DESMOND BAGLEY

The Spoilers
AND
Juggernaut

COPYRIGHT

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd. 1 London Bridge Street London SE1 9GF

www.harpercollins.co.uk

The Spoilers first published in Great Britain by Collins 1969 Juggernaut first published in Great Britain by Collins 1985

Copyright © Brockhurst Publications 1969, 1985, 2009

Desmond Bagley asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of these works

A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this ebook on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins ebooks

HarperCollinsPublishers has made every reasonable effort to ensure that any picture content and written content in this ebook has been included or removed in accordance with the contractual and technological constraints in operation at the time of publication

Source ISBN: 9780007304806

Ebook Edition © JUNE 2012 ISBN: 9780007347674

Version: 2018-04-03

PRAISE

‘I’ve read all Bagley’s books and he’s marvellous, the best.’

ALISTAIR MACLEAN

‘Sizzling adventure.’

Evening Standard

‘Bagley has become a master of the genre – a thriller writer of intelligence and originality.’

Sunday Times

‘Compulsively readable.’

Guardian

‘From word one, you’re off. Bagley’s one of the best.’

The Times

‘The best adventure stories I have read for years.’

Daily Mirror

‘Bagley has no equal at this sort of thing.’

Sunday Mirror

‘Tense, heroic, chastening … a thumping good story.’

Sunday Express

‘The detail is immaculately researched – the action has the skill to grab your heart or your bowels.’

Daily Mirror

‘Bagley in top form.’

Evening Standard

‘Bagley is a master story-teller.’

Daily Mirror

CONTENTS

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Praise

The Spoilers

Dedication

One

Two

Three

Four

Five

Six

Seven

Eight

Nine

Ten

Juggernaut

One

Two

Three

Four

Five

Six

Seven

Eight

Nine

Ten

Eleven

Twelve

Thirteen

Fourteen

Fifteen

Sixteen

Seventeen

Eighteen

Nineteen

Twenty

Twenty-One

Twenty-Two

Twenty-Three

Twenty-Four

Twenty-Five

Twenty-Six

Twenty-Seven

Twenty-Eight

Keep Reading

About the Author

By the Same Author

About the Publisher

THE SPOILERS

DEDICATION

This one is for Pat and Philip Bawcombeand, of course, Thickabe

ONE

She lay on the bed in an abandoned attitude, oblivious of the big men crowding the room and making it appear even smaller than it was. She had been abandoned by life, and the big men were there to find out why, not out of natural curiosity but because it was their work. They were policemen.

Detective-Inspector Stephens ignored the body. He had given it a cursory glance and then turned his attention to the room, noting the cheap, rickety furniture and the threadbare carpet which was too small to hide dusty boards. There was no wardrobe and the girl’s few garments were scattered, some thrown casually over a chair-back and others on the floor by the side of the bed. The girl herself was naked, an empty shell. Death is not erotic.

Stephens picked up a sweater from the chair and was surprised at its opulent softness. He looked at the maker’s tab and frowned before handing it to Sergeant Ipsley. ‘She could afford good stuff. Any identification yet?’

‘Betts is talking to the landlady.’

Stephens knew the worth of that. The inhabitants of his manor did not talk freely to policemen. ‘He won’t get much. Just a name and that’ll be false, most likely. Seen the syringe?’

‘Couldn’t miss it, sir. Do you think it’s drugs?’

‘Could be.’ Stephens turned to an unpainted whitewood chest of drawers and pulled on a knob. The drawer opened an inch and then stuck. He smote it with the heel of his hand. ‘Any sign of the police surgeon yet?’

‘I’ll go and find out, sir.’

‘Don’t worry; he’ll come in his own sweet time.’ Stephens turned his head to the bed. ‘Besides, she’s not in too much of a hurry.’ He tugged at the drawer which stuck again. ‘Damn this confounded thing!’

A uniformed constable pushed open the door and closed it behind him. ‘Her name’s Hellier, sir – June Hellier. She’s been here a week – came last Wednesday.’

Stephens straightened. ‘That’s not much help, Betts. Have you seen her before on your beat?’

Betts looked towards the bed and shook his head. ‘No, sir.’

‘Was she previously known to the landlady?’

‘No, sir; she just came in off the street and said she wanted a room. She paid in advance.’

‘She wouldn’t have got in otherwise,’ said Ipsley. ‘I know this old besom here – nothing for nothing and not much for sixpence.’

‘Did she make any friends – acquaintances?’ asked Stephens. ‘Speak to anyone?’

‘Not that I can find out, sir. From all accounts she stuck in her room most of the time.’

A short man with an incipient pot belly pushed into the room. He walked over to the bed and put down his bag. ‘Sorry I’m late, Joe; this damned traffic gets worse every day.’

‘That’s all right, Doctor.’ Stephens turned to Betts again. ‘Have another prowl around and see what you can get.’ He joined the doctor at the foot of the bed and looked down at the body of the girl. ‘The usual thing – time of death and the reason therefore.’

Doctor Pomray glanced at him. ‘Foul play suspected?’

Stephens shrugged. ‘Not that I know of – yet.’ He indicated the syringe and the glass which lay on the bamboo bedside table. ‘Could be drugs; an overdose, maybe.’

Pomray bent down and sniffed delicately at the glass. There was a faint film of moisture at the bottom and he was just about to touch it when Stephens said, ‘I’d rather you didn’t, Doctor. I’d like to have it checked for dabs first.’

‘It doesn’t really matter,’ said Pomray. ‘She was an addict, of course. Look at her thighs. I just wanted to check what her particular poison was.’

Stephens had already seen the puncture marks and had drawn his own conclusions, but he said, ‘Could have been a diabetic.’

Pomray shook his head decisively. ‘A trace of phlebo-thrombosis together with skin sepsis – no doctor would allow that to happen to a diabetic patient.’ He bent down and squeezed the skin. ‘Incipient jaundice, too; that shows liver damage. I’d say it’s drug addiction with the usual lack of care in the injection. But we won’t really know until after the autopsy.’

‘All right, I’ll leave you to it.’ Stephens turned to Ipsley and said casually, ‘Will you open that drawer, Sergeant?’

‘Another thing,’ said Pomray. ‘She’s very much underweight for her height. That’s another sign.’ He gestured towards an ashtray overflowing untidily with cigarette-stubs. ‘And she was a heavy smoker.’

Stephens watched Ipsley take the knob delicately between thumb and forefinger and pull open the drawer smoothly. He switched his gaze from the smug expression on Ipsley’s face, and said, ‘I’m a heavy smoker too, Doctor. That doesn’t mean much.’

‘It fills out the clinical picture,’ argued Pomray.

Stephens nodded. ‘I’d like to know if she died on that bed.’

Pomray looked surprised. ‘Any reason why she shouldn’t have?’

Stephens smiled slightly. ‘None at all; I’m just being careful.’

‘I’ll see what I can find,’ said Pomray.

There was not much in the drawer. A handbag, three stockings, a pair of panties due for the wash, a bunch of keys, a lipstick, a suspender-belt and a syringe with a broken needle. Stephens uncapped the lipstick case and looked inside it; the lipstick was worn right down and there was evidence that the girl had tried to dig out the last of the wax, which was confirmed by the discovery of a spent match with a reddened end caught in a crack of the drawer. Stephens, an expert on the interpretation of such minutiae, concluded that June Hellier had been destitute.

The panties had a couple of reddish-brown stains on the front, stains which were repeated on one of the stocking tops. It looked very much like dried blood and was probably the result of inexpert injection into the thigh. The key-ring contained three keys, one of which was a car ignition key. Stephens turned to Ipsley. ‘Nip down and see if the girl had a car.’

Another key fitted a suitcase which he found in a corner. It was a deluxe elaborately fitted case of the type which Stephens had considered buying as a present for his wife – the idea had been rejected on the grounds of excessive expense. It contained nothing.

He could not find anything for the third key to fit so he turned his attention to the handbag, which was of fine-grained leather. He was about to open it when Ipsley came back. ‘No car, sir.’

‘Indeed!’ Stephens pursed his lips. He snapped open the catch of the handbag and looked inside. Papers, tissues, another lipstick worn to a nubbin, three shillings and four-pence in coins and no paper money. ‘Listen carefully, Sergeant,’ he said. ‘Good handbag, good suitcase, car key but no car, good clothes except the stockings which are cheap, gold lipstick case in drawer, Woolworth’s lipstick in bag – both worn out. What do you make of all that?’

‘Come down in the world, sir.’

Stephens nodded as he pushed at the few coins with his forefinger. He said abruptly. ‘Can you tell me if she was a virgin, Doctor?’

‘She wasn’t,’ said Pomray. ‘I’ve checked that.’

‘Maybe she was on the knock,’ offered Ipsley.

‘Possibly,’ said Stephens. ‘We can find out – if we have to.’

Pomray straightened. ‘She died on this bed all right; there’s the usual evidence. I’ve done all I can here. Is there anywhere I can wash?’

‘There’s a bathroom just along the hall,’ said Ipsley. ‘It’s not what I’d call hygienic, though.’

Stephens was sorting the few papers. ‘What did she die of, Doctor?’

‘I’d say an overdose of a drug – but what it was will have to wait for the autopsy.’

‘Accidental or deliberate?’ asked Stephens.

‘That will have to wait for the autopsy too,’ said Pomray. ‘If it was a really massive overdose then you can be pretty sure it was deliberate. An addict usually knows to a hair how much to take. If it’s not too much of an overdose then it could be accidental.’

‘If it’s deliberate then I have a choice between suicide and murder,’ said Stephens musingly.

‘I think you can safely cut out murder,’ said Pomray. ‘Addicts don’t like other people sticking needles into them.’ He shrugged. ‘And the suicide rate among addicts is high once they hit bottom.’

A small snorting noise came from Stephens as he made the discovery of a doctor’s appointment card. The name on it rang a bell somewhere in the recesses of his mind. ‘What do you know about Dr Nicholas Warren? Isn’t he a drug man?’

Pomray nodded. ‘So she was one of his girls, was she?’ he said with interest.

‘What kind of a doctor is he? Is he on the level?’

Pomray reacted with shock. ‘My God! Nick Warren’s reputation is as pure as the driven snow. He’s one of the top boys in the field. He’s no quack, if that’s what you mean.’

‘We get all kinds,’ said Stephens levelly. ‘As you know very well.’ He gave the card to Ipsley. ‘He’s not too far from here. See if you can get hold of him, Sergeant; we still haven’t any positive identification of the girl.’

‘Yes, sir,’ said Ipsley, and made for the door.

‘And, Sergeant,’ called Stephens. ‘Don’t tell him the girl’s dead.’

Ipsley grinned. ‘I won’t.’

‘Now look here,’ said Pomray. ‘If you try to pressure Warren you’ll get a hell of a surprise. He’s a tough boy.’

‘I don’t like doctors who hand out drugs,’ said Stephens grimly.

‘You know damn-all about it,’ snapped Pomray. ‘And you won’t fault Nick Warren on medical ethics. If you go on that tack he’ll tie you up in knots.’

‘We’ll see. I’ve handled tough ones before.’

Pomray grinned suddenly. ‘I think I’ll stay and watch this. Warren knows as much – if not more – about drugs and drug addicts as anyone in the country. He’s a bit of a fanatic about it. I don’t think you’ll get much change out of him. I’ll be back as soon as I’ve cleaned up in this sewer of a bathroom.’

Stephens met Warren in the dimly lit hall outside the girl’s room, wanting to preserve the psychological advantage he had gained by not informing the doctor of the girl’s death. If he was surprised at the speed of Warren’s arrival he did not show it, but studied the man with professional detachment as he advanced up the hall.

Warren was a tall man with a sensitive yet curiously immobile face. In all his utterances he spoke thoughtfully, sometimes pausing for quite a long time before he answered. This gave Stephens the impression that Warren had not heard or was ignoring the question, but Warren always answered just as a repetition was on Stephens’s tongue. This deliberateness irritated Stephens, although he tried not to show it.

‘I’m glad you were able to come,’ he said. ‘We have a problem, Doctor. Do you know a young lady called June Hellier?’

‘Yes, I do,’ said Warren, economically.

Stephens waited expectantly for Warren to elaborate, but Warren merely looked at him. Swallowing annoyance, he said, ‘Is she one of your patients?’

‘Yes,’ said Warren.

‘What were you treating her for, Doctor?’

There was a long pause before Warren said, ‘That is a matter of patient-doctor relationship which I don’t care to go into.’

Stephens felt Pomray stir behind him. He said stiffly, ‘This is a police matter, Doctor.’

Again Warren paused, holding Stephens’s eye with a level stare. At last he said, ‘I suggest that if Miss Hellier needs treatment we are wasting time standing here.’

‘She will not be requiring treatment,’ said Stephens flatly.

Again Pomray stirred. ‘She’s dead, Nick.’

‘I see,’ said Warren. He seemed indifferent.

Stephens was irritated at Pomray’s interjection, but more interested in Warren’s lack of reaction. ‘You don’t seem surprised, Doctor.’

‘I’m not,’ said Warren briefly.

‘You were supplying her with drugs?’

‘I have prescribed for her – in the past.’

‘What drugs?’

‘Heroin.’

‘Was that necessary?’

Warren was as immobile as ever, but there was a flinty look in his eye as he said, ‘I don’t propose to discuss the medical treatment of any of my patients with a layman.’

A surge of anger surfaced in Stephens. ‘But you are not surprised at her death. Was she a dying woman? A terminal case?’

Warren looked at Stephens consideringly, and said, ‘The death rate among drug addicts is about twenty-eight times that of the general population. That is why I am not surprised at her death.’

‘She was a heroin addict?’

‘Yes.’

‘And you have supplied her with heroin?’

‘I have.’

‘I see,’ said Stephens with finality. He glanced at Pomray, then turned back to Warren. ‘I don’t know that I like that.’

‘I don’t care whether you like it or not,’ said Warren equably. ‘May I see my patient – you’ll be wanting a death certificate. It had better come from me.’

Of all the bloody nerve, thought Stephens. He turned abruptly and threw open the door of the bedroom. ‘In there,’ he said curtly.

Warren walked past him into the room, followed closely by Pomray. Stephens jerked his head at Sergeant Ipsley, indicating that he should leave, then closed the door behind him. When he strode to the bed Warren and Pomray were already in the midst of a conversation of which he understood about one word in four.

The sheet with which Pomray had draped the body was drawn back to reveal again the naked body of June Hellier. Stephens butted in. ‘Dr Warren: I suggested to Dr Pomray that perhaps this girl was a diabetic, because of those puncture marks. He said there was sepsis and that no doctor would allow that to happen to his patient. This girl was your patient. How do you account for it?’

Warren looked at Pomray and there was a faint twitch about his mouth that might have been a smile. ‘I don’t have to account for it,’ he said. ‘But I will. The circumstances of the injection of an anti-diabetic drug are quite different from those attendant on heroin. The social ambience is different and there is often an element of haste which can result in sepsis.’

In an aside to Pomray he said, ‘I taught her how to use a needle but, as you know, they don’t take much notice of the need for cleanliness.’

Stephens was affronted. ‘You taught her how to use a needle! By God, you make a curious use of ethics!’

Warren looked at him levelly and said with the utmost deliberation, ‘Inspector, any doubts you have about my ethics should be communicated to the appropriate authority, and if you don’t know what it is I shall be happy to supply you with the address.’

The way he turned from Stephens was almost an insult. He said to Pomray, ‘I’ll sign the certificate together with the pathologist. It will be better that way.’

‘Yes,’ said Pomray thoughtfully. ‘It might be better.’

Warren stepped to the head of the bed and stood for a moment looking down at the dead girl. Then he drew up the sheet very slowly so that it covered the body. There was something in that slow movement which puzzled Stephens; it was an act of … of tenderness.

He waited until Warren looked up, then said, ‘Do you know anything of her family?’

‘Practically nothing. Addicts resent probing – so I don’t probe.’

‘Nothing about her father?’

‘Nothing beyond the fact that she had a father. She mentioned him a couple of times.’

‘When did she come to you for drugs?’

‘She came to me for treatment about a year and a half ago. For treatment, Inspector.’

‘Of course,’ said Stephens ironically, and produced a folded sheet of paper from his pocket. ‘You might like to look at this.’

Warren took the sheet and unfolded it, noting the worn creases. ‘Where did you get it?’

‘It was in her handbag.’

It was a letter typed in executive face on high quality paper and bore the embossed heading: REGENT FILM COMPANY, with a Wardour Street address. It was dated six months earlier, and ran:

Dear Miss Hellier,

On the instructions of your father I write to tell you that he will be unable to see you on Friday next because he is leaving for America the same afternoon. He expects to be away for some time, how long exactly I am unable to say at this moment.

He assures you that he will write to you as soon as his more pressing business is completed, and he hopes you will not regret his absence too much.

Yours sincerely,

D. L. Walden

Warren said quietly, ‘This explains a lot.’ He looked up. ‘Did he write?’

‘I don’t know,’ said Stephens. ‘There’s nothing here.’

Warren tapped the letter with a finger-nail. ‘I don’t think he did. June wouldn’t keep a secondhand letter like this and destroy the real thing.’ He looked down at the shrouded body. ‘The poor girl.’

‘You’d better be thinking of yourself, Doctor,’ said Stephens sardonically. ‘Take a look at the list of directors at the head of that letter.’

Warren glanced at it and saw: Sir Robert Hellier (Chairman). With a grimace he passed it to Pomray.

‘My God!’ said Pomray. ‘That Hellier.’

‘Yes, that Hellier,’ said Stephens. ‘I think this one is going to be a stinker. Don’t you agree, Dr Warren?’ There was an unconcealed satisfaction in his voice and a dislike in his eyes as he stared at Warren.

II

Warren sat at his desk in his consulting-room. He was between patients and using the precious minutes to catch up on the mountain of paperwork imposed by the Welfare State. He disliked the bureaucratic aspect of medicine as much as any doctor and so, in an odd way, he was relieved to be interrupted by the telephone. But his relief soon evaporated when he heard his receptionist say, ‘Sir Robert Hellier wishes to speak to you, Doctor.’

He sighed. This was a call he had been expecting. ‘Put him through, Mary.’

There was a click and a different buzz on the line. ‘Hellier here.’

‘Nicholas Warren speaking.’

The tinniness of the telephone could not disguise the rasp of authority in Hellier’s voice. ‘I want to see you, Warren.’

‘I thought you might, Sir Robert.’

‘I shall be at my office at two-thirty this afternoon. Do you know where it is?’

‘That will be quite impossible,’ said Warren firmly. ‘I’m a very busy man. I suggest I find time for an appointment with you here at my rooms.’

There was a pause tinged with incredulity, then a splutter. ‘Now, look here …’

‘I’m sorry, Sir Robert,’ Warren cut in. ‘I suggest you come to see me at five o’clock today. I shall be free then, I think.’

Hellier made his decision. ‘Very well,’ he said brusquely, and Warren winced as the telephone was slammed down at the other end. He laid down his handset gently and flicked a switch on his intercom. ‘Mary, Sir Robert Hellier will be seeing me at five. You might have to rearrange things a bit. I expect it to be a long consultation, so he must be the last patient.’

‘Yes, Doctor.’

‘Oh, Mary: as soon as Sir Robert arrives you may leave.’

‘Thank you, Doctor.’

Warren released the switch and gazed pensively across the room, but after a few moments he applied himself once more to his papers.

Sir Robert Hellier was a big man and handled himself in such a way as to appear even bigger. The Savile Row suiting did not tone down his muscular movements by its suavity, and his voice was that of a man unaccustomed to brooking opposition. As soon as he entered Warren’s room he said curtly and without preamble, ‘You know why I’m here.’

‘Yes; you’ve come to see me about your daughter. Won’t you sit down?’

Hellier took the chair on the other side of the desk. ‘I’ll come to the point. My daughter is dead. The police have given me information which I consider incredible. They tell me that she was a drug addict – that she took heroin.’

‘She did.’

‘Heroin which you supplied.’

‘Heroin which I prescribed,’ corrected Warren.

Hellier was momentarily taken aback. ‘I did not expect you to admit it so easily.’

‘Why not?’ said Warren. ‘I was your daughter’s physician.’

‘Of all the bare-faced effrontery!’ burst out Hellier. He leaned forward and his powerful shoulders hunched under his suit. ‘That a doctor should prescribe hard drugs for a young girl is disgraceful.’

‘My prescription was …’

‘I’ll see you in jail,’ yelled Hellier.

‘… entirely necessary in my opinion.’

‘You’re nothing but a drug pedlar.’

Warren stood up and his voice cut coldly through Hellier’s tirade. ‘If you repeat that statement outside this room I shall sue you for slander. If you will not listen to what I have to say then I must ask you to leave, since further communication on your part is pointless. And if you want to complain about my ethics you must do so to the Disciplinary Committee of the General Medical Council.’

Hellier looked up in astonishment. ‘Are you trying to tell me that the General Medical Council would condone such conduct?’

‘I am,’ said Warren wryly, and sat down again. ‘And so would the British Government – they legislated for it.’

Hellier seemed out of his depth. ‘All right,’ he said uncertainly. ‘I suppose I should hear what you have to say. That’s why I came here.’

Warren regarded him thoughtfully. ‘June came to see me about eighteen months ago. At that time she had been taking heroin for nearly two years.’

Hellier flared again. ‘Impossible!’

‘What’s so impossible about it?’

‘I would have known.’

‘How would you have known?’

‘Well, I’d have recognized the … the symptoms.’

‘I see. What are the symptoms, Sir Robert?’

Hellier began to speak, then checked himself and was silent. Warren said, ‘A heroin addict doesn’t walk about with palsied hands, you know. The symptoms are much subtler than that – and addicts are adept at disguising them. But you might have noticed something. Tell me, did she appear to have money troubles at that time?’

Hellier looked at the back of his hands. ‘I can’t remember the time when she didn’t have money troubles,’ he said broodingly. ‘I was getting pretty tired of it and I put my foot down hard. I told her I hadn’t raised her to be an idle spendthrift.’ He looked up. ‘I found her a job, installed her in her own flat and cut her allowance by half.’

‘I see,’ said Warren. ‘How long did she keep the job?’

Hellier shook his head. ‘I don’t know – only that she lost it.’ His hands tightened on the edge of the desk so that the knuckles showed white. ‘She robbed me, you know – she stole from her own father.’

‘How did that happen?’ asked Warren gently.

‘I have a country house in Berkshire,’ said Hellier. ‘She went down there and looted it – literally looted it. There was a lot of Georgian silver, among other things. She had the nerve to leave a note saying that she was responsible – she even gave me the name of the dealer she’d sold the stuff to. I got it all back, but it cost me a hell of a lot of money.’

‘Did you prosecute?’

‘Don’t be a damned fool,’ said Hellier violently. ‘I have a reputation to keep up. A fine figure I’d cut in the papers if I prosecuted my own daughter for theft. I have enough trouble with the Press already.’

‘It might have been better for her if you had prosecuted,’ said Warren. ‘Didn’t you ask yourself why she stole from you?’

Hellier sighed. ‘I thought she’d just gone plain bad – I thought she’d taken after her mother.’ He straightened his shoulders. ‘But that’s another story.’

‘Of course,’ said Warren. ‘As I say, when June came to me for treatment, or rather, for heroin, she had been addicted for nearly two years. She said so and her physical condition confirmed it.’

‘What do you mean by that?’ asked Hellier. ‘That she came to you for heroin and not for treatment.’

‘An addict regards a doctor as a source of supply,’ said Warren a little tiredly. ‘Addicts don’t want to be treated – it scares them.’

Hellier looked at Warren blankly. ‘But this is monstrous. Did you give her heroin?’

‘I did.’

‘And no treatment?’

‘Not immediately. You can’t treat a patient who won’t be treated, and there’s no law in England which allows of forcible treatment.’

‘But you pandered to her. You gave her the heroin.’

‘Would you rather I hadn’t? Would you rather I had let her go on the streets to get her heroin from an illegal source at an illegal price and contaminated with God knows what filth? At least the drug I prescribed was clean and to British Pharmacopoeia Standard, which reduced the chance of hepatitis.’

Hellier looked strangely shrunken. ‘I don’t understand,’ he muttered, shaking his head. ‘I just don’t understand.’

‘You don’t,’ agreed Warren. ‘You’re wondering what has happened to medical ethics. We’ll come to that later.’ He tented his fingers. ‘After a month I managed to persuade June to take treatment; there are clinics for cases like hers. She was in for twenty-seven days.’ He stared at Hellier with hard eyes. ‘If I had been her I doubt if I could have lasted a week. June was a brave girl, Sir Robert.’

‘I don’t know much about the … er … the actual treatment.’

Warren opened his desk drawer and took out a cigarette-box. He took out a cigarette and then pushed the open box across the desk, apparently as an afterthought. ‘I’m sorry; do you smoke?’

‘Thank you,’ said Hellier, and took a cigarette. Warren leaned across and lit it with a flick of his lighter, then lit his own.

He studied Hellier for a while, then held up his cigarette. ‘There’s a drug in here, you know, but nicotine isn’t particularly powerful. It produces a psychological dependency. Anyone who is strong-minded enough can give it up.’ He leaned forward. ‘Heroin is different; it produces a physiological dependency – the body needs it and the mind has precious little say about it.’

He leaned back. ‘If heroin is withheld from an addicted patient there are physical withdrawal symptoms of such a nature that the chances of death are about one in five – and that is something a doctor must think hard about before he begins treatment.’

Hellier whitened. ‘Did she suffer?’

‘She suffered,’ said Warren coldly. ‘I’d be only too pleased to tell you she didn’t, but that would be a lie. They all suffer. They suffer so much that hardly one in a hundred will see the treatment through. June stood as much of it as she could take and then walked out. I couldn’t stop her – there’s no legal restraint.’

The cigarette in Hellier’s fingers was trembling noticeably. Warren said, ‘I didn’t see her for quite a while after that, and then she came back six months ago. They usually come back. She wanted heroin but I couldn’t prescribe it. There had been a change in the law – all addicts must now get their prescriptions from special clinics which have been set up by the government. I advised treatment, but she wouldn’t hear of it, so I took her to the clinic. Because I knew her medical history – and because I took an interest in her – I was able to act as consultant. Heroin was prescribed – as little as possible – until she died.’

‘Yet she died of an overdose.’

‘No,’ said Warren. ‘She died of a dose of heroin dissolved in a solution of methylamphetamine – and that’s a cocktail with too much of a kick. The amphetamine was not prescribed – she must have got it somewhere else.’

Hellier was shaking. ‘You take this very calmly, Warren,’ he said in an unsteady voice. ‘Too damned calmly for my liking.’

‘I have to take it calmly,’ said Warren. ‘A doctor who becomes emotional is no good to himself or his patients.’

‘A nice, detached, professional attitude,’ sneered Hellier. ‘But it killed my June.’ He thrust a trembling finger under Warren’s nose. ‘I’m going to have your hide, Warren. I’m not without influence. I’m going to break you.’

Warren looked at Hellier bleakly. ‘It’s not my custom to kick parents in the teeth on occasions like this,’ he said tightly. ‘But you’re asking for it – so don’t push me.’

‘Push you!’ Hellier grinned mirthlessly. ‘Like the Russian said – I’m going to bury you!’

Warren stood up. ‘All right – then tell me this: do you usually communicate with your children at second hand by means of letters from your secretary?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Six months ago, just before you went to America, June wanted to see you. You fobbed her off with a form letter from your secretary, for God’s sake!’

‘I was very busy at the time. I had a big deal impending.’

‘She wanted your help. You wouldn’t give it to her, so she came to me. You promised to write from America. Did you?’

‘I was busy,’ said Hellier weakly. ‘I had a heavy schedule – a lot of flights … conferences …’

‘So you didn’t write. When did you get back?’

‘A fortnight ago.’

‘Nearly six months away. Did you know where your daughter was? Did you try to find out? She was still alive then, you know.’

‘Good Christ, I had to straighten out things over here. Things had gone to hell in my absence.’

‘They had, indeed!’ said Warren icily. ‘You say that you found June a job and set her up in a flat. It sounds very nice when put that way, but I’d say that you threw her out. In the preceding years did you try to find out why her behaviour had changed? Why she needed more and more money? In fact I’d like to know how often you saw your daughter. Did you supervise her activities? Check on the company she was keeping? Did you act like a father?’

Hellier was ashen. ‘Oh, my God!’

Warren sat down and said quietly, ‘Now I’m really going to hurt you, Hellier. Your daughter hated your guts. She told me so herself, although I didn’t know who you were. She kept that damned patronizing secretary’s letter to fuel her hatred, and she ended up in a sleazy doss-house in Notting Hill with cash resources of three shillings and four-pence. If, six months ago, you’d have granted your daughter fifteen minutes of your precious time she’d have been alive now.’

He leaned over the desk and said in a rasping voice, ‘Now tell me, Hellier; who was responsible for your daughter’s death?’

Hellier’s face crumpled and Warren drew back and regarded him with something like pity. He felt ashamed of himself; ashamed of letting his emotions take control in such an unprofessional way. He watched Hellier grope for a handkerchief, and then got up and went to a cupboard where he tipped a couple of pills from a bottle.

He returned to the desk and said, ‘Here, take these – they’ll help.’ Unresistingly, Hellier allowed him to administer the pills and. gulped them down with the aid of a glass of water. He became calmer and presently began to speak in a low, jerky voice.

‘Helen – that’s my wife – June’s mother – my ex-wife – we had a divorce, you know. I divorced her – June was fifteen then. Helen was no good – no good at all. There were other men – I was sick of it. Made me look a fool. June stayed with me, she said she wanted to. God knows Helen didn’t want her around.’

