The Way to Dusty Death

Five minutes later Rory had been replaced by a Mary who looked simultaneously apprehensive and defiant. She said: ‘Who told you this?’

‘Never mind who told me. Is it true or not?’

‘I’m twenty-two, Daddy.’ She was very quiet. ‘I don’t have to answer you. I can look after myself.’

‘Can you? Can you? If I were to throw you off the Coronado team? You’ve no money and you won’t have till I’m dead. You’ve got no place to go. You’ve no mother now, at least no mother you can reach. You’ve no qualifications for anything. Who’s going to employ a cripple without qualifications?’

‘I would like to hear you say those horrible things to me in front of Johnny Harlow.’

‘Surprisingly, perhaps, I won’t react to that one. I was just as independent at your age, more so, I guess, and taking a poor view of parental authority.’ He paused, then went on curiously: You in love with this fellow?’

He’s not a fellow. He’s Johnny Harlow.’ MacAlpine raised an eyebrow at the intensity in her voice. ‘As for your question, am I never to be allowed any areas of privacy in my life?’

‘All right, all right.’ MacAlpine sighed. ‘A deal. If you answer my questions then I’ll tell you why I’m asking them. OK?’

She nodded.

‘Fine. True or false?’

‘If your spies are certain of their facts, Daddy, then why bother asking me?’

‘Mind your tongue.’ The reference to spies had touched MacAlpine to the raw.

‘Apologize for saying ‘mind your tongue’ to me.’

‘Jesus!’ MacAlpine looked at his daughter in an astonishment that was compounded half of irritation, half of admiration. ‘You must be my daughter. I apologize. Did he drink?’

‘Yes.’

‘What?’

‘I don’t know. Something clear. He said it was tonic and water.’

‘And — that’s the kind of liar you keep company with. Tonic and bloody water! Stay away from him, Mary. If you don’t, it’s back home to Marseille for you.’

‘Why, Daddy? Why? Why? Why?’

‘Because God knows I’ve got enough trouble of my own without having my only daughter tying herself up to an alcoholic with the skids under him.’

‘Johnny! Alcoholic! Look, Daddy, I know he drinks a little-’

MacAlpine silenced her by the gesture of picking up the phone.

‘MacAlpine here. Will you ask Mr. Dunnet to come to see me? Yes. Now.’ He replaced the phone. ‘I said I’d tell you why I was asking those questions. I didn’t want to. But I’m going to have to.’

Dunnet entered and closed the door behind him. He had about him the look of a man who was not looking forward too keenly to the next few minutes. After asking Dunnet to sit down he said: Tell her, Alexis, would you, please?’

Dunnet looked even more acutely unhappy. ‘Must I, James?’

‘I’m afraid so. She’d never believe me if I told her what we found in Johnny’s room.’

Mary looked at each in turn, sheer incredulity in her face. She said: ‘You were searching Johnny’s room.’

Dunnet took a deep breath. ‘With good reason, Mary, and thank God we did. I can still hardly believe it myself. We found five bottles of scotch hidden in his room. One of them was half empty.’

Mary looked at them, stricken. Clearly, she believed them all too well. When MacAlpine spoke, it was very gently.

‘I am sorry. We all know how fond you are of him. We took the bottles away, incidentally.’

‘You took — the bottles away.’ Her voice was slow and dull and uncomprehending. ‘But he’ll know. He’ll report the theft. There’ll be police. There’ll be fingerprints — your fingerprints. Then— ‘

MacAlpine said: ‘Can you imagine Johnny Harlow ever admitting to anyone in the world that he’d five bottles of scotch in his room? Run along, girl, and get dressed. We’ve got to leave for — this bloody reception in twenty minutes — without, it seems, your precious Johnny.’

She remained seated, her face quite without expression, her unblinking eyes irremovably fixed on MacAlpine’s. After a few moments his expression softened and he smiled. He said: I'm sorry. That was quite uncalled for.’

Dunnet held the door while she hobbled from the room. Both men watched her go with pity in their eyes.

CHAPTER FIVE

To the Grand Prix racing fraternity of the world, as to seasoned travellers everywhere, a hotel is a hotel is a hotel, a place to sleep, a place to eat, a stopover to the next faceless anonymity. The newly-built Villa- Hotel Cessni on the outskirts of Monza, however, could fairly claim to be an exception to the truism. Superbly designed, superbly built and superbly landscaped, its huge airy rooms with their immaculately designed furniture, their luxurious bathrooms, splendidly sweeping balconies, sumptuous food and warmth of service, here one would have thought was the caravanserai nonpareil for the better-heeled millionaire.

And so it would be, one day, but not yet. The Villa-Hotel Cessni had as yet to establish its clientele, its image, its reputation and, hopefully and eventually, its traditions and for the achievement of — those infinitely desirable ends, the fair uses of publicity, for luxury hotels as for hotdog stands, could be very sweet indeed. No sport on earth has a more international following and it was with this in mind that the management had deemed it prudent to invite the major Grand Prix teams to accommodate themselves in this palace, for a ludicrously low nominal fee, for the duration of the Italian Grand Prix. Few teams had failed to accept the invitation and fewer still cared to exercise their minds with the philosophical and psychological motivations of the management: all they knew and cared about was that the Hotel-Villa Cessni was infinitely more luxurious and fractionally cheaper than the several Austrian hotels they had so gratefully abandoned only twelve days ago. Next year, it seemed likely, they wouldn’t even be allowed to sleep stacked six-deep in the basement: but that was next year.

That Friday evening late in August was warm but by no means warm enough to justify air-conditioning. Nevertheless, the air-conditioning in the lobby of the Hotel-Villa Cessni was operating at the top of its bent making the temperature in that luxuriously appointed haven from the lower classes almost uncomfortably cool. Common sense said that this interior climatic condition was wholly unnecessary: the prestige of an up and coming status symbol said that it was wholly necessary. The management was concerned with prestige to the point of obsession: the air-conditioning remained on. The Cessni was going to be the place to go when the sun rode high.

MacAlpine and Dunnet, sitting side by side but almost concealed from each other’s sight by virtue of the imposing construction of the vast velvet-lined arm-chairs in which they reclined rather than sat, had more important things on their minds than a few degrees of temperature hither and yonder. They spoke but seldom and then with a marked lack of animation: they gave the air of those who had precious little to get animated about. Dunnet stirred.

‘Our wandering boy is late on the road tonight.’

He has an excuse,’ MacAlpine said. ‘At least, I hope to hell he has. One thing, he was always a conscientious workman. He wanted a few more extra laps to adjust the suspension and gear ratios of this new car of his.’

Dunnet was gloomy. ‘It wouldn’t have been possible, I suppose, to give it to Tracchia instead?’

‘Quite impossible, Alexis, and you know it. The mighty law of protocol. Johnny’s not only Coronado’s number one, he’s still the world’s. Our dear sponsors, without which we couldn’t very well operate — I could, but I’ll be damned if I’ll lay out a fortune like that — are highly sensitive people. Sensitive to public opinion, that is. The only reason they paint the names of their damned products on the outside of our cars is that the public will go out and buy those same damned products. They’re not benefactors of racing except purely incidentally: they are simply advertisers. An advertiser wants to reach the biggest market. Ninety-nine point repeater nine per cent of that market lies outside the racing world and it doesn’t matter a damn if they know nothing about what goes on inside