Ryderbeit looked up as a plump blonde waitress appeared. He ordered a bottle of white wine, gave her a lewd wink with his good eye, and she walked swiftly away.
He looked back at Packer and grinned. ‘Look, soldier, I don’t mind listening to your advice, just as long as you don’t expect me to take it. You were taught by the rule book — the British army rule book. That means you’re a professional. And the professionals teach you that top-grade assassins, like master spies, are supposed to be grey, faceless men — they merge with the crowd and disappear in the mist. You think I look like a top international assassin?’
Packer stared irritably at the slopes, where the first skiers were appearing above the woods, now that the Gotschnagrat had been reopened following the Ruler’s afternoon run. He had to concede that Ryderbeit’s reasoning contained a degree of specious logic.
‘Out of the four days we’ve been here,’ he said, ‘on three of them the Ruler’s come down the same run, at exactly the same time. The cable car’s closed to tourists at 3.30. At 3.40 he and his entourage go aboard, and at four o’clock he gets out at the top of the Gotschnagrat. We know from yesterday that he doesn’t hang around at the restaurant, except to put on his skis.’
The waitress arrived with a bottle of wine, showed it to Ryderbeit, then drew the cork and poured a glass, keeping her face averted from his Cyclopean leer. He lifted the glass and squinted over the rim, watching her broad hips swaying away between the tables. ‘I could sure slip her a length,’ he murmured. ‘You don’t suppose the Fat Man could fix me up with something, do you? I mean, do you think one of the big hotels here might run a service?’ He saw Packer’s grin and stopped. ‘Ah, forget it. I guess a Swiss brothel’s what you’d call the ultimate contradiction in terms, like a driving licence in Braille?’
They both laughed. ‘Why a brothel?’ said Packer. ‘Surely there’s enough stuff running around on the slopes?’
‘Yeah.’ Ryderbeit emptied his glass and poured himself another. ‘It’s okay for you, soldier. You’ve got that nice bit of fluff tucked away waiting for you down in the Chesa Hotel — while all Samuel D. Ryderbeit’s got is a B-grade pension with a narrow little bed and a few dirty handkerchiefs. Incidentally, just when am I to have the gracious honour of meeting your famous Miss Duval-Smithington-Jones, or whatever she’s called? Even Fat Man says she’s quite an eyeful — and that’s some compliment, considering the krauts chopped off his nuts more than a quarter of a century ago.’ He leaned closer to Packer. ‘He says she’s a pretty classy number. You worried I might frighten her?’
‘She can look after herself,’ Packer said dully.
‘Yeah, I bet she can. Your English upper classes aren’t licked yet, that’s for sure. They stick together like the bloody Masons.’
Packer said nothing: he was thinking of Sarah, preening herself in the tearoom of the Chesa Grishuna — she was too lazy to ski — and no doubt succeeding, with that subtle, effortless allure, in insinuating herself into some smart corner of Klosters’ international set.
The day after they had arrived here from Geneva, Packer had phoned her in London, catching her on the third call at 2.20 a.m., and had invited her out, paying for her air ticket, first-class return, from his £50,000 — a symbolically extravagant first nibble at his numbered nest egg.
She had accepted at once, telling him that the owner of the Bond Street gallery had gone to New York and she had a free week. Packer, who had not consulted Pol beforehand, had anticipated some resistance from the Frenchman — perhaps for fear that Sarah would attract the attention of the Ruler’s ubiquitous retainers, who were to be found at all times of day, and most of the night, sitting alone or in pairs in every big café and restaurant in the town. But Pol, who had taken up residence in the Silvretta Hotel — where he was rarely to be found — had been quite delighted by the prospect of her arrival.
Ryderbeit had finished his third glass of wine and was lighting a cigar. ‘Let me tell you something, soldier — you get yourself snarled up in the ruling classes, and you’ve got to be either a masochist or a sadist. In my case, I preferred the role of sadist.’
‘You’ve had experience, then?’
‘Three times. My first two wives were Brits out of the top drawer — South African Brits, which is even worse. The third was heiress to a Bolivian tin mine, and Big Daddy didn’t approve of her marrying a Red Sea Pedestrian.’ Packer looked puzzled. ‘Jew to you, soldier. Anyway, they were three real rich bitches, no worries. And they all loved me madly, and I treated them like dog shit. The second one didn’t just divorce me, she got me thrown out of the bloody White Republic.’
‘For what?’
‘We had a bit of a fight.’
‘Just a fight?’
‘Well —’ Ryderbeit peered over his glass at a pair of slim tanned girls in matching white fur hats — ‘well, I did a bit of handiwork with some scissors. Snipped off a nipple. Jo’burg police weren’t too pleased about that. I did a year in the can, then they stamped something rude in my passport and bade me farewell.’
Packer sat and watched the skiers winding gracefully down the slopes. He tapped the Polaroid snap on the table. ‘You don’t
