The Python Project

by Victor Canning

  ‘It’s given us a lot of trouble, that,’ said Freeman.

  ‘Believe me, it’s the only trouble about kidnapping. That’s why there isn’t much of it around. What’s all this about an advertisement in The Times? Some cryptic message in the Personal Column to indicate that the authorities are willing to parley with you?’

  ‘Roughly, yes,’ said Freeman.

  ‘Roughly is the word. How did you get in touch with the authorities? Send a private letter to the P.M. at 10 Downing Street?’

  ‘Just that,’ said Pelegrina.

  ‘If they agree to our terms,’ said Freeman, ‘they put a reply in The Times saying “Python Project accepted”.’

  I went wide-eyed. ‘You called it that—and you’d pinched a python bracelet from your sister to help finance it! I’m surprised Manston isn’t here already!’

  ‘It had to have some name,’ said Pelegrina.

  I shook my head. They both looked at me and I could see that they were chastened. I really felt sorry for them.

  ‘A man,’ I said to Freeman, ‘was found dead in your Kent cottage. Strangled. You have anything to do with that?’

  ‘No.’

  I grinned. ‘Not that you’re against murder. You tried it on me.’

  ‘You worried us,’ said Pelegrina.

  ‘Fair enough. If you have a worry, eliminate it. You’re a right couple. But don’t begin to cry about it. We might make something out of this mess yet—not much, but just something that will leave you with your skins whole so long as you start running fast and don’t stop for a long time. Tell me, where does Monsieur Robert Duchêne figure in all this?’

  They just looked at me blankly.

  I tipped my head at Freeman. ‘You’re supposed to have stolen antique coins of great value from him.’

  ‘I never heard of anyone of that name.’

  ‘All right, we’ll skip it. Here’s the deal. You walk out of this villa and leave me here with Dawson. I’ll give you forty-eight hours to disappear. Then I’ll call up Manston and give him a cover story which he’ll not believe for one moment, but which for policy reasons he’ll accept. But don’t think he won’t be after both of you for quite a while. It’s up to you to keep out of his way—for good. Seem fair?’

  Freeman shook his head. ‘Give it all up now! Do you know how long I’ve been planning and dreaming about this thing? Over two years!’

  ‘Write it off as a bad dream. Cut your losses and run.’

  Pelegrina let his monocle drop from his eye and shook his head. ‘But we have invested so much money in this. You have no idea of the expense, the incidentals. Even I have to charter my own yacht under another name. Every time you turn it is money to be paid out. And that body, that was very expensive! Anyway—’ there was a sudden spurt of spirit in him—‘what are we doing sitting here listening to you? Who the hell do you think you are?’

  ‘Well, I was beginning to think I was some kind of Sir Galahad. But okay, don’t listen to me. If you like I’ll just get up and back out and you’ll never see me again, and I won’t mention a word of anything to the authorities. That’ll just leave you here or wherever you choose to move to, waiting for the moment when you’ll have to deal with Mr Bloody Manston. Believe me—you’d far better let me handle that for you.’

  ‘You must have some reason other than a tinpot honour for suggesting this,’ said Freeman.

  ‘True. I’d just like to be one up on Manston and his crew for a change. And also I’ve a soft spot for La Piroletta, Jane Judd and Gloriana Stankowski, whom God bless for having dragged me into this quite innocently on her part. Okay? Now, why don’t you pack your bags and go fast?’

  ‘But we might get the ransom money—we’d even give you a share,’ said Pelegrina.

  I shook my head. ‘Tainted money, I’ll be frank, I often take—but only if I know there’s not going to be a kickback. Grow up—you’ll never get any ransom money. You haven’t even got a water-tight handover arrangement worked out. You’ve blundered through all the preliminaries, ignoring the big problem—and when it’s the only problem left you sit down to work it out and it’s so much too big for you. Your minds reject it and you end up nattering about vintage sardines.’

