The Way to Dusty Death (7 page)

‘What?’

‘Oddly, it doesn’t matter any more. Let’s forget about Rory. Let’s talk of you.’ He called to the waitress. ‘Same again, please.’

Mary looked at the freshly filled glass. She said: ‘What’s that? Gin? Vodka?’

‘Tonic and water.’

Oh, Johnny!’

Will you kindly stop
‘Oh,
Johnnying me’.’ It was impossible to tell whether the irritation in his voice was genuine or not. Wow then. You say you are worried  as if you have to tell anyone that, far less me. Let me guess at your worries, Mary. I would say that there are five of them, Rory, yourself, your father, your mother and me.’ She made as if to speak but he waved her to silence. ‘You can forget about Rory and his antagonism to me. A month from now and he’ll think it was all a bad dream. Then yourself — and don’t deny you are worried about our, shall we say, relationship : those things tend to mend but they take time. Then there’s your father and mother and, well, me again. I’m. about right?’

‘You haven’t talked to me like this for a long long time.’

Does that mean I’m about right?’

She nodded without speaking.

‘Your father. I know he’s not looking well, that he’s lost weight. I suggest that he’s worried about your mother and me, very much in that order.’

‘My mother,’ she whispered. ‘How did you know about that?
Nobody
knows about that except Daddy and me.’

‘I suspect Alexis Dunnet may know about it, they’re very close friends, but I can’t be sure. But your father told me, over two months ago. He trusted me, I know, in the days when we were still on speaking terms.’

‘Please, Johnny.’

‘Well, I suppose that’s better than ‘Oh, Johnny’. In spite of all that’s passed, I believe he still does. Please don’t tell him that I told you because I said I’d tell no one. Promise?’

‘Promise.’

‘Your father hasn’t been very communicative in the past two months. Understandably. And I hardly felt I was in a position to ask him questions. No progress, no trace of her, no message since she left your Marseilles home three months ago?’

‘Nothing, nothing.’ If she’d been the type to wring her hands she’d have done just that. ‘And she used to phone every day she wasn’t with us, write every week and now we —’

‘And your father has tried everything?’

‘Daddy’s a millionaire. Don’t
you
think he would have tried everything?’

‘I should have thought so. So. You’re worried. What can I do?’

Mary briefly drummed her fingers on the table and looked up at him. Her eyes were masked in tears. She said: ‘You could remove his other main worry.’

‘Me?’

Mary nodded.

At that precise moment MacAlpine was very actively concerned in investigating his other main worry. He and Dunnet were standing outside a hotel bedroom door, with MacAlpine inserting a key in the lock. Dunnet looked around him apprehensively and said: ‘I don’t think the receptionist believed a word you said.’

‘Who cares?’ MacAlpine turned the key in the lock. ‘I got Johnny’s key, didn’t I?’

‘And if you hadn’t?’

‘I’d have kicked his damned door in. I’ve done it before, haven’t I?’

The two men entered, closed and locked the door behind them. Wordlessly and methodically, they began to search Harlow’s room, looking equally in the most likely as unlikely places - and in a hotel room the number of places available for concealment to even the most imaginative is very limited. Three minutes and their search was over, a search that had been as rewarding as it was deeply dismaying. The two men gazed down in a brief and almost stunned silence at the haul on Harlow’s bed — four full bottles of scotch and a fifth half full. They looked at each other and Dunnet summed up their feelings in a most succinct fashion indeed.

He said, ‘Jesus!’

MacAlpine nodded. Unusually for him, he seemed at a total loss for words. He didn’t have to say anything for Dunnet to understand and sympathize with his feelings for the vastly unpleasant dilemma in which MacAlpine now found himself. He had committed himself to giving Harlow his last chance ever and now before him he had all the evidence he would ever require to justify Harlow’s instant dismissal.

‘Dunnet said: ‘So what do we do?’

‘We take that damn poison with us, that’s what we do.’ MacAlpine’s eyes were sick, his low voice harsh with strain.

‘But he’s bound to notice. And at once. From what we know of him now the first thing he’ll do on return is head straight for the nearest bottle.’

‘Who the hell cares what he does or notices? What can he do about it? More importantly, what can he say about it? He’s not going to rush down to the desk and shout: ‘I’m Johnny Harlow. Someone’s just stolen five bottles of scotch from my room.’ He won’t be able to do or say a thing.’

‘Of course he can’t But he’ll still know the bottles are gone. What’s he going to think about that?’

