A Woman Involved (19 page)

He recognized Sarah Makepeace. ‘Is the instructor around?’

‘Somewhere. Shall I call him?’

‘No. Just tell him to be in head office in twenty minutes.’

There was a moment’s hesitation. ‘Oh, okay …’

‘Thank you. Goodbye.’ He hung up. He turned to Anna happily. ‘That’s lucky. He could have been out of town.’

‘Where’s his head office?’

‘A contact number. A pub. That was his wife.’ A taxi swung into the marina gates. ‘Come on.’

They hurried to it. ‘Railway station, please.’

Morgan slumped back in the seat. He felt drained and he felt elated. He took her hand. He wanted to take her in his arms. He closed his eyes. And, oh, he was in love! The taxi swung onto the road for Fort Lauderdale. She squeezed his hand and put her mouth to his ear:

‘I love you …’

He wanted to throw his arms wide to the sky. He whispered:

‘And I love you and I love you and I love you.’

They stopped outside the railroad station. Anna stayed in the taxi and Morgan hurried inside, to the public telephones. He lifted the receiver, and listened. Then he made a note of its number. He hurried back to the taxi.

Four minutes later the taxi dropped them outside the Western Union telegraph company. He told the driver to wait.

Anna wrote out a telegram to Charlie, care of Fred’s Eating House, Bimini, telling him where his boat was. Morgan asked for the Manhattan yellow pages telephone directory. He looked up Hotels. He selected one and wrote down the address. He dialled it, and booked a room for Mr and Mrs Denton.

‘Certainly, Mr Denton. Have a nice day.’

Then he telephoned Thomas Cook’s Travel Agency and asked about seat availability on flights from London to New York today. Plenty of space. ‘Thank you, have a nice day.’ Then he looked up the Brew and Burger restaurant chain. He noted down an address. He looked at his watch. He waited one minute more, then dialled the code for international again, then a pub near Thatcham in Berkshire, England. It rang only twice, and Makepeace said: ‘Rose and Crown.’

Morgan said slowly: ‘Go outside to a public telephone box and call me in exactly seven minutes at the following number. Got a pencil?’

Recognition dawned on Makepeace. ‘Oh …  Okay.’

Morgan gave him the number of the telephone at the railway station. He hung up.

He grabbed Anna’s hand and they hurried back to the taxi.

Seven minutes later he stood at the public telephone at the station. Anna was at the ticket office, buying two first-class sleepers to New York. Morgan looked feverishly at his watch. The train was due in two minutes.
Come on Makepeace!
Anna pointed at her watch. The telephone rang. Morgan snatched it up. ‘Hullo?’

‘Hullo,’ Makepeace said. ‘What you doing over there?’

‘Listen, ask no questions. I’ve got a job for you. It’s perfectly legal. Lick your pencil.’

‘Okay,’ Makepiece said obediently.

Morgan said slowly: ‘Meet me in New York – in the Brew and Burger restaurant, in Times Square, at the corner of Forty-third Street, for breakfast at ten am tomorrow. Got that? And bring a reliable partner. There’re plenty of flights, I’ve checked.’

‘How do you spell the place where I meet you?’

‘
Brew
as in beer,
Burger
as in hamburger, dammit! And bring two blank passports. Not British.’

Anna said urgently: ‘
The train’s coming in!
’

‘In
what
square?’ Makepeace said.

‘
Times.
’

‘As in tick-tock?’

‘Bravo. Now if you think you can remember all that –’

‘What about money?’

‘Bring plenty!’

‘You know what I mean …’ Makepeace whined.

‘You’ll get paid. Unlike some unfortunate people I know!’

He slammed down the phone.

The train was easing to a halt. They ran for it.

Two minutes later they slumped into chairs in the saloon car, as the train eased forward. They felt elated as if they had just won a long race. Anna looked at him; then blew out her cheeks, and smiled. ‘That was all very clever.’

‘I had three days to think about it.’ He got up happily and went to the bar. There were only three other people in the saloon car. He bought four Budweisers, got two plastic glasses and took them back to their table. He slumped down. He upended a can to his bristly mouth, and swallowed, and swallowed, and it went down into his dry empty gut like a mountain brook. Anna poured a can into a glass, closed her eyes and took a long swallow.

