Murray nodded, closing his eyes and feeling the masseuse’s cool manipulating fingers working down his chest and over his belly, and tried to distract his fear and disappointment by thoughts of the girl’s little shadowy breasts under her crisp white coat — half opening his eyes to see that Pol had gone, and that she was smiling down at him, pearl-teethed as he lay wishing he were not so bored by these oriental girls — by their slavish charms and twittering, docile attentions. He lay erect and unembarrassed, wondering idly about the amatory arrangements of the Rama Hotel. Nothing too coarse for the grey-skinned tourists: yet nothing too pure for the high and mighty Dollar.
At the same time he was vaguely, uncomfortably aware of something being wrong. Some random word, some remark mislaid in a half-empty chamber of his mind — worrying him suddenly like grit in a shoe. He remembered Pol’s earlier offer, on the telephone that morning, to have lunch with him in his suite. It would no doubt be a good lunch; and in any case Murray had nothing else to do.
The girl had run his bath, and he was just stepping in, when it came to him — sharp and sudden as physical pain, with a shock that almost had him leaping out of the water like a hooked salmon.
On the phone to Pol that morning he had said nothing about how Finlayson had died; and there had been no mention in any of the local newspapers, English or French, of the peculiar murder weapon. Yet Pol had talked of a ten-centimetre nail — of ‘bandits attacking me in my sleep’.
Murray contained his urge to dress in a hurry and run. He gave his girl an ample tip; then, calculating that Pol would be already upstairs, he made his way along to the lifts.
CHAPTER 2
The light from outside was very strong, even through the half-drawn Venetian blinds. It fell in yellow stripes across the carpet and the muted plain decor. It fell on Pol, standing in front of the balcony windows in his bulging blue silk suit, striped green and ultraviolet like some psychedelic jungle creature. Pig-Buddha or sly fat cat? Murray wondered: for all associations with Pol had now become animal in his mind — even feline and soft-footed, as he stood balancing on a pair of tiny ballet slippers, smiling over his pointed beard.
‘Murray, I have ordered champagne.’
Murray smiled back: ‘In a carton?’
Pol shook his head: ‘I don’t think they’d try the same trick twice — do you?’
‘No. I don’t think they even tried it once.’
‘No?’ The smile hardened; but neither of them moved. Murray said: ‘Let’s see it, Charles. You didn’t call in the police, so it must still be here. Where is it?’
At that moment there came a tap on the door. Pol moved with surprising speed. ‘Who is there?’ he called in English, and suddenly there was a gun in his hand — a small blunt weapon which he held cradled behind his back.
A voice from the other side said something that Murray did not catch, and Pol said ‘Come in’ — slipping the gun back into his trouser pocket as the Thai waiter appeared with a tray of champagne in an ice-bucket and two tulip glasses. Pol nodded him towards the balcony, handing him a ten-baht note as he went out again.
The door closed and Pol came across grinning. Murray stood in the centre of the room, watching him, undecided. There was always the chance of a mistake: a special report in one of the Cambodian papers, secret information that Pol might have come by in his mysterious capacity as adviser to the Sihanouk regime. He said again: ‘The bottle of Hine, Charles. I’d like to see it.’
Pol sighed, his pudgy little hands swaying at his side. ‘Some champagne first?’
‘The brandy first. The plastique.’
‘You really want to see it?’
‘That’s what I said.’
Pol gave him a quick, almost sorrowful glance; then, with a shrug, turned and padded over to a writing desk under the windows. Murray followed him. Pol was bending down with a creak of silk as Murray moved up behind him, making no sound on the carpet. Pol saw him and began to turn, one hand reaching into his trouser pocket, and Murray jumped him.
He threw one arm in a lock round his neck, jamming it up into the rolls of fat under his throat until the Frenchman began to choke, while his free hand dived down to the pocket with the gun. Pol lurched for a moment, then suddenly, with a great lunge, dragged Murray forward across his back, grabbing at one ankle while Murray’s hand scrabbled down across the man’s tight-stretched thighs, trying to reach the gun. Pol grunted and hissed, his neck bulging slimy with sweat, silk splitting under his armpits — until, with a final mighty heave, Murray’s feet left the floor.
Together they now began a grotesque piggy-back round the floor — almost in silence except for Pol’s snorting and spluttering, staggering with Murray lying almost flat across his shoulders, his trousers riding up his legs, his face pulled down against the short damp hairs at the back of Pol’s neck, stifled by the sudden sweet stench of sweat and Eau de Vétiver.
He tightened his grip on Pol’s throat, but it seemed to have little effect. The man’s strength was astonishing; and Murray was beginning to grow desperate — thinking of abandoning what was left of the Queensberry Rules and going for the eyes — when Pol gave a short squeal and sat down with a
