‘So? What’s he done?’
‘He’s buggered off, that’s all.’
‘And the guns?’ Ryderbeit said, in a hushed whisper, even against the music.
‘I think you’d better come upstairs, Sammy, to my room. Sarah’ll be busy for hours. I’ve got something rather amusing to show you.’
He put Sarah’s full glass of Chablis on the floor in the corner, and led the way back to the door.
‘Frankly, boy, I don’t see what our problem is.’ Ryderbeit had come over and was sitting on the bed opposite Packer, where he refreshed his glass from what was left of the bottle of vodka that Sarah had bought in the Duty Free at Heathrow. He was still wearing his hat but had taken off his dark glasses. His good eye now had a raw glitter, though he seemed otherwise in full control.
‘Just look at it realistically,’ he went on: ‘What have we got and what have we lost? Well, we both got ourselves a nice few smackers in our respective banks for doing fuck all. We’ve had a week’s skiing on the firm. We’ve each picked up a bloody good camera and pair of kraut binoculars. And now it seems we’ve had a last-minute bonus — two sets of Hartmann skis. And those things aren’t cheap, I tell you.’ He leaned back on the pillow and drank contentedly.
‘And another thing,’ he went on: ‘I also got myself a lovely new identity — Daniel Spice-Handler, remember? Company Director, Tel Aviv.’ He drained the glass, then held it up and twirled it lovingly between his long supple fingers. ‘I just don’t see what you’re getting so windy about, soldier. Fat Man’s scarpered. So what? He’s not our bloody nanny.’
Packer looked at the lean hooked profile under the brim of the sealskin hat, and wondered if Ryderbeit were just a fool who managed to survive, or a cunning scoundrel who played at being a fool. Since coming up to the room, Packer had told him everything — with the exception of Pol’s little gift from Grima; and he had only omitted it because he felt that, in some ambiguous way, it humiliated him in his relations with Sarah. Besides, Ryderbeit would probably insist on reselling it and splitting the profit.
Packer said at last, ‘So you really think we can walk out of this as though nothing has happened?’
‘Why not? We ain’t done anything illegal. Who’s gonna stop us?’
‘His Serene Imperial Highness in the chalet up the hill — for one. And he’s enough, as far as I’m concerned.’
‘Sod His Serene Highness,’ Ryderbeit said cheerfully. ‘This is Switzerland, remember — not the bloody Sands of Araby.’
‘It doesn’t matter if it’s Switzerland or Swaziland. A man like the Ruler doesn’t do his own laundry, you know.’
Ryderbeit turned his head and gave Packer a sleepy stare. ‘All right, soldier, piss off back to London with that rich little bitch of yours and start living.’
‘Sammy,’ Packer said, with grim patience, ‘you say you know Charles Pol pretty well. You ever known him scared?’
Ryderbeit got up and poured himself the last of Sarah’s vodka. ‘Like you said he looked this evening, you mean?’ He shrugged. ‘Well, you said yourself you thought he just looked tired and ill. I’d say just that — too much booze. I’ve seen it plenty of times.’
‘He was scared, Sammy. Shit scared. You and I know what it’s like. Fear’s something you don’t see — you feel it, like sex appeal. And Pol had it tonight — badly. Fear, I mean,’ he added; and Ryderbeit laughed, without humour.
‘Okay, soldier — you were hired to do the thinking. So think up something good and let’s hear it.’
‘You thought it up, Sammy — that idea of yours up in the hut this afternoon when you poked your gun at me. You may have been right after all. For some reason the Ruler wanted to fake his own assassination, and he picked Pol, because the old Frenchman has a pretty wide experience in these matters and Pol somehow got on to me. You, of course, were half on his pay roll already.’
‘So why’s Pol skipped?’ Ryderbeit broke in.
‘I can only guess. But I think he went up to “Le Soupir du Soleil” today to get his final orders, and when he got there he found that the Ruler had changed his mind. The operation was off. Now, Pol’s no man’s fool — nor has he exactly led a sheltered life. Yet something today convinced him that he was in mortal peril. So he did the only thing he could do — he played for time. He agreed to help the Ruler clear up the evidence for him. And that was shrewd, because the Ruler’s the sort of man who likes things to be done properly, and it would obviously be tidier all round if he got his hirelings to start killing themselves off, instead of having to use his own people to do it. And as I told you, he’s planning to start with you, using me as the triggerman.’
Ryderbeit leaned back and squinted at the ceiling, the cords of muscle in his throat stretched taut under the gold chain and Star of David. ‘Am I supposed to assume that I’ve been spared, soldier?’ he said finally. ‘That thou hast weighed me in the balance and found me not wanting?’
‘You can assume what you like,’ said Packer. ‘I’m not going to kill you tomorrow, because I wasn’t hired to kill you.’
Ryderbeit’s eye rolled slowly round until it held Packer’s with its dry glitter. ‘That sounds a trifle too moral to me, soldier. And I’ve never trusted people with morals. They have a nasty habit of putting those first, and selling you up shitcreek if they don’t agree with you.’
‘Even if I had the morals of a Miami estate agent,’ said
