Lash and Zayid led the way, with Byrne and me following, Kissack behind us with a pistol in his hand. The other two tagged on behind.
The cairn of stones had been disarranged and Billson's skull was showing. Lash looked down at it unemotionally. 'Well, we've got the body but we can't leave it like this, can we? I mean,. the man wouldn't have died and conveniently buried himself.'
He gave orders in French and his men began to dismantle the cairn. I said, 'How did you know the plane would need burning?'
Lash shrugged. 'I didn't. If it had burned forty years ago it would have saved me a considerable amount of trouble. But I didn't take the chance. I never take chances. I came prepared for anything.'
He looked down as the desiccated corpse was revealed. 'Kissack wanted to put this in the cockpit before we burned the plane – but Kissack is a fool, as I'm sure you've learned. As soon as he told me there was an arm missing I vetoed that suggestion. Everything must not only look right – it must be right. I never take chances.'
The body was soon wholly uncovered. Lash looked down at it. 'Is this as you found it?'
'Yes.'
'I don't believe you. He would have left a message of some kind – left his papers.' His head came up and he stared at us. 'Where are they?'
'Maybe you just burned them,' said Byrne. 'You didn't search that airplane too well.'
'But you did,' said Lash. He turned to Kissack and said abruptly, 'When we get back down there I want those donkeys unloaded and everything searched.'
'All right,' said Kissack. He held the pistol negligently in his hand, muzzle down.
I wasn't worried about Billson's papers because Paul had them, wherever Paul was, which was probably a long way over the horizon by now. But if our stuff was searched they'd find the compass. Why in hell I was worried about that I don't know; it should have been the least of my worries.
I said, 'Kissack!'
'What?'
'When you burned Paul Billson's Land-Rover did you search it first?'
'What the hell? No, I didn't. What's it to you?'
'Nothing. You're getting paid five thousand pounds for this job, aren't you? I bet Lash is getting ten times as much.'
Lash's eyes flickered. 'Mr Stafford exaggerates.'
I stared at Kissack. 'Didn't Lash tell you?'
'Tell me what, for God's sake? What's Billson's Land-Rover got to do with my five thousand quid?'
I shrugged. 'Just that Billson was carrying quite a lot of cash. More than five thousand – much more. I can't believe Lash didn't tell you.'
'How much more?' Kissack said hoarsely.
'Fifty-six thousand in British currency. It was in his suitcase in the back of the Land-Rover.'
Kissack's eyes widened, and he whirled on Lash. 'Is that true?'
'How would I know?' said Lash in a bored voice. 'Keep your cool, man. Stafford's just trying to needle you.'
'Is he, now? I wonder?'
Lash lost his boredom. 'Damn it, if I'd known do you think I wouldn't have told you? Do you think I'd have stood by and let you burn money? I'm not such a -'
He had no time to say more because there was a shockingly loud bang from quite close and the top of Kissack's head blew off, spattering grey fragments of brain all about. His knees buckled and he collapsed to the ground, letting the pistol fall as he did so.
Paul Billson always did over-react.
CHAPTER THIRTY
An army rifle, even one of First World War vintage, is intended to kill men at ranges of up to a thousand yards or more, and an averagely good marksman finds it a comfortably good tool at four hundred yards. Paul Billson was not an averagely good marksman; in fact, he was not a marksman at all and later confessed that it was the first shot he had ever fired, whether in anger or otherwise. But even Paul Billson could not miss killing Kissack at a range of fifteen feet.
By his account he had gone to the grave and taken his photographs, then spent some minutes in contemplation. He had then gone back, picked up his two donkeys and followed the line Byrne had given him. He had spotted us surrounded by Lash's men on camels and tactfully drew aside. Luckily for him – and us – he had gone over rock, otherwise Zayid might have seen his tracks. He watched us led into captivity and wondered what to do about it.
He didn't say so but I think his first instinct was to make a run for it, yet I might be maligning him. Anyway, where was he to run? It was three days on foot back to Tamrit and he must have known that he could never find his way there by himself. But whatever his thoughts were he decided to stick around. And he discovered that Byrne's Lee-Enfield was packed on one of his donkeys.
He went away and found a hole among the rocks and tethered the donkeys. One of them was inclined to bray, which frightened him because he thought it might be heard and they'd come looking for him. But he did the right thing. He unloaded the donkeys, hobbled them as he had seen Byrne do, and turned them loose. Then he looked at the rifle.
He had seen guns at a distance but had never handled one, nothing unusual in an Englishman of his age who had missed war service because of physical unfitness. There are not that many guns floating loose about Luton. He fiddled about with it, being careful not to touch the trigger, and worked the bolt action, trying to find the principle by which it worked. Eventually, more or less by accident, he pressed a catch and the magazine fell into the palm of his hand. It was empty, which was why no bullets were being inserted into the breech.
He thought about that for a moment and soon came to the conclusion that the ammunition would not be kept far from the weapon. He knew that Byrne was in the habit of keeping a full magazine in the pouch slung around his neck but surely there must be more bullets somewhere. He began to search through the loads he had taken from the donkeys and eventually found an opened packet containing eleven rounds.
When he tried to put bullets into the magazine they wouldn't fit so he tried them the other way around and they went in sweetly, compressing the leaf spring in the magazine. He found that it held five bullets. He pushed the magazine into the rifle and worked the action slowly and was rewarded by the sight of a cartridge being pushed firmly and smoothly into the breech. He now had the rifle loaded.
He knew there was such a thing as a safety-catch and soon found the small switch-like lever on the side of the rifle which would cover or uncover a red spot. His problem was that he didn't know when it was on and when it was off. It never occurred to him to take out the magazine, eject the round from the breech and then test the trigger with an empty gun. At last he reasoned that red would mean danger, so that when the red spot showed the safety-catch was off. He covered the red spot and stood up, holding the rifle.
Paul was not a man of action, rather a man of reaction. He could be pushed – by men, by circumstances, or as English, the journalist, had pushed – but it was not his habit to initiate action. So he stood there, irresolute, wondering what was the best thing to do. He then decided that it would not be a good idea to walk in on Lash and company by way of the cleft in the rocks which was now the common highway to Flyaway; instead, he would try to approach from the other direction. That was a good idea.
He found a canteen and filled it with water, put the remaining six bullets into his pocket, and then set off to explore, carrying the rifle somewhat gingerly as though it might explode of its own volition. He knew his direction to the cleft so he set off at right-angles to that, skirting the base of a rock pillar. To anyone knowing Paul Billson it must have been an unlikely sight.
He kept track of his progress by counting his paces, and when he had counted two hundred double strides he veered to the left and carried on. After five minutes he stopped in his tracks because he heard voices. Cautiously he peered round a rock and saw Kissack and Zayid passing by within spitting distance. They were carrying a propeller.