‘Again, who cares what that young dipsomaniac thinks? Besides, why should it have been us. If we had been responsible, he’d expect the heavens to fall in on him the moment he returns. But they won’t. We won’t say a word —yet. Could have been any thief posing as a member of the staff. Come to -that, it wouldn’t have been the first genuine staff member with a leaning towards petty larceny.’

‘So our little bird won’t sing?’

‘Our little bird can’t. Damn him. Damn him. Damn him.’

Too late, my Mary,’ Harlow said.
‘Can’t
drive no more. Johnny Harlow’s on the skids. Ask anyone.’

‘I don’t mean that and you know it. I mean your drinking.’

‘Me? Drink?’ Harlow’s face was its usual impassive self. ‘Who says that?’

‘Everybody.’

‘Everybody’s a liar.’

As a remark, it was a guaranteed conversation-stopper. A tear fell from Mary’s face on to her wrist watch but if Harlow saw it he made no comment. By and by Mary sighed and said quietly : ‘I give up. I was a fool to try. Johnny, are you coming to the Mayor’s reception tonight?’

‘No.’

‘I thought you’d like to take me. Please.’

‘And make you a martyr? No.’

‘Why
don’t
you come? Every other race driver does.’

‘I’m not every other driver. I’m Johnny Harlow. I’m a pariah, an outcast. I have a delicate and sensitive nature and I don’t like it when nobody speaks to me.’

Mary put both her hands on his. ‘I’ll speak to you, Johnny, you know I always will.’

‘I know.’ Harlow spoke without either bitterness or irony. ‘I cripple you for life and you’ll always speak to me. Stay away from me, young Mary. I’m poison.’

There are some poisons I could get to like very much indeed.’

Harlow squeezed her hand and rose. ‘Come on. You have to get dressed for this do tonight. I’ll see you back to the hotel.’

They emerged from the cafe, Mary using her walking stick with one hand while with the other she clung to Harlow’s arm. Harlow, carrying the other stick, had slowed his normal pace to accommodate Mary’s limp. As they moved slowly up the street, Rory MacAlpine emerged from the shadows of the recessed doorway opposite the cafe. He was shivering violently in the cold night air but seemed to be entirely unaware of this.

Judging from the look of very considerable satisfaction on his face, Rory had other and more agreeable matters on his mind than the temperature. He crossed the street, followed Harlow and Mary at a discreet distance until he came to the first road junction. He turned right into this and began to run.

By the time he had arrived back at the hotel, he was no longer shivering but sweating profusely for he had not stopped running all the way. He slowed down to cross the lobby and mount the stairs, went to his room, washed, combed his hair, straightened his tie, spent a few moments in front of his mirror practising his sad but dutiful expression until he thought he had it about right, then walked across towards his father’s room. He knocked, received some sort of mumbled reply and went inside.

James MacAlpine’s suite was, by any odds, the most comfortable in the hotel. As a millionaire, MacAlpine could afford to indulge himself: as both a man and a millionaire he saw no reason why he shouldn’t. But MacAlpine wasn’t indulging in any indulgence at that moment, nor, as he sat far back in an over-stuffed armchair did he appear to be savouring any of the creature comforts surrounding him. He appeared, instead, to be sunk in some deep and private gloom from which he roused himself enough to look up almost apathetically as his son closed the door behind him.

‘Well, my boy, what is it? Couldn’t it wait until the morning?’

‘No, Dad, it couldn’t.’

‘Out with it, then. You can see I’m busy.’

‘Yes, Dad, I know.’ Rory’s sad but dutiful expression remained in position. ‘But there’s something I felt I had to tell you.’ He hesitated as if embarrassed at what he was about to say. ‘It’s about Johnny Harlow, Dad.’

‘Anything you have to say about Harlow will be treated with the greatest reserve.’ Despite the words, a degree of interest had crept into MacAlpine’s thinning features. ‘We all know what you think of Harlow.’

‘Yes, Dad. I thought of that before I came to see you.’ Rory hesitated again. ‘You know this thing about Johnny Harlow, Dad? The stories people are telling about his drinking too much.’

‘Well?’ MacAlpine’s tone was wholly non-committal. It was with some difficulty that Rory managed to keep his pious expression from slipping: this was going to be much more difficult than he expected.

‘It’s true. The drinking, I mean. I saw him in a pub tonight.’

‘Thank you, Rory, you may go.’ He paused. ‘Were you in that pub too?’

