Part 4 (1/2)

You take your chances, don't you, old sport? Peters -is rough.'

'He's also stupid. He started to threaten my wife and child.' Rawcliff sat up straighter. 'Let me tell you something, Ritchie. I don't mind you people leaning on me - I can look after myself. But if any of you goes near my family, I'll kill him. That's not a melodramatic threat. I'd willingly go to prison for it.'

Ritchie nodded gravely. 'I'm sorry about that - I really am. I don't know quite how much Newby's told you, but this is a pretty high-powered operation, and sometimes you can't just pick and choose your colleagues. Peters may be a hard b.a.s.t.a.r.d, but from what I hear he's d.a.m.ned efficient. You probably rubbed him up the wrong way. You have to be careful with that sort. You are coming in with us?' he added, not looking at Rawcliff as he said it.

'Do I still have the option?''

Ritchie smiled pleasantly. 'No, I don't suppose you have, now I come to think of it.'

Rawcliff drank some more brandy; the floor had stopped swaying and his head had eased. 'What's the exact pecking order in this business?'

'Newby's the boss this end - though I've no idea who's behind it. And Peters is the senior pilot. If he gives an order, we snap to.'

'Who are the others?'

Ritchie paused; got out a packet of cigarettes, offered one and lit his own.

'There's a chap called Thurgood - you've probably heard of him, from your friend, Mason? He's the radio expert. Very odd fish. Then there's an ex-Army bloke called Grant.'

'That makes five - if you include me.'

'I don't know the sixth. Some a.s.sociate of Peters. Rhodesian mercenary, I understand.'

'Oh G.o.d, not another of those?'

'He's abroad, helping to fix things up.' 'Where's that?'

Ritchie paused again and frowned. 'Look, sport, I'm like you - one of the odds and sods. I don't want to speak out of turn. If they need to tell us something, they tell us in their own time. All we do is carry out orders and collect our fifty thou' at the end of it.' He looked up, with his easy smile, man-to-man, 'And there's Jo, of course. Musn't forget her!'

'What's she got to do with it?'

'Did Newby give you any idea what this operation is about?'

'He said something about a mercy-mission, all wrapped up in secrecy to avoid international red tape.'

'Yes. Well, as I said, Jo's a trained nurse. VSO -57 Voluntary Service Overseas. She's only over here on leave.'

'You mean she's part of the team? Sits up on the blankets and tents and stretchers like the marzipan queen on top of the cake, just to make it look sweeter?'

'Don't underestimate her, sport. Nurses are a lot tougher than most of us - they have to be, they see too much of the dirty underbelly of life. Anyway, she'll be useful if one of us goes sick or gets bitten by a snake. As well as promoting good relations with the natives.'

'What natives?'

'Ah!' - Ritchie laid a broad finger along the edge of his nose - 'there again you go asking questions I can't answer. I don't know. Honestly. Except it's not Greenland or the Arctic Circle.'

Rawcliff looked at his watch. It was nearly five o'clock. His stomach heaved again. 'I've got to go. Get me a taxi -black cab this time - one whose number I can take if he tries to lure me into another w.a.n.ker's club to get me kicked in the goolies.'

'Newby's calling round here at seven. He wants to see you.'

'Well he can't. I've got a family to get back to. And they're a b.l.o.o.d.y sight more important than New by and the rest of you put together!'

Ritchie sat staring at what was left of his cigarette, then pinched it out in an onyx ashtray by the bed. 'Thank G.o.d I'm single.' He looked up and smiled again. 'I'll run you back. Don't worry, I'm not violent!'

As they left, he called good-bye to Jo, who was preparing something in the open-range kitchen. She waved, without looking up. 'Remember what I told you about those headaches, Mr Rawcliff!'

But Rawcliff had other things to remember and worry about. There had been something about the girl that reminded him uneasily of Judith - her calmness and practicality. He wondered how Ritchie had found her. She hardly seemed his type: young Jim Ritchie would prefer his girls dumb and easy, and Jo looked far from being either.

Ritchie had a Jaguar XJ6 which he drove like an aircraft: calm and skilled, with split-second reactions that dulled any sense of danger.He took the South Bank route, where the traffic was lighter.

'What do you fly?' Rawcliff asked him.

'Beachcraft Duke. Four-seater, twin-engine. Know it?'

'Not personally. Way out of my price range. You do pretty well, I gather?'

'So-so. Not as well as I'd like to. People just haven't the money anymore.

When I started, I used to get parties flying down to the South of France - even as far as Italy and Morocco. With optional ferry-tanks, of course.

Nowadays you get the occasional bunch of stinking Arabs, or a few millionaires flying back to their tax-havens in the Channel Islands.

'Anyway, I only own forty-nine per cent of the company. The rest belongs to Newby - working out of Lichtenstein. What they politely call ”tax avoidance”.

All nice and legal, too.' He laughed and overtook a juggernaut on the inside; an air-horn blasted at them and made Rawcliff wince. Ritchie's hands were very steady on the wheel.

'Jim, what exactly do you know.about Newby?'

'Business man. Wheeler-dealer. Import, export. Likes the good life, good food, expensive girls.'

'Is he a crook?'

Ritchie took the roundabout at the Elephant and Castle at nearly fifty, his tyres steaming off the wet surface. 'h.e.l.l, what's a crook these days? If I get three endors.e.m.e.nts or done for drunken driving, the computer at Criminal Records stores me away on tape, et voila! - I've got a criminal record - along with your friendly safe-crackers and s.e.x-fiends, and all the rest of the jolly cons!'

'What I mean is, will he be straight with us? Are we going to get paid?'

'Yes, we'll get paid. Newby's got too much at stake to rat on us. Anyway he only has a percentage of the action.'

'He's not the boss?'

Ritchie's face became closed, concentrating on the thickening traffic as they approached Battersea, pa.s.sing the. ugly sprawl of the New Covent Market at Nine Elms, like some freshly erected concrete internment camp. 'Look, sport, don't push me. I told you - I don't know much more than you. And anything you don't know, you'll learn in good time.'

'You're a trusting fellow, aren't you?'

'If you like.'