  They looked at me. They looked at the gun in my hand. And they looked at one another. I took another pull at my beer and waited. Neither of them would have admitted it, of course, but they were both in a state of shock. They didn’t have a hope. They’d both stepped into a cloud cuckoo land and they were stuck there for just so long as they could keep out of Manston’s way. Once he laid hands on them life would become real and life would become earnest—and of a brief span only.

  To help them along, I said, ‘Don’t waste your time on frivolities like wondering if you can jump me, finish me off and bury me in the backyard sand. I’m not the one you have to worry about. Keep Manston in your mind. I got the address of this place out of Letta’s notebook. He’ll get it too, some way or other. And forget about the money you’ve invested—let’s face it, most of it was probably not honestly come by. All right?’

  They looked at me, Pelegrina picking at his fat chin nervously, his head sunk lower between his shoulders than I had ever seen it, and Freeman tugging at one bushy eyebrow, his forehead lined with thought, not hard firm lines, but wavy uncertain ones. I was suddenly impatient with them. Damn it, I was sticking my neck out quite a bit on their behalf.

  ‘Pack your bags and go,’ I said. ‘You’re never going to make a cent out of Bill Dawson!’

  From behind me a familiar, clipped voice said, ‘That, of course, is not true.’

  I began to turn quickly in my chair and then slowed up as my eyes found the doorway in the french windows and I saw that any impetuous movement might bring trouble for me.

  Dark against the brilliant sunlight outside, I saw the tall form of Monsieur Robert Duchêne, flanked on the left by Paulet and on the right by my Apprentice Tail. Each one had a gun in his hand. Somewhere behind them I caught the head and shoulders of another man. For the first time ever I saw Paulet smiling broadly, a real fat blooming beam of a smile. Even Duchêne’s thin lips had a little curl at the ends. Surprisingly, my A.T. looked a little sad—probably on my account, that I should have had such a touching faith in the goodness of human nature.

  I dropped my gun to the floor and kicked it across to them. They let it lie at their feet.

  ‘Don’t tell me,’ I said. ‘Just let me guess. You’re from a rival firm—and you want to make a take-over bid?’

  ‘Exactly.’ Duchêne gave me a brief nod.

  Behind me I heard Pelegrina groan, and then came Freeman’s voice. ‘For God’s sake—what a bloody morning this is turning out to be!’

  Silently I seconded the sentiment.

  CHAPTER 8

  Saraband Two

  I was not present at the take-over discussions. I was taken away to a little room at the front of the house where, if it hadn’t been for the bulk of A.T. standing guard outside, I could have had a good view of the sandy drive. In the room with me was a fourth man, whose face was vaguely familiar.

  He sat by the door on the edge of a hard chair, a fidgety, nervous little man who looked as though he were waiting his turn to go into the dentist. One thin, almost feminine, hand held a big Colt Service revolver which he kept directed at me. I only hoped that the safety was on. He kept flicking his eyes at me and running the edge of his tongue between his thin lips. One of his socks had been put on inside out. I guessed that he was the talkative type. Conversation would be a way of easing his nervousness. Let him sweat, I decided. I’d got myself into this by trying to do good to those who didn’t deserve it, which confirmed that there was a basic flaw in the Christian ethic. I lit a cigarette and considered the Duchêne angle. It didn’t need much considering. When you look back over events from some crisis point a lot of things become clear. Being wise after the event comes easy. Duchêne had wanted to muscle in on the Dawson kidnapping. And he had let me do all the l
eg-work for him. That annoyed me. At least, it rated a fee. I had a feeling that I would never get one. But more important, how, I asked myself, had Duchêne or Paulet ever come to know that Dawson had been kidnapped? How had they ever come to know that Freeman was involved? I could think of two or three answers to that, but I decided to reserve judgment until I knew whether they—like Pelegrina and Freeman—were just working for their private interests or, as I suspected, representing a far from private interest.

  I smoked another cigarette, and studied the one picture on the wall of the room. It showed a group of Roman matrons in and around a wide marble bath, being toileted by half a dozen handmaidens. They were having a jolly time splashing water at one another. The artist must have been Victorian because their poses were so arranged that there were no pudenda in the slightest bit exposed. Not that it would have cheered me up if there had been.

