by Simon Raven
‘Theodoraki will be waiting on us?’
‘Alas, he is too clumsy these days. But if you wish another sight of him, you may observe him in the garden, I think.’
Count Komikos crossed to the study window, raised himself on tiptoe in order to peer out, then turned to Balbo and beckoned him. Balbo joined the Count and looked out over his head. A figure in a long, green nightshirt, its back to Balbo and Komikos, was sawing very fast through a four-foot tree trunk, using a huge double saw unassisted.
‘As I told you,’ His Excellency said, ‘there is no one in the world like a well nourished and well disposed vampire for the performance of heavy menial tasks.’
Balbo loitered by the Corfu Cricket Ground in front of the arcaded Liston. He did not sit down as he would have liked to, at one of the café tables by the boundary, because he could not afford an expensive drink. Although the September Cricket Festival (ΤΟ ΚΡΙΚΕΤ ΦΕΣΤΙΒΑΛ) was long since done, a match between two teams of schoolboys was being tolerably well conducted out on the wicket. Not that Balbo knew whether the game was ordered well or ill, but he found memories which it brought, of long, dull Eton afternoons, drowsily comforting.
Balbo needed comfort. His problem was this: his search now clearly led to Venice, to the Winter Gaming-Rooms in the Palazzo Vendramin, but the Winter Gaming-Rooms did not open (so he had been informed in Hariocopoulos’ Tourist Bureau) until November 1. This meant that Balbo would need special permission to gain access to the Giocale painting: that he must hang about in Venice for days, perhaps weeks, until he got it, or must else produce a large bribe. Both courses were costly and neither practicable; Balbo’s money would run neither to bribes nor to lengthy sojourns, even at the cheapest rates, in devouring Venice.
But what alternative was there? He could, of course, return to Heracleion and say to the Kyrios Pandelios, ‘Well here I am back again, and here’s a little bit of change for you. I had quite a good run for your money but got cold feet about going on to Venice – and after all I can’t imagine that picture would have been much help, just as well I cut your losses for you.’ But this would be feeble, just plain wet. The Kyrios Pandelios would nod politely and pretend to agree that Balbo had done the sensible thing, but he would in truth despise him, and justly so. But at least, thought Balbo, in Heracleion I should be safe: I know its ways by now, there would be just enough money, there would be the occasional trip to the bordel by the docks, and enough cheap brandy to see me through. A choice then: did he propose to become a snug object of contempt in Heracleion, or a manly target for destitution in Venice?’
Balbo cared for neither. He lingered in his far from cheap hotel in Corfu, telling himself it was not worth looking for something humbler as he would have made his decision and be ready to depart the next morning. But the next morning became the next and then the morning after, and on the third afternoon after his visit to Count Komikos Balbo was still in Corfu, watching little boys play cricket.
‘Mr Blakeney,’ said a rather high-pitched but definitely masculine voice. ‘Mr Balbo Blakeney?’
‘I suppose so,’ said Balbo, surveying a tubby little runt of a man whose forehead was barely level with Balbo’s chin. ‘How did you know?’
‘I got a snapshot, cobber. Lord Constable gave it to me. You’re not quite as pretty as yer picture, but ye’re obviously you – if you take me. Enjoying the cricket?’
‘It’s quite amusing.’
‘Ye’re not letting on, are yer? It’s home.’
‘What do you want?’
‘A word about rats, Mr Blakeney.’
‘Rats? Who sent you?’
‘Them. Not the rats, I mean. My bosses in Jermyn Street.’
‘Jermyn Street?’
‘Headquarters of my Department. Very hush-hush.’
Balbo shrugged.
‘How did you find me?’ he said.
‘I asked around.’
But it had not been quite as simple as that. When Jones, S, had left Kyros Pandelios in Heracleion, he had known that by all the rules in his book he should take himself off the case and hand it over to the Foreign Department which, and which alone, was allowed to conduct manhunts (as opposed to mere interrogations) outside the UK. Syd Jones’ orders had been to find out, in England, where Balbo was, to go straight to him, and to ask him certain questions, note certain details of his physical and mental condition, and test his reaction to certain propositions. These orders permitted Syd to follow Balbo abroad (if it was known that Balbo was abroad) but only when and if he knew precisely where to find him. So much Jones had told Constable, and Constable had told Jones enough, just enough, to enable his superiors to authorize his trip to Heracleion. But Balbo had not been in Heracleion or even in Crete; and by all the rules of his service Jones, S, must now desist.
