The End Game (7 page)

Disengaging herself without difficulty, Susan said, “No, Toby, I won’t.”

“Why not?”

“We shouldn’t deal well together.”

“You mean you’re too good for me?”

“I don’t mean anything of the sort. It’s a question of genes and hormones and miscibility.”

“I thought it was simpler than that,” said Toby gloomily. “I thought two people just had to love each other.”

“That’s the icing on the cake. Now sit down and be sensible. We’ve got to think this thing out. Do you really mean that if I refused the job he’s offering me he’d take it out of you?”

“Certainly.”

“He must be mad.”

“Not mad. Just touchy. There was a chap called Phil Edmunds in one of his other third-line companies. He pulled Blackett’s leg in public about wearing a Guards’ tie, which he certainly wasn’t entitled to, because as far as I know he was in the ack-ack. He blasted Phil out of his job and took a lot of trouble to see he didn’t get another one.”

“What a filthy thing to do.”

“Mind you, that’s one side of him. If he likes you, and believes in you, he backs you all the way. And he can be very easy to get along with.”

Susan said, “Oh.” It seemed to be one of her favourite remarks. Sometimes it was cold, sometimes noncommittal. On this occasion there seemed to be a hint of interest in it.

“Why don’t you give it a run? Martin’s all right, in his own way. And Sayborn Art Printers is a much bigger show than this.”

“I’ll think about it,” said Susan.

She was still thinking at eleven o’clock that night. If she was not thinking about Toby and Martin Brandreth and Blackett she must have been thinking about something, because she had been sitting for half an hour, in an armchair, in front of a blank television screen.

When the telephone on the low table beside the chair rang, she hesitated. Then she picked up the receiver.

David said, “It’s me.”

Susan said, “Oh!” Ten degrees below zero.

“I’ve got something important to say to you.”

“You’re drunk.”

“Certainly I’m drunk. If you’d had eight pints of beer and eight whiskies in eight different pubs you’d be drunk too.”

“I’d be unconscious,” said Susan resignedly. “But if you really have got something to say, say it. I’m tired. I want to go to bed.”

“Look,” said David. He spoke with the gravity of a statesman delivering an ultimatum. “You think that I’m just a good for nothing stupid clapped out boozed up Welsh wolf. Chase any tart with big boobs and dyed hair who’ll give me a ride for ten quid a bang. You’re a million light years out of date. All right. Some years ago I might have been. But that’s all finished.”

“And was that all you wanted to say?”

“All I wanted to say. All finished.”

“Go to bed,” said Susan and replaced the receiver. Then she stretched out her hand again, this time to switch off the tape recorder.

Rayhome Tours operated from a building near the British Museum. The ground floor was an art bookshop. A narrow staircase, with its own entrance door, on the left of the shop led up to the second and third storeys, which were all Rayhome.

“It’s not much to look at,” said Paula, the well-built blonde who presided over Reception. “But then, we don’t see a lot of our customers. Most of our business is done by post. It’s you who deals with the customers, Mr Morgan.”

“David.”

“David, then.”

David looked at the plaque on the desk which said, “Miss Welham.” He said, “And I’m sure you’ve got another name, too.”

“Suppose I have.”

“I shall have to know it, shan’t I.”

“Why?”

“How do you think I can take you out for a drink this evening if I don’t know your first name? Have a port and lemon, Miss Welham. It doesn’t sound right.”

“Do you always ask a girl out for a drink the first day you meet her?”

“Only the beautiful ones.”

“Go on with you.”

A telephone buzzer sounded beside the reception desk. Paula said, “Yes, Mr Cheverton. He’s here. I’ll send him along.” And to David, “It’s the second door on the left.”

David seemed in no hurry. He said, “There are two Mr Chevertons. Which one was that?”

“That’s Bob. He’s the younger brother. They’re neither of them all that young, really.”

“The years pass,” said David. “Our hair gets thinner, our teeth fewer, our breath shorter.”

“You’ll be short of a job if you don’t hurry.”

Both Mr Chevertons were in the large front office. As Paula had said, they were past their first youth, but still impressive figures—thick-set, muscular, with the confidence which comes from running a successful business in a highly competitive market.

Bob Cheverton said, “Sit down. This is my brother Ronald.”