He took a shaky breath. ‘June was still at school then, of course. I had my work – my business – it was getting bigger and more involved all the time. You have no idea how big and complicated it can get. International stuff, you know. I travelled a lot.’ He looked blindly into the past. ‘I didn’t realize.…’

Warren said gently, ‘I know.’

Hellier looked up. ‘I doubt it, Doctor.’ His eyes flickered under Warren’s steady gaze and he dropped his head again. ‘Maybe you do. I suppose I’m not the only damned fool you’ve come across.’

In an even voice, trying to attune himself to Hellier’s mood, Warren said, ‘It’s hard enough to keep up with the younger generation even when they’re underfoot. They seem to have a different way of thought – different ideals.’

Hellier sighed. ‘But I could have tried.’ He squeezed his hands together tightly. ‘People of my class tend to think that parental neglect and juvenile delinquency are prerogatives of the lower orders. Good Christ!’

Warren said briskly. ‘I’ll give you something to help you sleep tonight.’

Hellier made a negating gesture. ‘No, thanks, Doctor, I’ll take my medicine the hard way.’ He looked up. ‘Do you know how it started? How did she …? How could she …?’

Warren shrugged. ‘She didn’t say much. It was hard enough coping with present difficulties. But I think her case was very much the standard form; cannabis to begin with – taken as a lark or a dare – then on to the more potent drugs, and finally heroin and the more powerful amphetamines. It all usually starts with running with the wrong crowd.’

Hellier nodded. ‘Lack of parental control,’ he said bitterly. ‘Where do they get the filthy stuff?’

‘That’s the crux. There’s a fair amount of warehouse looting by criminals who have a ready market, and there’s smuggling, of course. Here in England, where clinics prescribe heroin under controlled conditions to Home Office registered addicts, it’s not so bad compared with the States. Over there, because it’s totally illegal, there’s a vast illicit market with consequent high profits and an organized attempt to push the stuff. There’s an estimated forty thousand heroin addicts in New York alone, compared with about two thousand in the whole of the United Kingdom. But it’s bad enough here – the number is doubling every sixteen months.’

‘Can’t the police do anything about illegal drugs?’

Warren said ironically, ‘I suppose Inspector Stephens told you all about me.’

‘He gave me a totally wrong impression,’ mumbled Hellier. He stirred restlessly.

‘That’s all right; I’m used to that kind of thing. The police attitude largely coincides with the public attitude – but it’s no use chivvying an addict once he’s hooked. That only leads to bigger profits for the gangsters because the addict on the run must get his dope where he can. And it adds to crime because he’s not too particular where he gets the money to pay for the dope.’ Warren studied Hellier, who was becoming noticeably calmer. He decided that this was as much due to the academic discussion as to the sedation, so he carried on.

‘The addicts are sick people and the police should leave them alone,’ he said. ‘We’ll take care of them. The police should crack down on the source of illegal drugs.’

‘Aren’t they doing that?’

‘That’s not so easy. It’s an international problem. Besides, there’s the difficulty of getting information – this is an illegal operation and people don’t talk.’ He smiled. ‘Addicts don’t like the police and so the police get little out of them. On the other hand, I don’t like addicts – they’re difficult patients most doctors won’t touch – but I understand them, and they tell me things. I probably know more about what’s going on than the official police sources.’

‘Then why don’t you tell the police?’ demanded Hellier.

Warren’s voice went suddenly hard. ‘If any of my patients knew that I was abusing their confidence by blabbing to the police, I’d lose the lot. Trust between patient and doctor must be absolute – especially with a drug addict. You can’t help them if they don’t trust you enough to come to you for treatment. So I’d lose them to an illicit form of supply; either an impure heroin from the docks at an inflated price, or an aseptic heroin with no treatment from one of my more unethical colleagues. There are one or two bad apples in the medical barrel, as Inspector Stephens will be quick enough to tell you.’

Hellier hunched his big shoulders and looked broodingly down at the desk. ‘So what’s the answer? Can’t you do anything yourself?’

‘Me!’ said Warren in surprise. ‘What could I do? The problem of supply begins right outside England in the Middle East. I’m no story-book adventurer, Hellier; I’m a medical doctor with patients, who just makes ends meet. I can’t just shoot off to Iran on a crazy adventure.’

Hellier growled deep in his throat, ‘You might have fewer patients if you were as crazy as that.’ He stood up. ‘I’m sorry about my attitude when I first came in here, Dr Warren. You have cleared up a lot of things I didn’t understand. You have told me my faults. You have told me of your ethics in this matter. You have also pointed out a possible solution which you refuse to countenance. What about your faults, Dr Warren, and where are your ethics now?’

He strode heavily to the door. ‘Don’t bother to see me out, Doctor; I’ll find my own way.’

Warren, taken wrong-footed, was startled as the door closed behind Hellier. Slowly he returned to the chair behind his desk and sat down. He lit a cigarette and remained in deep thought for some minutes, then shook his head irritably as though to escape a buzzing fly.

Ridiculous! he thought. Absolutely ridiculous!

But the maggot of doubt stirred and he could not escape its irritation in his mind no matter how hard he tried.

That evening he walked through Piccadilly and into Soho, past the restaurants and strip joints and night clubs, the chosen haunt of most of his patients. He saw one or two of them and they waved to him. He waved back in an automatic action and went on, almost unaware of his surroundings, until he found himself in Wardour Street outside the offices of the Regent Picture Company.

He looked up at the building. ‘Ridiculous!’ he said aloud.

III

Sir Robert Hellier also had a bad night.

He went back to his flat in St James’s and was almost totally unaware of how he got there. His chauffeur noted the tight lips and lowering expression and took the precaution of ringing the flat from the garage before he put away the car. ‘The old bastard’s in a mood, Harry,’ he said to Hellier’s man, Hutchins. ‘Better keep clear of him and walk on eggs.’

So it was that when Hellier walked into his penthouse flat Hutchins put out the whisky and made himself scarce. Hellier ignored both the presence of the whisky and the absence of Hutchins and sank his bulk into a luxurious armchair, where he brooded deep in thought.

Inside he writhed with guilt. It had been many more years than he could remember since anyone had had the guts to hold up a mirror wherein he could see himself, and the experience was harrowing. He hated himself and, perhaps, he hated Warren even more for rubbing his nose into his shortcomings. Yet he was basically honest and he recognized that his final remarks and abrupt exit from Warren’s rooms had been the sudden crystallization of his desire to crack Warren’s armour of ethics – to find the feet of clay and to pull Warren down to his own miserable level.

And what about June? Where did she come into all this? He thought of his daughter as he had once known her – gay, light-hearted, carefree. There was nothing he had not been prepared to give her, from the best schools to good clothes by fashionable designers, parties, continental holidays and all the rest of the good life.

Everything, except myself, he thought remorsefully.

And then, unnoticed in the interstices of his busy life, a change had come. June developed an insatiable appetite for money; not, apparently, for the things money can buy, but for money itself. Hellier was a self-made man, brought up in a hard school, and he believed that the young should earn their independence. What started out to be calm discussions with June turned into a series of flaming rows and, in the end, he lost his temper and then came the break. It was true what Warren had said; he had thrown out his daughter without making an attempt to find the root cause of the change in her.

The theft of the silver from his home had only confirmed his impression that she had gone bad, and his main worry had been to keep the matter quiet and out of the press. He suddenly realized, to his shame, that the bad press he was likely to get because of the inquest had been uppermost in his mind ever since he had seen Inspector Stephens.

How had all this happened? How had he come to lose first a wife and then a daughter?

He had worked – by God, how he had worked! The clapperclawing to the top in an industry where knives are wielded with the greatest efficiency; the wheeling and dealing with millions at stake. The American trip, for instance – he had got on top of those damned sharp Yanks – but at what cost? An ulcer, a higher blood pressure than his doctor liked and a nervous three packets of cigarettes a day as inheritance of those six months.

And a dead daughter.

He looked around the flat, at the light-as-air Renoir on the facing wall, at the blue period Picasso at the end of the room. The symbols of success. He suddenly hated them and moved to another chair where they were at his back and where he could look out over London towards the Tudor crenellations of St James’s Palace.

Why had he worked so hard? At first it had been for Helen and young June and for the other children that were to come. But Helen had not wanted children and so June was the only one. Was it about then that the work became a habit, or perhaps an anodyne? He had thrown himself whole-heartedly into the curious world of the film studios where it is a toss-up which is the more important, money or artistry; and not a scrap of his heart had he left for his wife.

Perhaps it was his neglect that had forced Helen to look elsewhere – at first surreptitiously and later blatantly – until he had got tired of the innuendoes and had forced the divorce.

But where, in God’s name, had June come into all this? The work was there by then, and had to be done; decisions had to be taken – by him and by no one else – and each damned decision led to another and then another, filling his time and his life until there was no room for anything but the work.

He held out his hands and looked at them. Nothing but a machine, he thought despondently. A mind for making the right decisions and hands for signing the right cheques.

And somewhere in all this, June, his daughter, had been lost. He was suddenly filled with a terrible shame at the thought of the letter Warren had told him about. He remembered the occasion now. It had been a bad week; he was preparing to carry a fight to America, and everything had gone wrong so he was rushed off his feet. He remembered being waylaid by Miss Walden, his secretary, in a corridor between offices.

‘I’ve a letter for you from Miss Hellier, Sir Robert. She would like to see you on Friday.’

He had stopped, somewhat surprised, and rubbed his chin in desperation, wanting to get on but still wanting to see June. ‘Oh, damn; I have that meeting with Matchet on Friday morning – and that means lunch as well. What do I have after lunch, Miss Walden?’

She did not consult an appointment book because she was not that kind of secretary, which was why he employed her. ‘Your plane leaves at three-thirty – you might have to leave your lunch early.’

‘Oh! Well, do me a favour, Miss Walden. Write to my daughter explaining the situation. Tell her I’ll write from the States as soon as I can.’

And he had gone on into an office and from there to another office and yet another until the day was done – the 18-hour working day. And in two more days it was Friday with the conference with Matchet and the expensive lunch that was necessary to keep Matchet sweet. Then the quick drive to Heathrow – and New York in no time at all – to be confronted by Hewling and Morrin with their offers and propositions, all booby-trapped.

The sudden necessity to fly to Los Angeles and to beat the Hollywood moguls on their own ground. Then back to New York to be inveigled by Morrin to go on that trip to Miami and the Bahamas, an unsubtle attempt at corruption by hospitality. But he had beaten them all and had returned to England with the fruits of victory and at the high point of his career, only to be confronted by the devil of a mess because no one had been strong enough to control Matchet.

In all that time he had never once thought of his daughter.

The dimming light concealed the greyness of his face as he contemplated that odious fact. He sought to find excuses and found none. And he knew that this was not the worst – he knew that he had never given June the opportunity of communicating with him on the simple level of one human being to another. She had been something in the background of his life, and the knowledge hurt him that she had been something and not someone.

Hellier got up and paced the room restlessly, thinking of all the things Warren had said. Warren had seemed to take drug addiction as a matter of course, a normal fact of life to be coped with somehow. Although he had not said so outright, he had implied it was his task to clear up the mess left by the negligence of people like himself.

But surely someone else was to blame. What about the profit-makers? The pushers of drugs?

Hellier paused as he felt a spark of anger flash into being, an anger which, for the first time, was not directed against himself. His was a sin of omission, although not to be minimized on that account. But the sin of commission, the deliberate act of giving drugs to the young for profit, was monstrous. He had been thoughtless, but the drug pedlars were evil.

The anger within him grew until he thought he would burst with the sheer agony of it, but he deliberately checked himself in order to think constructively. Just as he had not allowed his emotions to impede his negotiations with Matchet, Hewling and Morrin,, so he brought his not inconsiderable intellect to bear unclouded on this new problem. Hellier, as an efficient machine, began to swing smoothly into action.

He first thought of Warren who, with his special knowledge, was undoubtedly the key. Hellier was accustomed to studying closely the men with whom he dealt because their points of strength and weakness showed in subtle ways. He went over in his mind everything Warren had said and the way in which he had said it, and seized upon two points. He was certain Warren knew something important.

But he had to make sure that his chosen key would not break in his hand. Decisively he picked up the telephone and dialled a number. A moment later he said, ‘Yes, I know it’s late. Do we have that firm of investigators still on our books? They helped us on the Lowrey case … Good! I want them to investigate Dr Nicholas Warren MD. Repeat that. It must be done discreetly. Everything there is to know about him, damn it! As fast as possible … a report in three days … oh, damn the expense! … charge it to my private account.’

Absently he picked up the decanter of whisky. ‘And another thing. Get the Research Department to find out all they can about drug smuggling – the drug racket in general. Again, a report in three days … Yes, I’m serious … it might make a good film.’ He paused. ‘Just one thing more; the Research Department mustn’t go near Dr Warren … Yes, they’re quite likely to, but they must steer clear of him – is that understood? Good!’

He put down the telephone and looked at the decanter in some surprise. He laid it down gently and went into his bedroom. For the first time in many years he ignored his normal meticulous procedure of hanging up his clothes and left them strewn about the floor.

Once in bed the tensions left him and his body relaxed. It was only then that the physical expression of his grief came to him and he broke down. Waves of shudders racked his body and this man of fifty-five wet the pillow with his tears.

TWO

Warren was – and was not – surprised to hear from Hellier again. In the forefront of his mind he wondered what Hellier was after and was almost inclined to refuse to see him. In his experience prolonged post-mortems with the survivors did no one any good in the long run; they merely served to turn guilt into acceptance and, as a moral man, he believed that the guilty should be punished and that self-punishment was the most severe form.

But in the remote recesses of his mind still lurked the nagging doubt which had been injected by Hellier’s final words and so, somewhat to his surprise, he found himself accepting Hellier’s invitation to meet him in the St James’s flat. This time, oddly enough, he was not averse to meeting Hellier on his own ground – that battle had already been won.

Hellier greeted him with a conventional, ‘It’s very good of you to come, Doctor,’ and led him into a large and softly luxurious room where he was waved courteously to a chair. ‘Drink?’ asked Hellier. ‘Or don’t you?’

Warren smiled. ‘I have all the normal vices. I’d like a Scotch.’

He found himself sipping a whisky so good that it was almost criminal to dilute it with water, and holding one of Hellier’s monogrammed cigarettes. ‘We’re a picturesque lot, we film people,’ said Hellier wryly. ‘Self-advertisement is one of our worst faults.’

Warren looked at the intertwined R H stamped in gold on the handmade cigarette, and suspected that it was not Hellier’s normal style and that he went about it coldbloodedly in what was a conformist industry. He said nothing and waited for Hellier to toss a more reasonable conversational ball.

‘First, I must apologize for the scene I made in your rooms,’ said Hellier.

‘You have already done so,’ said Warren gravely. ‘And in any case, no apology is necessary.’

Hellier settled in a chair facing Warren and put his glass on a low table. ‘I find you are very well thought of in your profession.’

Warren twitched an eyebrow. ‘Indeed!’

‘I’ve been finding out things about the drug racket – I think I have it pretty well taped.’

‘In three days?’ said Warren ironically.

‘In the film industry, by its very nature, there must be an enormous fund of general knowledge. My Research Department is very nearly as good as, say, a newspaper office. If you put enough staff on to a problem you can do a lot in three days.’

Warren let that go and merely nodded.

‘My research staff found that in nearly one-third of their enquiries they were advised to consult you as a leading member of the profession.’

‘They didn’t,’ said Warren succinctly.

Hellier smiled. ‘No, I told them not to. As you said the other day, you’re a very busy man. I didn’t want to disturb you.’

‘I suppose I should thank you,’ said Warren with a straight face.

Hellier squared his shoulders. ‘Dr Warren, let us not fence with each other. I’m putting all my cards on the table. I also had you independently investigated.’

Warren sipped whisky and kept steady eyes on Hellier over the glass. ‘That’s a damned liberty,’ he observed mildly. ‘I suppose I should ask you what you found.’

Hellier held up his hand. ‘Nothing but good, Doctor. You have an enviable reputation both as a man and as a physician, besides being outstanding in the field of drug addiction.’

Warren said satirically, ‘I should like to read that dossier some time – it would be like reading one’s obituary, a chance which comes to few of us.’ He put down his glass. ‘And to what end is all this … this effort on your part?’

‘I wanted to be sure that you are the right man,’ said Hellier seriously.

‘You’re talking in riddles,’ said Warren impatiently. He laughed. ‘Are you going to offer me a job? Technical adviser to a film, perhaps?’

‘Perhaps,’ said Hellier. ‘Let me ask you a question. You are divorced from your wife. Why?’

Warren felt outrage, surprise and shock. He was outraged at the nature of the question; surprised that the urbane Hellier should have asked it; shocked because of the intensive nature of Hellier’s investigation of him. ‘That’s my affair,’ he said coldly.

‘Undoubtedly,’ Hellier studied Warren for a moment. I’ll tell you why your wife divorced you. She didn’t like your association with drug addicts.’

Warren put his hands on the arms of the chair preparatory to rising, and Hellier said sharply, ‘Sit down, man; listen to what I’ve got to say.’

‘It had better be good,’ said Warren, relaxing. ‘I don’t take kindly to conversations of this nature.’

Hellier stubbed out his cigarette and lit another. ‘That tells me more about you than it does about your wife, whom I am not interested in. It tells me that the interests of your profession come ahead of your personal relationships. Are you aware that you are considered to be a fanatic on the subject of drugs?’

‘It has been brought to my attention,’ said Warren stiffly.

Hellier nodded. ‘As you pointed out – and as I have found in my brief study – drug addicts are not the most easy patients. They’re conceited, aggressive, deceitful, vicious, crafty and any other pejorative term you care to apply to them. And yet you persist against all the odds in trying to help them – even to the extent of losing your wife. That seems to me to show a great deal of dedication.’

Warren snorted. ‘Dedication my foot! It’s just what goes with the job. All those vices you’ve just mentioned are symptoms of the general drug syndrome. The addicts are like that because of the drugs, and you can’t just leave them to stew because you don’t like the way they behave.’ He shook his head. ‘Come to the point. I didn’t come here to be admired – especially by you.’

Hellier flushed. ‘I was making a point in my own peculiar way,’ he said. ‘But I’ll come to the nub of it. When I came to see you, you said that the problem was in stopping the inflow of illicit drugs and you said it was an international problem. You were also damned quick to say that you weren’t prepared to jump off to Iran on a crazy adventure.’ He stuck out his finger. ‘I think you know something, Dr Warren; and I think it’s something definite.’

‘My God!’ said Warren. ‘You jump to a fast conclusion.’

‘I’m used to it,’ said Hellier easily. ‘I’ve had a lot of experience – and I’m usually right. I get paid for being right and I’m highly paid. Now, why Iran? Heroin is ultimately derived from opium, and opium comes from many places. It could come from the Far East – China or Burma – but you said the problem of illegal supply begins in the Middle East. Why the Middle East? And why pick Iran in particular? It could come from any of half a dozen countries from Afghanistan to Greece, but you took a snap judgment on Iran without a second thought.’ He set down his glass with a tiny click. ‘You know something definite, Dr Warren.’

Warren stirred in his chair. ‘Why this sudden interest?’

‘Because I’ve decided to do something about it,’ said Hellier. He laughed briefly at the expression on Warren’s face. ‘No, I haven’t gone mad; neither do I have delusions of grandeur. You pointed out the problem yourself. What the devil’s the good of patching up these damned idiots if they can walk out and pick up a fresh supply on the nearest corner? Cutting off the illegal supply would make your own job a lot easier.’

‘For God’s sake!’ exploded Warren. ‘There are hundreds of policemen of all nationalities working on this. What makes you think you can do any better?’

Hellier levelled a finger at him. ‘Because you have information which for reasons of your own – quite ethical reasons, I am sure – you will not pass on to the police.’

‘And which I will pass on to you – is that it?’

‘Oh, no,’ said Hellier. ‘You can keep it to yourself if you wish.’ He stabbed a finger towards Warren again. ‘You see, you are going to do something about it.’

‘Now I know you’re crazy,’ said Warren in disgust. ‘Hellier, I think you’ve been knocked off balance; you’re set on some weird kind of expiation and you’re trying to drag me into it.’ His lips twisted. ‘It’s known as shutting the stable door after the horse has gone, and I want no part of it.’

Unperturbedly, Hellier lit another cigarette, and Warren suddenly said, ‘You smoke too much.’

‘You’re the second doctor to tell me that within a fortnight.’ Hellier waved his hand. ‘You see, you can’t help being a doctor, even now. At our last meeting you said something else – “I’m a doctor who just makes ends meet”.’ He laughed. ‘You’re right; I know your bank balance to a penny. But suppose you had virtually unlimited funds, and suppose you coupled those funds with the information I’m certain you have and which, incidentally, you don’t deny having. What then?’

Warren spoke without thinking. ‘It’s too big for one man.’

‘Who said anything about one man? Pick your own team,’ said Hellier expansively,

Warren stared at him. ‘I believe you mean all this,’ he said in wonder.

‘I might be in the business of spinning fairy tales for other people,’ said Hellier soberly. ‘But I don’t spin them for myself. I mean every word of it.’

Warren knew he had been right; Hellier had been pushed off balance by the death of his daughter. He judged that Hellier had always been a single-minded man, and now he had veered off course and had set his sights on a new objective. And he would be a hard man to stop.

‘I don’t think you know what’s involved,’ he said.

‘I don’t care what’s involved,’ said Hellier flatly. ‘I want to hit these bastards. I want blood.’

‘Whose blood – mine?’ asked Warren cynically. ‘You’ve picked the wrong man. I don’t think the man exists, anyway. You need a combination of St George and James Bond. I’m a doctor, not a gang-buster.’

‘You’re a man with the knowledge and qualifications I need,’ said Hellier intensely. He saw he was on the edge of losing Warren, and said more calmly, ‘Don’t make a snap decision now, Doctor; just think it over.’ His voice sharpened. ‘And pay a thought to ethics.’ He looked at his watch. ‘Now what about a bite to eat?’

II

Warren left Hellier’s flat comfortable in stomach but uneasy in mind. As he walked up Jermyn Street towards Piccadilly Circus he thought of all the aspects of the odd proposition Hellier had put to him. There was no doubt that Hellier meant it, but he did not know what he was getting into – not by half; in the vicious world of the drug trade no quarter was given – the stakes were too high.

He pushed his way through the brawling crowds of Piccadilly Circus and turned off into Soho. Presently he stopped outside a pub, looked at his watch, and then went in. It was crowded but someone companionably made room for him at a corner of the bar and he ordered a Scotch and, with the glass in his hand, looked about the room. Sitting at a table on the other side were three of his boys. He looked at them speculatively and judged they had had their shots not long before; they were at ease and conversation between them flowed freely. One of them looked up and waved and he raised his hand in greeting.

In order to get to his patients, to acquire their unwilling trust, Warren had lived with them and had, at last, become accepted. It was an uphill battle to get them to use clean needles and sterile water; too many of them had not the slightest idea of medical hygiene. He lived in their half-world on the fringes of crime where even the Soho prostitutes took a high moral tone and considered that the addicts lowered the gentility of the neighbourhood. It was enough to make a man laugh – or cry.

Warren made no moral judgments. To him it was a social and medical problem. He was not immediately concerned with the fundamental instability in a man which led him to take heroin; all he knew was that when the man was hooked he was hooked for good. At that stage there was no point in recrimination because it solved nothing. There was a sick man to be helped, and Warren helped him, fighting society at large, the police and even the addict himself.

It was in this pub, and in places like it, that he had heard the three hard facts and the thousand rumours which constituted the core of the special knowledge which Hellier was trying to get from him. To mix with addicts was to mix with criminals. At first they had been close-mouthed when he was around, but later, when they discovered that his lips were equally tight, they spoke more freely. They knew who – and what – he was, but they accepted it, although to a few he was just another ‘flaming do-gooder’ who ought to keep his long nose out of other people’s affairs. But generally he had become accepted.

He turned back to the bar and contemplated his glass. Nick Warren – do-it-yourself Bond! he thought. Hellier is incredible! The trouble with Hellier was that he did not know the magnitude of what he had set out to do. Millionaire though he was, the prizes offered in the drug trade would make even Hellier appear poverty-stricken, and with money like that at stake men do not hesitate to kill.

A heavy hand smote him on the back and he choked over his drink. ‘Hello, Doc; drowning your sorrows?’

Warren turned. ‘Hello, Andy. Have a drink.’

‘Most kind,’ said Andrew Tozier. ‘But allow me.’ He pulled out a wallet and peeled a note from the fat wad.

‘I wouldn’t think of it,’ said Warren drily. ‘You’re still unemployed.’ He caught the eye of the barman and ordered two whiskies.

‘Aye,’ said Tozier, putting away his wallet. ‘The world’s becoming too bloody quiet for my liking.’

‘You can’t be reading the newspapers,’ observed Warren. ‘The Russians are acting up again and Vietnam was still going full blast the last I heard.’

‘But those are the big boys,’ said Tozier. ‘There’s no room for a small-scale enterprise like mine. It’s the same everywhere – the big firms put the squeeze on us little chaps.’ He lifted his glass. ‘Cheers!’

Warren regarded him with sudden interest. Major Andrew Tozier; profession – mercenary soldier. A killer for hire. Andy would not shoot anyone indiscriminately – that would be murder. But he was quite prepared to be employed by a new government to whip into line a regiment of half-trained black soldiers and lead them into action. He was a walking symptom of a schizophrenic world.

‘Cheers!’ said Warren absently. His mind was racing with mad thoughts.

Tozier jerked his head towards the door. ‘Your consulting-room is filling up, Doc.’ Warren looked over and saw four young men just entering; three were his patients but the fourth he did not know. ‘I don’t know how you stand those cheap bastards,’ said Tozier.

‘Someone has to look after them,’ said Warren. ‘Who’s the new boy?’

Tozier shrugged. ‘Another damned soul on the way to hell,’ he said macabrely. ‘You’ll probably meet up with him when he wants a fix.’

Warren nodded. ‘So there’s still no action in your line.’

‘Not a glimmer.’

‘Maybe your rates are too high. I suppose it’s a case of supply and demand like everything else.’

‘The rates are never too high,’ said Tozier, a little bleakly. ‘What price would you put on your skin, Doc?’

‘I’ve just been asked that question – in an oblique way,’ said Warren, thinking of Hellier. ‘What is the going rate, anyway?’

‘Five hundred a month plus a hell of a big bonus on completion.’ Tozier smiled. ‘Thinking of starting a war?’

Warren looked him in the eye. ‘I just might be.’

The smile faded from Tozier’s lips. He looked at Warren closely, impressed by the way he had spoken. ‘By God!’ he said. ‘I think you’re serious. Who are you thinking of tackling? The Metropolitan Police?’ The smile returned and grew broader.

Warren said, ‘You’ve never gone in for really private enterprise, have you? I mean a private war as opposed to a public war.’

Tozier shook his head. ‘I’ve always stayed legal or, at any rate, political. Anyway, there are precious few people financing private brawls. I take it you don’t mean carrying a gun for some jumped-up Soho “businessman” busily engaged in carving out a private empire? Or bodyguarding?’

‘Nothing like that,’ said Warren. He was thinking of what he knew of Andrew Tozier. The man had values of a sort. Not long before, Warren had asked why he had not taken advantage of a conflict that was going on in a South American country.

Tozier had been scathingly contemptuous. ‘Good Christ! That’s a power game going on between two gangs of top-class cut-throats. I have no desire to mow down the poor sons of bitches of peasants who happen to get caught in the middle.’ He had looked hard at Warren. ‘I choose my fights,’ he said.

Warren thought that if he did pick up Hellier’s ridiculous challenge then Andy Tozier would be a good man to have around. Not that there was any likelihood of it happening.

Tozier was waving to the barman, and held up two fingers. He turned to Warren, and said, ‘You have something on your mind, Doctor. Is someone putting the pressure on?’

‘In a way,’ said Warren wryly. He thought Hellier had not really started yet; the next thing to come would be the moral blackmail.

‘Give me his name,’ said Tozier. ‘I’ll lean on him a bit. He won’t trouble you any more.’

Warren smiled. ‘Thanks, Andy; it’s not that sort of pressure.’

Tozier looked relieved. ‘That’s all right, then. I thought some of your mainliners might have been ganging up on you. I’d soon sort them out.’ He put a pound note on the counter and accepted the change. ‘Here’s mud in your eye.’

‘Supposing I needed bodyguarding,’ said Warren carefully. ‘Would you take on the job – at your usual rates?’

Tozier laughed loudly. ‘You couldn’t afford me. I’d do it for free, though, if it isn’t too long a job.’ A frown creased his forehead. ‘Something really is biting you, Doc. I think you’d better tell me what it is.’

‘No,’ said Warren sharply. If – and it was a damned big ‘if’ – he went deeper into this then he could not trust anyone, not even Andy Tozier who seemed straight enough. He said slowly, ‘If it ever happens it will take, perhaps, a few months, and it will be in the Middle East. You’d get paid your five hundred a month plus a bonus.’

Tozier put down his glass gently. ‘And it’s not political?’

‘As far as I know, it isn’t,’ said Warren thoughtfully.

‘And I bodyguard you?’ Tozier seemed bewildered.

Warren grinned. ‘Perhaps there’d be a bit of fetching and carrying in a fierce sort of way.’

‘Middle East and not political – maybe,’ mused Tozier. He shook his head. ‘I usually like to know more about what I’m getting into.’ He shot Warren a piercing glance. ‘But you I trust. If you want me – just shout.’

