Siege at the Villa Lipp (33 page)

‘Because the thing quoted was an Edwardian value judgement?’

‘Not exactly. The book said that a tenderfoot was sometimes timid about handling dead or injured men or seeing blood.’

‘Here’s one tenderfoot who still is.’

‘Well, Baden-Powell said that if you were to visit a slaughter house you’d soon get used to it. It didn’t say how often you had to go. Until you
were
used to it, I suppose.’

‘Used to seeing dead men in a slaughter-house?’

‘Used to the sight of blood. That’s a problem Mr Williamson’s never experienced, I imagine. Did you like the shark worship thing? We have an anthropologist who did her doctoral thesis on one of those island groups. I’ve never completely trusted her or her Pacific-island colleagues. I mean the khaki-shorts-and-beard brigade. You know? Out there, with all those animistic tribes for them to batten on, they can’t go wrong. You fancy a sub-culture that’s taken to keeping the souls of the departed in used Coca-Cola bottle-caps? All you have to do is seek, find, and then get lots of sixteen-millimetre colour footage before anyone else can. Your reputation’s made. If shark-worship hadn’t existed Mr Williamson would have had no trouble at all in inventing it.’

‘The way I heard it, Williamson has no trouble at all doing anything, ever. That bit about his enjoying being told he’s a god had a certain ring. And there were other bits I
thought un-Firmanlike too. Our host may be a son-of-a-bitch, but he wouldn’t get his kicks out of brain-washing domestic help who couldn’t talk back, and I doubt if he’d be, capable of dreaming up the entrails story. Hell, I’m beginning to buy his Number-Two pitch.’

‘I bought that after hearing Yamatoku. Those whom the gods wish to destroy they first call up with advance warning of the holocaust.’

‘It isn’t only the gods who like to do things in that order.’

‘Sorry, my fault. I wasn’t thinking just about sour marriages though.’

There was a pause. I waited patiently while they made themselves more comfortable. Then she went on.

‘Mafeking was what made me think. Or, rather, the mirror image of it that was held up so thoughtfully to demonstrate the nature of our predicament. It’s got everything,
nearly
everything anyway, that we’ve got here, hasn’t it?’

‘Almost
nearly everything, yes.’

‘A garrison besieged, but somewhat short of field-guns to snipe with? That sort of almost-nearly do you mean?’

‘I was thinking more along the lines that, in this mirror version of the siege, the good old Chief Scout’s on the outside doing his whistling and weaving of spells, instead of standing firm on the inside, and either socking it to the enemy with bombs on fishing lines or writing sardonic notes about cricket.’

‘There’s that, I agree.’ But she sounded doubtful. She was nearly there. ‘What bothers me isn’t in the mirror.’

‘Nothing to do with Mafeking?’

‘Oh, very much to do with Mafeking. The reason why the siege of Mafeking is remembered and why it added to the language a new word for crowd euphoria, you’ll recall, isn’t that it made Baden-Powell a popular hero, but that its long-awaited relief caused such wild rejoicing. The
relief
of Mafeking,
that’s
what’s remembered, not the siege. So, what bothers me is not that Baden-Powell is shown on the wrong side, but that there’s no relief column on the way.’

‘I see what you mean. No distant trumpeter, no cut-away of the cavalry galloping through murderous enemy fire to the rescue.’

‘The police here have motor bikes. But yes, that’s part of what I mean.’

‘The old man’s already rejected the police once. Okay, the situation seems to have changed. But what do we, or they, complain of to the local commissaire. The burns in Mr Boularis’s shoe? Mr Yamatoku’s used-car-lot courtliness?’

‘Don’t you think, friend, that we may still be missing the point? That phone call was a threat, but only if one knew enough to understand why. When we began to see that our leader had made a number of quite bad mistakes, you asked Firman a question. What kind of danger were we in and what was the extent of it?’

‘A question he didn’t answer.’

‘A question that he didn’t answer
immediately.
Supposing he’d told us, there and then, that his boss and partner, Williamson, had decided to terminate that uninsurable risk we all represented by killing us. What would your reaction have been? The same as mine, I expect. We’d have tittered merrily then moved on to the next question. “What must we do to be saved?” ‘

‘Still tittering merrily?’

