Short of Glory (46 page)

‘Do you play much?’ asked Chatsworth.

Arthur exhaled smoke and watched it curl away. ‘Mug’s game. Why are the casinos rich? No, I used to organise it, lay on facilities, look after the banking and so on. Well, the long
and the short of it is that the Lower African security people got to hear of it – LASS, you know, the lot everyone always makes a fuss about. Actually, if the two they sent to see me are
anything to go by they’re quite charming. I mean, it takes something to be charming when you’re trying to blackmail someone.’

Chatsworth nodded. ‘It does.’

‘Especially as I didn’t want to do it.’

‘Do what?’ asked Patrick.

Arthur’s eyes flickered. ‘Well, it’s a bit of a shaggy dog story. Not worth going into now but it boils down to the Lower Africans wanting to round up a terrorist network they
reckon they’ve discovered. Actually, it’s more criminal than terrorist. White gunrunners bringing arms in for blacks paid for by other whites abroad. Some of it from church funds, they
reckon. Anyway, one or two of my player-contacts turned out to be peripherally involved and LASS wanted me to implicate them. Set them up, in fact.’ He relit his cigar. ‘Lots of things
I would do but that ain’t one of them.’

‘Bad for business,’ said Chatsworth.

Arthur turned to Patrick. ‘What really did for me was that they wanted me to finger poor old McGrain. That stuck in my throat a bit. He’s a loyal old dog and he just takes messages.
Doesn’t even know what they’re about. So I played them along for a while, kept them talking whilst I thought it over. If I refused outright they’d do me for playing which would
mean I’d be kicked out, back to London in disgrace, never to return. On the other hand if I confessed all to the Office it would be the same only less public. Posted double-quick.

‘Well, I like this place. Lower Africa suits me. I reckoned the best thing was to lie low and let them find some other way of rolling up the villains then they wouldn’t bother me any
more. Most likely they’d leave McGrain out of it, with me gone. I had one or two contacts here, knew there was a job going and so I did a bunk.’ He smiled. ‘Very nice bunk it is,
too. Sorry you’ve been left with McGrain. I owe his wages for the last two sessions. Now you’ve found me I must do something about getting them to him.’

‘He’ll be glad of that,’ said Patrick. ‘So shall I.’ He noticed his glass was empty again. Arthur refilled it.

‘Look after you nicely, do they?’ asked Chatsworth.

Arthur smiled. ‘Very. Money’s good, work’s a pleasure, one’s needs are well catered for. Only thing is, it would be nice to be able to pop back to London now and again.
There’s a chance of acquiring some business interests there but I can’t do it without travelling through Battenburg. Also, wouldn’t mind doing something about my pension rights.
Still, I can’t complain that people have bothered me. No one’s even looked for me until you two. Beginning to feel quite unwanted.’ He raised his glass. ‘Cheers.’

Chatsworth asked about the financial side of the business; Arthur asked Chatsworth about his own line. It was soon agreed that they would both profit from further discussions. Patrick said
little. There was some sort of filter between himself and his perceptions. He suspected he was seeing and hearing things a little later than usual.

‘Did Jim Rissik and the police know about LASS and all the rest of it?’ he asked abruptly. His speech sounded loud. The others looked at him.

‘Don’t know,’ said Arthur after a slight pause. ‘No idea what they tell each other, if anything. They could’ve been hand in glove all along but my guess is they
weren’t. If LASS ask someone to work for them and he doesn’t they’re not likely to broadcast their failure.’

Patrick leant forward rather too quickly, losing his thought on the way. He had to wait for it to return. ‘It was Jim Rissik that told me you were here.’

‘Well, they all have their contacts.’ Arthur drained his glass. Chatsworth did the same. Patrick put his on the table without spilling it. ‘Come on, let me show you round.
I’ll introduce you to some ladies later. We have some very charming girls – not the rubbish you see now.’

‘Too early for the good ones?’ asked Chatsworth.

Arthur smiled. ‘You’re learning, my boy. Follow me.’ He took them from table to table, occasionally whispering some snippet about a punter. Some of them greeted him. The
croupiers were invariably respectful. He smiled and nodded as he spoke, his eyes darting from person to person. Chatsworth asked many questions. Arthur was eventually called to attend to some
matter in another casino. He said he would be back. Another bottle of champagne awaited them at their table.