He did not desist. He had very much liked what Constable and Pandelios had said of Balbo; he wanted to be the one to find him; and he had told himself that provided Balbo might still be presumed to be in Greek territory and provided that he, Jones, S, knew pretty well where to look for him (Previsa), then he could justify himself in sticking to the case on the ground that he was still travelling to Balbo and not, in any serious sense, hunting him down.
Such casuistry, as he well knew, would be chastised as disobedience if he failed, applauded as professional initiative if he succeeded. And now, with a bit of luck, he had done just that. In Previsa, since the day was bright and his manner modest, he had been truthfully and immediately told what he wanted to know (pace all Pandelios’ warnings of venal and mendacious Previsans): yes, there had been an English stranger there some days before, he had been chased from Nicopolis by the crazy (and since deceased) Kommingi, and he had taken a bus to Igoumenitza. In Igoumenitza, a clerk in one of the ferry boat offices had recognized Balbo’s photo: yes, the English Kyrios had taken a ticket to Corfu. So, therefore, had Jones, S. Once there, he had wandered uncertainly about the town, had stopped, because he was a cricketer, to watch the cricket – as, it appeared, had Balbo Blakeney, for different but perhaps not entirely dissimilar reasons.
‘I just asked around,’ Jones, S, repeated.
‘And you want a word about rats?’
‘That’s it, sport.’
‘Not vampires, by any chance? I’m rather good on them.’
‘Rats. They say you’re rather good on them.’
‘I don’t think I can really help you.’
‘I think I can help you. You need a drink.’
‘I was putting it off as long as I could.’
‘But if I’m paying…? Then we could sit down at one of these tables. The name, since you haven’t asked, is Syd Jones.’
‘Since you’re kindly buying me a drink,’ said Balbo, ‘I think I shall call you Sydney.’
It really is a nightmare, thought Ivor Winstanley. He turned over, switched on the light, looked at his clock. 3.45 a.m. He put two Alka-Seltzer tablets in his glass of Malvern water, waited impatiently till they surfaced, and drank. There were nasty rumours, he was well aware, about what they did to the lining of one’s stomach, but they were always good to knock him out for a couple of hours.
Not tonight. The waking nightmare raged on, spurning the opiate. Round and round it raged. One: Constable was going to do him down – unless he, Ivor, did Jacquiz Helmut down, by finding and demonstrating irregularities of past administration in the Chamber of Manuscripts. Two: if he were to meet Constable’s order, he needed the help of Len, the Under-Collator; even if he didn’t need Len’s help, he would need his connivance, as Len knew very well that there had been no irregularities and was in a position to refute with ease whatever case Ivor might try to fake up. Three: he could have Len’s connivance, and indeed his expert assistance, in return for Len’s price, and Len’s price, as revealed at luncheon the other day, Len’s price –
It didn’t bear thinking of. Sweat rolled over Ivor’s neck, his shoulders, his back, his thighs. His pyjamas were soaked. Soon it would get throug
h to the sheets, and then what on earth would the bedmaker think of him? He got up, went through to the bathroom, took off his pyjamas, towelled himself down in front of the looking-glass, detested the hairless white slug he saw in it, failed to find a clean pair of pyjamas in the bathroom chest of drawers, put on an old white shirt he had once used for Royal Tennis, went unattractively back to bed, and took two more Alka-Seltzers.
But the enormity of Len’s suggestion, of the price he was asking if he were to help Ivor, still hammered at Ivor’s brain. No, Ivor could never consent to paying it. There must be some other way out. Think… Accuse Provost Constable of applying foul pressures? No one would believe him, and they would probably consign him to a bin (there were several bins ready and willing to whisk a man away at the bidding of Lancaster College). Find some excuse for sacking Len, and then manage the thing without him? But these days the Lens of the earth, however lazy or ignorant (and Len, to be fair, was neither), were quite unsackable. And never in a thousand years could Ivor conjure a trick dirty enough to discredit Jacquiz without Len’s inside knowledge of the Chamber, its manifold contents and complexities.