‘It may never happen,’ warned Warren. ‘There’s no firm commitment.’

‘That’s all right,’ said Tozier. ‘Let’s just say you have a free option on my services.’ He finished his drink with a flourish and bumped down the glass, looking at Warren expectantly. ‘Your round. Anyone who can afford my rates can afford to buy me drinks.’

Warren went home and spent a long time just sitting in a chair and gazing into space. In an indefinable way he somehow felt committed, despite what he had said to Andy Tozier. The mere act of meeting the man had put ideas into his head, ideas that were crazy mad but becoming more real and solid with every tick of the clock. At one point he got up restlessly and paced the room.

‘Damn Hellier!’ he said aloud.

He went to his desk, drew out a sheet of paper, and began writing busily. At the end of half an hour he had, perhaps, twenty names scribbled down. Thoughtfully he scanned his list and began to eliminate and in another fifteen minutes the list was reduced to five names,

ANDREW TOZIER

JOHN FOLLET

DAN PARKER

BEN BRYAN

MICHAEL ABBOT

III

Number 23, Acacia Road, was a neat, semi-detached house, indistinguishable from the hundreds around it. Warren pushed open the wooden gate, walked the few steps necessary to get to the front door and past the postage-stamp-sized front garden, and rang the bell. The door was opened by a trim, middle-aged woman who greeted him with pleasure.

‘Why, Dr Warren; we haven’t seen you for a long time.’ Alarm chased across her face. ‘It’s not Jimmy again, is it? He hasn’t been getting into any more trouble?’

Warren smiled reassuringly. ‘Not that I know of, Mrs Parker.’

He almost felt her relief. ‘Oh!’ she said. ‘Well, that’s all right, then. Do you want to see Jimmy? He’s not in now – he went down to the youth club.’

‘I came to see Dan,’ said Warren. ‘Just for a friendly chat.’

‘What am I thinking of,’ said Mrs Parker. ‘Keeping you on the doorstep like this. Come in, Doctor. Dan just got home – he’s upstairs washing.’

Warren was quite aware that Dan Parker had just reached home. He had not wanted to see Parker at the garage where he worked so he had waited in his car and followed him home. Mrs Parker ushered him into the front room. ‘I’ll tell him you’re here,’ she said.

Warren looked about the small room; at the three pottery ducks on the wall, at the photographs of the children on the sideboard and the other photograph of a much younger Dan Parker in uniform. He did not have to wait long. Parker came into the room and held out his hand. ‘This is a pleasure we didn’t expect, Doctor.’ Warren, grasping the hand, felt the hardness of callouses. ‘I was only sayin’ to Sally the other day that it’s a pity we don’t see more of you.’

‘Perhaps it’s just as well,’ said Warren ruefully. ‘I’m afraid I put the breeze up Mrs Parker just now.’

‘Aye,’ said Parker soberly. ‘I know what you mean. But we’d still like to see you, sociable like.’ The warm tones of the Lancastrian were still heard, although Parker had lived in London for many years. ‘Sit down, Doctor; Sally’ll be bringing in tea any minute.’

‘I’ve come to see you on … a matter of business.’

‘Oh, aye,’ said Parker comfortably. ‘We’ll get down to it after tea, then, shall we? Sally has to go out, anyway; her younger sister’s a bit under the weather, so Sally’s doin’ a bit o’ baby-sitting.’

‘I’m sorry to hear that,’ said Warren. ‘How’s Jimmy these days?’

‘He’s all right now,’ said Parker. ‘You straightened him out, Doctor. You put the fear o’ God into him – an’ I keep it there.’

‘I wouldn’t be too hard on him.’

‘Just hard enough,’ said Parker uncompromisingly. ‘He’ll not get on that lark again.’ He sighed. ‘I don’t know what kids are comin’ to these days. It weren’t like that when I were a lad. If I’d a’ done what young Jimmy did, me father would a’ laid into me that hard with his strap. He had a heavy hand, had me dad.’ He shook his head. ‘But it wouldn’t a’ entered our heads.’

Warren listened to this age-old plaint of the parents without a trace of a smile. ‘Yes,’ he agreed gravely. ‘Things have changed.’

Sally Parker brought in the tea – a cut down, southern version of the traditional northern high tea. She pressed homemade cakes and scones on Warren, and insisted on refilling his cup. Warren studied Parker unobtrusively and tried to figure out how to broach the delicate subject in such a way as to ensure the greatest co-operation.

Daniel Parker was a man of forty. He had joined the Navy during the last few months of the war and had elected to make a career of it. In the peacetime Navy he had forged ahead in his stubborn way despite the inevitably slow rate of promotion. He had fought in Korean waters during that war and had come out of it a petty officer with the heady prospect of getting commissioned rank. But in 1962 a torpedo got loose and rolled on his leg, and that was the end of his naval career.

He had come out of the Navy with one leg permanently shortened, a disability pension and no job. The last did not worry him because he knew he was good with his hands. Since 1963 he had been working as a mechanic in a garage, and Warren thought his employer was damned lucky.

Mrs Parker looked at her watch and made an exclamation. ‘Oh, I’ll be late. You’ll have to excuse me, Doctor.’

‘That’s all right, Mrs Parker,’ said Warren, rising.

‘You get off, lass,’ said Parker. ‘I’ll see to the dishes, an’ the doctor an’ me will have a quiet chat.’ Mrs Parker left, and Parker produced a stubby pipe which he proceeded to fill. ‘You said you wanted to see me on business, Doctor.’ He looked up in a puzzled way, and then smiled. ‘Maybe you’ll be wantin’ a new car.’

‘No,’ said Warren. ‘How are things at the garage, Dan?’

Parker shrugged. ‘Same as ever. Gets a bit monotonous at times – but I’m doin’ an interestin’ job now on a Mini-Cooper.’ He smiled slowly. ‘Most o’ the time I’m dealin’ wi’ the troubles o’ maiden ladies. I had one come in the other day – said the car was usin’ too much petrol. I tested it an’ there was nothin’ wrong, so I gave it back. But she was back in no time at all wi’ the same trouble.’

He struck a match. ‘I still found nothin’ wrong, so I said to her, “Miss Hampton, I want to drive around a bit with you just for a final check,” so off we went. The first thing she did was to pull out the choke an’ hang her bag on it – said she thought that was what it was for.’ He shook his head in mild disgust.

Warren laughed. ‘You’re a long way from the Navy, Dan.’

‘Aye, that’s a fact,’ said Parker, a little morosely. ‘I still miss it, you know. But what can a man do?’ Absently, he stroked his bad leg. ‘Still, I daresay it’s better for Sally an’ the kids even though she never minded me bein’ away.’

‘What do you miss about it, Dan?’

Parker puffed at his pipe contemplatively. ‘Hard to say. I think I miss the chance o’ handling fine machinery. This patching up o’ production cars doesn’t stretch a man – that’s why I like to get something different, like this Mini-Cooper I’m workin’ on now. By the time I’m finished wi’ it Issigonis wouldn’t recognize it.’

Warren said carefully, ‘Supposing you were given the chance of handling naval equipment again. Would you take it?’

Parker took the pipe out of his mouth. ‘What are you gettin’ at, Doctor?’

‘I want a man who knows all about torpedoes,’ Warren said bluntly.

Parker blinked. ‘I know as much as anyone, I reckon, but I don’t see …’ His voice tailed off and he looked at Warren in a baffled way.

‘Let me put it this way. Supposing I wanted to smuggle something comparatively light and very valuable into a country that has a seaboard. Could it be done by torpedo?’

Parker scratched his head. ‘It never occurred to me,’ he said, and grinned. ‘But it’s a bloody good idea. What are you thinkin’ o’ doin’ the Excise with? Swiss watches?’

‘What about heroin?’ asked Warren quietly.

Parker went rigid and stared at Warren as though he had suddenly sprouted horns and a tail. The pipe fell from his fingers to lie unregarded as he said, ‘Are you serious? I’d a’ never believed it.’

‘It’s all right, Dan,’ said Warren. ‘I’m serious, but not in the way you mean. But could it be done?’

There was a long moment before Parker groped for his pipe. ‘It could be done all right,’ he said. ‘The old Mark XI carried a warhead of over seven hundred pounds. You could pack a hell of a lot o’ heroin in there.’

‘And the range?’

‘Maximum five thousand, five hundred yards if you preheat the batteries,’ said Parker promptly.

‘Damn!’ said Warren disappointedly. ‘That’s not enough. You said batteries. Is this an electric torpedo?’

‘Aye. Ideal for smugglin’ it is. No bubbles, you see.’

‘But not nearly enough range,’ said Warren despondently. ‘It was a good idea while it lasted.’

‘What’s your problem?’ asked Parker, striking a match.

‘I was thinking of a ship cruising outside the territorial waters of the United States and firing a torpedo inshore. That’s twelve miles – over twenty-one thousand yards.’

‘That’s a long way,’ said Parker, puffing at his pipe. It did not ignite and he had to strike another match and it was some time before he got the pipe glowing to his satisfaction. ‘But maybe it could be done.’

Warren ceased to droop and looked up alertly. ‘It could?’

‘The Mark XI came out in 1944 an’ things have changed since then,’ said Parker thoughtfully. He looked up. ‘Where would you be gettin’ a torpedo, anyway?’

‘I haven’t gone into that yet,’ said Warren. ‘But it shouldn’t be too difficult. There’s an American in Switzerland who has enough war surplus arms to outfit the British forces. He should have torpedoes.’

‘Then they’d be Mark XIs,’ said Parker. ‘Or the German equivalent. I doubt if anythin’ more modern has got on the war surplus market yet.’ He pursed his lips. ‘It’s an interestin’ problem. You see, the Mark XI had lead-acid batteries – fifty-two of ‘em. But things have changed since the war an’ you can get better batteries now. What I’d do would be to rip out the lead-acid batteries an’ replace with high-power mercury cells.’ He stared at the ceiling dreamily. ‘All the circuits would need redesignin’ an’ it would be bloody expensive, but I think I could do it.’

He leaned forward and tapped his pipe against the fireplace, then looked Warren firmly in the eye. ‘But not for smugglin’ dope.’

‘It’s all right, Dan; I haven’t switched tracks.’ Warren rubbed his chin. ‘I want you to work with me on a job. It will pay twice as much as you’re getting at the garage, and there’ll be a big bonus when you’ve finished. And if you don’t want to go back to the garage there’ll be a guaranteed steady job for as long as you want it.’

Parker blew a long plume of smoke. ‘There’s a queer smell to this one, Doctor. It sounds illegal to me.’

‘It’s not illegal,’ said Warren quickly. ‘But it could be dangerous.’

Parker pondered. ‘How long would it take?’

‘I don’t know. Might be three months – might be six. It wouldn’t be in England, either, you’d be going out to the Middle East.’

‘And it could be dangerous. What sort o’ danger?’

Warren decided to be honest. ‘Well, if you put a foot wrong you could get yourself shot.’

Parker laid down his pipe in the hearth. ‘You’re askin’ a bloody lot, aren’t you? I have a wife an’ three kids – an’ here you come wi’ a funny proposition that stinks to high heaven an’ you tell me I could get shot. Why come to me, anyway?’

‘I need a good torpedo man – and you’re the only one I know.’ A slight smile touched Warren’s lips. ‘It’s not the most crowded trade in the world.’

Parker nodded his agreement. ‘No, it’s not. I don’t want to crack meself up, but I can’t think of another man who can do what you want. It ‘ud be a really bobby-dazzler of a job, though – wouldn’t it? Pushin’ the old Mark XI out to over twenty thousand yards – just think of it.’

Warren held his breath as he watched Parker struggle against temptation, then he sighed as Parker shook his head and said, ‘No, I couldn’t do it. What would Sally say?’

‘I know it’s a dangerous job, Dan.’

‘I’m not worried about that – not for meself. I could have got killed in Korea. It’s just that … well, I’ve not much insurance, an’ what would she do with three kids if anythin’ happened to me?’

Warren said, ‘I’ll tell you this much, Dan. I don’t think the worst will happen, but if it does I’ll see that Sally gets a life pension equal to what you’re getting now. No strings attached – and you can have it in writing.’

‘You’re pretty free wi’ your money – or is it your money?’ asked Parker shrewdly.

‘It doesn’t matter where it comes from. It’s in a good cause.’

Parker sighed. ‘I’d trust you that far. I know you’d never be on the wrong side. When is this lark startin’?’

‘I don’t know,’ said Warren. ‘It might not even start at all. I haven’t made up my mind yet. But if we do get going it will be next month.’

Parker chewed the stem of his pipe, apparently unaware it had gone out. At last he looked up, bright-eyed. ‘All right, I’ll do it. Sally’ll give me hell, I expect.’ He grinned. ‘Best not to tell her, Doctor. I’ll cook up a yarn for her.’ He scratched his head. ‘I must see me old Navy mates an’ see if I can get hold of a service manual for the Mark XI – there ought to be some still knockin’ around. I’ll need that if I’m goin’ to redesign the circuits.’

‘Do that,’ said Warren. ‘I’d better tell you what it’s all about.’

‘No!’ said Parker. ‘I’ve got the general drift. If this is goin’ to be dangerous then the less I know the better for you. When the time comes you tell me what to do an’ I’ll do it – if I can.’

Warren asked sharply, ‘Any chance of failure?’

‘Could be – but if I get all I ask for then I think it can be done. The Mark XI’s a nice bit o’ machinery – it shouldn’t be too hard to make it do the impossible.’ He grinned. ‘What made you think o’ goin’ about it this way? Tired of treatin’ new addicts?’

‘Something like that,’ said Warren.

He left Parker buzzing happily to himself about batteries and circuits and with a caution that this was not a firm commitment. But he knew that in spite of his insistence that the arrangements were purely tentative the commitment was hardening.

IV

He telephoned Andrew Tozier. ‘Can I call on you for some support tonight, Andy?’

‘Sure. Doc; moral or muscular?’

‘Maybe a bit of both. I’ll see you at the Howard Club – know where that is?’

‘I know,’ said Tozier. ‘You could choose a better place to lose your money, Doc; it’s as crooked as a dog’s hind leg.’

‘I’m gambling, Andy,’ said Warren. ‘But not with money. Stick in the background, will you? I’ll call on you if I need you. I’ll be there at ten o’clock.’

‘I get the picture; you just want some insurance.’

‘That’s it,’ said Warren, and rang off.

The Howard Club was in Kensington, discreetly camouflaged in one of the old Victorian terraced houses. Unlike the Soho clubs, there were no flashing neon signs proclaiming blackjack and roulette because this was no cheap operation. There were no half-crown chips to be bought in the Howard Club.

Just after ten o’clock Warren strolled through the gambling rooms towards the bar. He was coolly aware of the professional interest aroused by his visit; the doorkeeper had picked up an internal telephone as he walked in and the news would be quick in reaching the higher echelons. He watched the roulette for a moment, and thought sardonically, If I were James Bond I’d be in there making a killing.

At the bar he ordered a Scotch and when the barman placed it before him a flat American voice said, ‘That will be on the house, Dr Warren.’

Warren turned to find John Follet, the manager of the club, standing behind him. ‘What are you doing so far west?’ asked Follet, ‘If you’re looking for any of your lost sheep you won’t find them here. We don’t like them.’

Warren understood very well that he was being warned. It had happened before that some of his patients had tried to make a quick fortune to feed the habit. They had not succeeded, of course, and things had got out of hand, ending in a brawl. The management of the Howard Club did not like brawls – they lowered the plushy tone of the place – and word had been passed to Warren to keep his boys in line.

He smiled at Follet. ‘Just sightseeing, Johnny.’ He lifted the glass. ‘Join me?’

Follet nodded to the barman, and said, ‘Well, it’s nice to see you, anyway.’

He would not feel that way for long, thought Warren. He said, ‘These are patients you’re talking about, Johnny; they’re sick people. I don’t rule them – I’m not a leader or anything like that.’

‘That’s as may be,’ said Follet. ‘But once your hopheads go on a toot they can do more damage than you’d believe possible. And if anyone can control them, it’s you.’

‘I’ve passed around the word that they’re not welcome here,’ said Warren. ‘That’s all I can do.’

Follet nodded shortly. ‘I understand, Doctor. That’s good enough for me.’

Warren looked about the room and saw Andrew Tozier standing at the nearest blackjack table. He said casually, ‘You seem to be doing well.’

Follet snorted. ‘You can’t do well in this crazy country. Now we’re having to play the wheel without a zero and that’s goddam impossible. No club can operate without an edge.’

‘I don’t know,’ said Warren. ‘It’s an equal chance for you and the customer, so that’s square. And you make your profit on the club membership, the bar and the restaurant.’

‘Are you crazy?’ demanded Follet. ‘It just doesn’t work that way. In any game of equal chances a lucky rich man will beat hell out of a lucky poor man any time. Bernoulli figured that out back in 1713 – it’s called the St Petersburg paradox.’ He gestured towards a roulette table. ‘That wheel carries a nut of fifty thousand pounds – but how much do you think the customers are worth? We’re in the position of playing a game of equal chances against the public – which can be regarded as infinitely rich. In the long run we get trimmed but good.’

‘I didn’t know you were a mathematician,’ said Warren.

‘Any guy in this racket who doesn’t understand mathematics goes broke fast,’ said Follet. ‘And it’s about time your British legislators employed a few mathematicians.’ He scowled. ‘Another thing – take that blackjack table; at one time it was banned because it was called a game of chance. Now that games of chance are legal they still want to ban it because a good player can beat a bad player. They don’t know what in hell they want.’

‘Can a good player win at blackjack?’ asked Warren interestedly.

Follett nodded. ‘It takes a steeltrap memory and nerves of iron, but it can be done. It’s lucky for the house there aren’t too many of those guys around. We’ll take that risk on blackjack but on the wheel we’ve got to have an edge.’ He looked despondently into his glass. ‘And I don’t see much chance of getting one – not with the laws that are in the works.’

‘Things are bad all round,’ said Warren unfeelingly. ‘Maybe you’d better go back to the States.’

‘No, I’ll ride it out here for a while.’ Follet drained his glass.

‘Don’t go,’ said Warren. ‘I had a reason for coming here. I wanted to talk to you.’

‘If it’s a touch for your clinic I’m already on your books.’

Warren smiled. ‘This time I want to give you money.’

‘This I must stick around to hear,’ said Follet. Tell me more.’

‘I have a little expedition planned,’ said Warren. ‘The pay isn’t much – say, two-fifty a month for six months. But there’ll be a bonus at the end if it all works out all right.’

‘Two-fifty a month!’ Follet laughed. ‘Look around you and figure how much I’m making right now. Pull the other one, Doctor.’

‘Don’t forget the bonus,’ said Warren calmly.

‘All right; what’s the bonus?’ asked Follet, smiling.

‘That would be open to negotiation, but shall we say a thousand?’

‘You kill me, Warren, you really do – the way you make jokes with a straight face.’ He began to turn away. ‘I’ll be seeing you, Doctor.’

‘Don’t go, Johnny. I’m confident you’ll join me. You see, I know what happened to that Argentinian a couple of months ago – and I know how it was done. It was a little over two hundred thousand pounds you rooked him of, wasn’t it?’

Follet stopped dead and turned his head to speak over his shoulder. ‘And how did you learn about that?’

‘A good story like that soon gets around, Johnny. You and Kostas were very clever.’

Follet turned back to Warren and said seriously, ‘Dr Warren: I’d be very careful about the way you talk – especially about Argentinian millionaires. Something might happen to you.’

‘I dare say,’ agreed Warren. ‘And something might happen to you too, Johnny. For instance, if the Argentinian were to find out how he’d been had, he’d raise a stink, wouldn’t he? He’d certainly go to the police. It’s one thing to lose and quite another to be cheated, so he’d go to the police.’ He tapped Follet on the chest. ‘And the police would come to you, Johnny. The best that could happen would be that they’d deport you – ship you back to the States. Or would it be the best? I hear that the States is a good place for Johnny Follet to keep away from right now. It was something about certain people having long memories.’

‘You hear too damn’ much,’ said Follet coldly.

‘I get around,’ said Warren with a modest smile.

‘It seems you do. You wouldn’t be trying to put the bite on me, would you?’

‘You might call it that.’

Follet sighed. ‘Warren, you know how it is. I have a fifteen per cent piece of this place – I’m not the boss. Whatever was done to the Argentinian was done by Kostas. Sure, I was around when it happened, but it wasn’t my idea – I wasn’t in on it, and I got nothing out of it. Kostas did everything.’

‘I know,’ said Warren. ‘You’re as pure as the driven snow. But it won’t make much difference when they put you on a VC-10 and shoot you back to the States.’ He paused and said contemplatively. ‘It might even be possible to arrange for a reception committee to meet you at Kennedy Airport.’

‘I don’t think I like any of this,’ said Follet tightly. ‘Supposing I told Kostas you were shooting your mouth. What do you suppose would happen to you? I’ve never had a beef against you, and I don’t see why you’re doing this. Just watch it.’

As he turned away, Warren said, ‘I’m sorry, Johnny; it seems as though you’ll be back in the States before the month’s out.’

‘That does it,’ said Follet violently. ‘Kostas is a bad guy to cross. Watch out for your back, Warren.’ He snapped his fingers and a man who was lounging against the wall suddenly tautened and walked over to the bar. Follet said, ‘Dr Warren is just leaving.’

Warren glanced over at Andy Tozier and held up a finger. Tozier strolled over and said pleasantly, ‘Evening, all.’

‘Johnny Follet wants to throw me out,’ said Warren.

‘Does he?’ said Tozier interestedly. ‘And how does he propose to do that? Not that it matters very much.’

‘Who the hell’s this?’ snapped Follet.

‘Oh, I’m a friend of Dr Warren,’ said Tozier. ‘Nice place you’ve got here, Follet. It should be an interesting exercise.’

‘What are you talking about? What exercise?’

‘Oh, just to see how quickly it could be taken apart. I know a couple of hearty sergeant types who could go through here like a dose of salts in less than thirty minutes. The trouble about that, though, is that you’d have a hell of a job putting back the pieces.’ His voice hardened. ‘My advice to you is that if Dr Warren wants to talk to you, then you pin back your hairy ears and listen.’

Follet took a deep breath and blew out his cheeks. ‘All right, Steve; I’ll sort this out,’ he said to the man next to him. ‘But stick around – I might need you fast.’ The man nodded and returned to his position against the wall.

‘Let’s all have a nice, soothing drink,’ suggested Tozier.

‘I don’t get any of this,’ protested Follet. ‘Why are you pushing me, Warren? I’ve never done anything to you.’

‘And you won’t, either,’ observed Warren. ‘In particular you won’t say anything about this to Kostas because if anything happens to me all my information goes directly to the places where it will do most good.’

Tozier said, ‘I don’t know what this is all about, but if anything happens to Dr Warren then a certain Johnny Follet will wish he’d never been born, whatever else happens to him.’

‘What the hell are you ganging up on me for?’ said Follet desperately.

‘I don’t know,’ said Tozier. ‘Why are we ganging up on him, Doc?’

‘All you have to do is to take a holiday, Johnny,’ said Warren. ‘You come with me to the Middle East, help me out on a job, and then come back here. And everything will be as it was. Personally, I don’t care how much money you loot from Argentinian millionaires. I just want to get a job done.’

‘But why pick on me?’ demanded Follet.

‘I didn’t pick on you,’ said Warren wearily. ‘You’re all I’ve got, damn it! I have an idea I can use a man of your peculiar talents, so you’re elected. And you don’t have much say about it, either – you daren’t take the chance of being pushed back to the States. You’re a gambler, but not that much of a gambler.’

‘Okay, so you’ve whipsawed me,’ said Follet sourly. ‘What’s the deal?’

‘I’m running this on the “need to know” principle. You don’t have to know, you just have to do – and I’ll tell you when to do it.’

‘Now, wait a goddam minute.…’

‘That’s the way it is,’ said Warren flatly.

Follet shook his head in bewilderment. ‘This is the screwiest thing that ever happened to me.’

‘If it’s any comfort, brother Jonathan, I don’t know what’s going on, either,’ said Tozier. He eyed Warren thoughtfully. ‘But Doc here is showing unmistakable signs of acting like a boss, so I suppose he is the boss.’

‘Then I’ll give you an order,’ said Warren with a tired grin. ‘For God’s sake, stop calling me “Doc”. It could be important in the future.’

‘Okay, boss,’ said Tozier with a poker face,

V

Warren did not have to go out to find Mike Abbot because Mike Abbot came to him. He was leaving his rooms after a particularly hard day when he found Abbot on his doorstep. ‘Anything to tell me, Doctor?’ asked Abbot.

‘Not particularly,’ said Warren. ‘What are you looking for?’

‘Just the usual – all the dirt on the drug scene.’ Abbot fell into step beside Warren. ‘For instance, what about Hellier’s girl?’

‘Whose girl?’ said Warren with a blank face.

‘Sir Robert Hellier, the film mogul – and don’t go all pofaced. You know who I mean. The inquest was bloody uninformative – the old boy had slammed down the lid and screwed it tight. It’s amazing what you can do if you have a few million quid. Was it accidental or suicide – or was she pushed?’

‘Why ask me?’ said Warren. ‘You’re the hotshot reporter.’

Abbot grinned. ‘All I know is what I write for the papers – but I have to get it from somewhere or someone. This time the someone is you.’

‘Sorry, Mike – no comment.’

‘Oh well; I tried,’ said Abbot philosophically. ‘Why are we passing this pub? Come in and I’ll buy you a drink.’

‘All right,’ said Warren. ‘I could do with one. I’ve had a hard day.’

As they pushed open the door Abbot said, ‘All your days seem to be hard ones, judging by the way you’ve been knocking it back lately.’ They reached the counter, and he said, ‘What’ll you have?’

‘I’ll have a Scotch,’ said Warren. ‘And what the devil do you mean by that crack?’

‘No harm meant,’ said Abbot, raising his hands in mock fright. ‘Just one of my feebler non-laughter-making jokes. It’s just that I’ve seen you around inhaling quite a bit of the stuff. In a pub in Soho and a couple of nights later in the Howard Club.’

‘Have you been following me?’ demanded Warren.

‘Christ, no!’ said Abbot. ‘It was just coincidental.’ He ordered the drinks. ‘All the same, you seem to move in rum company. I ask myself – what is the connection between a doctor of medicine, a professional gambler and a mercenary soldier? And you know what? I get no answer at all.’

‘One of these days that long nose of yours will get chopped off at the roots.’ Warren diluted his whisky with Malvern water.

‘Not as bad as losing face,’ said Abbot. ‘I make my reputation by asking the right questions. For instance, why should the highly respected Dr Warren have a flaming row with Johnny Follet? It was pretty obvious, you know.’

‘You know how it is,’ said Warren tiredly. ‘Some of my patients had been cutting up ructions at the Howard Club. Johnny didn’t like it.’

‘And you had to take your own private army to back you up?’ queried Abbot. ‘Tell me another fairy tale.’ The barman was looking at him expectantly so Abbot paid him, and said, ‘We’ll have another round.’ He turned back to Warren, and said, ‘It’s all right, Doctor; it’s on the expense account – I’m working.’

‘So I see,’ said Warren drily. Even now he had not made up his mind about Hellier’s proposition. All the moves he had made so far had been tentative and merely to ensure that he could assemble a team if he had to. Mike Abbot was a putative member of the team – Warren’s choice – but it seemed that he was dealing himself in, anyway.

‘I know this is a damnfool question to ask a pressman,’ he said. ‘But how far can you keep a secret?’

Abbot cocked an eyebrow. ‘Not very far. Not so far as to allow someone to beat me to a story. You know how cutthroat Fleet Street is.’

Warren nodded. ‘But how independent are you? I mean, do you have to report on your investigations to anyone on your paper? Your editor, perhaps?’

‘Usually,’ said Abbot. ‘After all, that’s where my pay cheque comes from.’ Wise in the way of interviews, he waited for Warren to make the running.

Warren refused to play the game. ‘That’s a pity,’ he said, and fell silent.

‘Oh, come now,’ said Abbot. ‘You can’t just leave it at that. What’s on your mind?’

‘I’d like you to help me – but not if it’s going to be noised about the newspaper offices. You know what a rumour factory your crowd is. You’ll know what the score is, but no one else must – or we’ll come a cropper.’

‘I can’t see my editor buying that,’ observed Abbot. ‘It’s too much like that character in the South Sea Bubble who was selling shares in a company – “but nobody to know what it is.” I suppose it’s something to do with drugs?’

‘That’s right,’ said Warren. ‘It will involve a trip to the Middle East.’

Abbot brightened. ‘That sounds interesting.’ He drummed his fingers on the counter. ‘Is there a real story in it?’

‘There’s a story. It might be a very big one indeed,’

‘And I get an exclusive?’

‘It’ll be yours,’ said Warren. ‘Full right.’

‘How long will it take?’

‘That is something I don’t know.’ Warren looked him in the eye. ‘I don’t even know if it’s going to start. There’s a lot of uncertainty. Say, three months.’

‘A hell of a long time,’ commented Abbot, and brooded for a while. Eventually he said, ‘I’ve got a holiday coming up. Supposing I talk to my editor and tell him that I’m doing a bit of private enterprise in my own time. If I think it’s good enough I’ll stay on the job when my holiday is up. He might accept that.’

‘Keep my name out of it,’ warned Warren.

‘Sure.’ Abbot drained his glass. ‘Yes, I think he’ll fall for it. The shock of my wanting to work on my holiday ought to be enough.’ He put down the glass on the counter. ‘But I’ll need convincing first.’