‘I knew I’d like this place,’ said Chatsworth, pouring. ‘We’ve done what we came to do, we’ve met a nice man who can help us in our careers – mine,
anyway – we’re treated like princes, we’ve got the run of the whole joint and the night is young. Aren’t you glad we came now?’

Patrick was not glad. He wanted to talk to Joanna, he wanted to go and he wanted not to be drunk. Somewhere in the back of his mind, somewhere not yet beyond reach, was a question he wanted to
ask Arthur. It had to do with whether or not Arthur was coming back and with what he should tell the ambassador, but it was difficult to formulate. His glass was in his hand again. He raised it to
his lips and put it down untasted. Slack Alice from the bar looked as if she was about to lean over and engulf him.

‘You all right?’ he heard Chatsworth ask.

‘Yes.’

Slack Alice loomed. She was saying something and Chatsworth was answering. She pointed back towards the bar. Some people there were looking at them. One of them was Jim Rissik and one was Piet,
the policeman he had brought to Patrick’s house one night. The others looked familiar; after a few moments he recognised them as the ugly trio from the restaurant. Slack Alice was saying that
he and Chatsworth were invited to join them for a drink. Chatsworth was suggesting they should share the champagne.

Patrick stood at the bar with everyone else. There were introductions. The ugly trio was known to Piet. They talked excitedly, except Piet who talked slowly and pedantically. Only Jim said
nothing. He leant against the bar and watched. Patrick was very aware of Jim. He turned with difficulty so that he faced him. The thin man of the trio had just asked him something and he did not
like the thin man. He did not like any of them. The woman had a horrible, abrupt laugh and her mouth was stupid. He had just said something to someone about mouths. To talk to Jim he had first to
close his eyes, think what he wanted to say then quickly say it.

‘I’ve drunk too much,’ said Jim.

Patrick recognised the brutal heaviness of his features from the time they had fought. ‘Me too,’ he said. He told Jim he had found Whelk. Jim knew, he had seen them talking. Patrick
asked how Jim knew where Whelk was. Word had got around. He asked what Jim was doing there.

‘Chasing tail!’ bellowed Piet, and everyone laughed.

‘What are you going to do about Whelk?’ asked Jim.

‘Nothing. He wants to stay here.’ Patrick thought he must be getting better. ‘I’m glad you’re here. I wanted to talk.’

Jim’s dark eyes glistened. ‘I thought you’d be down at the coast. I didn’t think you’d come.’

‘I wasn’t. I was. I was going.’ Patrick mentioned Joanna and stopped. He was filled with feeling but there were no words. Instead, he asked Jim if he’d been told why
Whelk had left Battenburg. Jim had. LASS had heard that the police had discovered where Whelk was and had come clean.

‘We’ve no more excuses to talk,’ said Jim, grinning. ‘Now we’re just rivals.’

Patrick took it seriously. ‘We can still talk.’

‘Can we?’

Patrick raised his glass. ‘We can drink.’ He didn’t want to drink.

They drank. Jim put his arms round Patrick’s shoulder. ‘This is the guy who pinched my girl,’ he announced. Patrick could feel Jim’s breath on his cheek. He concentrated
on trying to remain steady on his feet. ‘He should’ve been with her this weekend. But look, now he’s drinking with us instead.’ They touched their glasses at the second
attempt. Patrick looked at the faces before him. They were individual but he was unable to respond individually. Chatsworth said something to Piet.

‘Now you come chasing black tail in Battenburg,’ said the fat man.

‘Is that what he did?’ asked Jim, in mock surprise. Patrick shook his head. ‘No, no.’

‘They did. They were mauling the waitress. They couldn’t keep their hands off her.’ The fat man gulped his beer and dribbled. He said something in Lower African and the others
laughed.

‘They did, you were telling us about it before,’ said Piet. ‘You were talking about it. You said so.’

‘That’s a mean thing,’ said Jim quietly.

Patrick turned to him. He was serious and angry now. ‘It’s not true. I wouldn’t do that to Joanna.’

The fat man stretched out and grabbed his collar. Piet said something but the fat man ignored him. His face seemed larger than before and twisted with disproportionate passion. ‘Are you
calling me a liar?’

Patrick stepped back but the man still had hold of him. He looked at the bloated white features. He felt an unassailable disdain. ‘Yes.’

