Die Rich Die Happy

'But you can't—you mustn't,' said Swyven.

'I have no choice,' said Craig. 'Neither have you. Come on.'

Swyven looked at him, despairingly, then rang the

bell.

Amparo, the Spanish housekeeper, opened it at once, and they went through the hall and into the little drawing room that his mother made so gay and attractive, and Amparo said nothing at all. No doubt because the other beast was there. She usually found enough to nag him about. And then he realized. Of course, they would be expecting him. That awful fat man would have rung up and said things. Then they were at the drawing-room door, and Amparo knocked, then stood aside as they went in, and the first thing he saw was his father, and my God his father looked old, so old, and then there was his mother, coming to him, her arms out, saying: 'Mark, darling,' and Swyven was happy in her embrace.

Craig said to the old man, letting him see his mouth as Loomis had told him: 'I think we'd better talk in private, sir,' and Swyven said: 'Yes, of course,' and led the way into a study crammed with the treasured junk of a lifetime. Charts and sextants, commemorative silver ashtrays, samurai swords, Chinese idols, Indian brasswork, photographs of Fiji, Sydney Harbor, Capetown, New York, Bombay, and of the Aegean. Temples, churches, bays, and M.T.B.'s and caiques at anchor, and a convoy under attack, and suddenly Craig remembered Lord Swyven, and wished that of all the rotten jobs he'd been handed, he might have been spared this one.

'Hope you'll excuse the clutter,' Swyven said. 'I used to be in the Navy. Started bringing things back for

Jane—my wife, you know. It all seemed to end up in here.' He floundered in an agony of embarrassment. 'Like a drink?'

'Yes, sir,' said Craig and hoped the old man would have one too, and relax just a little. Swyven poured two whiskeys and pushed over the soda siphon. The two men nodded at each other and drank. Swyven made an enormous effort at self-control and said at last: 'Now then, what's my son been up to this time?'

Craig said: 'It's bad.'

'I didn't think you'd make my wife a thief just to arrest my son for a misdemeanor.'

'The charges have been withdrawn, sir.'

'So I should bloody well hope. But my wife hasn't. She still has to go out and let people see her.'

'We had to have him, sir. There wasn't any other

way.'

'What has he done?'

'He's working for Zaarb,' said Craig, 'and Zaarb's working for Red China. He's going to send cobalt to Peking.'

'You're sure?'

'Quite sure, sir. We found some of the stuff on a Greek island—Dyton-Blease's place.' The old man nodded. 'It's like no other cobalt in the world, sir. Tremendously— rich, the physicists call it. That means high-yield explosions in very small warheads. And you won't need a very sophisticated atomic pile to get it. In fact the Chinese have already exploded one.'

'But why on earth—?'

'He hopes we may be involved in Zaarb in a couple of years. And if we are, the Chinese might lend the Zaarbists the odd bomb. If we did have to go in, it would be a naval strike action. Like Suez. One bomb could finish a whole fleet. He doesn't like us, sir, and he hates the Navy. He thinks one bomb like that is the lesson the imperialists need.'

'He's right, of course. It would drive the American Fifth Fleet straight out of the Med.' He paused. 'You really think they'd use it?'

They'd have to, sir—if Zaarb gets Chinese backing, and if we're forced into attacking first.'

'Have you—stopped him, then?'

'We think so, sir.'

'Will he stand trial?'

'No,' said Craig. 'He's done nothing that we can prove—in law.'

'What about his cousin? Dyton-Blease?'

Craig said carefully: 'He met with an accident. I understand he's a very sick man.'

'An accident,' said Swyven. 'Of course. It would be.' He drank.

'So,' he said, 'your troubles are over.' Craig shrugged. 'What happens to my son?'

'He can go back to Venice,' said Craig, 'li he does anything stupid, we know how to reach him.'

'Yes,' said the old man. 'You're in a very dirty business.' Craig drank his whiskey. 'You trump up charges that wreck an old woman's life so that you can blackmail her stupid, clever, homosexual son into coming into your clutches. The one thing with guts in it poor Mark ever did. And for what?'

'To prevent a massacre,' said Craig.

Swyven sighed. 'Never argue with Intelligence. They always have the last word,' he said. 'Look ah—er—No good asking your name, I suppose?'

'I'd only he to you.'

'Yes. Well. Can he have a few days with us—with his mother?'

'Yes,' said Craig. 'He can do that. He mustn't leave the house.'

'I'll guarantee that,' said Swyven.

'Yes, sir,' Craig said. 'He'll be watched anyway. There's nothing I can do about that.'

'I beheve you,' Swyven said. 'You want a word with his mother?'

Craig said at once, 'No, sir. Just pass the message

on.'

'I will,' Swyven said, then, with an old man's delight in his memory outweighing everything else: 'I remember you.'

'I don't think so,' said Craig.

'You went on a raid to Andraki. Had to shoot the schoolmaster—he was a Resistance leader until the Gestapo got him. You killed a lot of Germans that night. I doubt if you were nineteen years old.'

'I think you're mistaken, sir,' said Craig. The old man hesitated.

'Of course I'm mistaken,' he said. 'Nothing's what it seems to be anymore. I'll show you out.'

He took Craig past the drawing room and Craig had a sudden glimpse of a man kneeling by a chair, weeping, while an old woman stroked his hair. He kept on going. Outside there were a couple of Special Branch men, Detective Chief Inspector Linton's squad. He got into the Jaguar and drove off to Regent's Park.

· · *

When he got there, Pia was giving a party. The room swarmed with actors and agents of the kind to be found in the Pickwick, or Gerry's, or the Buckstone, sleek people, successful people, witty people, the people who had made it, or who were on the way there, or who were simply seen around, and in the middle of them Pia in gold lame pants just that essential bit too tight and a frilled and frothy blouse in explosive red, looking as Italian as minestrone soup.

'John,' she screamed. 'Angel,' and dashed across to him, embraced him, dragged liim into his own flat as if he were an unwilling guest. 'John,' she said, 'this is Howard and Margot and Eddy and Alan and Rachel and—oh, you'll soon know everyone. Somebody give John a drink please.

'Here,' said Eddy, a plump, durable producer. 'Try some of this.'

Craig looked at the glass of champagne.

'Nasty spumante,' said Eddy.

'We must be celebrating,' said Craig.

'Indeed we are. Pia's just signed with us for a thirteen-part TV series. The Woman in the Case. She's going to be great.'

'I'll say she is,' said Rachel, 'and believe me I should know. I'm her agent. Who are you with, darling?' 'I don't act,' said Craig.

'Don't you, darling? I thought you might be a stunt-man. You look like a stuntman.' I'm in nuts and bolts.'

'What hell for you, darling. So uncomfortable.'