Warren ordered two more drinks. ‘Let’s sit at a table, and I’ll tell you enough to whet your appetite.’

VI

The shop was in Dean Street and the neatly gold-lettered sign read: SOHO THERAPY CENTRE. Apart from that there was nothing to say what was done on the premises; it looked like any Dean Street shop with the difference that the windows were painted over in a pleasant shade of green so that it was impossible to see inside.

Warren opened the door, found no one in sight, and walked through into a back room which had been turned into an office. He found a dishevelled young man sitting at a desk and going through the drawers, pulling everything out and piling the papers into an untidy heap on top of the desk. As Warren walked in, he said, ‘Where have you been, Nick? I’ve been trying to get hold of you.’

Warren surveyed the desk. ‘What’s the trouble, Ben?’

‘You’d never believe it if I told you,’ said Ben Bryan. He scrabbled about in the papers, ‘I’ll have to show you. Where the devil is it?’

Warren dumped a pile of books off a chair and sat down. ‘Take it easy,’ he advised. ‘More haste, less speed.’

‘Take it easy? Just wait until you see this. You won’t be taking it as easy as you are now.’ Bryan rummaged some more and papers scattered.

‘Perhaps you’d better just tell me,’ suggested Warren.

‘All right … no, here it is. Just read that.’

Warren unfolded the single sheet of paper. What was written on it was short and brutally to the point. ‘He’s throwing you out?’ Warren felt a rage growing within him. ‘He’s throwing us out!’ He looked up. ‘Can he break the lease like that?’

‘He can – and he will,’ said Bryan. ‘There’s a line of fine print our solicitor didn’t catch, damn him.’

Warren was angrier than he had ever been in his life. In a choked voice he said, ‘There’s a telephone under all that junk – dig it out.’

‘It’s no good,’ said Bryan. ‘I’ve talked to him. He said he didn’t realize the place would be used by drug addicts; he says his other tenants are complaining – they say it lowers the tone of the neighbourhood.’

‘God Almighty!’ yelled Warren. ‘One’s a strip joint and the other sells pornography. What the hell have they to complain of? What stinking hypocrisy!’

‘We’re going to lose our boys, Nick. If they don’t have a place to come to, we’ll lose the lot.’

Ben Bryan was a psychologist working in the field of drug addiction. Together with Warren and a couple of medical students he had set up the Soho Therapy Centre as a means of getting at the addicts. Here the addicts could talk to people who understood the problem and many had been referred to Warren’s clinic. It was a place off the streets where they could relax, a hygienic place where they could take their shots using sterile water and aseptic syringes.

‘They’ll be out on the streets again,’ said Bryan. ‘They’ll be taking their shots in the Piccadilly lavatories, and the cops will chase them all over the West End.’

Warren nodded. ‘And the next thing will be another outbreak of hepatitis. Good God, that’s the last thing we want.’

‘I’ve been trying to find another place,’ said Bryan. ‘I was on the telephone all day yesterday. Nobody wants to know our troubles. The word’s got around, and I think we’re blacklisted. It must be in this area – you know that.’

Something exploded within Warren. ‘It will be,’ he said with decision. ‘Ben, how would you like a really good place here in Soho? Completely equipped, regardless of expense, down to hot and cold running footmen?’

‘I’d settle for what we have now,’ said Bryan.

Warren found an excitement rising within him. ‘And, Ben – that idea you had – the one about a group therapy unit as a self-governing community on the line of that Californian outfit. What about that?’

‘Have you gone off your little rocker?’ asked Bryan. ‘We’d need a country house for that. Where would we get the funds?’

‘We’ll get the funds,’ said Warren with confidence. ‘Excavate that telephone.’

His decision was made and all qualms gone. He was tired of fighting the stupidity of the public, of which the queasiness of this narrow-gutted landlord was only a single example. If the only way to run his job was to turn into a synthetic James Bond, then a James Bond he’d be.

But it was going to cost Hellier an awful lot of money.

THREE

Warren was ushered into Hellier’s office in Wardour Street after passing successfully a hierarchy of secretaries, each more svelte than the last. When he finally penetrated into the inner sanctum, Hellier said, ‘I really didn’t expect to see you, Doctor. I expected I’d have to chase you. Sit down.’

Warren came to the point abruptly. ‘You mentioned unlimited funds, but I take that to be a figure of speech. How unlimited?’

‘I’m pretty well breeched,’ said Hellier with a smile. ‘How much do you want?’

‘We’ll come to that. I’d better outline the problem so that you can get an idea of its magnitude. When you’ve absorbed that you might decide you can’t afford it.’

‘Well see,’ said Hellier. His smile broadened.

Warren laid down a folder. ‘You were right when you said I had particular knowledge, but I warn you I don’t have much – two names and a place – and all the rest is rumour.’ He smiled sourly. ‘It isn’t ethics that has kept me from going to the police – it’s the sheer lack of hard facts.’

‘Leaving aside your three facts, what about the rumour? I’ve made some damned important decisions on nothing but rumour, and I’ve told you I get paid for making the right decisions.’

Warren shrugged. ‘It’s all a bit misty – just stuff I’ve picked up in Soho. I spend a lot of time in Soho – in the West End generally – it’s where most of my patients hang out. It’s convenient for the all-night chemist in Piccadilly,’ he said sardonically.

‘I’ve seen them lining up,’ said Hellier.

‘In 1968 a drug ring was smashed in France – a big one. You must realize that the heroin coming into Britain is just a small leakage from the more profitable American trade. This particular gang was smuggling to the States in large quantities, but when the ring was smashed we felt the effects here. The boys were running around like chickens with their heads chopped off – the illegal supply had stopped dead.’

‘Wait a minute,’ said Hellier. ‘Are you implying that to stop the trade into Britain it would be necessary to do the same for the States?’

‘That’s virtually the position if you attack it at the source, which would be the best way. One automatically implies the other. I told you the problem was big.’

‘The ramifications are more extensive than I thought,’ admitted Hellier. He shrugged. ‘Not that I’m chauvinistic about it; as you say, it’s an international problem.’

Hellier still did not seem to be disturbed about the probable cost to his pocket, so Warren went on: ‘I think the best way of outlining the current rumours is to look at the problem backwards, so to speak – beginning at the American end. A typical addict in New York will buy his shot from a pusher as a “sixteenth” – meaning a sixteenth of an ounce. He must buy it from a pusher because he can’t get it legally, as in England. That jerks up the price, and his sixteenth will cost him somewhere between six and seven dollars. His average need will be two shots a day.’

Hellier’s mind jerked into gear almost visibly. After a moment he said, ‘There must be a devil of a lot of heroin going into the States.’

‘Not much,’ said Warren. ‘Not in absolute bulk. I daresay the illegal intake is somewhere between two and three tons a year. You see, the heroin as sold to the addict is diluted with an inert soluble filler, usually lactose – milk sugar. Depending on whether he’s being cheated – and he usually is – the percentage of heroin will range from one-half to two per cent. I think you could take a general average of one per cent.’

Hellier was figuring again. He drew forward a sheet of paper and began to calculate. ‘If there’s a sixteen-hundredth of an ounce of pure heroin in a shot, and the addict pays, say, $6.50 …’ He stopped short. ‘Hell, that’s over $10,000 an ounce!’

‘Very profitable,’ agreed Warren. ‘It’s big business over there. A pound of heroin at the point of consumption is worth about $170,000. Of course, that’s not all profit – the problem is to get it to the consumer. Heroin is ultimately derived from the opium poppy, papaver somniferum, which is not grown in the States for obvious reasons. There’s a chain of production – from the growing of the poppy to raw opium; from the opium to morphine; from morphine to heroin.’

‘What’s the actual cost of production?’ asked Hellier.

‘Not much,’ said Warren. ‘But that’s not the issue. At the point of consumption in the States a pound of heroin is worth $170,000; at the point of the wholesaler inside the States it’s worth $50,000; at any point outside the States it’s worth $20,000. And if you go right back along the chain you can buy illicit raw opium in the Middle East for $50 a pound.’

‘That tells me two things,’ said Hellier thoughtfully. ‘There are high profits to be made at each stage – and the cost at any point is directly related to the risks involved in smuggling.’

‘That’s it,’ said Warren. ‘So far the trade has been fragmented, but rumour has it that a change is on the way. When the French gang was busted it left a vacuum and someone else is moving in – and moving in with a difference. The idea seems to be that this organization will cut out the middlemen – they’ll start with the growing of the poppy and end up with delivery inside the States of small lots in any given city. A guaranteed delivery on that basis should net them $50,000 a pound after expenses have been met. That last stage – getting the stuff into the States – is a high risk job.’

‘Vertical integration,’ said Hellier solemnly. ‘These people are taking hints from big business. Complete control of the product.’

‘If this comes off, and they can sew up the States, we can expect an accelerated inflow into Britain. The profits are much less, but they’re still there, and the boys won’t neglect the opportunity.’ Warren gestured with his hand. ‘But this is all rumour. I’ve put it together from a hundred whispers on the grapevine.’

Hellier laid his hands flat on the desk. ‘So now we come to your facts,’ he said intently.

‘I don’t know if you could dignify them by that name,’ said Warren tiredly. ‘Two names and a place. George Speering is a pharmaceutical chemist with a lousy reputation. He got into trouble last year in a drug case, and the Pharmaceutical Society hammered him. He was lucky to escape a jail sentence.’

‘They … er … unfrocked him?’

‘That’s right. This crowd will need a chemist and I heard his name mentioned. He’s still in England and I’m keeping an eye on him as well as I can, but I expect him to go abroad soon.’

‘Why soon? And how soon?’

Warren tapped the desk calendar. ‘The opium crop isn’t in yet, and it won’t be for a month. But morphine is best extracted from fresh opium, so as soon as this gang have enough of the stuff to work on then Speering will get busy.’

‘Perhaps we should keep a closer watch on Speering.’

Warren nodded. ‘He still seems to be taking it pretty easy at the moment. And he’s in funds, so he’s probably on a retainer. I agree he should be watched.’

‘And the other name?’ enquired Hellier.

‘Jeanette Delorme. I’ve never heard of her before. She sounds as though she could be French, but that doesn’t mean much in the Middle East, if that’s where she hangs out. But I don’t even know that. I don’t know anything about her at all. It was just a name that came up in connection with Speering.’

Hellier scribbled on a piece of paper. ‘Jeanette Delorme.’ He looked up. ‘And the place?’

‘Iran,’ said Warren briefly.

Hellier looked disappointed. ‘Well, that’s not much.’

‘I never said it was,’ said Warren irritatedly. ‘I thought of giving it to the police but, after all, what had I to give them?’

‘They could pass it on to Interpol. Maybe they could do something.’

‘You’ve been making too many television pictures,’ said Warren abrasively. ‘And believing them, at that! Interpol is merely an information centre and doesn’t initiate any executive work. Supposing the word was passed to the Iranian police. No police force is incorruptible, and I wouldn’t take any bets at all on the cops in the Middle East – although I hear the Iranians are better than most.’

‘I appreciate your point.’ Hellier was silent for a moment. ‘Our best bet would appear to be this man, Speering.’

‘Then you’re willing to go on with it on the basis of the little information I have?’

Hellier was surprised. ‘Of course!’

Warren took some papers from his file. ‘You might change your mind when you see these. It’s going to cost you a packet. You said I could pick a team. I’ve been making commitments on your behalf which you’ll have to honour.’ He pushed two sheets across the desk. ‘You’ll find the details there – who the men are, what they’ll cost, and some brief biographical details.’

Hellier scanned the papers rapidly and said abruptly, ‘I agree to these rates of pay. I also agree to the bonus of £5,000 paid to each man on the successful completion of the venture.’ He looked up. ‘No success – no bonus. Fair enough?’

‘Fair enough – but it depends on what you mean by success.’

‘I want this gang smashed,’ said Hellier in a harsh voice. ‘Smashed totally.’

Warren said wryly, ‘If we’re going to do anything at all that is implied.’ He pushed another paper across the desk. ‘But we haven’t come to my price.’

Hellier picked it up and, after a moment, said ‘Humph! What the devil do you want with a property in Soho? They come damned expensive.’

Warren explained, with feeling, the trouble the Soho Therapy Centre had run into. Hellier chuckled. ‘Yes, people are damned hypocrites. I’d have probably been the same before … well, never mind that.’ He got up and went to the window. ‘Would a place in Wardour Street do?’

‘That would be fine.’

‘The company has a place just across the road here. We were using it as a warehouse but that’s been discontinued. It’s empty now and a bit run down, but it may suit you.’ He returned to his desk. ‘We were going to sell it, but I’ll let you have it at a peppercorn rent and reimburse the company out of my own funds.’

Warren, who had not yet finished with him, nodded briefly and pushed yet another paper across the desk. ‘And that’s my bonus on the successful completion of the job.’ Ironically he emphasized the operative word in mockery of Hellier.

Hellier glanced at the wording and nearly blew up. ‘A twenty-bedroomed country house! What the devil’s this?’ He glared at Warren. ‘Your services come high, Doctor.’

‘You asked for blood,’ said Warren. ‘That’s a commodity with a high price. When we go into this we’ll come smack into opposition with a gang who’ll fight because the prize could run into millions. I think there’ll be blood shed somewhere along the line – either ours or theirs. You want the blood – you pay for it.’

‘By making you Lord of the Manor?’ asked Hellier cynically.

‘Not me – a man called Ben Bryan. He wants to establish a self-governing community for addicts; to get them out of circulation to start with, and to get them to act in a responsible manner. It’s an idea which has had fair results in the States.’

‘I see,’ said Hellier quietly. ‘All right; I accept that.’

He began to read the brief biographies of the team, and Warren said casually, ‘None of those people really know what they’re getting into. Suppose we come into possession of, say, a hundred pounds of heroin – that would be worth a lot of money. I don’t know whether I’d trust Andy Tozier with it – probably not. I certainly wouldn’t trust Johnny Follet.’

Hellier turned a page and, after a while, lifted his head. ‘Are you serious about this – about these men you’ve picked? Good God, half of them are villains and the other half incomprehensible.’

‘What kind of men did you expect?’ asked Warren. ‘This can’t be done by a crowd of flag-waving saints. But not one of those men is in it for the money – except Andy Tozier. They all have their own reasons.’ He took a sour look at himself and thought of Follet. ‘I discover I have an unexpected talent for blackmail and coercion.’

‘I can understand you picking Tozier – the professional soldier,’ said Hellier. ‘But Follet – a gambler?’

‘Johnny is a man of many parts. Apart from being a gambler he’s also a successful con man. He can think up ways of pulling money from your pocket faster than you can think up ways of stopping him. It seems to me that his talents could be used on other things than money.’

‘If you put it that way I suppose it seems reasonable,’ said Hellier in an unconvinced voice. ‘But this man, Abbot – a newspaperman, for God’s sake! I won’t have that.’

‘Yes, you will,’ said Warren flatly. ‘He’s on to us, anyway, and I’d rather have him working for us than against us. He was on my original list, but he dealt himself in regardless and it would be too risky to leave him out now. He’s got a good nose, better than any detective, and that’s something we need.’

‘I suppose that seems reasonable, too,’ said Hellier glumly. ‘But what doesn’t seem reasonable is this man, Parker. I can’t see anything here that’s of use to us.’

‘Dan’s the only really honest man among the lot of them,’ said Warren. He laughed. ‘Besides, he’s my insurance policy.’

II

Hellier propounded some of the philosophy of the film business. ‘Most countries – especially the poorer ones – like film companies. The boys at the top like us because we’re not too stingy with our bribes. The man in the street likes us because on location we pay exceptionally high rates, by local standards, for colourfully-dressed extras. We don’t mind because, when all’s said and done, we’re paying a damned sight less than we would at home.’

He hefted a large book, foolscap size and neatly bound. ‘This is a screen play we’ve had on the shelf for some time. About half the scenes are set in Iran. I’ve decided to resurrect it, and we’re going to make the film. You and your team will be employed by us. You’ll be an advance team sent out to Iran by us to scout out good locations – that gives you an excuse for turning up everywhere and anywhere. How does that suit you?’

‘I like it,’ said Warren. ‘It’s a good cover.’

‘You’ll be provided with vehicles and all the usual junk that goes with an advance team,’ said Hellier. ‘Give me a list of anything else you might need.’ He flicked through the pages of the script. ‘Who knows? We might even make the picture,’ he said sardonically.

Andy Tozier approached Warren. ‘You’re keeping me too much in the dark,’ he complained. ‘I’d like to know what I’m getting into. I don’t know what to prepare for.’

‘Prepare for the worst,’ said Warren unhelpfully.

‘That’s no bloody answer. Is this going to be a military thing?’

Warren said carefully, ‘Let’s call it paramilitary.’

‘I see. A police action – with shooting.’

‘But unofficial,’ said Warren. ‘There might be shooting.’

Tozier stroked the edge of his jaw. ‘I don’t like that unofficial bit. And if I’m going to be shot at I’d like to have something handy to shoot back with. How do we arrange that?’

‘I don’t know,’ said Warren. ‘I thought I’d leave that to you. You’re the expert.’ Tozier made a rude noise, and Warren said, ‘I don’t really know what we’re going to get into at the other end. It’s all a bit difficult.’

Tozier pondered. ‘What vehicles are they giving us?’

‘A couple of new Land-Rovers. They’ll be flown out to Iran with us. The country out there is pretty rough.’

‘And the equipment we’re getting. What does it consist of?’

‘It’s all part of our cover. There are some still cameras with a hell of a lot of lenses. A couple of 16-millimetre movie cameras. A video-tape outfit. A hell of a lot of stuff I can’t put a name to.’

‘Are there tripods with the movie cameras?’ Warren nodded, and Tozier said, ‘Okay, I’d like to have the Land-Rovers and all the equipment delivered to me as soon as possible. I might want to make a few modifications.’

‘You can have them tomorrow.’

‘And I’d like some boodle from this money mine you seem to have discovered – at least a thousand quid. My modifications come expensive.’

‘I’ll make it two thousand,’ said Warren equably. ‘You can have that tomorrow, too.’

‘Johnny Follet might be more useful than I thought,’ said Tozier thoughtfully. ‘He knows his weapons – he was in Korea.’

‘Was he? Then he’ll get on well with Dan Parker.’

Tozier jerked his head. ‘And who is Dan Parker?’

Warren grinned. ‘You’ll meet him sometime,’ he promised.

‘I’m coming with you,’ said Ben Bryan when Warren told him of what was happening.

‘And why would we need a psychiatrist?’ asked Warren.

Bryan grinned. ‘To inject a modicum of sanity. This is the craziest thing I’ve heard.’

‘If you join us you’ll be as mad as we are. Still, you might come in useful.’ He looked at Bryan speculatively, then said, ‘I think you’d better be in the main party. Mike Abbot can go with Parker.’

‘What’s he going to do?’

‘He’s our Trojan Horse – if we can find the Delorme woman – and that’s proving to be a hell of a problem. Hellier has a team in Paris going through birth certificates, pulling out all the Jeanette Delormes and running them down. They’ve found eight already. On the off-chance she was born in Switzerland he has another team there.’

‘Supposing she was born in Martinique?’ asked Bryan.

‘We can only try the obvious first,’ said Warren. ‘Hellier’s investigators are good – I know because they did a bang-up job on me. Anyway, he’s spending money as though he has his own printing press. We’re already into him for over £70,000.’ He grinned. ‘Still, that’s only a couple of years’ upkeep on his yacht’

‘I’ve never heard of a rich man really keen to part with his money,’ said Bryan. ‘You must have knocked the props clean from under him. You made him take a look at himself – a good, clear-eyed look – and he didn’t like what he saw. I wish I could do the same to some of my patients. Perhaps you should change your profession.’

‘I have – I’m in the business of raising private armies.’

Everything seemed to happen at once.

It may have been luck or it may have been good investigative practice, but the Delorme woman was traced, not through the patient sifting of birth certificates, but from a pipeline into the French Sûreté. It seemed that Mike Abbot had a friend who had a friend who …

Hellier tossed a file over to Warren. ‘Read that and tell me what you think.’

Warren settled back in his chair and opened the folder.

Jeanette Véronique Delorme: Born April 12, 1937 at Chalons. Parents …

He skipped the vital statistics in order to come to the meat of it.

‘… three months’ imprisonment in 1955 for minor fraud; six months’ imprisonment in 1957 for smuggling over Franco-Spanish border; left France in 1958.’

Then followed what could only be described as a series of hypotheses.

Believed to have been involved in smuggling from Tangier to Spain, 1958-1960; smuggling arms to Algeria, 1961-1963; smuggling drugs into Italy and Switzerland, 1963-1967. Believed to have been implicated in the murders of Henry Rowe (American) 1962; Kurt Schlesinger (German), Ahmed ben Bouza (Algerian) and Jean Fouget (French) 1963; Kamer Osman (Lebanese) and Pietro Fuselli (Italian) 1966.

Operational Characteristics: Subject is good organizer and capable of controlling large groups; is ruthless and intolerant of errors; is careful not to become personally involved in smuggling activities, but may have been director of large-scale jewel thefts, south of France, 1967. This, however, may be considered doubtful.

Present Whereabouts: Beirut, Lebanon.

Present Status: Not wanted for crime in Metropolitan France.

There were a couple of smudgy photographs which had not survived the copying process at all well, but which showed a blonde of indeterminate age.

Warren blew out his cheeks. ‘What a hell-cat she must be.’ He tapped the folder. ‘I think this is the one – everything fits.’

‘I think so, too,’ said Hellier. ‘I’ve stopped everything else and narrowed it down to her. A man has already flown out to Beirut to pinpoint her.’

‘I hope someone has told him to be careful,’ said Warren.

‘He just has to find out where she lives and … er … her standing in the community. That shouldn’t be too risky. Then he pulls out and you take over.’

‘I’ll get Dan Parker out there as soon as we know something definite. Mike Abbot will support him – I’m not sure Dan could pull it off on his own. This might need the sophisticated touch. Oh, and we have a volunteer – Ben Bryan will be joining the Iran group.’

‘I’m glad to hear that Mr Bryan is going to earn his manor house,’ said Hellier, a shade acidly. ‘There’s still nothing on your man, Speering.’

‘He’ll make a move soon,’ said Warren with certainty. His confidence had risen because the dossier on Jeanette Delorme fitted in so tidily.

‘Well, the same thing applies. There’ll be an investigator with him all the way – probably on the same plane if he flies. Then you’ll take over.’

Speering moved two days later, and within twelve hours Warren, Tozier, Follet and Bryan were in the air in a chartered aircraft which also carried the two Land-Rovers. Parker and Abbot were already on their way to the Lebanon.

III

It was snowing in Tehran.

Follet shivered as the sharp wind cut through his jacket. ‘I thought this place was supposed to be hot.’ He looked out across the airport at the sheer wall of the Elburz Mountains and then up at the cold grey sky from which scudded a minor blizzard. ‘This is the Middle East?’ he asked doubtfully.

‘About as Middle as you can get,’ said Tozier. ‘Still, it’s March and we’re nearly five thousand feet above sea level.’

Follet turned up his collar and pulled the lapels close about his throat. ‘Where the hell is Warren?’

‘He’s clearing the vehicles and the gear through customs.’ He smiled grimly. The modifications he had made to the Land-Rovers were such that if they were discovered then all hell would break loose in the customs shed, and Warren and Bryan would find themselves tossed into jail without a quibble. But he had not told Warren what the modifications were, which was all to the good. True innocence is better than bluff when faced with the X-ray eye of the experienced customs official.

All the same he breathed more easily when Follet touched him on the shoulder and pointed. ‘Here they come,’ he said, and Tozier saw with relief a Land-Rover bearing down upon them. On its side it bore the neat legend: Regent Film Company. Advance Unit. The tension left him.

Warren poked his head through the side window. ‘Ben’s just behind me,’ he said. ‘One of you jump in.’

‘Did you have any trouble?’ asked Tozier.

Warren looked surprised. ‘No trouble at all.’

Tozier smiled and said nothing. He walked around to the back of the vehicle and stroked one of the metal struts which held up the canopy. Follet said, ‘Let me get in and out of this goddam wind. Where are we going?’

‘We’re booked in at the Royal Tehran Hilton. I don’t know where it is but it shouldn’t be too difficult to find.’ He pointed to a minibus filling up with passengers, which had the name of the hotel on its side. ‘We just follow that.’

Follet got in and slammed the door. He looked broodingly at the alien scene, and said abruptly, ‘Just what in hell are we doing here, Warren?’

Warren glanced at the rear view mirror and saw that the other Land-Rover had arrived. ‘Following a man.’

‘Jeeze, you’re as close-mouthed as that strongarm man of yours. Or are you keeping him in the dark, too?’

‘You just do as you’re told, Johnny, and you’ll be all right,’ advised Warren.

‘I’d feel a hell of a lot better if I knew what I was supposed to do,’ grumbled Follet.

‘Your turn will come.’

Follet laughed unexpectedly. ‘You’re a funny one, Warren. Let me tell you something; I like you – I really do. You had me over a barrel; you offered me a thousand when you knew I’d take peanuts. Then you raised the bonus to five thousand when you didn’t have to. Why did you do that?’

Warren smiled. ‘The labourer is worthy of his hire. You’ll earn it.’

‘Maybe I will, but I don’t see how right now. Anyway, I just wanted to say I appreciated the gesture. You can depend on me – for anything reasonable, that is,’ he added hastily. ‘Tozier was talking about unreasonable things – like being shot at.’

‘You ought to have got used to that in Korea.’

‘You know,’ said Follet. ‘I never did. Funny the things a man can never get used to, isn’t it?’

The Royal Tehran Hilton was on the outskirts of the city, a caravanserai designed specifically for the oilmen and businessmen flocking into Iran under the impetus of the booming economy underwritten by the reforming regime of Mohammad Rezi Pahlevi, King of Kings and Light of the Aryans. It had not been an easy drive from the airport because of the propensity of the local inhabitants to regard a road as a race track. Several times Warren had been within an ace of serious trouble and when they reached the hotel he was sweating in spite of the cold.

They registered, and Warren found a message awaiting him. He waited until he was in his room before ripping open the envelope, and found but a single inscrutable line of writing: Your room – 7.30 p.m. Lane. He looked at his watch and decided he had just time to unpack.

At 7.29 there was a discreet knock. He opened the door and a man said, ‘Mr Warren? I believe you’re expecting me. My name is Lane.’

‘Come in, Mr Lane,’ said Warren, and held open the door wider. He studied Lane as he took off his coat; there was not much to the man – he could have been anybody – a virtue in a private detective.

Lane sat down. ‘Your man is staying here at the Hilton – his reservation is for a week. He’s here right now, if you want him.’

‘Not alone, I trust,’ said Warren.

‘That’s all right, Mr Warren; there are two of us on the job. He’s being watched.’ Lane shrugged. ‘But he won’t move – he likes to stay close to where the bottles are.’

‘He drinks a lot?’

‘He may not be an alcoholic, but he’s pushing it. He lives in the bar until it closes, then has a bottle sent to his room.’

Warren nodded. ‘What else can you tell me about Mr Speering?’

Lane took a notebook from his pocket. ‘He’s been getting around. I have a list of all this stuff written up which I’ll let you have, but I can tell it to you in five minutes.’ He flipped open the notebook. ‘He was met at the airport by one of the locals – an Iranian, I think – and brought here to the hotel. I wasn’t able to nail down the Iranian; we’d just arrived and we weren’t equipped,’ he said apologetically.

‘That’s all right.’

‘Anyway, we haven’t seen the Iranian since. Speering went out next day to a place on Mowlavi, near the railway station. I have the address here. He came out of there with a car or, rather, an American jeep. It isn’t a hire car, either – I’ve been trying to check on the registration, but that’s a bit difficult in a strange city like this one.’

‘Yes, it must be,’ said Warren.

‘He went from there to a firm of wholesale pharmaceutical chemists – name and address supplied – where he spent an hour and a half. Then back to the Hilton where he spent the rest of the day. That was yesterday. This morning he had a visitor – an American called John Eastman; that was up in his room. Eastman stayed all morning – three hours – then they had lunch in the Hilton dining-room.’

‘Any line on Eastman?’

Lane shook his head. ‘A full-time check on a man really takes four operatives – there are only two of us. We couldn’t do anything about Eastman without the risk of losing Speering. Our instructions were to stick to Speering.’ Lane consulted his notebook again. ‘Eastman left soon after lunch today, and Speering hasn’t moved since. He’s down in the bar right now. That’s the lot, Mr Warren.’

‘I think you’ve done well under the circumstances,’ said Warren. ‘I have some friends here; I’d like to let them get a look at Speering for future reference. Can that be arranged?’

‘Nothing easier,’ said Lane. ‘All you have to do is have a drink.’ He took out an envelope which he gave to Warren. ‘That’s all we have on Speering; registration number of his jeep, names and addresses of the places he’s been to in Tehran.’ He paused. ‘I understand that finishes our job – after I’ve pointed the man out.’

‘That’s right. That’s all you were asked to do.’

Lane seemed relieved. ‘This one’s been tricky,’ he confided. ‘I don’t have any trouble in London, and I’ve done jobs in Paris and Rome. But a Westerner here stands out like a sore thumb in some parts of the city and that makes following a man difficult. When do you want to see Speering?’

‘Why not now?’ said Warren. ‘I’ll collect my chaps.’

Before going into the bar Warren paused and said, ‘We’re here on business. Mr Lane will indicate unobtrusively the man we’ve come to see – and the operative word is see. Take a good look at him so that you’ll recognize him again anywhere – but don’t make it obvious. The idea is to see and not be seen. I suggest we split up.’