She said: ‘They couldn’t have tapped that conversation, could they?’

He shook his head. ‘They might have been tapping his contact number at the Rose and Crown. Though I doubt that too. But they couldn’t have set up a tap on all the public telephones in the area in five minutes.’

He thought, Oh couldn’t they? They would figure he’d need the help of somebody like Makepeace. And they knew about
Makepeace. And if they had tapped the Rose and Crown’s telephone they would soon find out that the telephone number he had given Makepeace was on Fort Lauderdale railway station. And it wouldn’t be long after that before they figured out where they had gone, on which train.

But for the moment he did not care. He had done his best, in the circumstances. There was nothing more he could do right now. It was wonderful just to sit still with her and be in love and drink beer and let the train take them, and know that for almost twenty-four hours there was nothing they could do. They were going to have a long lunch, with all the wine they wanted, and then he was going to take this beautiful, wonderful woman back to their compartment and make love, love, and more love.

In the morning it was still like that. When he first woke up, before first light, he thought he was in his bunk at the bottom of the ocean in his submarine; then he remembered, and all he knew was the utter joy of her, after so long the dream had truly come true, and the horror of the last few days was unreal. Only this happiness mattered and even what they had to do today did not weigh on him – their luck would hold! The British could not know which of the thousands of banks in the world they were going to – and they were in civilized America and she was perfectly entitled to open her own safety-deposit box – today was going to be plain sailing … 

Then he woke up properly, and he knew that today their luck could very well run out. If the British were tapping Makepeace’s telephones they had had twenty hours to get into gear. And what made every nerve tense up again was what could happen to her and to their wonderful happiness …  He sat up abruptly.
Positive thinking!
…  He swung off the upper bunk and slid carefully down to the floor, so as not to waken her.

‘Hullo,’ she said.

She was sitting in the dark at the window, fully dressed.

He was surprised. ‘Hullo …’ He sat down and held her against him. ‘Did you sleep all right?’

‘I slept. Just nerves now.’

He held her. ‘I love you,’ he whispered.

‘I love you too, Jack.’

He let her go. ‘What are you thinking?’

She sighed, and sat back.

‘I’ve been trying to think how Max would do this.’

He was further surprised.

‘And, how would Max do it?’

She looked out of the dark window.

‘He was …  so experienced in wheeling and dealing. Pulling strings. Bullying people. Compared to him we’re babes in the wood.’ She put her hand over his and turned from the window
. . .  ‘Please, you’ve done wonders. Through thick and thin, you’ve got us here. Max couldn’t have pulled that off.’

He repeated, ‘What would Max have done to solve this problem?’

She shook her head, and sighed again.

‘He had so many friends in high places. Used his financial muscle, I suppose. Bribed people. Got the smartest, crookedest lawyers in the business to do his dirty work.’ She added: ‘Hired the Mafia if necessary.’

Morgan sighed. This was what he had put off talking about. ‘Cross the bridges as we come to them.’ But at the end of today they might have to cross that bridge. He said:

‘Anna, we have to think this through very carefully. What happens after today, if the goods aren’t in the New York box?’ He paused. ‘I’ve given this a great deal of thought.’

She squeezed his hand. ‘And so have I.’

He said: ‘And you have three options.’ He held up a finger. ‘One: You do it legally and hand this whole thing over to a good lawyer. Hear me out …  Two: You collaborate with the British authorities – trust them, and your lawyer acts as your watchdog.’

Anna closed her eyes. ‘Three,’ Morgan said: ‘You get into Max’s box in Switzerland
illegally.
With all the dangers inherent in that …  Now let’s consider the options in detail.’

He lit a cigarette and blew the smoke out hard.

‘I’m sure the best option is to get a very good, honest lawyer to handle this for you. To protect your legal rights, which would also protect you physically. He’ll take all the necessary legal procedures to get into the box in Switzerland and safeguard the contents –’

She cut in quietly, ‘Jack, I have to get a lawyer sometime – to wind up Max’s estate, and get the British off my back. But he can’t protect me from the KGB. And, for God’s sake, how long will it take a lawyer to get into Max’s Swiss box? What’s involved? Max’s will is unsigned. That means I have to inherit under the laws of intestacy. That means waiting for court orders and trustees and God knows what – and all the time the contents of the box are out of
my
control. Where other people can get at them.’

