Flyaway

His eyes flickered. 'You amuse me. I'd like to hear the end of this fairy story.'

'No one can say I'm not obliging,' I said. 'All right; by 1946 you'd just got started. You discovered you had a flair for finance; in the property boom of the fifties you made millions – you're still making millions because money makes money. And it all came out of the murder of Peter Billson whose widow you married.'

'And how am I supposed to have murdered Billson?'

'You were his mechanic in the London to Cape Town Air Race of 1936. In Algiers you delayed him so he'd have to fly to Kano at night. Then you gimmicked his compass so that he flew off course.'

'You can never prove that. You're getting into dangerous waters, Stafford.'

'Exhibit Three – an eight-by-ten colour photograph of Flyaway, Billson's aircraft, taken by myself less than two weeks ago. Note how intact it is. Exhibit Four – an affidavit witnessed by a notary public and signed by myself and the man who took out the compass and tested it.'

Brinton studied the photograph, then read the document. I said, 'By the way, that's also a photocopy – all these papers are. Those that are a matter of public record are in the appropriate place, and the others are in the vaults of my bank. My solicitor knows what to do with them should anything happen to me.'

He grunted. 'Who is Lucas Byrne?'

'An aeronautical engineer,' I said, stretching a point. 'You'll note he mentions a substance found in the main fuel tank. Here's a report by a chemist who analysed the stun'. He says he found mostly hydrocarbons of petroleum derivation.'

'Naturally,' sneered Brinton.

'He said mostly,' I pointed out. 'He also found other hydrocarbons – disaccharides, D-glucopyranose, D- fructopyranose and others. Translated into English it means that you'd put sugar into the fuel tank, and when Billson switched over from the auxiliary his engine froze solid,' I sat back. 'But let's come to modern times.'

Brinton stretched out his hand and dropped Byrne's statement on to the fire. I laughed. 'Plenty more where that came from.'

'What about modern times?'

'You became really worried about Paul Billson, didn't you, when you found he was practically insane about his father? He was the one man who had the incentive and the obsessive-ness to go out to find Flyaway in order to clear his father's name. You weren't as worried about Alix Aarvik but you really anchored Paul. I had a long chat with Andrew McGovern about that the other day.'

Brinton's head came up with a jerk. 'You've seen McGovern?'

'Yes – didn't he tell you? I suppose I must have thrown a bit of a scare into him. He had no objection to employing Paul because you were paying all of Paul's inflated salary. He jumped to the natural conclusion: that Paul was one of your byblows, a souvenir of your misspent youth whom you were tactfully looking after. And so you tethered Paul for fifteen years by giving him a salary that he knew he wasn't worth. It's ironic that it was you who financed his trip to the Sahara when he blew up. I dare say the payments you made through the Whensley Group can be traced.' His lips twisted. 'I doubt it.'

'McGovern told me something else. He didn't want Stafford Security pulled out of the Whensley Group – it was your idea. You twisted his arm. I don't know what hold you have on McGovern, but whatever it is you used it. That was to stop me carrying on the investigation into Paul Billson. You also got McGovern to send Alix Aarvik to Canada but that didn't work out, did it? Because I got to her first. So you had Lash have me beaten up. I don't think McGovern likes you any more. I suppose that's why he didn't report back to you that he'd seen me – that and the fact that I told him he'd better keep his nose clean.'

Brinton dismissed McGovern with a twitch of a finger. 'You said Lash isn't corning back. What happened to him?'

'Two bullets through his lungs, one through the belly, and another through the head at close range – that's what happened to Lash. There are three dead men out there, and another with an amputated foot, and all because of you, Jock. All because you were so scared of what Paul Billson might find that you put out a contract on him.' I tapped my arm in its sling. 'Not Gstaad, Jock; the Tassili. You owe me something for this.'

'I owe you nothing,' he said contemptuously.

