by Desmond Cory
“And then?”
“I’d had your message, of course. I knew you were looking for me, that you’d have left word. So I travelled south. I saw Andres.”
“Ah, Andres.” Feramontov breathed deeply, softly.
“Yes. The old man. Again, I thought that the police might be behind me. . . . Dogs, witnesses, so many things. . . . I made sure.”
“You made sure.” Feramontov leaned back and his teeth gleamed for a second in the overhead light. “In short, you’ve been on the bash.”
And Moreno smiled, too. “That’s right,” he said. “On the bash.”
This, he knew, was the moment to look the girl full in the face. He did so. She was watching him, frowning and intent. There was curiosity in her eyes, but not the fear he had expected; her eyes might have been those of a research chemist, examining the behaviour of a bacillus on a glass slide. Instantly and unreasonably, he felt the pumping of anger inside his head; and knew at once that she sensed it in him, guessed at his hatred of her. Moreno hated all women, but most of all those for whom, had they been men, he might have felt a certain respect. Elsa now for him was more than merely a woman. She was an enemy.
“I see you are wearing one of the suits we prepared for you,” said Feramontov easily. “You find it comfortable?”
“Comfortable, yes. It has been worn before, though.”
“Naturally.”
“You think of everything.”
“We try to. There is no question of preparing you against a detailed examination—we can’t do anything about your fingerprints, at the moment—but that’s no reason for making elementary errors. You won’t be landing in Spain, at any rate officially, and the papers we are supplying you with will be good enough for Tangier. At the moment, therefore, there’s no need to brief you too closely as to your cover story. Your name is Jaime Baroda, you are from Valencia and you are at present working under Meuvret here as a collector of specimens.”
“Of what?”
“Of specimens. This yacht is under charter to the Association of Marine Biology in Monaco, and Meuvret is Director of the expedition. You are employed, in fact, as a skin diver.”
Moreno spread out his hands on the table, palm downwards, and looked at them. “What do you want me for?*’ he said shortly.
Feramontov pushed aside a neatly-dismembered grapefruit, began to help himself to liver and bacon. “The Spanish branch of our Overseas Intelligence is very anxious to interview you, Baroda. You have certain information they’d be very happy to receive.”
“I imagined there’d be something more specific.”
“Yes. There is.”
“. . . Well?”
“We want the Spyglass logbooks.”
“The Spyglass logbooks.” Moreno nodded. “I see.”
He was careful, very careful, not to show surprise. This wasn’t what he had expected. Maybe it was a bluff, of course; maybe what they really wanted was something quite different. They could be just testing him to see how far he’d cooperate. “They’ll still be there,” he said.
“Hidden in the house?”
“Hidden . . . near the house.”
“We’ve searched. We couldn’t find them. We have to know exactly where they are.”
“I know exactly where they are.”
Feramontov laughed, suddenly and shortly. “Yes, your memory is excellent. That much has been proved. So that . . . if we take you to the house, you’ll have no trouble in recovering those logbooks from where they’re hidden?”
“None. Or very little. Does Priego still own the place?”
“Priego died two years ago. A heart attack.”
“I didn’t know.”
“He left it to a friend of his, a South American called Tocino, who himself died last autumn. The death rate among capitalist millionaires is something that our propagandists might do well to dwell on. It now belongs to Tocino’s daughter.”
“Who is in South America?”
“Precisely. The house has been now either rented or borrowed by two Englishmen. There is a housekeeper and a maidservant, living at the back of the premises. I am hoping,” said Feramontov, and smiled at Elsa, “that we can get the Englishmen out of the way for at least one evening. It should be no problem.”
“For one evening or for ever. No problem at all.”
“Killing should not be necessary,” said Feramontov, “and is certainly not advisable. When the proper precautions have been taken, killing is rarely necessary.” Moreno, sensing a threat that the words themselves hardly seemed to contain, felt his fingers curling up on the table; he dropped his hands unhurriedly to his lap. “You help us, Baroda, and we’ll help you. That’s the way it is.”
He tilted back his chair, looked out through the nearest porthole. Blue sky, green-blue sea, and on the horizon a flat brown line of land; the coast of Spain. “You’re a very fine swimmer, according to the records.”
