Nudge. He showed me the time. Two hours, the daylight not yet fading but definitely less encouraging than it was. Motors revved, cars lined up to one side of the mansion house. No marquees today, no tents or awnings, no sherry on the lawns. Some uniformed drivers smoked, one reading a paper. All cars were left-hand drive, Continental design. Pascal stirred, hands asking if that was it.
No, I gestured back. I opened my palms, fingers asplay as if holding a large ball. Many more to come, I indicated, though, waggle waggle, I still wasn’t sure of the number.
How many, then? He was becoming edgy, scanning the sky. What for, helicopters? Dusk? Some additional help he’d requested should things start to go wrong and the whole syndicate looked likely to escape? Or something much much worse?
He indicated, drawing an imaginary net tight, that he’d got them in the sack, all the evil swine in one. Why delay? I shook my head. More would come, hold on, wait.
No sign of anything flying overhead. No signals from the trees. Nothing that I could think of or see. Only Pascal, finally watching me more than he watched the mansion house in the clearing below. I smiled a bit at him now and then, showing willing, offered him some of my tea, tried his coffee with a grimace. Not a single smile now, nothing but wary glances. It began to nark me. What the hell could I do, with the daylight now definitely losing interest and the mansion-house lights starting to come on, and me stuck up on a hillside in a plank shed with a cop? For Christ’s sake, I thought, narked. You’re a frigging copper, not Tracker Joe Wilderness. Get a grip, Pascal.
The motor came at last. Paulie’s, the same one I’d driven in to visit hospital that day. No need to be prompted now. I was all attention. Without having even to focus, I saw Paulie halt his motor, leap out and scurry round to the opposite door, open it.
She looked smart, trendy even. And stern. She simply gave no acknowledgement of his politeness, and sternly swept by without a look into the mansion house.
Cissie always did run true to form. Katta heaved her enormously beauteous bulk from the low motor, and walked round the back of the building with one of the chauffeurs who’d been having a smoke leaning on the bonnet of his Bentley. I felt glad Katta’d be out of it, when whatever it was happened.
My finger gave Pascal pause. By now he was hopping from foot to foot, less taciturn than he’d ever been in his entire life, I shouldn’t wonder. One more yet to come, I mimed, stabbing the air. Keep looking. Wait, wait. Hold them off, whoever they were.
And even as I recovered my binoculars, his motor arrived. Marc got out of the car, chucked the keys indolently to one of the other drivers, and walked into the building. I’m sure it was him. He carried a large suitcase-size thing, not so large he had to trundle it on wheels. I said nothing, just started a slow counting on my fingers, clearly trying to work out if I’d forgotten anybody. No, that was about it.
Still I waited. Why? Nudge from Pascal. He even scribbled me a line on his barmy notepaper, his pencil shaky, all over the place. I went
I wanted his watch. He had an unbelievable three, honest to God, three, ripped one off savagely, thrust it at me. I stared at the hands, counting, my lips moving to show him I was on the job.
Marc would go into the assembly room. Only the syndicate would be allowed in, nobody else. That was their pattern. I saw the whole glitterati lot—can we take our drinks in? How much will the pay-out be? What claim we shall put in to the insurers? Isn’t Colonel Marimee coming, then? Shame! Monique gorgeous, lovely, taking the place of honour on the dais. Would there be a rostrum? Lights?
Marc’d be going in now, smiling, handshakes, proud.
They would be chattering, talking of their expected riches. Claim for tons of priceless furniture in the Repository, share out. What were their expectations, really, when all was said and done? They’d have the perfect money machine, for slavery is eternal, pure, elementary, a model of perfection. Everybody’s fatal siren call.
One minute fifteen seconds. Tick tick, silent second “hand but shuddering me with its mute force. One eighteen, twenty.
What orders had Colonel Marimee given Marc the killer? To activate some switch on the case in the meeting? Probably. Or would the case be on auto? Or externally controlled perhaps? Had he told Marc it was an aiming beam for his famous flash mortar? Marc would believe he’d have a few minutes to get clear…
“Your watch, ta,” I said, returning it.
One minute forty seconds, plenty. “Go now. No more, I’m sure.”
Pascal flipped a switch on a small box thing strapped to his shoulder and yelled into it, over and over again. It sounded like “Lay-lay-lay-lay…!“ He hurtled from the place leaving me alone, looking out at the building through the foliage. A motorcycle engine sawed the air, Pascal running like a rabbit through the trees towards the road.
A
The drivers were bewildered down there. Two had run towards the mansion, then withdrawn. Maids and waiters emerged, scattering, shrieking, pointing. Katta came, smoothing down her skirt, perhaps from some motor parked behind the house.
A man came staggering round the side of the house, blood on his head, trying to wipe it. The drivers took him, shouting, beckoning. Some went to the edge of the drive, peering at the back of the building’s west wing. Two thought, dived into their motors, stood free with car phones in action. A few windows had billowed out, sharding on the lawn. No smoke, no sign of fire, no bright flames. One thing, Marimee did a precision job, every single time.
An explosion, I guessed, in the syndicate’s meeting. There’d be grave injuries, I shouldn’t wonder, even deaths.
Helicopters headed over the trees, shining headlights. Four. Another, distantly, higher. Searchlights of amazing power. Motors shrieked and
