more anxious for: Derek, whom she had led into greater danger than either of them had anticipated; or Samantha, whose freedom now seemed more unattainable than ever. Her instinctive reaction was that the time really had come to tell the police everything they knew. But, to her surprise, Derek did not agree.
‘Frank thinks – we both think – there’s one other approach worth trying. We reckon it stands an excellent chance of success.’
‘What is it?’
‘It’s why I phoned you this morning rather than this evening. We can’t risk any further direct contact with Delgado. But he does take us seriously now. He’s bound to. So, if we could negotiate with him indirectly, through an intermediary …’
‘What intermediary?’
‘You, Charlotte. Frank’s plan is to place an advert in tomorrow’s International Herald Tribune, using the wording the kidnappers stipulated, but specifying they should telephone you there – on my number. That should keep you one step ahead of the police. You could call us here to tell us their response.’
‘Their response to what?’
‘Our terms. Release Samantha immediately or we’ll take Vicente Ortiz’s statement to the Spanish press.’
‘You wouldn’t.’
‘Delgado must believe we would. You must persuade him.’
‘But … the risks are …’
‘Appalling. As they have been all along.’
‘You think they’re worth taking? I mean you, Derek. You think this is what we should do?’
There was a lengthy pause, during which she sensed rather than heard him bite back several possible replies. Then he said: ‘If we go to the police now and name Delgado, there’s insufficient time left for them to make discreet enquiries. They may well end up alerting Delgado to their suspicions long before they’re able to establish where Samantha’s being held. What happened last night leaves me in little doubt how Delgado would respond in such circumstances.’
She realized then, as she supposed Derek must already have realized, how irrevocable their decision to go it alone had proved. At some stage of which neither had been fully aware, they had passed the point of no return. There was no way back now. There might indeed be no way out at all. But, if there was, Frank’s plan offered the only hope of finding it. ‘All right,’ she said. ‘We’ll do it.’
* * *
Charlotte telephoned the International Herald Tribune offices in Paris straightaway. After parting with her credit card number, she obtained a guarantee that all editions of Friday’s paper would carry, prominently displayed in the personal column of the classified advertisements: PEN PALS CAN BE REUNITED, ORWELL WILL PAY. CALL 44-892-315509. Then she called Derek again to confirm it would appear.
‘Well done, Charlotte. I’ll buy a copy here. After our brush with them in Santiago – and our subsequent disappearance – I don’t think they’ll be able to resist making contact.’
Hand In Glove - Retail Page 44
