‘Martin had no idea that you and Jan worked for Saraband Two?’
‘No. Nor does now. You like her? She gives me the creeps. In fact, I’ve wanted to get out of the whole thing since Jan’s death, but I wasn’t allowed. Anyway, you can see that you have to go. It’s most important that this deal goes through on the terms already agreed.’
I moved one hand, just a fraction, hoping I might be allowed a last cigarette. She stopped me with a gesture of her hand and a shake of the head.
I said, ‘But your brother, after Jan’s death, still nursed the idea of kidnapping Dawson, said nothing to you about it—because right from the start he had never known that you were in on the original idea, or even that you and Jan were agents?’
‘That’s right. The whole thing was called off officially. But Martin went on nursing it. When he disappeared, stealing from me, I knew what he was after. I went down to his cottage—oh, I knew about that—and saw the letter from Dawson inviting him to Tripoli. So I was instructed to make a fuss with the insurance company, knowing you would be called in. They were very clever. They thought Martin would try and set it up some time on his own, so they made me transfer my insurance to the London Fraternal—just so that it would be you on the job.’
‘Flattering.’
She shrugged her shoulders. ‘All they wanted was for you to do their work—that’s all they ever want. Somebody to do their work . . . somebody expendable or docile. I’m fed up with it. I only went in because Jan persuaded me, and with him it was fun. Nothing’s been fun since. I really loved him.’
‘You’re breaking my heart.’
She gave a ghost of a smile. ‘I like you. But you don’t begin to compare with Jan. Nevertheless, I like you . . . I suppose that’s why I’m talking so much, working myself up to it. The other two times I really disliked the people involved.’
I said, ‘Why ever did you show me Wilkins’s letter?’
‘They said I was to make sure you hadn’t received one and passed it on. I knew you wouldn’t tell me if you had unless I showed you mine. And now—I’ve got to kill you.’
I said, ‘Why not put that stupid thing away and have a drink? Maybe we could work something out? Why not?’
She shook her head.
‘Jan’s gone, but I still like living. If I disobeyed, I wouldn’t live long.’
‘Maybe we could fix something up. Look, other people are involved. Wilkins—and, could be, your brother. They might not let him off the hook. You wouldn’t like to see him go under.’
Her face stiffened. ‘I don’t care what happens to him. He was worse to me than my father when I was young. He did some terrible things . . . a really terrible thing when I was fifteen, so terrible that nothing was ever right afterwards until I met Jan, and he was so sweet and understanding and then, thank the Lord, it all came right. . . .’
Believe it or not, there was the wet glint of a tear in one of her eyes. But it wasn’t breaking my heart that her brother had messed about with her as a girl. I wanted to get out of this room alive. Wanted to—but how? One move from me and that thing in her hand would go off in my face, and that would be the end of me and Wilkins. I cursed myself then for not telling Olaf about the letter. At least he could have carried on. Thank God, she didn’t know about Olaf or she would be leaving here to finish him off in his rum-sodden sleep at the hotel.
She stood up suddenly and stepped sideways to the window. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said contritely, and she stretched her right arm out, taking aim, an awkward yet very feminine movement that possesses them all when they aim a gun or shape up to throw a ball. If there had been bullets in the gun I would have taken a chance on her aiming badly and missing me as I jumped for her. But this stuff would spray wide, enveloping me as I moved.
Her lips firmed up, there was still the glint of a tear in her cornflower blue eyes, and she was all set to kill me. Vaguely, for there is no controlling the mind at such moments, I wondered who the other two had been, wondered why I hadn’t paid more attention to Miggs once telling me that her husband had been as bent as a bedspring, and wondered why I’d been so dumb as to miss that J. could have stood for Jan.
Vaguely, too, I thought I ought to say something, something significant to haunt her for the rest of her life, some last, dying words; Anaxagoras, the old schoolmaster-philosopher saying, ‘Give the boys a holiday’; Rabelais with his ‘Let down the curtain, the farce is over’.
Well, the curtain had something to do with it. From high above her head at that moment came the faint jingle of brass curtain rings. I glanced up and saw, too, the faint movement of her head following mine. Lilith was up there still, from this morning, and finally bored with sulking. I saw the slow movement of her grey-silver coils and then she dropped in the lazy, clumsy Siamese cat way, aiming for the chair below.
She missed it, struck Gloriana on the shoulder, and knocked her back into the chair, the twelve-foot length of the python sprawling over her