Assassinate Lord Constable, the onlie begetter of Ivor’s troubles? At least it would make a memorable end to Ivor’s somewhat humdrum career. Better go out as Constable’s killer than his jackal… But that way madness lay. Applied intellect, Ivor had always believed, must sooner or later triumph in any situation. Back to the beginning, then, back to first premises. One: Constable was absolutely going to do down Ivor, by depriving him of his beloved Fellowship, unless Ivor could contrive to do down Jacquiz Helmut. Two: if he were to oblige Constable, Constable the unrefusable and unaccusable, he must somehow procure to his cause the deadly arts of Len. Three: these were on offer, but the asking price – oh God, oh God, oh God.
Balbo drained his first drink within seconds of its arrival, so that Syd Jones was able to order him a second before the waiter had left them. Balbo sat silent until this came and then took a stiffish swallow.
‘Very well, Sydney,’ Balbo said. ‘What is it you want?’
Syd Jones looked out at the cricket and nodded slightly in appreciation of some arcanum that was for ever hidden from Balbo.
‘These bleedin’ rats,’ said Syd. ‘You worked with them…or on them…during the war?’
‘Unsuccessfully. They wouldn’t do as they were told.’
‘Right. But now the thinking is that there might be a way to make ’em after all. And the thinking also is that you might find it. There’s an old story that you had quite a hand with rats, that you might have got through to them if you’d been given a bit longer.’
‘All that was thirty years ago,’ said Balbo.
‘Those concerned have a long memory.’
‘Mine is shorter. If I was getting through to rats, I certainly don’t remember how.’
‘Probably not. The story is that…that you had a kind of natural empathy. Not a conscious technique. Something in you, very rare, that might still be in you. Something which could still be used now.’
‘What for?’ said Balbo, and finished his drink. ‘One thing I do remember – we were going to use those rats to spread bubonic plague.’ He beckoned to the waiter. ‘Now I’ll buy you one.’
‘Save yer money, sport. Have it on the old expenses.’
‘Okay. But you’re wasting the public money.’
Syd instructed the waiter.
‘It is public money, I suppose?’ said Balbo.
‘Yeep.’
‘Then as usual it’s being wasted. I’m not interested, Sydney, even if I’m competent. I wasn’t too keen on spreading bubonic plague then. I’m far less keen now.’
‘This time it’s not bubonic plague.’
‘Then what is it?’
‘They’ll tell you…if you come home and talk to them. That’s why I’m here. To persuade you to come home and talk to them.’
‘Who are “they”?’
‘Friends of my bosses in Jermyn Street. People on the right side.’
‘But you see, Sydney, I just don’ want to come home.’ Balbo paused; he handled his newly arrived drink but did not yet drink it. ‘Have you…money…to persuade me?’ he said.
‘Not me, sport. Not beyond expenses to get us both home with. But they will be offering money when they see you. You can be sure of that.’
‘I doubt it. I can’t remember the chemistry involved, and I don’t believe in this empathy bit.’
‘They do. So do I, now I’ve met yer.’
‘How can you know?’
‘They told me one sign to look for. Now I’ve found it.’
‘Found what?’
‘Sorry, sport. Trade secret – for now at any rate.’
‘Hmm. Handsome fee going, you think?’
‘Pretty fair.’
‘And positively no bubonic plague?’
‘No bubonic plague.’
‘Something even nastier, perhaps?’
‘Something…necessary.’
‘But you won’t yet tell me what,’ mused Balbo, as Syd shook his head, ‘and in any case I don’t want to come.’
‘What’s stopping you?’
‘I’m on a mission.’