Then we come to a man called Torstein Aarvik who married Helen Billson.' I drew a photocopy of the marriage certificate from my briefcase. 'This really shook me when I saw it because legally she was Anderson, wasn't she? Helen had lost sight of you so she took a chance. She married Aarvik as the widow Billson without divorcing you. It was wartime and things were pretty free and easy and, besides, she wasn't too bright – I have Alix Aarvik's word for that. But you knew where she was because you'd been keeping tabs on her. I don't know how you separated her from her money in the first place but you used her bigamous marriage to keep her quiet for the rest of her life. She couldn't fight you, could she? And maybe she wasn't bright but perhaps she was decent enough to prevent Alix knowing that she's a bastard. Now who's the bastard here, you son of a bitch?'

'You'll never make this stick,' he said. 'Not after forty-two years.'

'I believe I will, and so do you, or you wouldn't have been so bloody worried about Paul Billson. There's no statute of limitations on murder, Jock.'

'Stop calling me Jock,' he said irritably.

'You're an old man,' I said. 'Eighty years old. You're going to die soon. Tomorrow, next year, five years, ten – you'll be as dead as Lash. But they don't have capital punishment now, so you'll probably die in a prison hospital. Unless…'

He was suddenly alert, scenting a bargain, a deal. 'Unless what?'

'What's the use of putting you in jail? You wouldn't live as luxuriously as you do now but you'd get by. They're tender-minded about murderous old men these days, and that wouldn't satisfy me, nor would it help the people you've cheated all these years.'

I put my hand into my pocket, drew out a calculator, punched a -few keys, then wrote the figure on a piece of paper. It made a nice sum if not a round one -?1,714,425.68. I tossed it across to him. 'That's a hundred thousand compounded at a nominal seven per cent for forty-two years.'

I said, 'Even if Scotland Yard or the Director of Public Prosecutions take no action the newspapers would love it. The Insight team of the Sunday Times would make a meal of it. Think of all the juicy bits – Lady Brinton dying of cancer in virtual poverty while her husband lived high on the hog. Your name would stink, even in the City where they have strong stomachs. Do you think any decent or even any moderately indecent man would have anything to do with you after that?'

I stuck my finger under his nose. 'And another thing – Paul Billson knows nothing about this. But I can prime him with it and point him at you like a gun. He'd kill you – you wouldn't stand a flaming chance. You'd better get out your cheque book.'

He flinched but made a last try. 'This figure is impossible. You don't suppose I'm as fluid as all that?'

'Don't try to con me, you old bastard,' I said. 'Any bank in the City will lend you that amount if you just pick up the telephone and ask. Do it!'

He stood up. 'You're a hard man.'

'I've had a good teacher. You make out two cheques; one to the Peter Billson Memorial Trust for a million and a half. The rest to me – that's my twerve-and-a-half per cent commission. Expenses have been high. And I get Gloria's shares, and you sell out of Stafford Security. I don't care who you sell your shares to but it mustn't be Charlie Malleson.'

How do I know you won't renege? I want all the papers you have.'

'Not a chance in hell! Those are my insurance policies. I wouldn't want another Lash turning up in my life.'

He sat down and wrote the cheques.

I walked the streets of London for a long time that afternoon with cheques in my pocket for more money than I had ever carried. Alix Aarvik and Paul Billson would now be all right for the rest of their lives. I had put the money into a trust because I didn't want Paul getting his hands on it – he didn't deserve that. But the not-too-bright son of a not-too-bright mother would be looked after.

As for me, I thought 12i% was a reasonable fee. It would enable me to buy out Charlie Malleson, a regrettable necessity because I could no longer work with him. Jack Ellis would continue to be a high flier and he'd get his stake in the firm, and we'd hire an accountant and pay him well. And Byrne would get something unexpectedly higher than the. ridiculous fee he'd asked for saving lives and being shot at.

At the thought of Byrne I stopped suddenly and looked about me. I was in Piccadilly, at the Circus, and the