  My guard coughed dryly and put his left hand around his right wrist to help support the big Colt.

  I took pity on him.

  ‘I’ve seen you before, haven’t I?’

  The thin face broke into a happy smile to show very bad teeth. ‘On the plane from Tripoli to Malta. I got off with you.’

  I remembered then. He’d looked like a worried cotton-length salesman, fiddling around with his order book all through the flight, just across the aisle from me, and never once looking at me.

  ‘You weren’t on the Tunis plane?’

  ‘No. Not yours. The early morning one today.’

  ‘What happened to the Arab guard at the drive gate?’

  ‘Paulet picked him up and wrapped some rope around him.’ He giggled.

  ‘Sounds like Paulet. What’s the name of the nice boy outside the window?’ I tipped my head backwards to indicate the A.T.

  ‘We all call him Mimo.’

  ‘Nice lad. Probably the best of your bunch. What do you get your pay in—converted roubles?’

  He frowned. Some things you just don’t joke about.

  ‘I’m Brown. Peter Brown.’ He said it amicably to counteract the frown.

  ‘Not with your accent you aren’t. Not unless some serviceman of that name did your mother in Cyprus or Aden and then, like a fool, made an honest woman of her.’

  ‘Please not to speak like that about my mother.’ Then he smiled again, not wanting to spoil the chat. ‘Ah, but I remember—you are a very flippant man.’

  ‘But clever, no?’

  ‘Very. But you didn’t see Paulet when you arrived at Tunis last night?’

  ‘If I had I’d have broken his neck.’

  ‘You think you could do that?’

  ‘I would have tried.’

  He shook his head. ‘Many people have—but it is still sound.’ He held up the Colt a little. ‘If I put this down you will be reasonable?’

  ‘Try me.’

  To my surprise he laid it thankfully on a small table at his side and began to light a cigarette. Blowing a cloud of Gitane smoke, he went on, ‘Your Prime Minister is not a wealthy man, is he?’

  ‘No. He’s against it on principle. Capital is a dirty word to him—at least in public. And, anyway, with your name, he’s your Prime Minister as well. Or do I just say “ha-ha” to that? Further, as a matter of ethnological interest, if things keep going the way they are and all British troops are withdrawn to the other side of the English Channel, your kind is doomed. Unless the package-tour tourists take over.’

  He smiled. ‘You have it wrong. My mother was a Miss Sylvia Brown of Wimbledon. My father was a foreign student at London University. I took her name.’

  I didn’t believe a word he said. He just liked talking. But the conversation was cut off by the entry of Duchêne and Paulet. It had taken them two hours to wrap up their negotiations with Freeman and Pelegrina.

  Mr Peter Brown of Wimbledon was dismissed. On a tray Francois Paulet had a couple of bottles of beer, a glass and a plate of sandwiches. He put them down by me and—he’d been a waiter once at the Principi di Piemonte—he opened a bottle adroitly and poured a glass of beer for me. Over his big de Gaulle nose, his close-set eyes twinkled and he smiled.

  ‘You see how I look after an old friend?’

  ‘If the sandwiches are cheese and tomato you can take ’em back.’

  ‘Pâte.’

  Duchêne went to the Roman picture and stared disapprovingly at it, ignoring me.

  ‘Hardly in your class, is it, Duchêne? Not phoney enough. Like those antique coins and all that herd-returning-at-cowdust crap, straight from the Encyclopaedia Britannica. I shouldn’t have thought you would have made an elementary mistake like that.’

  He turned and said severely, ‘I didn’t. It was some fool in the Central Bureau who has never done an hour’s field work in his life. But they insist that they should provide the background and cover stories.’

  ‘He’ll be shot, of course?’

  ‘Probably. You wish to eat first, or talk business at the same time?’

  Mouth full of sandwich, I said, ‘Carry on.’

  He adjusted his big horn-rimmed spectacles, lit himself one of his Swiss cigar jobs, rolled it comfortably into the left corner of his mouth and said, ‘May I say first of all that you have nothing to worry about. Actually we are very grateful to you.’