“Pleased to meet you,” said David politely.

The older Cheverton smiled bleakly, but said nothing.

“We’ll explain the job to you. If you don’t like the sound of it, it’s not too late to back out.”

“Tell me the worst, then.”

“You’ll find it easy enough. Once you get the hang of it. We run regular twelve-day tours. Leave on Thursday morning, back first thing Monday. You get Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday off. Three days every fortnight. Then you start again. France and Italy alternately. We used to do Germany, but the exchange rate killed it. Do you speak French?”

“Enough to order a drink.”

“Let’s hear you do it,” said Ronald Cheverton.

“Donnez-moi, s’il vous plait, un whisky avec un peu de glace et un Gordon’s avec Martini.”

“Now you’re in Italy.”

“Perfavoure, un po’di vino.”

Bob Cheverton said. “O.K. You should get past. We’ve got our own coaches. Two of them. Custom-built for the job. A third one for emergencies or extra tours. Collings, he’s our regular driver—can do any talking at the garage. He’s been doing the job for years and is very reliable. So listen to what he says.”

“His words shall be as gospel to me.”

Ronald Cheverton said, “You’re Welsh, aren’t you? That means you’ve the gift of the gab. See you use it. The people you’ll be looking after are mostly middle-class and respectable. Maybe the first time they’ve ever been abroad. They like being talked to.”

“Perhaps a funny story, every now and then.”

“As long as it’s funny,” said Bob.

“And clean,” said Ronald.

“Next thing. We’ve got the routine for the paperwork lined up. All you have to do is follow the rules.” He indicated a bag standing beside the desk. David had noticed it when he came in. It was made of black leather, a solid, heavy job with a steel locking bar along the top and two handles.

“That’s your baby. You don’t let it out of your sight by day and lock it up in your room at night. It carries all the passports, all the tickets and reservations and a float of exactly a hundred quid in cash for emergencies. Also, it’s got your log book. Every day you write down in it how the trip’s gone. Notes about the accommodation. Notes of complaints. Things like that. You get me?”

“I get you.”

“When you arrive back after a trip, you come straight in here, as soon as you get off the coach, and you hand in that bag.”

“So you can see the cash is still there,” said David with a grin.

“So we can see everything’s there,” said Bob unsmiling. “The cash is the least important. You lose someone’s passport, and there’ll be hell to pay. All right. Any questions so far?”

“When do I get paid?”

“You get two weeks’ pay when you get back.”

“When do I start?”

“Tomorrow. At nine o’clock.”

David stopped on the way out to have a word with Paula. He said, “I’ve got the job. That calls for a celebration.”

“Meaning you and me?”

“Who else, lovely. When do you get away?”

“Half past five.”

“Meet you at Henekeys, in High Holborn, at six.”

“I might be there,” said Paula.

“That’s the girl.”

“Just look at those cows,” said Mrs Fairbrass. Being French cows, they were different and, even after three days of travel, were still exciting.

“What do you suppose that building on the hill up there is?” said Miss Prothero. “It looks as if it ought to be a church, but isn’t it an odd shape!”

The bus was negotiating the twisting road which skirts the northern foothills of the Pyrenees.

“That, ladies, is a Mormon chapel,” said David.

“Mormons,” said Miss Prothero. “What an idea. I don’t believe they allow Mormons in France. Do they, Mr Collings?”

Collings was concentrating on his driving. He was a middle-aged man with a face like an on-course bookmaker and a useful pair of shoulders on him. He grunted and said that they allowed anything in France.

“Indeed, France is very tolerant of strange religions,” said David. “You’ll find more chapels and tabernacles and meeting houses in a French village than you will in a village in Wales. And, believe me, ladies, that’s saying something.”

“What sort of religions?” said Miss Prothero suspiciously.

“Anabaptists, Second Adventists, White Mohammedans, Fifth Monarchy Men, Druids.”

“Now really, Mr Morgan,” said Mrs Fairbrass. “The others I might swallow, but I can’t swallow Druids. He’s not telling the truth, is he, Mr Collings?”

“All Welshmen are liars,” said Collings.

