Of course, I got some money. A handsome cheque from Malacod and – after a struggle – my full fee from Sutcliffe. He handed it over with the biggest dressing down I’ve ever had and I had to listen just to get the fee. That was all right by me. I just went into a trance until he had finished.
I got hell from Wilkins, of course, but I expected that. After all she had to have some way of showing her relief that I was safely back.
Oh, and a whip. I got that about a month afterwards. I keep it on my desk now just in case Wilkins gets difficult.
Manston brought it in. He was very pleasant.
“I picked it up after the big bang. I thought you’d like it. You should keep it handy for dealing with girls like Katerina. Stebelson had more sense than you. He knew when to write her off – the moment she saw Alois. That’s why he sold out fast to Howard Johnson. Big money, too. Everything he knew. But he never collected. Frau Spiegel drove him to Lake Zafersee for a picnic and he was fished out some weeks later.”
“And Howard Johnson?”
“Posted to Moscow. Staff training job.”
I put my hand round the whip.
“And the white-haired number with the artificial leg. He’s going to be missed in some synagogue.”
“Not only there. Didn’t you know you were working for Bonn? They really want a new Germany, you know. Not the Alois kind. There’s no racial discrimination these days. Just co-operation. Malacod was their man, and so was our friend with the white hair. Well, see you some time.”
He went, leaving me with the whip. No question of any apology for not raising a finger to help me in the Schloss. We both knew the rules. But he had been helpful for the month’s convalescence I had taken to get over the scars and a broken arm.
He lent me a little cottage he had on Lake Annecy, near Talloires. It was a good spot and, because I was in funds, I could afford to eat now and then at Père Bise. But mostly Vérité and I did our own cooking and ate on the little terrace overlooking the lake. It was a perfect month, even with a broken arm and having to sleep mostly on my side.
And what did I learn? That you get used to anything, even to the fact that perfection is only a month long, and then there’s the office waiting, clients being clever with you, and two roads running away north and south, and that you’ve got to be honest and take your own road because somewhere at the end of it – with luck – there might be the thing you really want. Or am I just kidding myself? Probably.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Born in Plymouth in 1911, Victor Canning was a prolific writer throughout his career, which began young: he had sold several short stories by the age of nineteen and his first novel, Mr Finchley Discovers His England (1934), was published when he was twenty-three.
Canning was primarily a writer of thrillers, and wrote his many books under the pseudonyms Julian Forest and Alan Gould. The Whip Hand (1965) was the first of his four Rex Carver books, which were written, unusually for Canning, in the first person. These were his most successful in sales terms. Interestingly, Canning’s fiction is well-represented in the Oxford English Dictionary, with 37 citations from the Carver books alone.
Canning’s later thrillers were darker and more complex than his earlier work. In 1973 he was awarded the CWA Silver Dagger for The Rainbird Pattern and in 1974 was nominated for an Edgar award. Canning also wrote for children: his The Runaways trilogy was adapted for a US children’s television.
Canning died in Gloucestershire in 1986.
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Text copyright © Charles Collingwood, The Estate of Victor Canning 1965
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Cover artwork by Duncan Smith
