'Whose name?'
'The British tourist, for Christ's sake! Who else are we talking about?'
'Oh! He called himself Stafford. No, he didn't; but his German mate called him Stafford.'
'Good God Almighty!' said Lash softly.
'And he answered to Stafford when I talked to him. Is he important?'
'Did he say where he'd come from? He's been in Tammanrasset, you say.'
'He came down from Djanet with a German tour group. Said he'd flown to Djanet from Tarn. I thought that was a bit funny but he explained it. Said he was leaving the tour at Agadez and was going down to Kano.'
'And he had a German friend?' Lash sounded puzzled.
'That's right. They jabbered a lot in German. I think he was the tour leader. They were talking about a guide to take them across the Tenere.'
'Coming down from the north with Germans? But how…' Lash cut himself short. 'When was this?'
'Not long ago. I came straight here from the restaurant and then you pitched up a couple of minutes later.'
'Then he might still be there?'
'He was there when I left.' There was a hint of a shrug in Kissack's voice. 'We had a bit of a barney; he was getting on my wick.'
'How?'
'All his talk about Billson in Tarn was making me edgy.'
'So you do have some imagination, after all. Come on; let's see if he's there.'
'So who is he?'
They got out of the Range-Rover and walked across the courtyard. Lash said, 'Trouble!'
The door slammed.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
I got out from under the Range-Rover and looked about. A minor puzzlement which had been a fugitive at the back of my mind during that interesting conversation had been how they had got the Range-Rover into that courtyard. It couldn't be driven through Bilma, not through alleys four feet wide at the most. The puzzle was solved by the sight of a big pair of double doors, so I opened one and found myself on the edge of the town, clear the other side from the restaurant.
I did the three miles to Kalala at a jog-trot, my mind busy with the implications of what I had heard, the most interesting one being that Lash knew me – or of me – and he had been very surprised to hear that I was in Bilma. That, and a phrase that had been dropped a couple of times, made it almost certain that it had been Lash who had me beaten up in Kensington. I owed him something for that.
When I got back to the resting caravan Byrne was asleep but Billson was around. He said, 'Where have you been? Where did he take you?' He looked me up and down, examining my English tailoring. 'And why did you change? Byrne wouldn't tell me anything when he came back.'
If 'Byrne had decided to keep mum then so would I. Paul had been improving during the last few days, but if he knew what I had just found out he might blow his top. It was the final proof positive that someone wanted him dead and would go to any length to kill him. And expense was no object, so it seemed. Touring half a dozen men around the Sahara by road and air isn't the cheapest pastime in the world, especially if they're killers – guns for hire.
I said casually, 'I've just been wandering around Bilma to see what I could see.'
'Did you find the Range-Rover?'
'If it's there it must be hidden.' That was true enough.
'What about Kissack?' he said fretfully.
I remembered that Byrne and I had not said anything to Paul about meeting Kissack and Bailly in Agadez. I lied. 'I wouldn't know Kissack if I stood next to him. And he wouldn't know me. Relax, Paul; you're safe enough here.'
I went to the Toyota, got out my Tuareg gear, and changed, feeling the better for it. The clothing worn in any area has been refined over the years and is suited to the conditions. It made sense to wear Tuareg clothes and I no longer felt on my way to a fancy dress ball but, instead, cool and free.
That night, when Paul was asleep, I woke Byrne and told him my story. When I got to Lash's suggestion to Kissack about what he ought to have done about Bailly he said ironically, This Lash is a really nice guy.'
'He calls himself a realist,' I said, and carried on.
When I had finished he said, 'You did right well, Max; but you were goddamn lucky.'
'That's true enough,' I admitted. 'I made a mess of tackling Kissack from the start.'
'Luck runs both ways. Take Billson, now; he's lucky you followed him from England. He'd be dead otherwise, up in Koudia.'
I smiled. 'We're both of us lucky to have you along, Luke.'
He grunted. There's one thing I don't understand. You said something about a contract. What sort of contract?'
'You've been away from civilization too long. It's underworld jargon imported from the States. If you want a man killed you put out a contract on him on a fee contingency basis.'
'You call that civilization? Out here if a guy wants another man dead he does his own killing, like Konti.'
I smiled but this time it was a bit sour. 'It's called the division of labour.'
'Which brings us back to the big question,' said Byrne. 'Who would want Paul dead? And a bigger question, at least to my mind – who would want me dead?'
'I rather think I'm on the list now,' I said. 'I don't know, Luke; but a name that springs to mind is Sir Andrew McGovern.'
'A British sir!' Byrne said in astonishment.
'I haven't told you much about the English end of this,' I said. 'But now you've got yourself on Lash's list I think you ought to know.' So I told him what I knew, then said, 'I think Lash must have had me beaten up. All contracts aren't for killing. They wanted to discourage me.'
'And this guy McGovern?'
'Everything seems to lead back to him.' I ticked off points on my fingers. 'He employed Paul in the first place and saw that he's been grossly overpaid ever since. As soon as Paul had his brainstorm and disappeared McGovern pulled my firm out of security at the Whensley Group. He couldn't just do it for Franklin Engineering, you see – that would have looked fishy. He didn't want me looking too deeply into Paul and his affairs and that was the only way he could stop me. Then he tried to get Paul's sister out of the way before I could see her by sending her to Canada. That didn't work so he called off that plan and kept her in England. It was about that time when I was beaten up and warned off. Everything goes back to McGovern.'
'Okay,' said Byrne. 'Now tell me why. Why should a titled Britisher get into an uproar about an airplane that crashed in 1936?'
'I'm damned if I know. But Andrew McGovern is going to answer a lot of questions to my sati sfaction when I get back to London.'
'You'd better change that to if you get back to London,' said Byrne wryly. 'How old is McGovern?'
I hadn't thought of that..'I don't know. Maybe fifty-five -pushing sixty.'
'Let's take the top figure. If he's sixty now he'd be eighteen in
1936.'
Or thirteen on the lower figure. I said, 'This makes less and less sense. How could a teenager be involved?'