It had been an agreeable trip so far, starting with a smooth Channel crossing and two days of sunshine. Rayhome Tours believed in taking things easy. Late starts, short runs, good meals. From David’s point of view the only difficulty he could foresee was how he was going to fill in his spare time.

He expressed this thought to Collings that evening in a hotel in the outskirts of Pau. They were sharing a double bedroom, as they always did.

“Depends what you want,” said Collings. He had been shaving and was now dabbing after-shave lotion on to his chin and neck. “Me, I usually go and find a woman.”

“In a respectable town like this?”

“You can find a woman anywhere if you know where to look. Cost you about a hundred francs.”

“I’ll have to wait till I get paid before I go in for anything like that.”

Collings completed his toilet and paused at the door to say, “Watch that bag. Better lock it in that cupboard
and
lock the door when you go out.”

David regarded the bag with disfavour. He said, “What I’d have done would be hand it over to the hotel office and forget about it.”

“Orders are, don’t let it out of your sight by day. Lock it up in your room at night. Don’t trust hotel safes. First place a thief would make for.”

Standing at the window, David watched Collings padding off down the street. He thought that if he was a girl he wouldn’t fancy a bout with Collings. There was a dangerous and disturbing animal quality about him.

“Well, da, it’s not you who’s got to share his attentions,” he said. “Now let’s have a look at you.” He unlocked the black bag and tipped the contents out on to the bed. Passports, tickets, a thick folder of correspondence with hotels and a number of brochures. The log book in which he had not yet got round to making an entry. An unsealed brown envelope which contained bank notes.

David took them out and counted them. They were new notes and tended to stick together, making counting difficult. It took him two recounts to confirm that what he had was not a hundred pounds, but one hundred ten. He looked thoughtfully at the money before returning it all to the envelope.

He went across to his own case and took out, from underneath the clothes, a finely graduated steel rule and the sort of spring balance with a hook on the bottom that fishermen use for weighing their catch. Placing the black bag empty on the chest of drawers, he first weighed it carefully. Then he measured its depth, inside and outside, and repeated the process, measuring it across, in two places, from side to side.

“Tried and acquitted on all counts,” said David. He had been suspicious of the bag from the moment he saw it and would not have been surprised to find that it had a false bottom or double sides with concealed pockets in them. Apparently not so.

He replaced the contents, relocked the bag, locked it in the wall cupboard, pocketed both keys and went out, locking the door behind him.

At Grasse Mrs Fairbrass and Miss Prothero, who had struck up a holiday friendship with her, were discussing their new courier.

“Nicer than the last one,” said Miss Prothero.

This was undeniable. His predecessor, David gathered, a man called Watterson, had been morose, monosyllabic and, by the end of the trip, almost permanently drunk.

“I think he’s very nice,” said Mrs Fairbrass. “My late husband came from Dolgelly. It’s a pleasure to hear a Welsh voice.”

“He certainly does a lot of talking.”

“And those stories he tells.”

“A bit near the knuckle, some of them. That one about the Baptist minister and the budgerigar.”

“You laughed as loudly as anyone.”

“It was funny, the way he told it.”

“I think he’s a most unusual man,” said Mrs Fairbrass. “There’s something about him. It’s difficult to explain. As though there’s more in him than meets the eye.”

“Depths within depths.”

“I’ll tell you what. Why don’t we ask him out to dinner tonight?”

“Go to a restaurant, you mean,” said Miss Prothero, mentally counting her spare cash.

“I’ll pay,” said Mrs Fairbrass. “I’ve brought plenty of money.”

“All right. Let’s ask him. It’ll be a change from the hotel.”

Mr Morgan expressed himself as charmed by the invitation, and the three of them spent a very pleasant evening. By the end of it he knew a lot about them and had given them an interesting account of his own youth in the valleys. It appeared that his father had been a miner and that he, David, had succeeded, due to the coaching of a devoted schoolmistress, in winning a scholarship to Oxford.

“How did it go?” said Bob Cheverton.

“All right,” said Collings. “He was a great hit with the pussies.”

“In other ways, I mean.”

“Okay so far. At least he’s honest. I gave him every chance to help himself to a couple of fivers.”

“That’s something, I suppose. And he seems to have written up his log all right.” He was flicking through the book, page after page covered by Morgan’s scrawling writing. “What’s all this about trouble at Dijon?”