They crossed the foyer and went into the bar. Warren spotted Speering immediately and veered away from him. He had seen Speering on several occasions in London and, although he did not think he was known to Speering, it was best to make sure he was not observed. He turned his back on the room, leaned on the bar counter and ordered a drink.

The man next to him turned. ‘Hi, there!’

Warren nodded politely. ‘Good evening.’

‘You with IMEG?’ The man was American.

‘IMEG?’

The man laughed. ‘I guess not. I saw you were British and I guessed you might be with IMEG.’

‘I don’t even know what IMEG is,’ said Warren. He looked into the mirror at the back of the bar and saw Tozier sitting at a table and ordering a drink.

‘It’s just about the biggest thing to hit this rathole of a country,’ said the American. He was slightly drunk. ‘We’re reaming a forty-inch gas line right up the middle – Abadan right to the Russian border. Over six hundred million bucks’ worth. Money’s flowing like … like money.’ He laughed.

‘Indeed!’ said Warren. He was not very interested.

‘IMEG’s bossing the show – that’s you British. Me – I’m with Williams Brothers, who are doing the goddam work. Call that a fair division of labour?’

‘It sounds like a big job,’ said Warren evasively. He shifted his position and saw Follet at the other end of the bar.

‘The biggest.’ The American swallowed his drink. ‘But the guys who are going to take the cream are the Russkis. Christ, what a set-up! They’ll take Iranian gas at under two cents a therm, and they’ve pushed a line through to Trieste so they can sell Russian gas to the Italians at over three cents a therm. Don’t tell me those Bolshevik bastards aren’t good capitalists.’ He nudged Warren. ‘Have a drink.’

‘No, thanks,’ said Warren. ‘I’m expecting a friend.’

‘Aw, hell!’ The American looked at his watch. ‘I guess I’ve gotta eat, anyway. See you around.’

As he left, Tozier came up to the bar with his drink in his hand. ‘Who’s your friend?’

‘A lonely drunk.’

‘I’ve seen your man,’ said Tozier. ‘He looks like another drunk. What now?’

‘Now we don’t lose him.’

‘And then?’

Warren shrugged. ‘Then we find out what we find out.’

Tozier was silent for a while. He pulled out his cigarette case, lit a cigarette and blew out a long plume of smoke. ‘It’s not good enough, Nick. I don’t like acting in the dark.’

‘Sorry to hear it.’

‘You’ll be even sorrier when I pull out tomorrow.’ Warren turned his head sharply, and Tozier said, ‘I don’t know what you’re trying to do, but you can’t run this operation by keeping everything under wraps. How the hell can I do a job if I don’t know what I’m doing?’

‘I’m sorry you feel that way about it, Andy. Don’t you trust me?’

‘Oh, I trust you. The trouble is that you don’t trust me. So I’m pulling out, Nick – I’ll be back in London tomorrow night. You’ve got something on Johnny Follet, and you might have something on Ben Bryan for all I know. But I’m clean, Nick; I’m in this for honest reasons – just for the money.’

‘So stay and earn it.’

Tozier shook his head gently. ‘Not without knowing what I’m getting into – and why. I told you once that I like to have something to shoot back with if someone shoots at me. I also like to know why he’s shooting at me. Hell, I might approve of his reasons – I might even be on his side if I knew the score.’

Warren’s hand tightened on his glass. He was being pushed into a decision. ‘Andy, you do jobs for money. Would you smuggle dope for money?’

‘The problem has never come up,’ said Tozier reflectively. ‘Nobody has ever made the proposition. Are you asking me, Nick?’

‘Do I look like a dope smuggler?’ said Warren in disgust.

‘I don’t know,’ said Tozier. ‘I don’t know how a dope smuggler behaves. I do know that the straightest people get bent under pressure. You’ve been under pressure for quite some time, Nick; I’ve watched you struggling against it.’ He drained his glass. ‘Now that the question has arisen,’ he said, ‘the answer is no. I wouldn’t smuggle dope for money. And I think you’ve turned into a right son of a bitch, Nick; you’ve tried to con me into this thing and it hasn’t worked, has it?’

Warren blew out his cheeks and let the air escape in a long sigh. Internally he was cheering to the sound of trumpets. He grinned at Tozier. ‘You’ve got the wrong end of the stick, Andy. Let me tell you about it – around the corner out of the sight of Speering.’

He took Tozier by the arm and steered him to a table and in five minutes had given him the gist of it. Tozier listened and a slightly stupefied expression appeared on his face. He said, ‘And that’s all you have to go on? Have you gone out of your mind?’

‘It’s not much,’ admitted Warren. ‘But it’s all we have.’

Suddenly, Tozier chuckled. ‘It’s just mad enough to be interesting. I’m sorry if I got things wrong just now, Nick; but you were being so bloody mysterious.’ He nodded ruefully. ‘I can see the position you were in – you can’t trust anyone in this racket. Okay, I’m with you.’

‘Thanks, Andy,’ said Warren quietly.

Tozier called up a waiter and ordered drinks. ‘Let’s get practical,’ he said. ‘You were right in one thing – I wouldn’t let a breath of this leak out to Johnny Follet. If there’s any money in it Johnny will want to cut his share, and he won’t be too particular how he does it. But all the same, he’s a good man to have along, and we can use him as long as you keep that stranglehold tight. What have you got on him, anyway?’

‘Does it matter?’

Tozier shrugged. ‘I suppose not. Now, what are your ideas on Speering?’

‘He’s come here to extract morphine from opium, I’m fairly sure of that,’ said Warren. ‘That’s why he went to a wholesale pharmaceutical firm yesterday. He was ordering supplies.’

‘What would he need?’

‘Pharmaceutical quality lime, methylene chloride, benzene, amyl alcohol and hydrochloric acid, plus a quantity of glassware.’ Warren paused. ‘I don’t know if he intends transforming the morphine into heroin here. If he does he’ll need acetic acid as well.’

Tozier frowned. ‘I don’t quite understand this. What’s the difference between morphine and heroin?’

The drinks arrived and Warren did not reply until the waiter had gone. ‘Morphine is an alkaloid extracted from opium by a relatively simple chemical process. Heroin is morphine with its molecular structure altered by an even simpler process.’ He grimaced. ‘That job could be done in a well-equipped kitchen.’

‘But what’s the difference?’

‘Well, heroin is the acetylated form of morphine. It’s soluble in water, which morphine is not, and since the human body mostly consists of water it gets to the spot faster. Various properties are accentuated and it’s a damned sight more addictive than morphine.’

Tozier leaned back. ‘So Speering is going to extract the morphine. But where? Here in Iran? And how is the morphine – or heroin – going to get to the coast? South to the Persian Gulf? Or across Iraq and Syria to the Mediterranean? We have to find out one hell of a lot of things, Nick.’

‘Yes,’ said Warren gloomily. ‘And there’s one big problem I can’t see past at all. It’s something I haven’t even discussed with Hellier.’

‘Oh! Well, you’d better spit it out.’

Warren said flatly, ‘There’s no opium in Iran.’

Tozier stared at him. ‘I thought all these Middle East countries were rotten with the stuff.’

‘They are – and so was Iran under the old Shah. But this new boy is a reformer.’ Warren leaned his elbows on the table. ‘Under the old Shah things went to hell in a bucket. He was running Iran on the lines of the old Roman Empire – in order to keep in sweet with the populace he kept the price of grain down to an artificial low level. That was a self-defeating policy because the farmers found they couldn’t make a living growing grain, so they planted poppies instead – a much more profitable crop. So there was less and less grain and more and more opium.’ He grimaced. ‘The old Shah didn’t mind because he created the Opium Monopoly; there was a government tax and he got a rake-off from every pound collected.’

‘A sweet story,’ said Tozier.

‘You haven’t heard the half of it. In 1936 Iranian opium production was 1,350 metric tons. World requirements of medicinal opium were 400 tons.’

Tozier jerked. ‘You mean the old bastard was smuggling the stuff.’

‘He didn’t need to,’ said Warren. ‘It wasn’t illegal. He was the law in Iran. He just sold the stuff to anyone who had the money to pay for it. He was on to a good thing, but all good things come to an end. He pushed his luck too far and was forced to abdicate. There was a provisional government for a while, and then the present Shah took over. Now, he was a really bright boy. He wanted to drag this woebegone country into the twentieth century by the scruff of its neck, but he found that you can’t have industrialism in a country where seventy-five per cent of the population are opium addicts. So he clamped down hard and fast, and I doubt if you can find an ounce of illegal opium in the country today.’

Tozier looked baffled. ‘Then what is Speering doing here?’

‘That’s the problem,’ said Warren blandly. ‘But I don’t propose asking him outright.’

‘No,’ said Tozier pensively. ‘But we stick to him closer than his shirt.’

A waiter came and and said enquiringly, ‘Mistair Warren?’

‘I’m Warren.’

‘A message for you, sair.’

‘Thank you,’ Warren raised his eyebrows at Tozier as he tipped the waiter. A minute later he said, ‘It’s from Lane. Speering has given up his reservation – he’s leaving tomorrow. Lane doesn’t know where he’s going, but his jeep has been serviced and there are water cans in the back. What do you suppose that means?’

‘He’s leaving Tehran,’ said Tozier with conviction. ‘I’d better get back to check on the trucks; I’d like to see if the radios are still in working order. We’ll leave separately – give me five minutes.’

Warren waited impatiently for the time to elapse, then got up and walked out of the bar. As he passed Speering he almost stopped out of sheer surprise. Speering was sitting with Johnny Follet and they were both tossing coins.

IV

Speering headed north-west from Tehran on the road to Qazvin. ‘You get ahead of him and I’ll stick behind,’ said Tozier to Warren. ‘We’ll have him like the meat in a sandwich. If he turns off the road I’ll get on to you on the blower.’

They had kept an all night watch on Speering’s jeep but it had been a waste of time. He had a leisurely breakfast and did not leave Tehran until ten, and with him was a sharp-featured Iranian as chauffeur. They trailed the jeep through thick traffic out of the city and once they were on the main road Warren put on a burst of speed, passed Speering, and then slowed down to keep a comfortable distance ahead. Follet, in the passenger seat, kept a sharp eye astern, using the second rear view mirror which was one of Tozier’s modifications.

To the right rose the snow-capped peaks of the Elburz Mountains but all around was a featureless plain, dusty and monotonous. The road was not particularly good as far as Warren could judge, but he had been educated to more exacting standards than the Iranian driver and he reflected that by Iranian standards it was probably excellent. After all, it was the main arterial highway to Tabriz.

As soon as he became accustomed to driving the Land-Rover he said to Follet abruptly, ‘You were talking to Speering last night. What about?’

‘Just passing the time of day,’ said Follet easily.

‘Don’t make a mistake, Johnny,’ said Warren softly. ‘You could get hurt – badly.’

‘Hell, it was nothing,’ protested Follet. ‘It wasn’t even my doing. He came over to me – what else was I expected to do besides talk to him?’

‘What did you talk about?’

‘This and that. Our jobs. I told him I was with Regent Films. You know – all this crap about the film we’re making. He said he worked for an oil company.’ He laughed. ‘I took some of his money off him, too.’

‘I saw you,’ said Warren acidly. ‘What did you use – a two-headed penny?’

Follet raised his hands in mock horror. ‘As God is my judge, I didn’t cheat him. You know that’s not my style. I didn’t have to, anyway; he was pretty near blind drunk.’ His eyes flicked up to the mirror. ‘Slow down a bit – we’re losing him.’

From Tehran to Qazvin was nearly a hundred miles and it was almost one o’clock when they neared the outskirts of the town. As they were driving through the loudspeaker crackled into life. ‘Calling Regent Two. Calling Regent Two. Over.’

Follet picked up the microphone and thumbed the switch. ‘You’re coming in fine, Regent One. Over.’

Tozier’s voice was thin and distorted. ‘Our man has stopped at a hotel. I think he’s feeding his face. Over.’

‘That’s a damned good idea; I’m hungry myself,’ said Follet, and raised an eyebrow at Warren.

‘We’ll pull off the road at the other side of town,’ said Warren. ‘Tell him that.’ He carried on until he was well past the outskirts of Qazvin and then pulled up on a hard shoulder. ‘There’s a hamper in the back,’ he said. ‘I gave Ben the job of quartermaster; let’s see how good he is.’

Warren felt better after chicken sandwiches and hot coffee from a flask, but Follet seemed gloomy. ‘What a crummy country,’ he said. ‘We’ve travelled a hundred miles and those goddam mountains haven’t changed an inch.’ He pointed to a string of laden camels coming down the road. ‘What’s the betting we end up on the back of a thing like that?’

‘We could do worse,’ said Warren thoughtfully. ‘I have the idea that these Land-Rovers are a shade too conspicuous for a shadowing job like this.’ He picked up a map. ‘I wonder where Speering is going.’

Follet looked over his shoulder. ‘The next town is Zanjan – another hundred goddam miles.’ He looked around. ‘Christ, isn’t this country horrible? Worse than Arizona.’

‘You’ve been there?’

‘Hell, I was born there. I got out by the time I was old enough to run away. I’m a city boy at heart. The bright lights for me.’ He hummed a phrase of Broadway Melody and reached forward and took a pack of cards from the dash shelf. ‘I’ll be going back, too, so I’d better keep in practice.’

Warren heard the crisp flick of the cards and glanced sideways to see Follet riffle-shuffle with unbelievable dexterity, something far removed from the amateur’s awkwardness. ‘I thought you said you didn’t cheat.’

‘I don’t – but I can if I have to. I’m a pretty fair card mechanic when I want to be.’ He grinned engagingly. It’s like this; if you have a piece of a casino like I have back in London, you don’t have to cheat – as long as the house has an edge. It’s the edge that counts, you see. You don’t suppose Monte Carlo gets by because of cheating, do you?’

It’s supposed to be an honest game.’

‘It’s one hundred per cent honest,’ said Follet stoutly. ‘As long as you have the percentages going for you then you’re all right and cheating isn’t necessary. I’ll show you what I mean because right now I feel lucky. On this road we’ve been meeting about twenty cars an hour – I’ll give you even money that in the next hour two of those cars will have the same last two digits in the registration number. Just a game to pass the time.’

Warren thought it out. There were a hundred possible numbers – 00 to 99. If Follet restricted it to twenty cars then it seemed that the odds were on Warren’s side. He said carefully, ‘For the first twenty cars you’re on.’

‘For a hundred pounds,’ said Follet calmly. ‘If I win you can add it to my bonus – if and when. Okay?’

Warren breathed hard, then said, ‘All right.’

The quiet hum from the loudspeaker altered as a carrier wave came on, and then Ben Bryan said, ‘Calling Regent Two. Our man is getting ready to move. Over.’

Warren unhooked the microphone. ‘Thanks, Regent One. We’ll get moving slowly and let him catch up. The grub was pretty good, Ben; you’re elected caterer for the duration. Over.’

The loudspeaker made a rude squawk and lapsed into silence. Warren grinned and pressed the self-starter. ‘Keep an eye to the rear, Johnny, and tell me when Speering shows up.’

Follet produced a pen. ‘You call the numbers – I’ll write them down. Don’t worry; I’ll keep an eye on Speering.’

The game served to while away the time. It was a monotonous drive on a monotonous road and it was something for Warren to do. With Follet keeping watch to the rear there was nothing for him to do except drive and to speed up or slow down at Follet’s instruction so as to keep a safe distance ahead of Speering. Besides he was tending to become sleepy and the game kept him awake.

He called out the numbers as the oncoming cars passed, and Follet scribbled them down. Although Follet’s attention was, in the main, directed towards Speering, Warren noticed that once in a while he would do a spot check of a number called. He smiled – Follet would never trust anyone. When fifteen numbers had been called without duplication Warren had high hopes of winning his hundred pounds and he became more interested – this was more than a way of passing the time.

On the eighteenth number Follet suddenly said, ‘That’s it – number five and number eighteen are the same – thirty-nine. You lose, Warren. You’ve just raised my bonus by a hundred.’ He put the pen back into his shirt pocket. ‘That was what is known as a proposition. Another name for it is a sucker bet. You didn’t have much of a chance.’

‘I don’t see it,’ said Warren.

Follet laughed. ‘That’s because you’re a mathematical ignoramus. You figured that because there were a hundred possibles and only twenty chances that the odds were four to one in your favour, and that I was a chump for offering evens. You were the chump because the odds were actually in my favour – no less than seven to one. It pays to understand mathematics.’

Warren thought it over. ‘I still don’t see it.’

‘Look at it this way. If I’d bet that a specific number would come up twice in the first twenty then I would have been a chump. But I didn’t. I said any two numbers in the first twenty would match.’

Warren frowned. He still did not get the point, but he had always been weak in mathematics. Follet said, ‘A proposition can be defined as a bet which looks good to the sucker but which is actually in favour of the smart guy who offers it. You dig into the holes and corners of mathematics – especially probability theory – and you’ll find dozens of propositions which the suckers fall for every time.’

‘You won’t catch me again,’ said Warren.

Follet chuckled. ‘Want to bet on it? It’s surprising how often a sucker comes back for more. Andy Tozier fell for that one, too. He’ll fall again – I’ll take the whole of his bonus from him before we’re through with this caper.’ He glanced at the mirror. ‘Slow down, will you? This road’s becoming twisty.’

They drove on and on until they came to Zanjan, and Follet said, ‘I see the jeep – I think he’s coming through.’ Two minutes later he said, ‘I’ve lost him.’

The radio broke into life with a crackle of mid-afternoon static caused, presumably, by the stormy weather over the mountains to the west. ‘… turned off to left … hotel … follow … Got that? Over.’

Follet clicked a switch ‘Speering turned off to the left by the hotel and you want us to follow. Is that it, Andy? Over.’

‘That’s it … quickly … out.’

Warren pulled to a halt, and Follet said, ‘I’ll take over – you look a bit beat.’

‘All right,’ said Warren. They changed seats and Warren stretched his shoulders and slumped in the passenger seat. He had been driving all day and the Land-Rover was a bit harder to handle than his saloon car. They went back into Zanjan and by the hotel found a road leading off to the west; it was signposted in Arabic script which Warren could make no sense of. Follet wheeled around and Warren grabbed the maps.

The new road deteriorated rapidly and, because it was heading into the mountains, became more sinuous and tricky. Follet drove a shade faster than was absolutely safe in an effort to catch up with Tozier and Bryan, and the vehicle bumped and shuddered. At last they caught a glimpse of a dust cloud ahead. ‘That should be Andy.’ After a while he said, ‘It’s Andy, all right.’ He eased the speed a little. ‘I’ll drop back a bit – we don’t want to eat his dust from here to hell-and-gone.’

As they drove deeper into the mountains their speed dropped. The road surface was very bad, ridged in bone-jarring corrugations and washed out in places where storm-swelled freshets had swept across. The gradients became steeper and the bends tighter, so much so that Follet was forced to use the extra-low gearing that is the speciality of the Land-Rover. The day wore on to its end.

Warren had the maps on his knee attached to a clipboard and kept his eye on the compass. They were heading westward all the time and, after checking the map again, he said, ‘We’re heading into Kurdistan.’ He knew that this was the traditional route for smuggling opium out of Iran into Syria and Jordan, and again he felt confident that he was right – this was more than a coincidence.

Follet turned another corner and drove down one of the few straight stretches of road. At this point the road clung to the side of a mountain with a sheer cliff on the right and an equally sheer drop on the left. ‘Look at that,’ he said jerkily and nodded across the valley.

The road crossed the valley and rose again to climb the side of the mountain on the other side. In the far distance a cloud of brick-red dust picked out by the sun indicated a speeding car. ‘That’s Speering,’ said Follet. ‘Andy is still in the valley bottom. If we can see Speering then he can see us. If he doesn’t know we’re following him then he’s blind or dead drunk.’

‘It can’t be helped,’ said Warren grimly. ‘That’s the way it is.’

‘You can tell me something,’ said Follet. ‘What the hell happens at sunset? Have you thought of that?’

Warren had thought of it and it had been worrying him. He looked at his watch and estimated that there was less than an hour to go. ‘We’ll keep going as far as we can,’ he said with no expression in his voice.

Which was not very far. Within half an hour they came upon the other Land-Rover parked by the roadside with Ben Bryan flagging them down. Just beyond him Tozier was standing, looking over the mountains. Follet halted and Warren leaned from the window. ‘What’s up, Ben?’

Bryan’s teeth showed white against his dusty face and the mountain wind whipped his hair. ‘He’s beaten us, Nick. Take a look over there where Andy is.’

Warren stepped down and followed him towards Tozier who turned and said, ‘You tell me which way he went.’

There were five possible exits from the rocky area on top of the plateau. ‘Five roads,’ said Tozier. ‘You tell me which one he picked.’

‘No tracks?’

‘The ground is hard where it isn’t naked rock.’ Tozier looked about. ‘This seems to be a main junction, but it isn’t on the map.’

‘The road we’ve been travelling on isn’t on the map, either,’ said Warren. He squatted and balanced the clipboard on his knee. ‘I reckon we’re about there.’ He made a small cross on the map. ‘About thirty miles inside Kurdistan.’ He stood up and walked to the edge of the road and gazed westward to where the setting sun fitfully illumined the storm clouds over the red mountains. ‘Speering could be heading clear to the Iraqi border.’

‘He won’t make it tonight,’ said Tozier. ‘Not on these roads in these mountains. What do we do, Nick?’

‘What the devil can we do?’ said Warren violently. ‘We’ve lost him right at the start of the game. It’s four to one against us that we pick the right road – a sucker bet.’ He suppressed his futile rage. ‘We can’t do much now. It’s nearly dark so we’d better make camp.’

Tozier nodded. ‘All right; but let’s do it out of sight of any of these roads.’

‘Why? What’s the point?’

‘No point, really.’ Tozier shrugged. ‘Just on general security principles. It gets to be a habit in my game.’

He walked towards the trucks leaving Warren in a depressed mood. We’ve blown it at this end, he thought; I hope to God that Mike and Dan have better luck. But he did not feel like betting on it – that would be another sucker bet.

FOUR

‘This is the life,’ said Michael Abbot. He sipped from a tall frosted glass and watched with more than idle interest as a nubile girl clad in the briefest of brief bikinis stepped on to the diving-board. She flexed her knees, stood poised for a moment, and then cleft the air in a perfect swallow dive to plunge with minimum splash into the Mediterranean.

Dan Parker was unimpressed. ‘We’re wastin’ time.’

‘It can’t be hurried,’ said Abbot. He had talked this over with Parker before, and Dan had reluctantly agreed that this was the best way. There were two possible approaches that could be made; the approach direct, which was to introduce themselves to the Delorme woman as potential allies. The trouble with that was that if it failed then it was a complete failure with nothing to fall back upon. The approach indirect was to somehow make Delorme come to them. If it did not work within a reasonable period of time then the direct approach was indicated.

Abbot leaned forward to watch the girl who was now climbing out of the water. ‘We’ll get there in time.’

‘So we sit around in this fancy hotel while you get pissed on those fancy drinks. Is that it?’ Parker was feeling edgy. He was out of place in the Hotel Saint-Georges and he knew it.

‘Take it easy, Dan,’ said Abbot calmly. ‘It’s early days. If we can’t approach her then we have to find out who her friends are – and that’s what we’re doing now.’

Jeanette Delorme moved in the highest Lebanese society; she lived in a de luxe villa in the mountains at Hammana, and she could afford to eat two days running at the Hotel Saint-Georges. Getting close to her was the problem. Somehow they had to snuggle up to her and that, thought Abbot, was like snuggling up to a rattlesnake. He had read the dossier on her.

The only approach, as he saw it, was to find out who her associates were – her more disreputable associates – and then to lay out some ground bait. It was going to be very slow – much too slow for the liking of Dan Parker – but it was the only way. And so they were sitting in a discreet corner of the Hotel Saint-Georges while Delorme lunched with an unknown friend who would be checked on as soon as they parted. The previous day had been a repetition – and a bust. Her companion then had proved to be a paunchy Lebanese banker of pristine reputation and decidedly not disreputable enough for their purpose.

Abbot watched the girl step on to the diving-board again. He said suddenly, ‘Do you know why this hotel is called the Saint-Georges, Dan?’

‘No,’ said Parker briefly in a tone which indicated that he could not care less.

Abbot waved his glass largely. ‘Saint George killed the dragon right here in Beirut. So they tell me. Probably here in Saint George’s Bay. But I’ve always thought the Christians pinched that bit from Greek mythology – Perseus and Andromeda, you know.’ He gestured towards the girl on the diving-board. ‘I wouldn’t mind slaying a dragon myself if she were the prize.’

Parker moved restlessly in his chair, and Abbot thought he would have to do something about him. Dan would be all right once he had something to do with his hands, but this alien environment tended to unnerve him. He said, ‘What’s on your mind, Dan?’

‘I still think this is a waste o’ time.’ Parker took out a handkerchief and mopped his brow. ‘I wish I could have a beer. What wouldn’t I give for a pint?’

‘I don’t see why you shouldn’t have that,’ said Abbot, and looked about for a waiter. ‘Why didn’t you order one?’

‘What! In this place?’ Parker was surprised. He associated English beer with the Edwardian glass of a London pub or the low beams of a country inn. ‘I didn’t think they’d serve it in a place as posh as this.’

‘They make a living by serving what people want,’ said Abbot drily. ‘There’s a Yank behind us drinking his Budweiser, so I don’t see why you shouldn’t have your pint.’ He caught the eye of a waiter who responded immediately. ‘Have you any English beer?’

‘Certainly, sair, what would you like? Bass, Worthington, Watney’s …’

‘Watney’s’ll do fine,’ said Parker.

‘And I’ll have another of these.’ Abbot watched the waiter depart. ‘See, Dan, it’s easy.’

‘I’d never ‘a’ thought it,’ said Dan in wonder.

Abbot said, ‘If an English millionaire comes here and can’t get his favourite tipple he raises the roof, and that’s bad for business. We’ll probably have to pay a millionaire’s price, but it’s on the old expense account.’

Dan’s wonder increased even more when he was presented with a pewter tankard into which he promptly disappeared. He came up for air with froth on his upper lip. ‘It’s a bit o’ right stuff,’ he said. ‘Cold but in good condition.’

‘Maybe it’ll lighten your day,’ said Abbot. He glanced at the bar check, winced, and turned it over so Dan would not see it. That would certainly take the edge off his simple pleasure, even though Hellier was paying for it. He slid his eyes sideways at Parker and saw that the familiar taste of the beer had eased him. ‘Are you sure you’re right about this torpedo thing? I mean, it can be done.’

‘Oh, aye; I can do it. I can make those fish do tricks.’

‘We don’t want it to do tricks. We just want it to go a hell of a long way – five times further than it was designed to go.’

‘Don’t you worry yourself about that,’ said Dan comfortably. ‘I can do it. What I want to know is, can these people find a torpedo? They’re not the easiest thing to come by, you know.’

That had been worrying Abbot, too, although he had not admitted it. It was one thing for Warren to come up with the nutty idea of smuggling by torpedo and another thing to implement it. If Delorme could not lay her hands on a torpedo then the whole scheme was a bust. He said, ‘We’ll worry about that when we come to it.’

They indulged in idle conversation while Abbot surveyed the procession to the diving-board with the air of a caliph at the slave market. But he still kept an eye on the restaurant entrance, and after half an hour had passed, he said quietly, ‘Here she is. Drink up, Dan.’

Parker knocked back his second pint with the ease of long practice. ‘Same as yesterday, then?’

‘That’s right. We follow the man – we know where we can pick her up.’ Abbot paid the check while Parker sauntered out in the wake of Jeanette Delorme and her companion. He caught up just as Parker was unlocking the car.

‘Fourth car along,’ said Parker. ‘It should be a doddle. But I hope this isn’t another bloody banker.’

‘I’ll drive,’ said Abbot, and slid behind the wheel. He watched the big Mercedes pull away, then engaged gear and drifted into the traffic stream three cars behind. ‘I don’t think this one’s a banker. He has no paunch, for one thing; and he certainly doesn’t look Lebanese.’

‘I noticed you watchin’ all those naked popsies paradin’ up an’ down in front of the hotel,’ said Parker. ‘But what do you think of that one ahead of us?’

‘Our Jeanette?’ Abbot concentrated on piloting the car out of the Rue Minet El Hosn. ‘I’ve never thought of her in that way,’ he said satirically. ‘Come to think of it, she’s not bad-looking but I’ve never had the chance of giving her a real slow and loving once-over. It’s a bit hard to assess a woman when you’re not supposed to be looking at her.’

‘Come off it,’ scoffed Parker.

‘Oh, all right. She’s a bit long in the tooth for me.’ Abbot was twenty-six. ‘But trim – very trim – very beddable.’ He grimaced. ‘But I think it would be like getting into bed with a spider.’

‘What the hell are you talkin’ about?’

‘Didn’t you know – female spiders eat their mates after they’ve had their bit of fun.’ He turned into the Avenue Bliss, following the Mercedes at a discreet distance. As they passed the American University he said, ‘I wonder why they’re going this way; there’s nothing at the end of here but the sea.’

‘We’ll see soon enough,’ said Parker stolidly.

The Avenue Bliss gave way to the Rue Manarah and still the Mercedes carried on. As they rounded a bend the sea came into view, and Parker said warningly, ‘Watch it! He’s pullin’ in.’

Abbot went by and rigidly prevented himself from looking sideways. He turned the corner and parked on the Corniche. ‘That was a hotel,’ he said, and pondered. He made up his mind. ‘I’m going in there. As soon as that Mercedes takes off you follow it if the man is in it. Don’t wait for me.’