‘Merrily enough, I think, to make it certain that any answer we received would be either facetious or evasive. Boularis is no longer even nominally polite to us. Firman’s still doing his best, but our academic conceits must bore him stiff.’

‘I’m afraid you may be right.’

‘So, I think that Firman
has
answered your question.’

‘With all this stuff about spell-casting and Mafeking studies?’ He was having doubts again.

‘Authentic anecdote, I
call it. What other currency has the wretched man left? What currency, I mean, that we’d accept from him without saying that it was unquestionably forged?’

‘All right. We have our answer. “Yes, you’re all for the chopping-block. Sorry.” Now, how do we tackle the matter of survival? I think we’d both be grateful if his answer to that was a little less Delphian and didn’t have to be interpreted. Always assuming, naturally, that there is an answer and that he has it.’

‘Perhaps we should try asking him about that first. I have another suggestion.’

‘Shoot.’

‘That we don’t ask Firman anything more in front of Professor Krom.’

A pause, then he sighed. ‘Difficult.’

‘Why? Krom, if he ever gets back to civilization, will undoubtedly write all this up as if everything turned out exactly as he had planned it. It’ll be back to the dream world for him. We decline to comment on anything except the authenticity of those papers we’ve seen. End of obligation. What’s difficult about that? Do you mind passing me my cigarettes?’

Two reliable allies would be sufficient for what I had in mind. I switched off and went downstairs to the garage.

When I’d found the things I’d been looking for I hid them under the stairs.

Back in the loft, I went through the carton with the tapes in it. The boxes containing the ones Yves had used were numbered. I removed the tapes, adding the one I had just recorded to the pile, but left the numbered boxes in the carton.

In my bedroom I put the tapes away in a safe place before going up to the attic.

Melanie had Yves’s binoculars on her lap with her hands folded over them. She looked up as I came in but had obviously been dozing.

I told her to go to her room and have a nap and that I would keep watch for a while.

When she had gone, I used the binoculars to see where Yves had got to on his tour of the perimeter. I spotted him down near the coast-road gate, well away from the house.

I returned to the garage. The job I had to do there should have taken no more than half an hour, but it took me much longer than that. I have never been much of a handyman.

Persons like Yves who can work so quickly and surely with their hands have always made me envious.

But at least I did the job properly; did it without being disturbed or attracting attention and got back upstairs without being seen on the way.

This time, when I searched with the binoculars, I couldn’t locate Yves. An hour earlier, that would have worried me.

Now, it didn’t. I went down to my bedroom, cleaned myself up and then, after pushing a note under Melanie’s door, descended to the drawing-room. The note told her not to bother returning to the attic as I had revised our security arrangements.

Now, there was no point in having a sentry up there.

Now, all I had to do was continue to think clearly and to give Connell and Henson, already heading towards me from the terrace, the prescription for our collective survival.

Oh yes, and I had to decide, too, how to reply to Mat.

He would call, I knew; not just to make sure that his spell was working - he would have few doubts on that score - but to make sure that I remained faithful unto death, and that, if the process of my dying should happen to take longer than planned, I wouldn’t spend the extra time drawing unpleasant conclusions and making wild statements to ambulance attendants.

That was the one chore he wouldn’t leave to Frank Yamatoku.

Moulding the minds and hearts of men was work for gods.

The fireworks began soon after dinner.

When the first rockets went up from a boat along the coast off Monte Carlo, they seemed to act on Krom as a signal.

We had eaten simply, as Melanie had arranged, so that the servants could get off early to their local Quatorze juillet fête. While they were clearing the table we had moved to the terrace, though keeping close to the house in what even a sulkily nervous Yves had had to agree was an unexposed area. A drink tray had already been set up for us. I had opened a bottle of brandy.

As the popping sounds of the distant red-white-and-blue bursts arrived, Krom leaned forward and raised his glass. For a moment I thought absurdly that he must be about to propose a Bastille Day toast, but no; he had seen an insect drown itself in his brandy.

‘I am glad to tell you, Mr Firman,’ he said as he fished out the corpse with the tip of a napkin, ‘that I am now prepared to discuss your Paper Number Two and to receive your Paper Number Three as per our agreement.’

