Secret of The Red Planet

by Chris Hawley

CHAPTER TWENTY- SIX

  DEADLOCK

  It was Wednesday morning and my appointment with Albert Smith was at 10 o’clock. I was in defiant mood. I doubted if Sonia had managed to get hold of the evidence, otherwise she would have called me. Anyway, I knew what I had to say and was determined to spell it out plainly to him. I had a feeling he would turn nasty, because I was sure he was banking on my going along with him. Nothing was going to convince me to betray my Martian friends.

  In this confident state of mind I walked into town. It was a cloudy morning but the wind had died down. There had been no chance of seeing Mars in the early morning sky. It would have to wait until better weather.

  Before my meeting I decided to drop in at the library just on the off chance that Sonia had succeeded in some small way and I could face him prepared. But she had not been able to get anywhere, so I walked back into the centre.

  I passed by the window of Marks & Spenser’s and half expected the window-dressers to wave to me as they had done on Monday. The windows were attractively dressed but they had done their work and were probably stocking the shelves. I pushed on down the high street. The clock above the bank told me I was on time this morning.

  Albert Smith was waiting on the stone bench, sitting with his raincoat open and his arms on his knees, bending forward and studying the ground. His hair hung down over the side of his head, clearly showing his bald patch.

  As I crossed the road he gave a small cough and wiped his nose on a brown handkerchief that he held in his left hand. I approached the bench. When I was close enough for him to see my feet from the position he was sitting in, he looked up at me. Then he straightened up and, without saying a word, he waived his hand at the empty space beside him. I sat down and looked across the street at the revolving door of the bank, half expecting the same neighbour to come out. But that was Monday.

  ‘Well?’ he said finally.

  ‘No deal.’

  ‘Do you know what you’re saying?’

  ‘I know. The answer is still no.’

  He sighed and gave a short, unpleasant laugh. He wiped his nose again and put the handkerchief in his trouser pocket.

  ‘I’m sorry for you,’ he said.

  ‘I’m even more sorry for you.’

  He grunted. ‘You see, Bill, if you want anything in this life, you have to go for it. There’ll always be people who’ll want to stop you. They want it too, of course, but they haven’t got the guts and so they’d rather you didn’t get it either. I never had the chance before. My parents were always hard up. Dad was always out of work and what little money he had he drank. My mother didn’t have much go in her so he ruled the house. They never took much notice of me or cared much about my education. I got where I got through my own hard work. Not very far, you might say. But now my chance has come to make the big time.’

  ‘By becoming a criminal?’ I said in disgust.

  ‘Mark my words, I’ll soon be up there with the Bill Gates’ of this world.’

  ‘At least he made his fortune through honest, hard work,’ I said.

  ‘Rot! He had the idea but others did the work for him. He’s a smart man. He hired the wiz kids of the IT world, paid them well and made them work like slaves. He uses the cheap labour of developing countries and sits back in luxury, while the workers live in poverty. Smart man, Mr. Gates.’

  ‘At least they earn something. And Bill Gates gives millions away to charity.’

  ‘What’s a few million to him! But me? I’ll give nothing away. My house in St. Tropez will make Versace’s look like a semi-detached council house. I can see it now, miles of deserted beach and waving palm trees, the white villa perched up on the cliff overlooking the deep blue sea, white coated servants standing with trays of cocktails waiting for me, and all mine.’

  ‘And Sonia?’

  ‘Sonia will never have to work again. I’ll get her married off to some Italian Count with ten yachts in the Mediterranean.’

  I thought of Sonia and knew she would never accept a life like that: she’s far too down to earth for that.

  ‘Want to change your mind, Bill? The offers still open.’

  ‘No way!’

  ‘Pity, ‘cos I’ve got the proof I needed.’ He put his left hand into the inside pocket of his raincoat and pulled out a piece of paper, folded in four. He passed it to me with a smug smile on his round face.

  ‘Read it, Bill. You’ll find it quite interesting.’

  I unfolded the paper and read it carefully. It was typed on a sheet of headed paper belonging to a cloth manufacturing association. There was some information on the thickness of the cloth, the type of weave and other data, which I skipped. Then my eye settled on the paragraph at the foot of the page which said,

  ‘The cloth is of natural origin and has no synthetic content. The plant from which the cloth was made resembles the Egyptian papyrus in structure but is courser and cannot be identified. It is unknown to us. The weave pattern is very unusual. We have never encountered this in our experience. We can only conclude that this cloth comes from a source yet unknown to any recognised cloth manufacturing industry in the world.’

  I looked up at the man beside me. He was staring at me with a self-satisfied expression on his face.

  ‘You see? That’s the proof I hoped for.’

  I screwed up the paper and threw it angrily into the street. He laughed.

  ‘It’s okay. There are plenty more copies and the original is safely locked up in my draw. That, together with your love letter to your beautiful Martian lady, is all I need.’

  ‘You beast!’ I cried.’

  ‘There’s still time to change your mind.’

  ‘Never, never, never!’

  ‘What will your parents say when they see your photo on the front page of the paper tomorrow morning?

  ‘I’ll solve that problem when the time comes,’ I said defiantly.

  ‘’Bring her home to tea, dear and introduce her to us,’ your mother will say when she reads the letter.’ He was mimicking a woman’s voice with an upper class accent.

  I couldn’t take this anymore. I got up from the bench and crossed the road, not even looking back to see if he was still there. I walked quickly along the high street towards the library.

  Sonia was there and she looked glum. My face was still flushed with anger. She looked up at me and a pained expression spread over her face.

  ‘What did he say, Bill?’ she enquired in a worried tone.

  ‘He’s going to publish the letter and the results of the tests and he’s going to plaster it all over the front page tomorrow, with my photo, that’s what!’

  ‘I did try last night, but he’s too careful,’ she said apologetically.

  ‘I know.’

  ‘So now what, Bill? Do you think he’ll do it, put it on the front page, I mean?’

  ‘There’s still a chance he might not, Sonia.’ I said hopefully. ‘He is taking a big risk. It might backfire on him. What he needs is my story, with that he’s home and dry.’

  ‘Bill?’ said Sonia cautiously. ‘You don’t suppose he would use force to get the story from you, do you?’

  ‘You mean, torture me?’

  “Yes,’ she said slowly and shuddered.

  We looked at each other and I could see then that Sonia really cared for me.

  ‘Bill, be careful. I have never thought my father capable of such a thing but now I’m beginning to wonder if I really know him.’

  ‘It must be tough for you, Sonia,’ I said sympathetically.

  ‘Yes, it’s hard to believe. Just be careful though.’

  ‘What am I supposed to do, get a bodyguard?’

  ‘Why not?’ Then she suddenly looked up. ‘Tim!’ she said, ‘a perfect bodyguard!’

  I laughed in spite of the situation facing me.

  ‘I’ll be careful, Sonia.’ I smiled at her. ‘Now I’ll be going. I don’t feel like reading today. I’ll go for a walk in the park.’

  ‘Take
care, Bill,’ she reminded me.

  ‘I will,’ I said, going out of the door into the entrance hall.