Now that Balbo had been offered a definite and perhaps profitable alternative, he had become perversely determined to stick to the enterprise of which, not many minutes before, he had been both weary and sceptical. Am I just being bloody-minded, he asked himself, or is it that I mistrust the moral flavour of these (otherwise not unpromising) overtures? He did not mistrust the messenger; but messengers were never told the whole truth, and however truthful Sydney Jones might be in himself, his assurances (no bubonic plague this time, nothing nasty, something necessary) were not worth the breath that conveyed them. Or could it be that he resented the impertinence of such a claim upon him, which came slinking out of the past like a blackmailing request from a long-forgotten acquaintance with whom one had once exchanged drunken and deplorable confidences? Or was it the bland authority he resented, their competence, logistical, mental and official, to trace him down after all this time? Or did the sheer knowingness offend him? ‘He had this gift,’ they had apparently told Syd Jones, ‘and if he still does you’ll see such and such a sign of it on him.’ As it happened, this business of the ‘sign’ made a strong appeal to Balbo’s curiosity; but not strong enough to outweigh his feeling (of whatever elements this might be compounded) that Jones must be refused. Besides, the drink he had just swallowed had made him feel more optimistic about his search (nothing very dreadful could happen to him, he now thought, if he ventured at any rate as far as Venice); and the peremptory demands of Jones, S, (though he rather liked the man) reminded him, by contrast, of the generous and spontaneous patronage of the Kyrios Pandelios. All in all, then, affection, endeavour and loyalty (if not perhaps his best practical interest) showed him his course very plain. He must soldier on under the banner of Pandelios; he must stand to his mission and proceed at once to the swamps and labyrinths of the Serene Republic.
‘What mission?’ Jones now prompted him.
‘A search.’
‘Animal, vegetable or mineral?’
‘Mineral.’
‘A hidden treasure?’ asked Jones, with the affable frivolity of one engaged in killing time with word games.
‘You might call it that. Hidden somewhere back in time. In the earth too, for all I know.’
‘Ah well. None of my business.’
Jones’ tone had suddenly changed to that of one who evidently thinks he is dealing with a nutcase but is too polite to say so. Balbo, who did not like to be taken for a nutcase, felt compelled to justify himself.
‘This…this treasure,’ he said, ‘belonged to a powerful family in France but was stolen in the seventeenth century. Both thief and treasure disappeared. I think I have now found the descendants of the thief, and through them I hope to go back in time until I find somebody, between those alive today and the thief himself, who was know
n to possess the treasure.’
‘What would you do then?’ said Jones, patiently humouring.
‘Try to find out what this somebody did with it, and then start working forward in time…until I come to where the treasure is now.’
‘Sound enough. Except,’ said Syd Jones, with the air of explaining a logical fallacy to a backward child, ‘that you can’t be sure that this original thief passed it on to one of his family. You say that he and the treasure disappeared?’
‘I do,’ said Balbo, trying not to feel like a total imbecile.
‘He may have done anything with it, fella. Sold it, lost it, destroyed it…or been destroyed by it. Been killed for it by other thieves, perhaps. There is no reason ever what at all to suppose that any of his descendants, direct or indirect, ever got a sniff of it. And if they did inherit it, think of all the surplus by-blows, knocked-up sheilas or shagged-out fancy boys who might have been paid off with it anywhere along the line.’
Jones sat back with the patient self-satisfaction of a pundit who has finally disposed of a chunk of prime nonsense. Balbo sat forward with the desperation of a poor pensioner who, about to be committed to an old people’s asylum as mentally and physically inadequate, pleads with the authorities to recognize his sanity and right to fend, however humbly for himself.
‘I simply hope,’ he said, ‘that if I go back far enough I shall hear news of what I seek. The original thief, or one of his successors, may indeed have done almost anything with it. But by following the line back I may eventually come to somebody who was close enough to my treasure to have heard at least rumours about what became of it.’
Jones, S, nodded, no longer as if patronizing an idiot but as if mildly congratulating a pupil on having passed a test. But only an intermediate test.
‘Ever who you come to,’ he now said, ‘they’ll be good and dead. How do you extract rumours from a corpse?’
‘For an intelligent man,’ said Balbo, much of his confidence restored, ‘you can be remarkably obtuse. The dead leave records.’
‘A lot of them couldn’t write.’