‘All right,’ said Parker.

‘And, Dan; be unobtrusive.’

‘That goes for you too,’ said Parker. He watched Abbot turn the corner into the Rue Manarah and then swung the car round to where he could get a view of the hotel entrance and still be in a position to follow the Mercedes which was still parked outside. Presently Delorme and the man came out together with a page who packed a lot of luggage in the boot.

The Mercedes took off smoothly and he followed, and soon found himself going along a familiar road – past the Lebanese University and Khaldeh Airport on the way to Hammana. He was almost tempted to turn back but he went on all the way until he saw Jeanette Delorme safely home with her guest. Then he drove back to Beirut, running into heavy traffic on the way back to the hotel.

Abbot was taking it easy when Parker walked in. ‘Where the devil have you been, Dan?’

‘The traffic’s bloody awful at this time o’ day,’ said Parker irascibly. ‘She took him home an’ you know what the road out o’ town is like. She took him home – bags an’ all. Stayin’ with her as a house guest, like.’ He grinned. ‘If he disappears then you’ll know she really is a bloody spider. Did you get anythin’?’

‘I did,’ said Abbot. ‘By exerting my famous charm on a popsy in that hotel I found that he is an American, his name is John Eastman, and he flew in from Tehran yesterday. Did you hear that, Dan? Tehran. It’s the first link.’

II

It may have been the first link but it wasn’t the last because Eastman proved to be almost as inaccessible as Delorme herself. ‘A snooty lot, these heroin smugglers,’ observed Abbot. ‘They don’t mix with the common herd.’

So they applied the same technique to Eastman. It was a painfully slow task to keep him under observation and then to tag his associates and they would have given up had they not known with certainty that they were on the right track. For Abbot received a letter from Hellier who was acting as a clearing house for information.

‘Good news and bad,’ said Abbot after he had read it.

‘Let’s have the bad news first,’ said Parker. ‘I might need to be cheered up after hearin’ it.’

‘Warren has lost Speering. He disappeared into the blue in the middle of Kurdistan. It’s up to us now, Dan. I bet Nick’s climbing the wall,’ he said reflectively.

‘We’re not much forrarder,’ said Parker gloomily.

‘Oh, but we are. That’s the good news. Eastman saw Speering the day before he gave Nick the slip. That directly links Speering with Delorme. This is the first bit of concrete evidence we’ve had yet. Everything else was just one of Nick Warren’s hunches.’

Parker brightened. ‘Aye, that’s so. Well, let’s get on wi’ it.’

So they got on with it, but it was a long time before Abbot made the decision. ‘This is the man,’ he said. ‘This is where we cast our bread upon the waters and hope it’ll come back buttered on both sides.’

‘Picot?’

Picot was a long way down the line. He knew a man who knew a man who knew Eastman. He was accessible and, Abbot hoped, receptive to new ideas if they were cast his way. He was also, to a keen and observant eye, a crook, which further raised Abbot’s hopes.

‘How do we tackle him?’ asked Parker.

‘The first thing is to move into a cheaper hotel.’ He looked at Parker consideringly. ‘We’re not rolling in cash – but we’re not dead broke. We’re hungry for loot, but careful. We have something to sell and we want the best price, so we’re cagey. Got the picture?’

Parker smiled sombrely. ‘That bit about not rollin’ in cash’ll come easy to me; I’ve never had much money. How do we broach the subject to Picot?’

‘We play it by ear,’ said Abbot easily.

Picot frequented a cafe in the old town near the Port, and when Abbot and Parker strolled in the next evening he was sitting at a table reading a newspaper. Abbot selected a table just in front and to the side of him, and they sat down. Abbot wrinkled his nose as he looked at the food-spotted menu and ordered for both of them.

Parker looked about the place and said in a low voice, ‘What now?’

‘Take it easy,’ said Abbot softly. ‘Let it come naturally.’ He turned and looked at the little pile of newspapers and magazines on Picot’s table, obviously there for the use of the customers. In English, he said, ‘Excuse me, monsieur; do you mind?’

Picot looked up and nodded shortly. ‘Okay with me.’ His English was incongruously tinged with a mixed French and American accent.

Abbot took a magazine and flipped the pages idly until the waiter served them, putting down many plates, two drinks and a jug of water. Abbot poured a little water into his glass and there was a swirl of milkiness. ‘Cheers, Dan.’

Hesitantly Parker did the same, drank and spluttered. He banged down the glass. ‘What is this stuff? Cough mixture?’

‘The local white lightning – arak.’

Parker investigated his palate with his tongue. ‘I haven’t tasted anything like this since I were a boy.’ He looked surprised as he made the discovery. ‘Aniseed balls!’ He sniffed the glass. ‘It’s no drink for a grown man. Any chance of a Watney’s in here?’

Abbot grinned. ‘I doubt it. If you want beer you have a choice of Lebanese French and Lebanese German.’

‘Make it the German,’ said Parker, so Abbot ordered him a Henninger Byblos and turned back to find him regarding the contents of the plates with deep suspicion.

‘For God’s sake, stop acting like a tourist, Dan,’ he said with irritation. ‘What do you expect here – fish and chips?’

‘I like to know what I’m eatin’,’ said Parker, unmoved.

‘It’s mezza, said Abbot loudly. ‘It’s filling and it’s cheap. If you want anything better go to the Saint-Georges – but I’m not paying. I’m getting fed up with you. I have a good mind to call the whole thing off.’

Parker looked startled but subsided as Abbot winked. The beer arrived and Parker tasted it and put down the glass. ‘It’ll do, I suppose.’

Abbot said quietly, ‘Do you think you could … er … get pissed?’

Parker flicked the glass with his fingernail. ‘It ‘ud take more than this stuff. It’s like maiden’s water.’

‘But you could try, couldn’t you? You might even become indiscreet.’

‘Then buy me another,’ said Parker, and drained the glass with one mighty swallow.

Abbot made a good meal but Parker picked at his food fastidiously and drank more than was apparently good for him. His voice became louder and his words tended to slur together, and he seemed to be working up to a grievance. ‘You want to call it off – how do you suppose I feel? I get this idea – a bloody good idea – an’ what are you doin’ about it? Nothin’ but sittin’ on your upper-class bottom, that’s what.’

‘Quiet, Dan!’ urged Abbot.

‘I won’t be bloody quiet! I’m gettin’ tired o’ your snipin’, too.’ His voice took on an ugly mimicry. ‘“Don’t do this, Dan; don’t do that, Dan; don’t eat wi’ your mouth open, Dan.’ Who the hell do you think you are?’

‘Oh, for God’s sake!’ said Abbot.

‘You said you could help me wi’ what I’ve got – an’ what ha’ you done? Sweet Fanny Adams!’

‘It takes time to make the contact,’ said Abbot wearily.

‘You said you had the contacts,’ said Parker venomously.

‘What have you got to complain about,’ said Abbot in a high voice. ‘You’re not paying for all this, are you? If it wasn’t for me you’d still be on your arse in London fiddling around with beat-up cars and dreaming of how to make a quick fortune. I’ve laid out nearly a thousand quid on this, Dan – doesn’t that count for anything?’

‘I don’t care whose money it is. You’re still doin’ nothin’ an’ you’re wastin’ my time.’ Parker gestured largely towards the open door. ‘That harbour’s full o’ ships, an’ I bet half of ‘em are in the smugglin’ racket. They’d go for what I have in me noggin an’ they’d pay big for it, too. You talk about me sittin’ on me arse; why don’t you get up off yours?’

Abbot was trying – unsuccessfully – to quiet Parker. ‘For God’s sake, shut up! Do you want to give everything away? How do you know this place isn’t full of police?’

Parker struggled to his feet drunkenly. ‘Aw, hell!’ He looked around blearily. ‘Where is it?’

Abbot looked at him resignedly. ‘Through there.’ He indicated a door at the back of the cafe. ‘And don’t get talking to any strange men.’ He watched Parker stagger away, shrugged, and picked up the magazine.

A voice behind him said, ‘Monsieur?’

He turned and found Picot looking at him intently. ‘Yes?’

‘Would I be right if I said that you and your friend are looking for … employment?’

‘No,’ said Abbot shortly, and turned away. He hesitated perceptibly and turned back to face Picot. ‘What makes you think that?’

‘I thought maybe you were out of work. Sailors, perhaps?’

‘Do I look like a sailor?’ demanded Abbot.

Picot smiled. ‘No, monsieur. But your friend …’

‘My friend’s business is his.’

‘And not yours, monsieur?’ Picot raised his eyebrows. ‘Then you are definitely not interested in employment?’

‘What kind of employment?’

‘Any man, particularly a sailor who has … ingenious ideas … there is always an opening for him in the right place.’

‘I’m not a sailor. My friend was at one time. There’d have to be a place for me. We’re great friends – inseparables, you know.’

Picot examined his finger-nails and smiled. ‘I understand, monsieur. A great deal would depend on the ideas your friend has in mind. If you could enlighten me then it could be worth your while.’

‘If I told you then you’d know as much as me, wouldn’t you?’ said Abbot cunningly. ‘Nothing doing. Besides, I don’t know who you are. I don’t go a bundle on dealing with total strangers.’

‘My name is Jules Fabre,’ said Picot with a straight face.

Abbot shook his head. ‘Means nothing to me. You could be a big-timer for all I know – and then again, you could be a cheap crook.’

‘That’s not very nice, monsieur,’ said Picot reproachfully.

‘I didn’t intend it to be,’ said Abbot.

‘You are making things difficult,’ said Picot. ‘You can hardly expect me to buy something unknown. That is not good business. You would have to tell me sooner or later.’

‘I’m not too worried about that. What Dan – my friend – has can only be made to work by him. He’s the expert.’

‘And you?’

Abbot grinned cheekily. ‘You can say I’m his manager. Besides, I’ve put up the money so far.’ He looked Picot up and down insultingly. ‘And talking about money – what we’ve got would cost a hell of a lot, and I don’t think a cheap chiseller like you has it, so stop wasting my time.’ He turned away.

‘Wait,’ said Picot. ‘This secret you have – how much do you expect to sell it for?’

Abbot swung around and stared at Picot. ‘Half a million American dollars. Have you got that much?’ he asked ironically.

Picot’s lips twitched and he lowered his voice. ‘And this is for smuggling?’

‘What the hell do you think we’ve been talking about all this time?’ demanded Abbot.

Picot became animated. ‘You want to get in touch with someone at the top? I can help you, monsieur; but it will cost money.’ He rubbed his finger and thumb together meaningfully and shrugged. ‘My expenses, monsieur.’

Abbot hesitated, then shook his head. ‘No. What we have is so good that the man at the top will pay you for finding us. Why should I grease your palm?’

‘Because if you don’t, the man at the top will never hear of you. I’m just trying to make a living, monsieur.’

Parker came back and sat down heavily. He picked up an empty bottle and banged it down. ‘I want another beer.’

Abbot half-turned in his seat. ‘Well, buy one,’ he said irritably.

‘Got no money,’ said Parker. ‘Besides,’ he added belligerently, ‘you’re Mr Moneybags around here.’

‘Oh, for Christ’s sake!’ Abbot took out his wallet, peeled off a note from the thin wad, and threw it on the table. ‘Buy yourself a bucketful and swill in it. You can drown in the stuff for all I care.’ He turned to Picot. ‘All right – how much, you bloody twister?’

‘A thousand pounds – Lebanese.’

‘Half now and the other half when contact has been made.’ He counted out notes and dropped them in front of Picot. ‘All right?’

Picot put out his hand and delicately took the money. ‘It will do, monsieur. What is your name and where can I find you?’

‘My name doesn’t matter and I’ll be in here most evenings,’ said Abbot. ‘That’s good enough.’

Picot nodded. ‘You had better not be wasting time,’ he warned. ‘The man at the top has no use for fools.’

‘He’ll be happy with what we have,’ said Abbot confidently.

‘I hope so.’ Picot looked at Parker who had bis nose deep in a glass. ‘Your friend drinks too much – and talks too loudly. That is not good.’

‘He’s all right. He’s just become edgy because of the waiting, that’s all. Anyway, I can control him.’

‘I understand your position – exactly,’ said Picot drily. He stood up. ‘I will be seeing you soon.’

Abbot watched him leave, then said, ‘You were great, Dan. The stage lost a great actor somewhere along the line.’

Parker put down his glass and looked at it without enthusiasm. ‘I was pretty good at amateur theatricals at one time,’ he said complacently. ‘You paid him something. How much?’

‘He gets a thousand pounds; I paid half.’ Abbot laughed. ‘Keep your hair on, Dan; they’re Lebanese pounds – worth about half-a-crown each.’

Parker grunted and swirled the beer in his glass. ‘It’s still too much. This stuff is full of piss and wind. Let’s go somewhere we can get a real drink, and you can tell me all about it.’

III

Nothing happened next day. They went to the café at the same time in the evening but Picot was not there, so they had a meal, chatted desultorily and went away. Despite his confident attitude Abbot was wondering whether Picot was genuine or whether he had paid over £60 to a smooth grafter he would never see again.

They were just about to leave for the café the next evening when there was a knock at the door. Abbot raised his eyebrows at Parker and went to open it. ‘Who’s there?’

‘Fabre.’

He opened up. ‘How did you know we were here?’

‘That does not matter, Monsieur Abbot. You wish to speak to someone – he is here.’ He jerked his eyes sideways. ‘That will be five hundred pounds.’

Abbot glanced to where a tall man stood in the shadowed corridor. ‘Don’t try to con me, Fabre. How do I know it’s the man I want? It could be one of your put-up jobs. I’ll talk to him first, then you’ll get your money.’

‘All right,’ said Picot. ‘I’ll be in the usual place tomorrow.’

He walked away down the corridor and Abbot waited at the door. The tall man moved forward and, as his face came out of shadow, Abbot knew he had hit the jackpot. It was Eastman. He stepped on one side to let him enter, and Eastman said in a flat mid-western accent, ‘Was Picot trying to shake you down?’

Abbot closed the door. ‘Who?’ he said blankly. ‘He said his name was Fabre.’

‘His name is Picot and he’s a chiselling nogoodnik,’ said Eastman without rancour.

‘Talking about names,’ said Abbot. ‘This is Dan Parker and I’m Mike Abbot. And you are …?’ He let the question hang in the air.

‘The name is Eastman.’

Abbot smiled. ‘Sit down, Mr Eastman. Dan, pull up a chair and join the congregation.’

Eastman sat down rigidly on the chair offered. ‘I’m told you have something to sell me. Start selling.’

‘I’ll start off, Dan,’ said Abbot. ‘You can chip in when things become technical.’ He looked at Eastman. ‘I’m told there’s a fair amount of smuggling goes on around here. Dan and I have got an idea – a good idea. The trouble is we don’t have the capital to pull it off ourselves, so we’re open to offers – on a participation basis, of course.’

‘You don’t get offered a cent until I know what you’re talking about.’

‘This is where the conversation gets tricky,’ said Abbot. ‘However, Dan tells me it doesn’t matter very much if you know the secret. He thinks he’s the only one around who can make it work. Of course, it wouldn’t work with too much weight or bulk. What are you interested in smuggling?’

Eastman hesitated. ‘Let’s say gold.’

‘Let’s say gold,’ agreed Abbot. ‘Dan, how much could you carry – in weight?’

‘Up to five hundred pounds.’

‘Interested?’ asked Abbot.

‘Maybe. What’s the gimmick?’

‘This works when coming in from the sea. You shoot it in by torpedo.’ Abbot looked at Eastman as though expecting a round of applause.

Eastman sighed and put his hands on the table as though to. lever himself up. ‘You’re wasting my time,’ he said. ‘Sorry.’

‘Wait a minute,’ said Abbot. ‘Why are we wasting your time?’

Eastman stared at him and shook his head sadly. ‘It’s been tried before and it doesn’t work very well. You’re out of luck, boys.’

‘Perhaps you were using the wrong torpedoes.’

‘Perhaps.’ Eastman looked at Abbot with renewed interest. ‘What have you got?’

‘You tell me what you want, then maybe we can get together.’

Eastman smiled thinly. ‘Okay, I’ll play ball; I’ve got ten minutes spare. A torpedo has only worked well once. That was on the Austrian-Italian border; a few smart-alick amateurs got hold of a torpedo and started smuggling across one of the little lakes up there. Booze one way and tobacco the other. They had the customs cops going nuts trying to figure out how it worked. Then some jerk shot off at the mouth and that was the end of it.’

‘So?’ said Abbot. ‘It worked, didn’t it?’

‘Oh, it worked – but only across a half-assed pond. A torpedo doesn’t have the range for what I want.’

‘Can you get hold of a torpedo?’

‘Sure – but for what? Those we can get hold of don’t have the range, and those we could use are on the secret lists. Boy, if I could get hold of one of the modern underwater guided missile babies I’d be made.’

Parker broke in. ‘What kind of torpedo can you get?’

Eastman shrugged. ‘Those on the international arms market – models of the ’forties and ‘fifties. Nothing really up to date.’

‘What about the British Mark XI?’

‘Those are available, sure. With a maximum range of three miles – and what the hell’s the good of that?’

‘Fifty-five hundred yards wi’ batteries brought up to heat,’ corrected Parker.

Abbot grinned. ‘I think you’d better tell him, Dan.’

Parker said deliberately, ‘I can get fifteen miles out o’ a Mark XI.’

Eastman sat up straight. ‘Are you on the level?’

‘He is,’ said Abbot. ‘Danny boy can make a Mark XI sit up and do tricks. Meet Mr Parker, the best petty officer and torpedo mechanic the Royal Navy ever had.’

‘You interest me,’ said Eastman. ‘Are you sure about that fifteen miles?’

Parker smiled slowly. ‘I can pep up a Mark XI so you can stay safely outside the legal twelve mile limit an’ shoot her ashore at thirty knots. No bubbles, either.’

‘And carrying five hundred pounds’ weight?’

‘That’s right.’

Eastman pondered. ‘What about accuracy?’

‘That depends on the fish you give me – some o’ the guidance gear is a bit rough sometimes. But I can doctor it up if you let me have sea trials.’ Parker scratched bis jaw. ‘I reckon I could give an accuracy o’ three inches in a hundred yards – that’s less than seventy yards out either way at fifteen miles.’

‘Jesus!’ said Eastman. ‘That’s not too bad.’

‘You should be able to find a quiet beach that big,’ said Abbot. ‘You’ll have to find one that slopes pretty shallowly, but that shouldn’t be too difficult.’

‘Wait a minute,’ said Parker. ‘That’s the accuracy o’ the fish I’m talkin’ about. Currents are somethin’ else. You shoot across a current an’ the fish is goin’ to be carried sideways, an’ don’t forget it’ll be in the water for half an hour. If you have a cross-current of as little as half a knot then the fish will get knocked five hundred yards off course. Still, if you can plot the current you can compensate, an’ you might avoid the problem altogether if you shoot at slack water.’

‘Yeah, that can be gotten around.’ Eastman nibbled at a joint of his thumb thoughtfully. ‘You seem pretty certain about this.’

‘I am,’ said Parker. ‘But it’s goin’ to cost you a hell of a lot. There’s a torpedo in the first place an’ a tube to go wi’ it; there’s high-power mercury cells to be bought an’ they don’t come cheap, an’ there’s …’

‘… the cost of our services,’ said Abbot smoothly. ‘And we don’t come cheap, either.’

‘If you can pull it off you’ll get taken care of,’ said Eastman. ‘If you don’t you’ll get taken care of another way.’ His eyes were chilling.

Parker was unperturbed. ‘I’ll show you that it can be done first. You’ll have sea trials.’

‘Right,’ said Eastman. ‘I’ll have to see the boss about this first.’

‘The boss!’ said Abbot in surprise. ‘I thought you were the boss.’

‘There are a lot of things you don’t know,’ said Eastman. ‘Stick around and stay available.’ He stood up. ‘Where are you guys from?’

‘London,’ said Abbot.

Eastman nodded. ‘Okay – I’ll be seeing you soon.’

‘I don’t want to seem too pushing,’ said Abbot, ‘but what about a retainer? Or shall we say you’ve just taken an option on our services which has to be paid for.’

‘You’ve got a nerve.’ Eastman pulled out his wallet. ‘How much did Picot stick you for?’

‘A thousand Lebanese pounds. Half down, half later.’

‘Okay – here’s two-five; that gives you two thousand clear profit so far – and you haven’t done anything yet. If Picot asks you for the other five hundred tell him to see me.’ He smiled thinly. ‘He won’t, though.’ He turned abruptly and walked out of the room.

Abbot sat down slowly and turned to Parker. ‘I hope to God you can handle your end. We’ve hooked them at last, but they’ve also hooked us. If we can’t deliver we’ll be in trouble.’

Parker filled his pipe with steady hands. ‘They’ll get what they want – an’ maybe a bit more.’ He paused. ‘Do you think he’ll check back to London?’

‘He’s sure to. You’re all right, Dan; there’s nothing in your background to worry him.’ Abbot stretched. ‘As for me – I had a flaming row with my editor just before I left, specially laid on. I’ll bet the echoes are still reverberating down Fleet Street.’ He grinned. ‘I was fired, Dan – out on my can for unprofessional conduct unbefitting a journalist and a gentleman. I only hope it’ll satisfy Eastman and company.’

IV

Eastman did not keep them waiting long. Three days later he rang up and said, ‘Hello, Abbot; put on your best bib and tucker – you’re going on the town tonight.’

‘Where to?’

‘Le Paon Rouge. If you don’t have decent clothes, buy some out of the dough I gave you.’

‘Who’s paying for the night out?’ asked Abbot in his character as a man on the make.

‘It’ll be paid for,’ said Eastman. ‘You’re meeting the boss. Be on your best behaviour. I’ll send a car for you at nine-thirty.’

Abbot put the phone on the hook slowly and turned to find Parker regarding him with interest. ‘Have you got a dinner-jacket, Dan?’

Parker nodded. ‘I packed it on the off-chance I’d need it.’

‘You’ll need it tonight. We’ve been invited to the Paon Rouge.’

‘That’ll be the third time I’ve worn it, then,’ said Parker. He put his hand on his belly. ‘Might be a bit tight. What’s the Paon Rouge?’

‘A night-club in the Hotel Phoenicia. We’re meeting the boss, and if it’s who I think it is, we’ve got it made. We’ve just been told tactfully to shave and brush our teeth nicely.’

‘The Hotel Phoenicia – isn’t that the big place near the Saint-Georges?’

‘That’s it. Do you know what a five-star hotel is, Dan?’

Parker blinked. ‘The Saint-Georges?’ he hazarded.

‘Right! Well, there aren’t enough stars in the book to classify the Phoenicia. Dope-smuggling must be profitable.’

They were picked up by the black Mercedes and driven to the Phoenicia by an uncommunicative Lebanese. Parker was unhappy because his doubts about his evening wear had been confirmed; his dress shirt had taken a determined grip on his throat and was slowly throttling him, and his trousers pinched cruelly at waist and crotch. He made a mental note to start a course of exercises to conquer his middle-age spread.

The name of Eastman dropped to an impressively-dressed major-domo brought them to Eastman’s table with remarkable alacrity. The Paon Rouge was fashionably dark in the night-club manner, but not so dark that Abbot could not spot his quarry; Eastman was sitting with Jeanette Delorme and rose at their approach. ‘Glad you could make it,’ he said conventionally.

‘Delighted, Mr Eastman,’ said Abbot. He looked down at the woman. ‘Is this the boss?’

Eastman smiled. ‘If you cross her you’ll find out.’ He turned to her. ‘This is Abbot, the other is Parker. Gentlemen – Miss Delorme.’

Abbot inclined his head and studied her. She was dressed in a simple sheath which barely covered her upperworks and she appeared to be, at the most, twenty-five years old. He knew for a fact that she was thirty-two, but it was wonderful what money would do. A very expensive proposition was Miss Delorme.

She crooked a finger at him. ‘You – sit here.’ There was a minor flurry as flunkies rearranged chairs and Abbot found himself sitting next to her and facing Parker, with a glass of champagne in his fingers. She studied Parker for a moment, then said, ‘If what Jack tells me is true, I may be willing to employ you. But I need proof.’ Her English was excellent and almost unaccented.

‘You’ll get your proof,’ said Abbot. ‘Dan will give you that.’

Parker said, ‘There’s plenty of sea out there. You can have trials.’

‘Which torpedo would be most suitable?’

‘Doesn’t really matter,’ said Parker. ‘As long as it’s an electric job.’

She twirled her glass slowly in her fingers. ‘I have a friend,’ she said. ‘He was a U-boat captain during the war. His opinion of the British torpedo was very low. He said that on half the firings the British torpedo went wild.’ Her voice became sharp. ‘That would not be permissible.’

‘Christ, no!’ said Eastman. ‘We can’t lose a torpedo – not with what it will be carrying. It would be too goddam expensive.’

‘Ah, you’re talking about the early British torpedoes,’ said Parker. ‘The Mark XI was different. Your U-boat skipper was dead right – the early British fish were bloody awful. But the Mark XI was a Chinese copy o’ the German fish an’ it was very good when it came into service in ‘44. We pinched it from the Jerries, an’ the Yanks pinched it from us. Any o’ those torpedoes would be good enough but I’d rather have the old Mark XI – it’s more familiar, like. But they’re all pretty much the same an’ just differ a bit in detail.’

‘On what basis will you get the extra performance?’

‘Look,’ said Parker, leaning forward earnestly. ‘The Mark XI came out in ‘44 an’ it had lead-acid batteries – that was all they had in them days. Twenty-five years have gone by since then, an’ things have changed. The new kalium cells – that’s mercury oxide-zinc – pack a hell o’ a lot more power, an’ you can use that power in two ways. You can either increase the range or the speed. I’ve designed circuits for both jobs.’

‘We’re interested in increasing range,’ said Eastman.

Parker nodded. ‘I know. It’s goin’ to cost you a packet,’ he warned. ‘Mercury cells ain’t cheap.’

‘How much?’ asked Delorme.

Parker scratched his head. ‘Every time you shoot a fish it’ll cost you over a thousand quid just for the power.’

She looked at Eastman, who interpreted, ‘A thousand pounds sterling.’

Abbot sipped his champagne. ‘The cost of everything is going up,’ he observed coolly.

‘That’s a fact,’ said Parker with a grin, ‘Back in ‘44 the whole bloody torpedo only cost six hundred quid. I dunno what they cost now, though.’

‘Fifteen hundred pounds,’ said Eastman. ‘That’s the going rate on the surplus market.’

‘There you are,’ said Parker. ‘Another thousand for a trial an’ another for the real job, plus, say, five hundred for conversion. That’s four thousand basic. Then there’s our share on top o’ that.’

‘And what is your share?’ asked Jeanette Delorme.

‘A percentage of the profits,’ said Abbot.

She turned to him. ‘Indeed! And where do you come in on this? It seems that Parker is doing all the work.’

Abbot smiled easily. ‘Let’s say I’m his manager.’

‘There are no passengers in the organization,’ she said flatly.

Parker broke in. ‘Me an’ Mike are mates – I go where he goes, an’ vicey-versey. Besides, I’ll see he works hard – I can’t do it all meself.’

‘It’s a package deal, you see,’ said Abbot. ‘And you talk business to me.’

‘The profits on smuggling gold are not very big,’ she said doubtfully.

‘Oh, come off it,’ said Abbot in disgust. ‘You’re not smuggling gold – you’re running dope.’

She looked at Eastman and then back at Abbot. ‘And how do you know that?’ she asked softly.

‘Just putting two and two together. There was a whisper in London – that’s why we came out here.’

‘That was one whisper too many,’ she snapped.

Abbot smiled. ‘I wouldn’t worry too much about it. I was a professional in the whisper-listening business. It was just a matter of chance, and coming out here was a hell of a long shot.’ He shrugged. ‘But it’s paid off.’

‘Not yet,’ she said pointedly. ‘How much do you want?’

Twenty per cent of the take,’ said Abbot promptly.

She laughed. ‘Oh, what a stupid man we have here. Don’t you think so, Jack?’ Eastman grinned, and she said seriously, ‘You will get one per cent and that will make you very rich, Monsieur Michael Abbot.’

‘I may be stupid,’ said Abbot, ‘but I’m not crazy enough to take one per cent.’

Eastman said, ‘I think you are crazy if you expect to get any kind of a percentage. We’re not going to work that way.’

‘That’s right,’ said Delorme. ‘We’ll give you a flat rate for the work. What would you say to a hundred thousand American dollars?’

Abbot raised his eyebrows. ‘Each?’

She hesitated fractionally. ‘Of course.’

‘I’d say it’s not on,’ said Abbot, shaking his head. ‘We’d want at least double that. Do you think I don’t know what the profits are in this racket?’

Eastman chuckled raspingly. ‘You’re both stupid and crazy. Hell, you’ve given us the idea anyway. What’s to prevent us going ahead without you?’

‘Now who’s being stupid?’ asked Abbot. He pointed to Parker. ‘Torpedo mechanics aren’t easy to come by, and those who can do a conversion like this are even rarer. But a mechanic who can and is willing to run dope is as rare as a hen’s tooth. You can’t do it without us – and you know it.’

‘So you figure you’ve got us over a barrel.’ said Eastman ironically. ‘Look, buster; a week ago we didn’t even know you existed. We don’t need you, you know.’

‘But it’s still a good idea, Jack,’ said Delorme thoughtfully. ‘Maybe Abbot will meet us half way.’ She turned to him. ‘This is final – take it or leave it. Three hundred thousand dollars for the two of you. One hundred thousand deposited in a bank here on the successful completion of trials – the rest when the job is done.’

