Poll was breathing hard, and the sweat had begun to drip from the end of his goatee. ‘So what do you suggest?’
Packer put his hands on his knees and gave Pol a solemn, patronizing frown. ‘Everybody else seems to be behaving so badly in this affair, I think it’s perhaps about time we set an example and started being moral. The Ruler — or someone — has paid us all good money to do a difficult and dangerous job. I think it’s only right that we should carry out our original instructions, and do just what we’ve been paid to do. We kill the Ruler — before he kills us.’
Pol was still laughing as he slopped more brandy into his glass. His belly seemed to have swollen to its normal proportions, and now wobbled and shook inside its folds of silk, while his eyes were soaked pink. Packer’s words had even restored colour to his cheeks.
‘Before you drink any more,’ Packer said, ‘where’s the equipment?’
Poll had to pause and dab a tissue to his eyes before he could reply. ‘It has all been sent to your hotel — don’t worry.’
‘To the Chesa? You must be mad!’
Pol raised his free hand soothingly as he tottered back to the sofa. ‘You must not be so nervous, mon cher. The material has all been prepared in genuine sporting wrappings. They are even ready to be taken up the mountain, as we discussed.’ He sank with a great grunt into the sofa and smiled. The shadow had passed: Charles Auguste Pol was himself again.
Packer said, ‘A pair of Armalites — mint condition — self-adjusting telescopic sights; two packets with six rounds each. Right?’
‘Tout en règle,’ Pol said cheerfully. ‘I have also acquired the very latest Japanese radios, no larger than a cigarette packet.’ He winked. ‘And I’ve even made some discreet enquiries among certain Swiss friends of mine, and have determined the two wavelengths used out here by the army and the police. You will find that all three sets have been adjusted accordingly. Which brings me to another little matter — our charming accomplice, Mademoiselle Sarah.’ He gave a playful nod and lifted his glass in a mock toast. ‘You have not told her yet?’
‘Not yet.’
‘And when do you intend to?’
‘When the time is right.’
‘Mon cher, you make it sound like a proposal of marriage!’ He winked again. ‘She will not refuse you, I promise you.’
Packer sat and scowled across the room at him. ‘You and Sarah make a bloody marvellous couple,’ he muttered. ‘Big-hearted Uncle Charles and his naughty little wayward niece, playing games at killing people on the skiing slopes of Klosters.’ He stood up and pulled on his anorak, folding the map again carefully in the inside pocket. ‘When are you leaving here. Monsieur Cassis?’
‘Soon, Mister Burton,’ Pol replied with a short bow. ‘When the times comes for us to meet again, I shall know how to find you. Now —’ he looked ostentatiously at his watch — ‘I think it is time you went in search of your Sarah before she falls prey to the advances of these abominable après-ski scavengers.’
Packer crossed to the door, then stopped. ‘By the way, what happened today that upset you so much?’
‘Ah, no — just a moment of depression. Le cafard, mon cher. Only fools are permanently happy.’
‘Goodnight, Charles.’ As Packer opened the door he knew that Pol had not been telling the truth. He wondered what this sly French bastard now had in mind for poor Ryderbeit. But the matter was still in Packer’s hands: and Packer had already decided what he was going to do.
CHAPTER 18
It was 8.30 p.m. when Packer got back to the Chesa; but few people in Klosters dined much before 9.00, so he ran no more than the usual risk of missing Sarah.
The desk clerk informed him that Miss Laval-Smith had returned an hour ago, but had since come down again and left her key. A quantity of skiing equipment had also been delivered to their room in the past hour, Packer was told. He took his key and thanked the clerk, just hoping Sarah hadn’t had the chance to open the parcels already.
She had left her mark on the room with as much unruly panache as Pol: the dressing-table was littered with bottles and jars and greasy cotton balls; while both beds were draped with dresses which she had discarded for the evening. He reflected, with mournful irony, that while in her mews flat in Knightsbridge she maintained a regime of tyrannical tidiness — even ordering Packer never to leave the lavatory seat up, because that was ‘ugly’ — the moment she was abroad, liberated by foreign servants in strange hotels, she lapsed into slovenly detente.
The only contradictory note was a message scrawled in blood-red lipstick across the bathroom mirror: ‘DO YOU ALWAYS LEAVE YOUR DIRTY WATER IN AFTER HAVINGABATH???’ — the final three words elided for lack of space. She had added no indication of where she had gone, or when she would be returning.
Then he saw the parcels. There were three of them, piled on the luggage stand inside the door, and they had obviously not been disturbed. There were two zipped-up plastic packs, like golf bags, each bearing the distinctive red and white markings of Hartmann Products — manufacturers of the latest make of short, high-speed, fibreglass ski, with patent safety bindings.