‘What agreement is that, Professor?’

I had avoided him after my talk with Connell and Henson. They might be allies now, but only allies of a sort. I couldn’t expect them, when it came to fresh haggling with Krom over the threats and promises made in Brussels, to ignore his just claims on their moral support. It had been important, therefore, that they had time to get used to the idea of helping me with what mattered without having to oppose me again over something that by then scarcely mattered at all. The solution had been to stay in my room, leaving Melanie to ply From with pre-dinner drinks. Mat wouldn’t, I knew, call unannounced. First, there would be a figurative rolling of drums or a clap or two of stage thunder calculated to strike fear into the hearts of us simple men. One could only wait for such a great moment. I
had used the time to get all the tapes properly wrapped and hidden in the small bag I intended to take with me on the escape run, and to check out the local radio-taxi services. The bottle of frozen champagne brought to me by the cook’s husband had thawed out sufficiently for me to be able to drink two glasses and the burgundy with dinner had been good enough. The strain had been there all right, but it had been under control. When we had moved to the terrace I had been ready to be kind to Krom.

Now, he was showing me his teeth again, and not just in normal quantities.

‘I speak of our original agreement,’ he said, ‘and it is no use rolling your eyes, Mr Firman. I intend to enforce the original terms in all respects.’

‘Using what sanctions to enforce them, Professor?’

He gave me the wide-angle view of his bridgework. ‘Twenty per cent of what I could have used before, my friend. Twenty per cent of Symposia instead of one hundred per cent,
plus
the knowledge that, even if it were one per cent and we were dealing with a figurehead criminal, the Director of the Institute for International Investment and Trust Counselling still has to maintain the fiction that he is a man of probity.’

‘Any attempt on your part to contend that I’m not, Professor, will land you with actions for libel, slander and defamation of character, depending on how you make your allegations and where. Meanwhile, take my advice. You’re going to need all your strength before long, so don’t push yourself too hard. I have more files prepared for you and you shall have them in due course. Melanie has the copies ready and waiting. At the moment, however, she’s listening for the phone call I’m expecting, the one from Mat Williamson. You can hear it if you like. In fact, I think you
should
hear it, all of you.’ I had turned, as I spoke, to Yves. ‘That could be arranged, couldn’t it, with some of the equipment you have?’

Yves squirmed visibly, then tried to pull himself together. Sulkiness was succeeded by pomposity. ‘With respect, Patron, I think that with such a conversation, if it takes place, it would be wiser if you used your own recorder.’

‘Yves is sensitive about his special skills,’ I explained. ‘It was just an idea. I thought you might all like to hear it as it’s happening.’

‘I’m for that,’ Connell said. ‘More authentic, I’d say. Don’t you agree, Professor?’

‘If Mr Firman wishes us to hear a telephone conversation, the question of its authenticity doesn’t arise. It may be presumed false.’

I shrugged. ‘Well, it’s up to you. I thought I’d mention it.’

That was when Yves cracked. He suddenly stood up.

‘Patron, why trouble to wait? Why wait for bad news? Because it is polite to do so? I will have no part in it and I have told Melanie so. I think that she now feels the same.’

‘About what, Mr Boularis?’ Dr Henson was smiling up at him. ‘What would
you
like us to do?’

‘You?’ He looked down at her as if in surprise and then made a sweeping gesture of contempt. ‘You can do what you like, Mrs Doctor. You belong with your friends. You can die with your friends. Why should I. . . ‘

He broke off. Something beyond the terrace had caught his eye. He stared, then turned again, bewildered. He had given up trying now to retain his dignity.

I got up, too, to see what it was that he hadn’t been expecting at that moment.

The big motor cruiser which, until then, had arrived only at breakfast time was gliding past the headland into the bay. She was carrying a lot of lights. Beneath the awning over the after deck, there was a dinner table set and awaiting a party of four. Around another table, with bottles and an ice bucket on it, were gathered two couples. The women wore denim jackets with their slacks and one of the men had put on a sweater. It was probably cool out there on the water. There was much animation. I had no binoculars handy, but I didn’t think I had seen any of them before.