‘The box’ll be in the Swiss courts’ hands, Anna, under lock and key.’

‘But how many people have access to that
key
? How many clerks who could be bribed? How many
burglars
could be hired? … 

‘It stays in the bank until it’s finally handed to you.’

‘But meanwhile the court and all the clerks know the box number – and the British! It’ll be a matter of court record, and don’t tell me the British and KGB couldn’t find out what’s written in a court record. But right now only
I
know. And that’s why the British and KGB are after me.’ She pressed her eyelids. ‘And anyway it’s highly likely that Max kept this stuff in a box under his
assumed
name – Maxwell Constantine. In which case a lawyer
cannot
get at it for me. And …’ She sighed. ‘I don’t trust the lawyer keeping his mouth shut if he’s pressured.’

Morgan sat back. He hadn’t finished with that option, but he passed on to the next.

‘Option Two.’ He took a pull on his cigarette. ‘Collaborate with the British government, with a lawyer as watchdog.’ He added, ‘At least that way you keep this information out of the hands of the Russians.’ He paused. ‘Do you still intend to destroy it when you find it?’

‘Yes.’

‘How?’

‘With my nail scissors. In the bank.’

He said, ‘Think about that. If it’s so important, should not the competent authorities deal with it, with all their expertise?’

She looked at him, squarely. ‘That’s what you really want me to do, isn’t it?’

He sighed, then said: ‘I can’t answer you. Because I don’t know what’s on the microfilm. I only know it’s highly important.’

She demanded, ‘Do
you
trust the British?’

He sighed again.

‘I’ve thought a hell of a lot about this and I’m still thinking out loud now.’ He paused. ‘I’m still a Royal Navy man at heart. Trained and steeped in it. I’m used to obeying orders and having my orders obeyed. I used to think the British were the best in the world. For fair play. Justice. And by and large I still do. But only “by and large”. In a notoriously bad world. That means that if the stakes are high enough …’ He shook his head. ‘I’ve seen what they were prepared to do to get to you.
It was undoubtedly kidnap. But that still leaves the question: If this secret is so important, and the Russians want it so badly, I think you should – as a matter of common sense, or patriotism, if you like – you should let the British government handle it, with all their wisdom.’

She said: ‘Don’t imagine I haven’t thought of all that. And I wish I could tell you what this is about, to help me. But I dare not. Not because I don’t trust you, but because what you don’t know can’t be sweated out of you by third degree interrogation.’ She looked at him grimly. ‘Do you trust the British not to exploit this secret?’

He said: ‘They would certainly exploit it.’

‘Unfairly?’

‘If worthwhile, yes.’

She nodded. ‘And do you think my watchdog lawyer could stop them doing that?’

He sighed. ‘He may not be able to stop them.’

‘Exactly. And do you trust the British not to … dispose of me, after I’ve yielded up the secret. If it’s important enough?’

‘Your lawyer will protect you from that! If the British try to “dispose” of you, your lawyer will create a terrible scandal. It would topple the government. The British wouldn’t risk that.’

‘But that wouldn’t protect me from the KGB! And the lawyer would only be iron-clad protection against the British
after
I’ve destroyed the evidence. After
that
I’m harmless – they wouldn’t need to dispose of me because they can just deny it all as the ravings of a lunatic.
But
, if they
have
the evidence, and they’re exploiting it, and I could ruin everything for them by opening my mouth, do you completely trust the British not to find a way of disposing of me? – lawyer or no lawyer.’ She added, And dispose of
you,
if they thought you knew.’ She looked at him. ‘Do you absolutely, one hundred per cent trust them?’

Morgan gave a bitter sigh.

‘Exactly,’ Anna said. ‘So isn’t that the complete answer to Option Two?’

Morgan hadn’t finished with that one yet, either.

‘Option Three.’ And, oh Jesus, this was the one he really had not wanted to think about. ‘That means we’ve got to fly to Switzerland and somehow get into that safety-deposit box illegally. Somebody has to impersonate Maxwell Constantine.
And forge that signature.’ He added: ‘You cannot do it yourself. So who impersonates Max Constantine?’