“Out of practice,” said Moreno, not very clearly.
“Obviously. But you’ll be able to get some practice in. Elsa is a good swimmer, too. She has been training with the Soviet team for the Olympic Games. We’re all in favour, you see, of peaceful co-existence.”
“That’s since my time,” said Moreno brusquely. “Two long words and what they mean is, business as usual. Or am I wrong?”
Feramontov carefully sliced the rind off a rasher of bacon. “My point is that your kind of business is not particularly usual,” he said. Then, with the air of one who finds a given challenge not worth the trouble of taking up, he picked the makeshift dagger from the table and tested the point against his thumb. “Though it has to be admitted that there’s what one might call a permanent demand. A permanent demand for a special talent.”
“I’ve always found so,” said Moreno, and smiled triumphantly.
“All the same, we’ll have to get rid of this thing. It’s too distinctive. I have something new you may care to play with.”
He wiped his mouth punctiliously on his napkin, got up and went over to the tall locker in the comer of the room. From it he took a peculiar contraption of steel, wood and rubber, a cross between a rifle and a catapult. “These, also, are since your time,” he said casually. “You may never have seen one, but they’ve become extremely popular. And this is as powerful as any of its kind. Look.”
He braced his feet on the floor, winding the tough pink rubber band back along the shaft. A metal catch clicked into place behind the trigger. Between the tensed rubber thongs was fitted a light wooden bolt with a barbed steel head. “A kind of catapult, you see. Or crossbow.”
“What does it do?”
Feramontov raised the shaft, settling it against his hip, and pressed the trigger. His body jerked with the sudden whip of the recoil. A quick gasp of air, a splintering crack; the bolt quivered in the door, driven through the wood a half of its length from a range of twelve feet. Moreno stared at it open-mouthed. He hadn’t expected that kind of power from so childish-looking a weapon. Then his eyes glinted as though filled with tears, and he reached out his hands.
“Yes,” he said. “Here. Give it to me.”
“It’s for fish.”
“I know. I’ve heard about them. Here. Let’s see it.” Feramontov handed it to him. “Later,” he said, “you can go down into the water and practise. It’s not difficult. Elsa will teach you.” He watched Moreno’s dark head bowed over the long shaft, the rubber straps; watched silently, impersonally, like a stalking cat. “She will make you a fisher of men,” he said; and giggled.
“WEAPON nearly circular,” said the police surgeon. His voice was dry and monotonous as the buzzing of the flies high up on the wall. “About a third of a centimetre in diameter and flexible. Penetration barely two centimetres, just enough to sever the artery. Trajectory dead level. In fact, a very neat job indeed. Straight, short and sweet.”
He drew the rough linen sheet back over the creased and twisted face, then clicked his fingers. The mortuary assistant came forward to wheel the cadav
er away. “I’ll see the effects,” said Valera.
“Over here, sir.”
The sergeant of the Civil Guard opened a drawer, took out a knotted handkerchief. Valera waved him on as he fumbled for his cotton gloves. “Never mind the normal precautions,” he said. “The prints have no bearing on the case.”
“Very well, sir.”
He unfastened the handkerchief. Inside was a half-empty packet of Ideal cigarettes, a crumpled matchbox, a cheap medallion on a broken chain, two cigarette stubs, a dirty cube of sugar, four filthy one-peseta notes, a bent teaspoon and a spring-knife with a bone handle. He, Valera and the surgeon surveyed this collection in silence.
“Identity card?”
“He didn’t carry it, sir. I doubt if he ever had one.”
“Are you from the village?”
“It’s in my territory.”
“Know anything about him?”
“Not a lot, sir. Everyone thought he was a bit of a weirdy. No relations anywhere, lived all by himself. A Red all right, we all knew that, but not the sort that has a clue as to what it’s all about, not really. He didn’t do any harm. I reckon after the Civil War he thought he was lucky to be still alive and played it careful.”
“Not careful enough,” said Valera. He picked up the spring-knife, flicked it open; tested the blade with the ball of his finger. “Funny that fellow didn’t help himself to this. Probably thought he wouldn’t need it. Probably thought he was God.”