‘Me? Come on, Dad. I was outside. I could see in, though.’

‘Spying, lad?’

‘I was passing by.’ A curt but injured tone.

MacAlpine waved a hand in dismissal. Rory turned to go, then turned again to face his father.

‘Maybe I don’t like Johnny Harlow. But I do like Mary. I like her more than any person in the world.’ MacAlpine nodded, he knew this to be true. ‘I don’t ever want to see her hurt. That’s why I came to see you. She was in that pub with Harlow.’

‘What!’ MacAlpine’s face had darkened in immediate anger.

‘Cut my throat and hope I die.’

‘You are sure?’

‘I
am
sure, Dad. Of course I’m sure. Nothing wrong with my eyes.’

‘I’m sure there’s not.’ MacAlpine said mechanically. A little, but not much, of the anger had left his eyes. ‘It’s just that I don’t want to accept it. Mind you, I don’t like spying. ‘

‘This wasn’t spying, Dad.’ Rory’s indignation could be of a particularly nauseating righteousness at times. This was detective work. When the good name of the Coronado team is at stake —’

MacAlpine lifted his hand to stop the spate of words and sighed heavily.

‘All right, all right, you virtuous little monster. Tell Mary I want her. Now. But don’t tell her why.’

Five minutes later Rory had been replaced by a Mary who looked simultaneously apprehensive and defiant. She said: ‘Who told you this?’

‘Never mind who told me. Is it true or not?’

‘I’m twenty-two, Daddy.’ She was very quiet. ‘I don’t have to answer you. I can look after myself.’

‘Can you? Can you? If I were to throw you off the Coronado team? You’ve no money and you won’t have till I’m dead. You’ve got no place to go. You’ve no mother now, at least no mother you can reach. You’ve no qualifications for anything. Who’s going to employ a cripple without qualifications?’

‘I would like to hear you say those horrible things to me in front of Johnny Harlow.’

‘Surprisingly, perhaps, I won’t react to that one. I was just as independent at your age, more so, I guess, and taking a poor view of parental authority.’ He paused, then went on curiously: You in love with this fellow?’

tie’s not a fellow. He’s Johnny Harlow.’ MacAlpine raised an eyebrow at the intensity in her voice. ‘As for your question, am I never to be allowed any areas of privacy in my life?’

‘All right, all right.’ MacAlpine sighed. ‘A deal. If you answer my questions then I’ll tell you why I’m asking them. OK?’

She nodded.

‘Fine. True or false?’

‘If your spies are certain of their facts, Daddy, then why bother asking me?’

‘Mind your tongue.’ The reference to spies had touched MacAlpine to the raw.

‘Apologize for saying ‘mind your tongue’ to me.’

‘Jesus!’ MacAlpine looked at his daughter in an astonishment that was compounded half of irritation, half of admiration.
‘You
must be my daughter. I apologize. Did he drink?’

‘Yes.’

‘What?’

‘I don’t know. Something clear. He said it was tonic and water.’

‘And -that’s the kind of liar you keep company with. Tonic and bloody water! Stay away from him, Mary. If you don’t, it’s back home to Marseille for you.’

‘Why, Daddy? Why? Why? Why?’

‘Because God knows I’ve got enough trouble of my own without having my only daughter tying herself up to an alcoholic with the skids under him.’

‘Johnny! Alcoholic! Look, Daddy, I know he drinks a little-’

MacAlpine silenced her by the gesture of picking up the phone.

‘MacAlpine here. Will you ask Mr. Dunnet to come to see me? Yes. Now.’ He replaced the phone. ‘I said I’d tell you why I was asking those questions. I didn’t want to. But I’m going to have to.’

.Dunnet entered and closed the door behind him. He had about him the look of a man who was not looking forward too keenly to the next few minutes. After asking Dunnet to sit down he said: Tell her, Alexis, would you, please?’

Dunnet looked even more acutely unhappy. ‘Must I, James?’

‘I’m afraid so. She’d never believe me if I told her what we found in Johnny’s room.’

Mary looked at each in turn, sheer incredulity in her face. She said: ‘You were searching Johnny’s room.’

Dunnet took a deep breath. ‘With good reason, Mary, and thank God we did. I can still hardly believe it myself. We found five bottles of scotch hidden in his room. One of them was half empty.’

Mary looked at them, stricken. Clearly, she believed them all too well. When MacAlpine spoke, it was very gently.

‘I
am
sorry. We all know how fond you are of him. We took the bottles away, incidentally.’