Abbot said, ‘What do you think, Dan?’

Parker’s mouth was open. He closed it, and said, ‘You have the business head; I’ll leave it to you, Mike.’ He swallowed convulsively.

Abbot pondered for a long time. ‘All right; we’ll take it.’

‘Good!’ said Delorme, and smiled radiantly. ‘Order some more champagne, Jack.’

Abbot winked at Parker. ‘Satisfied, Dan?’

‘I’m happy,’ said Parker faintly.

‘I think payment by result is the best way,’ said Abbot, and looked sideways at Eastman. ‘If we’d have stuck to a percentage, Jack here would have cheated the pants off us. He wouldn’t have shown us the books, that’s for certain.’

Eastman grinned. ‘What books?’ He held up a finger and the sommelier came running.

Delorme said, ‘I’d like to dance.’ She looked at Abbot who began to rise, and said, ‘I think I’ll dance with … Mr Parker.’

Abbot subsided and watched her allow the bemused Parker to take her on to the floor. His lips quirked into a smile. ‘So that’s the boss. Something I hadn’t expected.’

‘If you’re thinking what I think you’re thinking – forget it,’ advised Eastman. ‘Jeanette isn’t a girl to be monkeyed around with. I’d just as soon fight a buzz-saw with my bare hands.’ He nodded towards the dance floor. ‘Is Parker as good as he says he is?’

‘He’ll do the job. What’s the cargo?’

Eastman hesitated briefly, then said, ‘You’ll get to know, I guess. It’s heroin.’

‘A full cargo – the whole five hundred pounds?’

‘Yeah.’

Abbot whistled and calculated briefly. He laughed. ‘That’s worth about twenty-five million dollars, at least. I topped Jeanette’s one per cent, anyway.’

‘You’re in the big time now,’ said Eastman. ‘But don’t forget – you’re still only a hired hand.’ He lit a cigarette. ‘That whisper you heard in London. Who did it come from?’

Abbot shrugged. ‘You know how it is – a piece comes from here and another from there. You put them all together and get some sort of picture. I’ve had experience at it – I was a reporter.’

‘I know,’ said Eastman calmly. ‘You’ve been checked out. We’ve got nothing on Parker yet, though.’ He stared at Abbot with hard eyes. ‘You’d better not still be a reporter, Abbot.’

‘I couldn’t get a job on the Tolpuddle Gazette,’ said Abbot bitterly. ‘Not with the reputation I’ve got now. If you’ve been checking on me you know I was given the bum’s rush. That’s why I decided to come on this lark and make some real money.’

‘Just a penny ante blackmailer,’ agreed Eastman.

‘They couldn’t prove anything,’ said Abbot defensively.

‘Just keep your nose clean while you’re with us,’ said Eastman. ‘Now, what can you tell us about Parker? The boss wants him checked out, too. She’s very security-minded.’

Abbot obligingly gave him a run-down on Parker, sticking entirely to the known facts. There was no harm in that because the truth was exactly what would serve best. He had just finished when Jeanette and Parker returned to the table, Parker pink in the face.

Jeanette said, ‘I don’t think Dan is accustomed to modern dancing. What about you, Mike Abbot?’

Abbot stood up. ‘Would you like to test me on a trial run?’

In reply she opened her arms as the opening bars of music started and he stepped forward. It was a slow and rather old-fashioned number so he took her in his arms and said, as they stepped on to the floor, ‘What’s a nice girl like you doing in a business like this?’

‘I like the money,’ she said. ‘Just as you do.’

‘You must be making quite a lot,’ he said thoughtfully. ‘It’s not everyone who can lay hands on a hundred thousand dollars’ loose cash – that’s the boodle for the successful trial, in case you’ve forgotten. I take it this isn’t a one-shot venture?’

‘What do you care?’

‘I like to stick where the money is. It would be nice if this built up into a regular income.’

She moved closer to him. ‘There is no reason why not. All that is required is that you do your work and keep your mouth shut. Both are essential to your general health.’

‘Would that be a threat?’ asked Abbot lightly.

She snuggled up to him, pressing her body against his. ‘It would. Nobody plays tricks with me, Monsieur Abbot.’

‘No tricks intended,’ said Abbot, chilled at the disparity between her words and her present actions. He had seen her dossier and it chimed in exactly with Eastman’s description. A buzz-saw, he had said. Anyone laying a hand on Delorme or any of her dubious enterprises would draw back a bloody stump at best. And there was a list of six names of varied nationality to demonstrate the worst. He danced with five-foot-six of warm womanhood pressed vibrantly against him and thought that perhaps she was a spider, after all.

She breathed into his ear, ‘You dance very well, Mike.’ He winced as her teeth nipped his earlobe.

‘Thanks, but there’s no need to be so enthusiastic,’ he said drily.

She giggled. ‘Dan was shocked. He kept talking about his wife and children. Does he really have a wife and children?’

‘Of course. Three kids, I think.’

‘He is a peasant type,’ she said. ‘His brains are in his hands. You are different.’

Abbot chuckled internally at the outrage Parker would show at being described as a peasant. ‘How am I different?’

‘You know very well,’ she said. ‘Welcome to the organization, Mike. We’ll try to keep you very happy.’

He grinned in the semi-darkness. ‘Does that include Jack Eastman?’

‘Never mind Jack Eastman,’ she said, her voice suddenly sharp. ‘Jack will do what I tell him. He doesn’t …’ She stopped speaking and made a sinuous movement so that her breasts nuzzled his chest. ‘I’ll keep you very happy,’ she whispered.

The music stopped and she stepped away from him after a lingering moment. He escorted her back to the table and thought he saw a satirical gleam in Eastman’s eye.

‘I’m not tired yet,’ she said. ‘It’s nice having three escorts. Come on, Jack.’

Eastman took her on to the floor again and Abbot dropped into the chair next to Parker. He found he was sweating slightly. Must be the heat, he thought, and picked up his newly refilled champagne glass.

Parker looked at the throng on the dance floor. ‘That woman scares me,’ he said gloomily.

‘What did she do – try to rape you on the floor?’

‘Bloody near.’ Parker’s brow turned pink again. ‘By God, if my missus could have seen me there’d be a divorce tomorrow.’ He tugged at his collar. ‘She’s a man-eater, all right.’

‘It seems as though our jobs are neatly allocated,’ said Abbot. ‘You look after the torpedo and I look after Jeanette.’ He sipped his champagne. ‘Or she looks after me, if I understood her correctly.’

He found he was smiling.

They stayed for quite a while at the Paon Rouge, dining and watching the cabaret. They left at about two in the morning to find the Mercedes waiting outside. Eastman got in the front next to the driver, and Abbot found himself rubbing shoulders and legs with Jeanette who wore a shimmering silver cape.

The car moved away, and after a while he looked out of the window at the sea and said, ‘It would be helpful if I knew where we were going.’

‘You’ll find out,’ she said, and opened her cigarette case. ‘Give me a light.’

He flicked his lighter and saw Parker sitting on the other side of Jeanette, easing his tight collar. ‘You’re the boss.’

The car proceeded smoothly on the road out of Beirut towards Tripoli and he wondered where it was taking them – and why. He did not wonder long because presently it swung off the road and drew up in front of a large wooden gate which was swung open by an Arab. The car rolled into a large yard and stopped.

They got out and Abbot looked around. As far as he could see in the darkness it seemed to be some sort of factory. A large shed loomed against the night sky, and beyond the moon sparkled on the sea. ‘This way,’ said Eastman, and Abbot followed him into an office.

The first thing he saw when the lights snapped on was his own suitcase against the wall. ‘What the hell …?’

‘You’ll be staying here,’ said Eastman. ‘There are two beds in the next room. No bathroom, I’m afraid – but there’s a wash-basin.’ He glanced at Jeanette and then his gaze came back to Abbot. ‘You should be quite comfortable,’ he said sardonically. ‘Ali will do your cooking.’

Jeanette said, ‘You’ll stay here until after the trials of the torpedo. How long you stay depends on yourselves.’ She smiled and said lightly, ‘But I’ll come to see you – often.’ She turned to Parker and said abruptly, ‘How long to make the conversion?’

Parker shrugged. ‘Two weeks – with the right equipment. A hell of a long time, or never, without it. But I’ll have to have a torpedo first.’

She nodded. ‘Come with me.’ They followed her from the office and across the yard to the big shed. Ali, the Arab, produced a big key and unlocked the door, then stood back to allow them to enter. The shed was on two levels and they came out on a platform overlooking the main workshop. A flight of wooden stairs led down to ground level.

Abbot looked over the rail, and said, ‘Well, I’m damned! You were pretty sure of us, weren’t you?’

Illumined under harsh lighting was a sleek and deadly-looking torpedo set up on trestles, gleaming because of the thin film of protective oil which covered it. To Abbot it looked enormous, and the first thought that came into his head was: How in hell did this bitch lay her hands on a torpedo at three days’ notice?

FIVE

Warren checked the maps again, and his pen traced out the record of their journeys. The two weeks they had spent in Kurdistan had been wasted, but he did not see how they could have done differently. There had been a chance, admittedly a slim one, of running across Speering, and they could not have passed it by. But it had been a futile two weeks.

So they had returned to Tehran in the hope of finding something, what he did not know. All he knew was that he had failed, and failed dismally. Every time he had to write to Hellier confessing failure he cursed and fretted. The only bright spot was that Abbot and Parker seemed to be making good in the Lebanon – it seemed that his ‘insurance policy’ might pay off in the end. But now they had dropped out of sight and he did not know what to make of it.

Johnny Follet took it all phlegmatically. He did not know what Warren was looking for so assiduously, nor did he care so long as he was paid. He had long ago written off his resentment against Warren and was quite enjoying himself in Tehran, and took it as a pleasant and exotic holiday. He wandered the streets and saw the sights, and presently found himself some congenial companions.

Ben Bryan was also uneasy, if not as much as Warren, but that may have been because he did not have Warren’s overall responsibility. He and Warren pored over the maps of northwest Iran trying to figure out where Speering could have gone to ground. ‘It’s no use,’ said Ben. ‘If these maps were up to the standard of British Ordnance Survey we might have a hope, but half the damned roads up there aren’t even shown here.’

‘So what do we do?’ asked Warren.

Ben did not know, and they all idled in low gear.

Andy Tozier had a problem – a minor problem, true – but still a problem, and it puzzled him mightily. He was losing money steadily to Johnny Follet and he could not see how the trick was worked. The money he lost was not much when considered against the number of games played, but the steady trickle annoyed him.

He spoke to Warren about it. ‘On the face of it, it’s a fair game – I can’t see how he does it.’

‘I wouldn’t trust Johnny to play a fair game,’ said Warren. ‘What is it this time?’

‘It goes like this. We each have a coin, and we match coins. We don’t toss them, so the element of chance is eliminated as far as that goes – we each have control as to whether we show a head or a tail. Got that?’

‘It seems all right so far,’ said Warren cautiously.

‘Yes,’ said Tozier. ‘Now, if I show heads and he shows tails he pays me thirty pounds. If I show tails and he shows heads he pays me ten pounds.’

Warren thought about it. ‘Those are two of the four possible occurrences.’

‘Right!’ said Tozier. ‘The other two occurrences are both heads or both tails. If either of those happen I pay him twenty pounds.’

‘Wait a minute,’ said Warren, and scribbled on a piece of paper. ‘There are four possible cases of which you can win two and he can win two. Taking all four cases as equal – which they are – if they all happen you will win forty pounds – and so will he. It seems a fair game to me.’ It also seemed a childish game but that he did not say.

‘Then why the hell is he winning?’ demanded Tozier. ‘I’m nearly a hundred pounds down already.’

‘You mean to say that you never win?’

‘Oh, no. I win games and so does he – but he wins more often. It’s a sort of see-saw, but he seems to have more weight than I have and my money tends to roll towards him. The thing that makes me wild is that I can’t figure the gimmick.’

‘Perhaps you’d better stop playing.’

‘Not until I find out how he does it,’ said Tozier determinedly. ‘The thing that gets me is that it isn’t as though he could ring in a double-headed penny – that wouldn’t help him. Hell, it would make it worse for him because then I’d know what he was calling and I’d act accordingly.’ He grinned. ‘I’m willing to go another hundred just to find the secret. It’s a profitable game – I could use it myself if I knew how.’

‘It seems as though you’ll have plenty of time to play,’ said Warren acidly. ‘We’re getting nowhere here.’

‘I’ve been thinking about that,’ said Tozier. ‘I’ve had an idea. What about that pharmaceutical place where Speering ordered his supplies? They’d deliver the stuff, wouldn’t they? So they must have an address somewhere in their records. All we have to do is to extract it somehow.’

Warren looked at him wearily. ‘Are you suggesting a burglary?’

‘Something like that.’

I’ve thought of it, too,’ admitted Warren. ‘But just tell me one thing. How the devil are we going to recognize what we want even if we see it? These people keep records in Persian, which is a foreign language to begin with, and in Arabic script which none of us can read. Could you sort it out, Andy?’

‘Hell, I hadn’t thought of that,’ said Tozier. ‘My colloquial Arabic isn’t bad but I can’t read the stuff.’ He looked up. ‘Do you mind if I talk to Johnny about this?’

Warren hesitated. ‘Not as long as you stick to generalities. I don’t want him knowing too much.’

‘I won’t tell him more than he ought to know. But it’s about time he was put to work. He’s a good con man and if we can’t get the information in any other way then perhaps we can get it by Johnny’s fast talk.’

So Tozier talked to Johnny Follet and Johnny listened. ‘Okay,’ he said. ‘Give me a couple of days and I’ll see what I can come up with.’ He disappeared into the streets of Tehran and they did not see him for four days. When he came back he reported to Tozier, ‘It can be done. It’ll take a bit of fooling around, but it can be done. You can have the information in less than a week.’

II

Follet’s plan was so diabolical that it raised the hairs on the back of Warren’s head. He said, ‘You’ve got an evil mind, Johnny.’

‘I guess so,’ said Follet insouciantly. ‘There’s a part for everyone – the more the merrier. But for Christ’s sake take it seriously; it’s got to look good and real.’

Tell me more about this man.’

‘He’s assistant to the Chief Clerk in the Stores Department of the company. That means he issues goods against indents and keeps the books on quantities. He’s just the guy to have the information you need – or to be in a position to get it. There’s no money involved because he never handles it; all that is done by the main office. That’s a pity in a way because we lose a chance of really hooking him.’

‘Why don’t we just bribe him?’ asked Tozier.

‘Because the guy’s honest, that’s why – or a reasonable facsimile. Suppose we tried to bribe him and it didn’t take? He’d report to his bosses and the information would be whisked out of that office so fast that we wouldn’t get another chance at it. And they might tell the police and then we’d be in trouble.’

‘They might not tell the police,’ said Warren. ‘We don’t know how much this firm is involved with Speering, but it’s my guess that it’s in on the whole thing. It must be. Any firm issuing certain chemicals and equipment has a damned good idea of what they’ll be used for. It’s my guess that this crowd is in it up to its collective neck.’

‘What thing?’ asked Follet alertly.

‘Never mind, Johnny; carry on with what you were saying.’

Follet shrugged. ‘This guy – Javid Raqi – is a bright boy. He speaks English well, he’s had a good education and he’s ambitious. I guess that chief clerk won’t last long with friend Javid on his heels. He has only one flaw – he’s a gambler.’

Tozier smiled. ‘Your flaw, Johnny?’

‘Not mine,’ said Follet promptly. ‘He’s a sucker gambler. Now, that doesn’t mean he’s a fool. He’s learned to play poker – the guys working on the gas line taught him – and he’s a good player. I know because he’s gotten some of my dough right now, and I didn’t have to let him win it, either – he gouged it out of me like a pro. But it means he can be got at – he can be had; and once he’s been got at then we squeeze him goddam hard.’

Warren wrinkled his nose distastefully. ‘I wish there were some other way of doing this.’

‘Never give a sucker an even break,’ said Follet, and turned to Tozier. ‘The whole scheme hinges on that videotape gadget. How well does it work?’

‘I have it set up in my room; it works very well.’

‘That I have to see for myself,’ said Follet. ‘Let’s all go up there.’

They all went up to Tozier’s room and Tozier switched on the TV and pointed to the videotape machine. ‘There it is. It’s already connected to the TV set.’

The machine looked very much like an ordinary tape recorder, although bulkier than most. The tape, however, was an inch wide and the reels were oversized. Follet bent down and examined it interestedly. ‘I’d like to get this just right; this gadget will take in everything – sight and sound both?’

‘That’s it,’ said Tozier.

‘How’s the quality?’

‘If you use the video-camera there’s a bit of blurring, particularly on movement, but if you take a taping of a TV programme then the reproduction is indistinguishable from the original.’ He looked at the TV screen. ‘I’ll show you now.’

A man was speaking and his voice was heard as Tozier turned up the volume. Warren did not know the language but it seemed to be a news broadcast because the man disappeared and a street scene replaced him, although his voice continued. Tozier bent down and flicked a switch and the reels began to turn, much faster than a normal recording machine. ‘We’re recording now.’

‘That tape’s fairly whipping through,’ commented Follet. ‘How long can you record?’

‘An hour.’

‘Hell, that’s plenty.’ He regarded the television screen for a while, then said, ‘Okay, let’s have a repeat.’

Tozier ran the tape back and switched the television set to a previously selected unused channel. He stopped the recorder and set it to playback, then snapped the starting switch. On the television screen appeared the street scene they had just witnessed, together with the voice of the announcer.

Follet bent forward with a critical eye on the screen. ‘Hey, this quality’s fine. It’s just about as good as the original, like you said. This is going to work.’

He straightened. ‘Now, look, the action starts on Saturday and you’ve got to get it right. Not only have you got to get every word right, but the way you say the word. No false notes.’ He looked at them appraisingly. ‘You’re amateurs at this game, so we’ll have some rehearsals. Imagine we’re putting on a play and I’m the producer. You only have to play to an audience of one.’

‘I can’t act,’ said Bryan. ‘I never could.’

‘That’s okay – you can work this television gadget. As for the rest of us – I’ll play the easy guy, Andy does the hard-nosed stuff, and Warren can be the boss.’ Follet grinned as he saw the expression on Warren’s face. ‘You don’t say much and you say it quietly. The way I figure it the less acting you do the better. An ordinary conversational tone can sound real menacing in some situations.’

He looked about the room. ‘Now, where do we put Ben and the videotape?’

Tozier went to the window, opened it and looked out. ‘I think I can run a line into your room, Johnny. We can settle Ben in there.’

‘Good enough,’ said Follet. He slapped his hands together, ‘Okay, first rehearsal – beginners, please.’

III

At twelve-thirty on Saturday they waited in a lounge just off the foyer of the hotel, not exactly in hiding but certainly concealed from casual inspection. Follet nudged Warren. ‘There he is – I told him to wait for me in the bar. You go in first; Andy will give you time to settle, and I’ll be in right after. Get going.’

As Warren left, he said a little worriedly to Tozier, ‘I hope Ben doesn’t ball up his bit with the television.’

Warren crossed the foyer and entered the bar where he ordered a drink. Javid Raqi was seated at a table and appeared to be somewhat nervous, although probably not as nervous as Warren as he steeled himself to play his part in the charade. Raqi was a young man of about twenty-five, smartly dressed in European fashion from top to toe. He was darkly handsome if you like Valentino looks, and probably had a great future. Warren felt sorry for him.

Tozier appeared at the door, his jacket draped carelessly over his arm. He walked forward, past Raqi, and something apparently dropped from a pocket to plop right at Raqi’s feet. It was a fat wallet of brown leather. Raqi looked down and stooped, then straightened with the wallet in his hand. He looked towards Tozier who had walked on without missing a pace, then followed him to the bar.

Warren heard the murmur of voices and then the louder tones of Tozier. ‘Well, thank you. That was very careless of me. Allow me to buy you a drink.’

Johnny Follet was now in the room, on Raqi’s heels. ‘Hi, Javid; I didn’t know you two knew each other.’ There was surprise in his voice.

‘We don’t, Mr Follet,’ said Raqi.

‘Oh!’ said Tozier. ‘So this is who you were talking about, Johnny. Mr Raqi – that’s the name, isn’t it? – just rescued my wallet.’ He opened it to display a thick wad of notes. ‘He could have taken the lot without winning it.’

Follet chuckled. ‘He’ll probably take it anyway. He’s a right sharp poker-player.’ He looked around. ‘There’s Nick. It’ll be a foursome, Javid; does that suit you?’

Raqi said a little shyly, ‘That’s all right, Mr Follet.’

‘The hell with Mr Follet. We’re all friends here. I’m Johnny and this is Andy Tozier – and coming over is Nick Warren. Gentlemen, Javid Raqi, the best poker-player I’ve come across in Tehran – and I’m not kidding.’

Warren smiled stiffly at Raqi and murmured something conventional. Follet said, ‘Don’t buy a drink, Andy; let’s go where the action is. I have everything laid on – booze and food both.’

They all went up to Tozier’s room, where the television set had been moved over to the window. Follet had laid on quite a spread; there was cold chicken, sausages of various sorts and salads, together with some unopened bottles of whisky. Everything was set for a long session. Unobtrusively, Warren looked at his watch – it read just after twelve – exactly half an hour slow. He wondered how Follet would doctor the expensive-looking watch he saw on Raqi’s slim brown wrist without Raqi knowing it had been done.

Follet opened a drawer and tossed a sealed pack of cards on to the table. ‘There you are, Javid; you have first deal. Stranger’s privilege – but you won’t be a stranger long. Go easy on the water in mine, Nick.’

Warren poured four drinks and brought them to the table. Raqi was shuffling the cards. He seemed to do it expertly enough, although Warren was no judge of that. He was not as good as Follet, of that he was sure.

Follet looked about the table. ‘We’ll be confining ourselves to draw poker, gentlemen – there’ll be none of your fancy wild hands here; this is a serious game for serious gamblers. Let’s play poker.’

Raqi dealt the cards, five to each, and said in a quiet voice, ‘Jacks or better open.’

Warren looked at his cards. He was not a good poker-player, although he knew the rules. ‘That doesn’t matter,’ Follet had said. ‘You don’t want to win, anyway.’ But he had schooled Warren in a couple of intensive lessons all the same.

At the end of the first hour he was losing – about four thousand rials to the bad – say twenty-two pounds. Tozier had lost a little, too, but not nearly as much. Follet had won a little and Raqi was on top, winning about five thousand rials.

Follet riffled the cards. ‘What did I tell you? This boy can play poker,’ he said jovially. ‘Say, that’s a nice watch you have there, Javid. Mind if I have a look at it?’

Raqi was flushed with success and was not nearly as shy and nervous as he had been at first. ‘Of course,’ he said easily, and slipped it from his wrist.

As Follet took it, Warren said, ‘You speak very good English, Javid. Where did you learn it?’

‘I studied at school, Nick; then I went to night classes.’ He smiled. ‘This is where I practise it – at the poker table.’

‘You’re doing very well.’

Tozier counted his money. ‘Play poker,’ he said. ‘I’m losing.’

Follet grinned. ‘I warned you Javid would take your wad.’ He held out the watch on his forefinger, but somehow it seemed to slip and it dropped to the floor. Follet pushed back his chair and there was a crunch. ‘Oh, hell!’ he exclaimed in disgust, and picked up the watch. ‘I’ve bust the dial.’ He held it to his ear. ‘It’s still going, though.’

Raqi held out his hand, ‘It does not matter, Johnny.’

‘It matters to me,’ said Follet. ‘I’ll have it fixed for you.’ He dropped it into his shirt pocket. ‘No, I insist,’ he said over Raqi’s expostulations. ‘I did the damage – I’ll pay for the fixing. Whose deal is it?’ Raqi subsided.

They continued to play and Raqi continued to win. As far as Warren could judge he was a good natural poker-player and he did not think Follet was discreetly assisting him, although he did not have the special knowledge to know if this was correct. He did know that he himself was losing steadily, although he played as best he could. Tozier recouped his earlier losses and stood about even, but Follet was on the losing side.

The haze of cigarette smoke in the room grew thicker and Warren began to get a slight headache. This was not his idea of a pleasant Saturday afternoon’s entertainment. He glanced at his watch and saw that it read half-past-two. Ben Bryan, in the next room, ought to be busy taping the television programme.

At quarter to three Tozier threw in his hand with an expression of disgust. ‘Hey!’ he said in alarm. ‘You’d better make that call.’

Follet looked at his watch. ‘Christ, I nearly forgot. It’s quarter to three already.’ He stood up and walked over to the telephone.

‘I thought it would be later than that,’ said Raqi in mild surprise.

Warren uncovered his watch with the dial turned towards Raqi. ‘No – that’s all it is. It might be a bit late for us, though.’

Follet had his hand on the telephone when Tozier said curtly, ‘Not that one, Johnny. Make the call from the lobby.’ He jerked his head at Raqi meaningly.

‘Javid’s all right,’ said Follet easily.

‘I said make it from the lobby.’

‘Don’t be so hard-nosed, Andy. Here you have a guy who was honest enough to give you back your wallet when he didn’t know who the hell you were. Why cut him out?’

Warren said quietly, ‘You always were a hard case, Andy.’

Raqi was looking from face to face, not understanding what was going on. Tozier shrugged with ill-grace. ‘No skin off my nose – but I thought you wanted to keep it quiet.’

‘It doesn’t matter,’ said Warren indifferently. ‘Javid’s all right – we know that. Make the call, Johnny; it’s getting late. If we argue over it any more we’ll miss post time.’

‘Okay,’ said Follet and began to dial. His body screened the telephone from view. There was a pause. ‘Is that you, Jamshid? … Yeah, I know; things are bad all round … this time I’m going to win, I promise you … I’m still in time for the three o’clock race – make it twenty thousand rials on Al Fahkri.’ He turned and grinned at Raqi. ‘Yeah, on the nose … and, say, put on another two thousand for a friend of mine.’

He put down the telephone. ‘The bet’s on, boys; the odds are eight to one. And there’s two thousand on for you, Javid.’

‘But, Johnny, I don’t bet the horses,’ protested Raqi. ‘Two thousand rials is a lot of money.’

‘Have it on the house,’ said Follet generously. ‘Andy’s putting up the stake as a penance. Aren’t you, Andy?’

‘Go to hell,’ said Tozier morosely.

‘Quit worrying, Javid,’ said Follet. ‘I’ll stake you.’ He turned to Warren. ‘The kid can stay and watch. None of us can speak the lingo, so he can tell us which horse wins – as if we didn’t know.’

‘Why don’t you keep your big mouth shut?’ said Tozier in exasperation.

‘It’s all right, Andy,’ said Warren. ‘Johnny’s right; you’re a mean, ungrateful bastard. How much did you have in your wallet when you dropped it?’

‘About a hundred thousand rials,’ said Tozier reluctantly.

Follet was outraged. ‘And you’re being hard-nosed about giving the kid a reward,’ he cried. ‘Hell, you don’t even have to pay it yourself. Jamshid will do the paying.’ He turned to Raqi. ‘You know Jamshid, kid?’

Raqi gave a small smile. He was embarrassed because he was unaccountably the centre of an argument. ‘Who doesn’t in Tehran? Anyone who bets the horses goes to Jamshid.’

‘Yeah, he’s got quite a reputation,’ agreed Follet. ‘He pays out fast when you win, but God help you if you don’t pay him equally fast when you lose. A real tough baby.’

‘What about watching us win our money?’ suggested Warren. He nodded towards the television set. ‘The race should be corning on soon.’

‘Yeah,’ said Follet and stepped over to the set. Warren crossed his fingers, hoping that Ben had done his job. He had already got the name of the winner of the three o’clock race and transmitted it to Follet during the fake telephone call to Jamshid, but if he had fumbled the recording then the whole scheme was a dead loss.

A voice swelled in volume, speaking Persian, and then the screen filled with a view of a racecourse crowd. Follet looked at the screen appraisingly, and said, ‘About five minutes to go.’ Warren let out his pent-up breath silently.

‘What’s he saying?’ asked Tozier.

‘Just talking about the horses,’ said Raqi. He listened for a while. ‘That’s Al Fahkri – your horse – number five.’

‘Our horse, Javid,’ said Follet jovially. ‘You’re in on this.’ He got up and went to the impromptu bar at the sideboard. ‘I’ll pour the drinks for the celebration now. This race will be fast.’

‘You seem certain you’ll win,’ said Raqi.

Follet turned and winked largely. ‘Certain isn’t the word for it. This one’s blue chip – a gilt-edged security.’ He took his time pouring the drinks.

Tozier said, ‘They’re coming up to the post, Johnny.’

‘Okay, okay; it doesn’t really matter, does it?’

The commentator’s voice rose as the race started, and Warren thought that it did not matter whether you understood the language or not, you could never mistake a horse race for anything else. Raqi was tense as Al Fahkri forged ahead of the pack on the heels of the leading horse. ‘He stands a chance.’

‘More than that,’ said Follet unemotionally. ‘He’s going to win.’

Al Fahkri swept ahead to win by two lengths.

Warren got up and switched off the set. ‘That’s it,’ he said calmly.

‘Here, kid; have a drink on Jamshid,’ said Follet, thrusting a glass into Raqi’s hand. ‘The honest bookie who never welshes. You’re a bit richer than you were this morning.’

Raqi looked at the three of them in turn. Warren had produced a notebook and was methodically jotting down figures; Tozier was gathering up the cards scattered on the table; Follet was beaming in high good humour. He said, hesitantly. ‘The race was … arranged?’

‘Fixed is the word, kid. We’ve bought a couple of good jockeys. I told you it was a gilt-edged investment.’