“You think it was this Moreno, sir?”
“Of course it was. Who else?” Valera put down the knife, picked up the medallion. St. Christopher, of course, with the Nino Jesu on his shoulder. “The silly old fool,” he said. And turned away with his hands in his pockets, his shoulders hunched up high like a marabou stork’s. “Now listen, sergeant. Somebody spoke to Andres. The morning before he died, perhaps, or the evening before. Somebody told him what message to give to Moreno. Moreno got the message all right; that’s why he killed. You get back to that village as quick as you damned well can and find out just who it was that spoke to him. They probably came by car. Get the best description you can. Go through all the villages in the Alpujarra if you have to. Report to Captain Ostos before you go.”
“A la orden,” said the sergeant. He saluted, turned on his heel and left. The police surgeon lit a cigarette.
“He’s got friends, then?”
“Who? Moreno?”
“Yes.”
“Wolves hunt in a pack,” said Valera tightly, “but they don’t have friends. Nor has Moreno. He’s a killer. He’s a narcissist and a schizophrene and a manic depressive and a megalomane and anything else you bloody medicos want to call him, but first and foremost he’s a killer. He hasn’t got a friend in the world. He’s a killer, you understand? Let’s leave it at that.”
The surgeon didn’t reply, and Valera found himself at once regretting his outburst. It would be foolish, he thought, to let the responsibility for Moreno’s release prey on one’s nerves. The hunter must always be calm, cold-blooded. It was true that Moreno had no friends; but then . . . neither had he. . . .
“THE dog-whelk,” said Professor Heinemann fondly. “Oh my, yes, the dog-whelk, nucella lapillus. Is one of the fiercest, the savagest killers of the sea. Oh yes indeed. I could tell you a story or two about Nucella.” He caressed the lemon-yellow, curving shell with its intricate convolutions; returned it to one of his capacious pockets and instantly produced another. “Mnja. And this is Calliostoma. A fine specimen. Is perhaps the most beautiful of all, do you agree? A pity, almost, that he is not uncommon. Its beauty then would be appreciated more.”
“Have another drink, Professor,” said Sebastian Trout.
“Thank you, no. Is most kind of you, but I must be returning. Aha,” said the Professor, producing yet another creature from some intimate recess of his person. “The periwinkle, yes, the rough periwinkle, littorina rudis. An interesting animal is this periwinkle. For instance, by no means is it commonly known that the male periwinkle possesses a penis.”
“Ah,” said Trout. “That explains it.”
“Please?”
“I was wondering what a periwinkle would want to be rough about.”
“Yah, yah,” said the Professor vaguely. “That is so. Viviparous. Fertilisation takes place within the body of the female, and eggs through this rounded aperture will later emerge.” He replaced Littorina in his pocket, began to fumble. “Now what have we next?”
Trout made a dive towards the bottle of Solera Fina on the table, poured himself out a nervous whack. “I can’t take much more of this,” he said, leaning perilously far forward and speaking in a whisper. “Where did you get hold of this dirty old man?”
“I didn’t,” said Fedora, opening one eye. “I don’t know that I’d very much care to.”
“A beautiful specimen, beautiful,” hissed Trout savagely. “Pedanticus hirsutus, the Pomeranian waffler. Somebody ought to tell him that this gimmick went out with Conan Doyle.”
“You tell him,” said Fedora drowsily. A murderous glint entered Trout’s eye. “My friend Fedora,” he said vindictively, “is one of the laziest, the inconsideratest bastards in Andalusia. Why should I be the one that has to. . . . What was that, Professor?” He bared his teeth in some approximation to an amicable grin and leaned back cautiously in his chair. The Professor caught him efficiently by the sleeve of his jacket and began to give him details of the singularly revolting love-life of Balanus crenatus, the acorn barnacle. Fedora closed his eye once again.
When he returned to consciousness some twenty minutes later, the Professor was nowhere in sight and the level of the wine in the bottle was some inches lower than formerly. Trout sat opposite him with his glass in his hand, staring between his knees at the ground and betraying all the symptoms of advanced alcoholic stupor. “Has he gone?” asked Fedora, sitting up.