He did not see the blow, nor feel it precisely. He knew it as a stunning shock inside his head, a flash and a kind of soundless bang. There was a great pain in his nose and he couldn’t
see. He bent nearly double and someone hit him on the side of the head. Next he was on the floor with his head in his arms. A kick in the kidneys made him gasp. He lashed out with his legs and was
kicked again. He remembered that the thin man had a flick knife. He tried to roll but someone was on top of him. Very soon he was too comprehensively battered to distinguish individual blows.

He was helped to his feet. His mouth was full and he was coughing. The pain in his nose had expanded to the whole of the middle of his face. His eyes streamed and he couldn’t keep them
open. There was talking and shouting. He was led through a press of people and then there was somewhere white, empty and echoing. There were only one or two voices, unnaturally loud. Someone held
him by the hair and bent him over. Someone else pulled his hands from his face. There was a gleaming white wash-basin before him, spotted suddenly with blood.

‘You bled like a pig,’ said Chatsworth afterwards. It was a gratuitous observation as the blood was all over Patrick’s clothes.

Chatsworth said it was the fat man who had hit him. Patrick had gone down with Jim though whether Jim was fighting him or trying to protect him was hard to say. Everyone fought everyone else.
The thin man hit the girl. Chatsworth was punched on the ear by someone, then he punched the fat man on the side of the head. He noticed no effect beyond hurting his own fist but was not displeased
by that. The affray lasted only some twenty or thirty seconds before bouncers and security guards materialised as though from the walls. Piet and the fat man unwisely tried to fight them and were
beaten with truncheons. Jim was last seen nursing an injured hand that someone had trodden or stamped on. Everyone had been arrested. Chatsworth had agreed to come quietly, under the
circumstances.

‘If you’d told me you were going to start a fight I might’ve been able to help you,’ he said.

They were in a gents’ lavatory watched over by two black guards, both with truncheons. Conversation was permitted. It was evident that they were pacific and that Patrick in particular was
incapable of posing any threat to anyone. They were accorded none of the rough treatment they could hear being meted out to others in the corridor.

‘Like being on exercise waiting for interrogation,’ continued Chatsworth. ‘Except that we’re not sitting in the snow with our hands tied behind our backs.’

It was hard to be grateful for this small mercy. The pain in Patrick’s kidneys worsened whenever he breathed deeply or moved. His lips were swollen and still seeped blood. One eye was
closed and throbbing and his nose felt as if it might gush again at any moment. He touched it gingerly, trying to determine whether it was broken. He sat against the wall, shifting carefully in
vain attempts to avoid pressure on his tender coccyx.

‘What gets me is that they were drinking our champagne when it happened,’ said Chatsworth.

Arthur Whelk came in, one hand in the pocket of his white dinner-jacket and a cigar in the other. He nodded at the guards, who left. He looked angry. ‘Gets the place a bad name, this sort
of thing. That’s why we jump on it straight away. Very rarely happens, fortunately. You’re a mess, Patrick. Why d’you pick on that crowd?’

They explained as best they could. Patrick did not mention his and Jim’s link through Joanna and hoped that Chatsworth would not. Arthur puffed at his cigar, exhaled forcefully and cut
them short. ‘Doesn’t really matter who started it or who was drunk and who was sober. What does matter is that the group here has an arrangement with the Lion and his police force. We
deal with trouble makers in the first instance, then hand over to them. They lock ’em up and give ’em a hard time to make sure they don’t come back in a hurry. No messing about
with trials and courts as there would be in Lower Africa. African justice. Works well.’

‘I don’t fancy African justice,’ said Chatsworth.

‘Don’t blame you, old boy. Neither would I in your position.’

‘What’s going to happen?’ asked Patrick.

‘I don’t know. You’re in a spot. Plenty of embarrassment potential, as the Service would have it. Could even be a minor international incident – diplomat imprisoned and
all that. Doesn’t matter about Chatsworth because he’s only a British subject; Britain doesn’t recognise Bapuwana and so there’s sod-all anyone’s going to do about it.
Bad for business all the same.’

‘Thanks a bunch,’ said Chatsworth.

‘Don’t thank me. You got yourself into it, you’ll have to get yourself out. Like the rest of us.’

‘Except that you’re not in trouble. You’re all right.’

‘I’m not all right. Look, either it’s official and there’s a big fuss or they think you’ve been kidnapped and there’s an even bigger fuss. The Lower Africans
will get the whole story and they’ll use it in some way to suit themselves. The group don’t like that kind of publicity, which is bad news for me and could cost me my job. Meanwhile,
you two will be languishing in African justice.’