Guilt-edged would be more like it, thought Warren.

Follet took a wallet from his jacket which was draped over the back of a chair and counted out notes. ‘You don’t have to wait to collect from Jamshid,’ he said. ‘I’ll do that when I collect ours.’ He tossed a roll of currency on the table before Raqi. ‘It was eight to one – there’s your sixteen thousand.’ He grinned. ‘You don’t get your stake back because it wasn’t yours. Okay, kid?’

Raqi took the money in his hands and gazed at it in wonder. ‘Go ahead,’ said Follet. ‘Take it – it’s yours.’

‘Thanks,’ said Raqi, and put the money away quickly.

Tozier said briefly, ‘Let’s play poker.’

‘That’s an idea,’ said Follet. ‘Maybe we can win that sixteen thousand from Javid.’ He sat down as Warren put away the notebook. ‘What’s the score so far, Nick?’

‘Just under two million,’ said Warren. ‘I think we ought to give it a rest for a while.’

‘When we’re hitting the big time? You must be crazy.’

‘Jamshid will be getting worried,’ said Warren. ‘I know we’ve played it clever – he doesn’t know the three of us are a syndicate – but he’ll tumble to it if we don’t watch it. Knowing Jamshid, I wouldn’t like that to happen. I’d like to stay in one piece for a while longer.’

‘Okay,’ said Follet resignedly. ‘Next Saturday is the last – for a while. But why not make it a really big hit this time.’

‘No!’ said Tozier abruptly.

‘Why not? Supposing we put on a hundred thousand at ten to one. That’s another quick million.’ Follet spread his hands. ‘Makes the arithmetic easier, too – a million each.’

‘It’s too risky,’ Warren insisted.

‘Say, I have an idea,’ said Follet excitedly. ‘Jamshid doesn’t know Javid here. Why can’t Javid lay the bet for us? It’s good for us and it’s good for him. He can add his own dough and make a killing for himself. How about that, Javid?’

‘Well, I don’t know,’ said Raqi uncertainly.

Tozier looked interested. ‘It could work,’ he said thoughtfully.

‘You could be a rich man, Javid,’ said Follet. ‘You take that sixteen thousand you just won and you could turn it into a hundred and sixty thousand – that’s as much as the three of us made today. And you can’t miss – that’s the beauty of it.’

Raqi took the hire as a trout takes a fly. ‘All right,’ he said suddenly. ‘I’ll do it.’

‘Very well,’ said Warren, capitulating. ‘But this is the last time this year. Is that understood?’

Follet nodded, and Tozier said, ‘Let’s play poker.’

‘Until six o’clock,’ said Warren. ‘I have a date tonight. Win or lose we stop at six.’

He won back most of his losses during the rest of the afternoon. Some of it was made by a big pot won on an outrageous bluff, but he seemed to have much better hands. At six o’clock he was down a mere thousand rials. He had unobtrusively put his watch right, too.

‘That’s it,’ said Follet. ‘See you next week, Javid.’ He winked. ‘You’ll be in the big time then.’

When Raqi had gone Warren got up and stretched. ‘What a way to pass a day,’ he said.

‘Our boy’s very happy,’ said Follet. ‘He’s broken into the big time and it hasn’t cost him a cent. Let’s figure out how much he’s into us for. What did you lose, Warren?’

‘A thousand as near as damn it.’

‘Andy?’

‘Close on three thousand. He can play poker.’

‘That he can,’ said Follet. ‘I had to cut into him after the race – I didn’t want him to think he can make more playing poker than playing the horses.’ He looked up at Warren. ‘You’re no poker player. Now, let’s see – I’m out a thousand, so he’s taken a total of twenty-one thousand, including that dough I gave him for the race. He’ll be back next week.’

‘Greedy for more,’ said Tozier. ‘I thought you said he was honest.’

‘There’s a bit of larceny in all of us,’ said Follet. ‘Cheating a bookie is considered respectable by a lot of upright citizens – like smuggling a bottle of whisky through customs.’ He picked up the pack of cards and riffled them. ‘There’s an old saying among con men – you can’t cheat an honest man. If Javid was really honest this thing wouldn’t work. But he’s as honest as most.’

‘Can you really take money off him at poker?’ asked Warren. ‘A lot depends on that.’

‘I was doing it this afternoon, wasn’t I?’ demanded Follet. ‘You ought to know that better than anyone. You don’t think you started winning by your own good play.’ He extended the pack to Warren. ‘Take the top card.’

Warren took it. It was the nine of diamonds.

Follet was still holding the pack. ‘Put it back. Now I’m going to deal that top card on to the table. Watch me carefully.’ He picked up the top card and spun it smoothly on to the table in front of Warren. ‘Now turn it over.’

Warren turned over the ace of clubs.

Follet laughed. ‘I’m a pretty good second dealer. I dealt the second card, not the top card, but you didn’t spot it.’ He held up his hand. ‘If you see any guy holding a pack of cards like this, don’t play with him. That’s the mechanic’s grip, and he’ll second deal you, bottom deal you, and strip your pockets. I’ll take Javid Raqi all right.’

IV

It was a long week. Warren understood the necessity for inaction but it still irked him. Tozier and Follet played their coin-matching game interminably and Tozier steadily lost, much to his annoyance. ‘I’ll figure this out if it’s the last thing I do,’ he said, and Follet chuckled comfortably.

Warren could not see the fascination the game held for Tozier. It seemed to be a childish game although there was the problem of why Follet won so consistently in what seemed to be an even game in which there was no possibility of cheating.

Bryan was as restless as Warren. ‘I feel out of it,’ he said. ‘Like a spare wheel. I feel as though I’m doing nothing and going nowhere.’

‘You’re not the only one who feels that way,’ said Warren irritably.

‘Yes, but I was stuck playing with that bloody video recorder while you three were having all the fun.’

‘That’s the most important part, Ben.’

‘Maybe – but it’s over now. You won’t need the recorder this time. So what do I do – twiddle my thumbs?’

Follet looked up. ‘Wait a minute.’ He eyed Ben speculatively. ‘Maybe we’re passing up a chance here. I think we can use you, Ben, but it’ll need a bit of rehearsal with me and Andy. It’ll be important, too. Are you game for it?’

‘Of course,’ said Bryan eagerly.

So the three of them went to Follet’s room with Follet saying, ‘Nothing to trouble you with, Nick; it’s best you don’t know what’s going to happen. You’re a lousy actor, anyway, and I want this to come as a real surprise.’

Came Saturday and Javid Raqi arrived early. Follet had telephoned him and suggested a lengthened session starting in the morning, and Raqi had eagerly agreed. ‘We’ve got to have time to strip the little bastard,’ said Follet cynically.

They started to play poker at ten-thirty and, to begin with, Raqi won as he had the previous week. But then things seemed to go against him. His three kings were beaten by Warren’s three aces; his full house was beaten by Tozier’s four threes; his ace-high flush was beaten by Follet’s full house. Not that this seemed to happen often but when it did the pots were big and Raqi lost heavily. His steady trickle of winning hands was more than offset by his few occasional heavy losses.

By midday he had exhausted the contents of his wallet and hesitantly drew out an envelope. Impatiently he ripped it open and spilled a pile of money on to the table.

‘Are you sure you want to do that?’ asked Follet gently.

‘I still have money – plenty money,’ said Raqi tensely.

‘No offence,’ said Follet as he gathered the cards. ‘I guess you know what you’re doing. You’re a big boy now.’ He dealt cards. Javid Raqi lost again.

By two in the afternoon Raqi was almost cleaned out. He had been holding his own for about half an hour and the money in front of him – about a thousand rials – ebbed and flowed across the table but, in the main, stayed steady. Warren guessed that Follet was organizing that and he felt a little sick. He did not like this cat and mouse game.

At last Tozier looked at his watch. ‘We’d better switch to the horses,’ he said. ‘There’s not much time.’

‘Sure,’ said Follet. ‘Put up the stake, Nick; you’re the banker. Javid, you know what to do?’

Raqi looked a little pale. ‘Just make the phone call,’ he said listlessly as Warren counted out large denomination notes on to the table.

‘Hell, no!’ said Follet. ‘Jamshid doesn’t accept credit bets over twenty-five thousand, and we three are putting up a hundred thousand. You have to stake it at Jamshid’s place – cash on the barrel head. How much are you putting in, Javid?’

Raqi swallowed. ‘I don’t know.’ He made a feeble gesture at the table. ‘I’ve … I’ve lost it,’ he said plaintively.

‘Too bad,’ said Tozier evenly. ‘Better luck next time.’

Warren patted the notes together. ‘A hundred thousand,’ he said, and pushed the stack across the table.

‘You’ll still put this on for us, won’t you?’ said Follet, pushing the money across to Raqi. ‘You said you would.’

Raqi nodded. He hesitated, then said, ‘Could … could you … er … could you lend me some – until it’s over?’

Follet looked at him pityingly. ‘Hey, kid; you’re in the big time now. You play with your own dough. You might swap nickels and dimes in a penny-ante school but not here.’

Tozier’s snort of disgust seemed to unnerve Raqi and he flinched as though someone had hit him. ‘But … but …’ he stammered.

Warren shook his head. ‘Sorry, Javid; but I thought you understood. Everybody here stands his own racket.’ He paused. ‘I suppose you could say it’s not good form – not good etiquette – to borrow.’

Raqi was sweating. He looked at the backs of his hands which were trembling, and thrust them into his pockets. He swallowed. ‘When do I have to go to Jamshid’s?’

‘Any time before the nags go to the post,’ said Follet. ‘But we’d like to get the dough in fairly early. We don’t want to miss out on this – it’s the big one.’

‘Do you mind if I go out for a few minutes?’ asked Raqi.

‘Not so long as you’re back in time,’ said Follet. ‘This is the big one, like I told you.’

Raqi got up. ‘I’ll be back soon,’ he said in a husky voice. ‘Not more than half an hour.’ He went out and seemed to stumble at the door.

Follet listened for the click of the latch, then said softly. ‘He’s hooked.’

‘But will he come back?’ asked Warren.

‘He’ll be back. When you put a sucker on the send he always comes back,’ said Follet with cynical certitude.

‘How much did we take him for?’ asked Tozier.

Follet counted money and did a calculation. ‘I make it just over forty-eight thousand. He must have drawn out his savings for the big kill, but we got to it first. He’ll be sweating blood right now, wondering where to raise the wind.’

‘Where will he get it?’ asked Warren.

‘Who cares? But he’ll get it – that’s a certainty. He knows he’s on to a good thing and he won’t pass up the chance now. He won’t be able to resist cheating Jamshid, so he’ll find the dough somehow.’

Tozier and Follet matched coins while they waited for Raqi to come back – a sheep to the slaughter – and Follet came out the worse for a change. He shrugged. ‘It doesn’t matter – the percentages are still on my side.’

‘I wish I knew how,’ said Tozier venomously. ‘I’ll get to the bottom of this one yet. I think I can see a way.’

There was a soft knock at the door. ‘That’s our boy,’ said Follet.

Javid Raqi came into the room quietly when Follet opened the door. He came up to the table and looked at the hundred thousand rials, but he made no move to touch the money. Warren said, ‘All right, Javid?’

Slowly Raqi put out his hands and took the wad of notes. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I’m ready.’ He turned suddenly to Follet. ‘This horse will be all right – it will win?’ he asked urgently.

‘Christ!’ said Follet. ‘You’re holding a hundred thousand of our money and you ask that? Of course it will win. It’s all set up.’

‘Then I’m ready to go,’ said Raqi, and swiftly put away the money.

‘I’ll go with you,’ said Follet. He grinned. ‘It’s not that we don’t trust you, but I’d hate some smart guy to knock you off when you’re carrying our dough. Consider me a bodyguard.’ He put on his jacket. ‘We’ll be back to watch the race,’ he said as he left, shepherding Raqi before him.

Warren sighed. ‘I feed sorry for that boy.’

‘So do I,’ said Tozier. ‘But it’s as Johnny said – if he were honest this would never be happening to him.’

‘I suppose so,’ said Warren, and fell silent. Presently he stirred and said, ‘Supposing the horse wins?’

‘It won’t,’ said Tozier positively. ‘Johnny and I picked the sorriest screw we could find. It might win,’ he conceded, ‘if every other horse in the race breaks a leg.’

With what might have been a chuckle Warren said, ‘But what if it does win? Someone must have faith in it.’

‘Then we’ll have won a hell of a lot of money – and so will Raqi, depending on how much of a stake he’s been able to raise. We’ll have to go through the whole business of breaking him again. But it won’t happen.’

He began to match coins with himself and Warren paced up and down restlessly. Follet and Raqi were away for quite a long time and arrived back just as Warren switched on the set to get the race. Raqi sat at his place at the table; a slight, self-contained figure. Follet was jovial. ‘Javid has the jitters. I keep telling him it’ll be okay, but he can’t stop worrying. He’s been plunging, too – I reckon this is a bit too rich for his blood.’

‘How much did you back the nag for?’ asked Tozier curiously.

Raqi did not answer, but Follet gave a booming laugh. ‘Fifty thousand,’ he said. ‘And the odds are fifteen to one. Our boy stands to make three-quarters of a million rials. I keep telling him it’s okay, but he doesn’t seem to believe me.’

Tozier whistled. Three-quarters of a million rials was about £4,000 – a fortune for a young Iranian clerk. Even his fifty thousand stake was a bit rich – about £260 – approximating to a sizeable bite of Raqi’s annual income. He said, ‘Where did you get that much? Did you go home and break open your piggy bank?’

Warren said sharply, ‘Shut up! The race is about to start.’

‘I’ll pour the drinks for the celebration,’ said Follet, and went over to the sideboard. ‘You guys can cheer for me – the nag’s name is Nuss el-leil.’

‘I don’t get the lingo,’ said Tozier. ‘What’s that mean, Javid?’

Raqi opened bloodless lips. He did not take his eyes off the screen as he answered, ‘Midnight.’

‘A good name for a black horse,’ commented Tozier. ‘There they go.’

Warren glanced sideways at Raqi who was sitting tensely on the edge of his chair, the bluish gleam of the television screen reflected in his eyes. His hands were clasped together in a knuckle-whitening grip.

Tozier jerked irritably. ‘Where the blazes is that horse? Can you see it, Javid?’

‘It’s lying fourth,’ said Raqi. A moment later he said, ‘It’s dropped back to fifth – no, sixth.’ A tremor developed in his hands.

‘What’s that bloody jockey up to?’ demanded Tozier. ‘He’s throwing it away, damn him!’

Fifteen seconds later the race ended. Nuss el-leil was not even placed.

Follet stood transfixed at the sideboard. ‘The little bastard double-crossed us,’ he breathed. In a moment of savagery he hurled a full glass of whisky at the wall where it smashed explosively. ‘I’ll fix his goddam wagon come tomorrow,’ he yelled.

Warren switched off the set. ‘Calm down, Johnny. I told you it couldn’t last forever.’

‘Yeah, but I didn’t reckon it would end this way,’ said Follet bellicosely. ‘I thought Jamshid would cotton on to us. I didn’t think I’d be gypped by that little monkey on the horse. Wait until I get my hands around his scrawny neck.’

‘You’ll leave him alone,’ said Warren sharply. In a more placatory tone he said, ‘So we’ve lost a hundred thousand – that’s only five per cent of our winnings up to now. We’re all right.’ He sat at the table and gathered the cards. ‘Who’s for a game?’

‘I reckon Johnny’s right,’ said Tozier in a hard voice. ‘We can’t let this pass. No jock is going to get the better of me, I tell you that. When I buy a jockey, he bloody well stays bought.’

‘Forget it,’ said Warren curtly. ‘That particular game is over – we move on to something else. I told you this was the last time, didn’t I?’ He looked over his shoulder. ‘For God’s sake, come over here and sit down, Johnny. The world hasn’t come to an end. Besides, it’s your deal.’

Follet sighed as he took his seat. ‘Okay – but it goes against the grain – it really does. Still, you’re the boss.’ He riffle-shuffled the pack and pushed it across the table. ‘Your cut.’

Javid Raqi sat frozen and did not move.

‘Hey!’ said Follet. ‘What’s the matter, kid? You look as though you’ve seen a ghost.’

Two big tears squeezed from Raqi’s eyes and rolled down his cheeks.

‘For God’s sake!’ said Tozier in disgust. ‘We’ve got a crybaby on our hands.’

‘Shut up, Andy!’ said Warren savagely.

‘What’s the matter, Javid?’ asked Follet. ‘Couldn’t you stand the racket? Couldn’t you afford the fifty thousand?’

Raqi seemed to be staring at an inward scene of horror. His olive complexion had turned a dirty green and he was trembling uncontrollably. He moistened his lips, and whispered, ‘It wasn’t mine.’

‘Oh, that’s bad,’ said Follet commiseratingly. ‘But remember what I told you – you should always play with your own money. I did tell you that, you know – and so did Nick.’

‘I’ll lose my job,’ said Raqi. His voice was filled with desperation. ‘What will my wife say? What will she say?’ His voice rose and cracked. Suddenly he was babbling in Persian and none of them could understand what he was saying.

Follet’s hand came out sharply and cracked Raqi across the cheek, shocking him into silence. ‘Sorry about that, Javid; but you were becoming hysterical. Now, calm down and talk sense. Where did you get the dough?’

‘From the place I work,’ said Raqi, swallowing hard. ‘The chief clerk has a safe – and I have a key. He keeps money for out-of-hand expenses. I went back to the office and … and …’

‘Stole the money,’ said Tozier flatly.

Raqi nodded dejectedly. ‘He’ll know as soon as he opens the safe on Monday. He’ll know it’s …’

‘Take it easy, kid,’ said Follet. ‘You’re not in jail yet.’

That was an aspect that had not hit Raqi, and he stared at Follet with renewed horror. Follet said, ‘Maybe we can help you.’

‘Count me out,’ said Tozier uncompromisingly. ‘I’m not going to subsidise a freeloading kid who’s still wet behind the ears. If he can’t stand the heat, let him get out of the kitchen. He should never have come into this game, anyway. I told you that in the first place.’

Warren looked at Follet who just shrugged, and said, ‘I guess that’s so. You’ve gotta learn by your mistakes, kid. If we bail you out now, you’ll do it again some time else.’

‘Oh, no; I promise – I promise.’ Raqi spread his arms wide on the table, grovelling before Follet. ‘Help me – please help me – I promise …’

‘Oh, for Christ’s sake, stand up and be a man!’ barked Tozier. He stood up. ‘I can’t stand scenes like this. I’m getting out.’

‘Wait a minute,’ said Follet. ‘I think I’ve got something.’ He pointed his finger at Tozier. ‘Weren’t you telling me about a guy who wanted to get something from the company this kid works for? Something about some chemicals?’

Tozier thought for a moment, then nodded. ‘What about it?’

‘How much would he pay?’

‘How the hell do I know?’ said Tozier in a pained voice. ‘This chap was working an angle in which I wasn’t interested.’

‘You could always ask him. There’s a telephone there.’

‘Why should I? There’s nothing in it for me.’

‘For Pete’s sake, can’t you be human for once in your goddam life?’ asked Follet in an exasperated voice.

Warren’s voice was quiet but it cut through the room with authority. ‘Use the phone, Andy.’

‘Oh, all right.’ Tozier picked up his jacket. ‘I think I have the number here somewhere.’

Follet patted Raqi on the shoulder. ‘Bear up, Javid; we’ll get you out of this jam somehow.’ He sat next to him and began to talk to him quietly.

Tozier mumbled to someone on the telephone. At last he put it down and crossed the room with a paper in his hand. ‘This man wants to know who’s been ordering these chemicals – especially in quantity. He wants to know where they were despatched to. He also wants to know of any transactions concerning a man called …’ He peered at the paper. ‘… Speering. That’s it.’ He rubbed the side of his jaw. ‘I screwed him up to forty thousand but he wouldn’t go higher for the information.’

‘Why does he want it?’ asked Warren.

‘I reckon he’s in industrial espionage.’

Follet took the sheet of paper. ‘Who cares why he wants it so long as Javid can deliver?’ He gave the paper to Raqi. ‘Can you get that stuff?’

Raqi wiped his eyes and looked carefully. He nodded, and whispered, ‘I think so. All this is in the stock ledgers.’

‘But the guy will only go to forty thousand, damn him,’ said Follet. ‘For crying out loud, I’m game to help make up the difference.’

‘Count me out on that,’ said Tozier grimly. ‘I’ve done my bit.’

‘Nick?’

‘All right, Johnny; we’ll split it between us.’ Warren sorted out five thousand rials from the money on the table and passed it to Follet.

‘There, you see, Javid; we’ve got ten thousand here. All you have to do to get the other forty thousand is to go back to the office. You have the key?’

Raqi nodded, and allowed Follet to help him to his feet. ‘It will take time,’ he said.

‘Half an hour. That’s all it took to loot the safe this afternoon,’ said Tozier brutally.

Follet saw Raqi to the door and closed it gently. He turned, and said, ‘We’re nearly there. There’s just one thing more to be done.’

Warren sighed. ‘It can’t be any dirtier than what we’ve done already. What is it?’

‘You’re not concerned in it, so rest easy,’ said Follet. ‘Now, all we have to do is wait. I’m going to see Ben – I’ll be back in ten minutes.’

It seemed, to Warren, an eternity before Raqi returned. The minutes ticked by and he contemplated the sort of man he was becoming under the stress of this crazy adventure. Not only was he guilty of blackmailing Follet, but he had assisted in the corruption of a young man who had hitherto been blameless. It was all right for Follet to preach that you can’t cheat an honest man; the men who offer the thirty pieces of silver are just as guilty as he who accepts them.

Again there was the expected knock at the door and Follet went to open it. Raqi had pulled himself together a little and did not seem so woebegone; there was more colour in his cheeks and he did not droop as he had when he left.

Follet said, ‘Well, kid; did you get it?’

Raqi nodded. ‘I took it from the ledgers in English – I thought that would help.’

‘It surely would,’ said Follet, who had forgotten that problem. ‘Let me have it,’

Raqi gave him three sheets of paper which he passed to Tozier. ‘You’ll see it gets to the right place, Andy.’ Tozier nodded, and Follet gave Raqi a bundle of money. ‘There’s your fifty thousand, Javid. You’d better put it back in the safe real fast.’

Raqi was just putting the money into his pocket when the door burst open. A man stood there, his face concealed by a scarf, and holding an automatic pistol. ‘Stay still, everyone,’ he said indistinctly. ‘And you won’t get hurt.’

Warren looked on unbelievingly as the man took a step forward. He wondered who the devil this was and what he thought he was doing. The stranger wagged the gun sideways. ‘Over there,’ he said, and Raqi and Follet moved under the threat to join Warren at the other side of the room.

‘Not you,’ said the man, as Tozier began to obey. ‘You stay there.’ He stepped up to Tozier and plucked the papers from his hand. ‘That’s all I want.’

‘Like hell!’ said Tozier and lunged for him. There was a sharp crack and Tozier stopped as though he had hit a brick wall. A stupid expression appeared on his face and his knees buckled. Slowly, like a falling tree, he toppled, and as he dropped to the ground a gush of blood spurted from his mouth.

There was a bang as the door closed behind the visitor, and a faint reek of gunsmoke permeated the atmosphere.

Follet was the first to move. He darted over to Tozier and knelt down beside him. Then he looked up in wonder: ‘Good Christ – he’s dead!’

Warren crossed the room in two strides, his professional instincts aroused, but Follet straight-armed him. ‘Don’t touch him, Nick; don’t get any blood on you.’ There was something odd in Follet’s tone that made him stop.

Raqi was shaking like an aspen in a hurricane. A moaning sound came from his lips – not words, but the mere repetition of his vocalized gasps – as he stared in horror at the blood spattered on the cuff of his jacket. Follet took him by the arm and shook him. ‘Javid! Javid, stop that! Do you hear me?’

Raqi became more coherent. ‘I’m … I’m all … right.’

‘Listen carefully, then. There’s no need for you to be mixed up in this. I don’t know what the hell it’s all about, but you can get clear if you’re quick about it.’

‘How do you mean?’ Raqi’s rapid breathing was slowing.

Follet looked down at Tozier’s body. ‘Nick and I will get rid of him. Poor guy; he was a bastard if ever there was one, but I wouldn’t have wished this on him. That information his friend wanted must have been really something.’ He turned to Raqi. ‘If you know what’s good for you you’ll get out of here and keep your mouth shut. Go to the office, put the dough back in the safe, go home and say nothing. Do you understand?’ Raqi nodded.

‘Then get going,’ said Follet. ‘And walk – don’t run. Take it easy.’

With a choked cry Raqi bolted from the room and the door slammed behind him.

Follet sighed and rubbed the back of his neck. ‘Poor Andy,’ he said. ‘The chivalrous son-of-a-bitch. Okay, you can get up now. Arise, Lazarus.’

Tozier opened his eyes and winked, then leaned up on one elbow. ‘How did it look?’

‘Perfect. I thought Ben had really plugged you.’

Warren stepped over to Follet. ‘Was that play-acting really necessary?’ he asked coldly.

‘It was really necessary,’ said Follet flatly. ‘Let’s suppose we hadn’t blown him off that way. Some time in the next few days he’d start to think and put things together, and it wouldn’t take an egghead to figure he’d been conned. That boy’s not stupid, you know; it’s just that we rushed him – we didn’t give him time to think straight.’

‘So?’

‘So now he’ll never be able to think straight about what happened. The fact of sudden death does that to people. As long as he lives he’ll never be able to figure out what really happened; he’ll never know who shot and killed Andy – or why. Because it doesn’t tie in with anything else. So he’ll keep his mouth shut in case he’s implicated in murder. That’s why we had to blow him off with the cackle bladder.’

‘With the what?’

‘The cackle bladder.’ Follet gestured. ‘Show him, Andy.’

Tozier spat something from his mouth into his hand. ‘I nearly swallowed the damn’ thing.’

He held out his hand to disclose a reddened piece of limp rubber. Follet said, ‘It’s just a little rubber bag filled with chicken blood – a cackle bladder. It’s used quite often to dispose of the chumps when they’re no longer needed around.’ He sniggered. ‘It’s the only other good use for a contraceptive.’

Ben Bryan came in, grinning. ‘How did I do, Johnny?’

‘You did fine, Ben. Where are those papers?’ He took them from Bryan and slapped them into Warren’s limp hand. ‘Those are what you wanted.’

‘Yes,’ said Warren bitterly. ‘These are what I wanted.’

‘You wanted them – you’ve got them,’ said Follet tensely. ‘So use them. But don’t come the big moral act with me, Warren. You’re no better than anyone else.’

He turned away abruptly and walked out of the room.

SIX

They drove again among the ochre-red mountains of Kurdistan along the winding and precipitous roads. Warren was thankful to be in the lead; somewhere behind and hidden in the cloud of dust were Tozier and Follet in the second Land-Rover and he did not envy them. Bryan was driving and Warren navigating, trying to find his way to a spot pinpointed on the map. This was more difficult than had at first appeared; at times Warren felt as though he were in Alice’s Looking Glass Land because the roads, unmarked on the map, twisted and turned sinuously and often it seemed that the best way to approach a given point was to drive in the opposite direction.

And again, it was only by a considerable stretch of the imagination that these scratch marks in the mountains could be called roads. Ungraded, stony, washed-out and often on the living rock, these tracks had been worn by the pads of thousands of generations of camels over hundreds, possibly thousands of years. Alexander had marched through these mountains, riding among his hetaeroi to the conquest of Persia and the penetration of India, and Warren judged that the roads had not been repaired since.

Several times they passed groups of the nomadic Kurds who were presumably in search of greener pastures, although where those pastures could possibly be Warren did not know. The whole land was a wilderness of rock and eroded bare earth with minimal hardy vegetation which sprouted in crevices in the bare hillsides, sparse and spindly but with the clinging tenacity of life. And it was all brown and burnt and there was no green at all.

He checked the map again, then lifted it to reveal the three sheets of paper which Javid Raqi had abstracted from his office at so much expense of the spirit. The information had been a constant worry to Warren ever since he had seen it. He had been prepared for a reasonable amount of chemicals – enough to extract, at most, a hundred pounds of morphine from the raw opium. But this was most unreasonable.

The quantities involved were fantastic – enough methylene chloride, benzene, amyl alcohol, hydrochloric acid and pharmaceutical lime to extract no less than two tons of morphine. Two tons! He felt chilled at the implications. It would provide enough heroin to saturate the United States illicit market for a year with plenty left over. If this amount got loose then the pushers would be very busy and there would be an explosion of new addicts.

He said, ‘I’ve checked the figures again, Ben – and they still don’t make sense.’

Bryan slowed as he approached a difficult comer. ‘They are startling,’ he admitted.

‘Startling!’ echoed Warren. ‘They’re damned nearly impossible. Look, Ben; it calls for twenty tons of raw opium – twenty tons, for God’s sake! That amount of opium would cost nearly a million pounds on the illegal market. Do you think the Delorme woman has that much capital to play with?’

Bryan laughed. ‘If I had that much money I’d retire.’ He twisted the wheel. ‘I’ve just had a thought, though. Perhaps Raqi fudged the figures in his excitement. He was translating from an oriental script into western notation, remember. Perhaps he made the identical mistake throughout, and uprated by a constant factor.’

Warren chewed his lip. ‘But what factor? Let’s say he made an error of a factor of ten – that brings us to about four hundred pounds of morphine. That’s stall a hell of a lot, but it’s much more reasonable.’

‘How much would that be worth to Delorme?’ asked Bryan.

‘About twenty million dollars, landed in the States.’

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