“What?” said Trout, jumping. “Oh, it’s you.”
“Who did you think it was?”
“Oh, I don’t know. I’m feeling a bit on edge if you want to know the truth. I’m going to dream about that old beanie tonight, I swear it.”
“Might be an improvement, at that, from the sort of thing you usually seem to dream about. Has he gone?”
“Oh yes, he’s gone. He said he wouldn’t wake you up just to say goodbye, because,” said Trout, a sadistic twist curling up the corner of his mouth, “he hopes to see us both again tomorrow.”
“Funny how we’re always meeting these peculiar types in the village. He’s nothing like as bad as the General.”
“My God, no,” said Trout. “Don’t talk to me about the General. Nearest thing I’ve ever seen to Gilles de Rais. Though if it comes to that, some of the things that old bird was saying just now were really a bit. . . . I mean, you wouldn’t think it of barnacles, you honestly wouldn’t. How anything so small and insignificant could be so utterly depraved.”
“They have such lost, degraded souls, no wonder they inhabit holes.”
“They don’t,” said Trout gloomily. “They don’t. You’re thinking of piddocks.”
Fedora wasn’t aware that he was thinking of anything in particular and was, on the whole, disposed to relish the state of mind that made such admirable abstraction possible. He sighed and leaned across towards the wine bottle. The body he thus extended was a shade under six feet in length, was spare, leggy and unostentatiously muscular, was terminated at one end by expensive blue suede shoes similar to those celebrated by Mr. Elvis Presley and others of that ilk and was gracefully concluded at the other by a thick mop of dark brown and mildly bewildered hair. The face directly beneath the hair was pleasant enough and attractively suntanned but was otherwise quite undistinguished, unless one happened to find the eyes—an impossibly light blue in tone and of a curious soft translucence—worthy of note. “Piddocks,” he said, for no other reason than that the word struck him as euphonious and therefore deserving of repetition. He poured out the wine.
“You
’d think,” said Trout, “I could manage to pick up something better than that. Here we arc just sitting at this bar all day, letting the talent float by. . . . Disgraceful, I call it.”
“Well, it won’t be as easy as you think. The word’ll have got round by now.”
“Word?” Trout looked belligerent. “What word?”
“I wouldn’t want to sully my lips.”
“Oh? So you wouldn’t sully, cully? Well, it’s all your fault if it’s anyone’s. Here I am, a quiet middle-aged gentleman of refined tastes, eking out my Civil Service pension in the pursuit of beauty and romance, traditional sanctity and loveliness—Sebastian Trout, the widows’ friend—seeking peace and harmony, thinking tranquil, elevated thoughts— yes, but to hear you talk, anyone’d think I’d just broken out of a provincial tour of The Summer of the Seventeenth Doll. It’s stinkers like you,” said Trout, “make me want to crap.”
“All right,” said Fedora. “Spare us the Restoration dialogue.” He wasn’t really listening, however. He was buying an evening paper from the village newsboy. Trout watched him absently as he shook it open. “Anything hot?”
“I don’t know yet. Let’s see. Yes. Moreno’s knocked off another.”
“Where?”
“Some village or other up in the mountains.”
“He’s really cutting a rug, that bastard is,” said Trout thoughtfully. “I’d hate to be a Spanish cop right now. I bet there’s some poor sod who’s having to change his trousers every five minutes while Slasher’s on the loose.”
“No need to be sordid,” said Fedora, his voice partially muffled by the raised newspaper. After a pause, “Are the Foreign Office worried?”
“Worried? Hell, no. They’re a thousand miles away. The people who have to worry are the people in the next street.” , “There’s something in that,” said Fedora. He went on reading. In the end, he let the paper slide down on to his lap; put up a hand to run it through his already rumpled hair. “Just how good was he, Tiddler? In the war?”
“How good? He was the top. There was you and him and Palli and Nobby de Meyrignac, and all the others left at the post. Unless you count Otto Skorzeny, and he wasn’t really I in the same game, was he? Nobby died a few years back, or so they tell me, and you killed Gino Palli yourself that time in Trieste. So that leaves just you and Moreno. It’s funny, really.”