  ‘So you should be. You used me to make contact with Freeman and Pelegrina—and I was fool enough not to know what was happening. But I still think you have something to worry about. By tomorrow morning anyone left in this house is going to be sitting on dynamite. Manston may have been a bit slow off the mark for once, but he’ll be here.’

  ‘I know all about Manston.’

  ‘I’ll bet you do.’

  ‘This house will be empty by four o’clock this afternoon. Everyone except you will be moving to another and much more secure hiding place.’

  ‘And me?’ I finished the first glass of beer and Paulet poured me another.

  ‘You like the pate?’

  ‘Excellent.’ I looked at Duchêne. ‘Well?’

  ‘You are going back to London.’

  ‘Good. I’ll be glad to wash my hands of the whole affair.’

  ‘Hardly. Though eventually you will.’

  ‘I knew there would be a catch.’

  ‘Please don’t think we have used you without any intention of rewarding you. All you have to do is follow your instructions—simple ones—and in six months’ time five thousand pounds will be deposited for you in any bank you like to nominate in any country.’

  ‘I don’t think I want your kind of money. And believe me, that’s right out of character.’

  ‘You are free to refuse it.’

  ‘But not free to disobey my instructions?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Perhaps you’d better tell me what they are.’

  ‘You go back to London, to your office, to your home—and you wait for a telephone call or some communication arranging a meeting with someone who will identify himself as Saraband Two.’ I groaned. ‘I’ll bet that name was made up by your Central Bureau too.’

  He nodded sympathetically.

  Paulet said, ‘It is always the same. The people who sit in offices, they are incurable romantics, no? We who live in the smoke of battle have a more elemental approach.’

  I cocked an eye at him. ‘Your approach seemed just clumsy to me. But I must say I took it for real. The world’s full of clumsy people. By the way, when did you strangle our friend with the London-Scottish tie?’

  ‘The evening before you came. He was one of Manston’s men and I did not want him to have the various bits of information lying about the cottage. It was a highly regrettable thing to have to do.’

  ‘But you gritted your teeth, said “pour la patrie”—or whatever the Slav equivalent is—and did it.’

  Paulet looked at the stern-faced Duchêne. ‘He jokes, always, Monsieur Carvay; he jokes. I like him so much for that.’

  As he finished he whipped out his right hand, hit me on the side of the face a
nd knocked me from the chair.

  As I picked myself up he said very sincerely, ‘There was nothing personal in that. Monsieur Duchêne just wants you to realize that this is a serious matter.’

  ‘As indeed it is,’ said Duchêne. ‘And please, I wish to have no more references made to my government. Not that I am admitting that you are right as to which one it is.’

  ‘So I go back to London, wait for a call from Saraband Two, and then do exactly as I’m told.’

  ‘Exactly.’

  ‘And what happens if I go back and refuse to play ball? I could go right to Manston’s boss and tell him everything.’

  ‘You are referring to Mr Sutcliffe?’

  ‘Yes.’ There was no surprise in me. The intelligence services of all countries kept directories and dossiers of the top boys on each side. I wondered sometimes why they didn’t all meet once a year for a jolly reunion dinner on some neutral ground like Switzerland or San Marino. They were all inhuman bastards, anyway, and if I could have known the date and place of the next meeting I’d have put a bomb under the table and cleaned the world up a little.

  ‘You will make no approach to anyone, nor tell anyone anything until you have spoken to Saraband Two. When you have met—you will do exactly as you are told.’

  ‘And you think I’ll do this—just because you tell me to? You’re crazy. Paulet, tell him he’s crazy. You know me—only wild horses can make me do anything I don’t want to do, and it takes a lot of them, big, fat percherons weighing two and a half tons each.’

  Paulet shook his head. ‘They are splendid horses, but rapidly dying out. It is the growing use of tractors in my country, you know.’

  Irritably Duchêne said, ‘Enough of this. You will do as you are told, Monsieur Carver, because if you do not then someone very dear and near to you will be killed.’