by Gavin Lyall
I shook my head. ‘Sorry – I don’t follow. As major shareholders, you can look at Caspar’s books and see who owns shares.’ Then a new thought struck. ‘Or are we talking aboutbearer shares?’
He dipped his head gravely. ‘That is quite right.’
‘Jesus. I thought they’d gone out with chorus girls drinking champagne out of slippers. You really can count your troubles now, can’t you?’
He got a little stiffer. ‘It was a question of secrecy. Any company must have managers handling certain parts of its affairs. And they have wives and friends to whom they might talk. With bearer shares-‘
‘I know all that.’ Bearer shares. Pieces of paper – share certificates – certifying ownership of so many shares in a certain company. But without an owner’s name on the certificate, or in the company’s books. Pieces of paper which belonged to anybody who happened to have them -unless somebody else could prove differently. No records of ownership, no stamp duty paid when they changed hands. So probably nothing to prove they’d changed just by somebody sticking his hand into somebody else’s pocket.
I nodded. ‘All right – whoshould this thirty-four per cent belong to?’
He sighed gently. ‘The man who most wished to be secret. Max Heiliger.’
I’d heard of him. I glanced at Ginette – and so had she. One of those misty, legendary background figures whose nephews get into the gossip columns – mainly because they’re his nephews. But nothing about Heiliger himself – even if you could find out something. You might also find out he owned the paper you worked for.
Then suddenly I remembered something hehadn’t managed to keep out of the papers.
‘He’s dead,’ I said. ‘Killed in a private plane crash up the Alps a week or so ago.’
The smile was small and bleak. ‘That is the trouble, Mr Cane. A few days after Max was killed, a man appeared in Liechtenstein with Max’s share certificate demanding an important change in Caspar’s affairs. You understand that with his thirty-four per cent he can outvote Herr Flez’s thirty-three – unless I am there.’
With bearer shares there can’t be any voting by proxy. The only proof that youare a shareholder is if you’re there waving your share certificate.
Maganhard went on: ‘Under the company’s rules, any shareholder may call a meeting in Liechtenstein by giving not less than seven clear days’ notice, midnight to midnight.’
‘When does that notice expire?’
‘He called it for the soonest possible time. The meeting must begin at midnight tomorrow plus one minute. We have a little more than thirty-six hours.’
I nodded. ‘Should be time enough. But even if it isn’t -can’t you call a meeting for seven days later and reverse his decision?’
‘His proposal, Mr Cane, is to sell all of Caspar’s holdings. That could never be retrieved.’
I sipped at my glass. ‘Wants to cash the company in and run for the hills, does he? He doesn’t exactly sound like a legal heir. Who is he?’
‘According to Herr Fiez, he called himself Calieron, a Belgian, from Brussels. I have never heard of him.’
I glanced at Ginette; she shook her head. She hadn’t heard of him, either.
Maganhard said coldly: ‘And even if a court decided that he wasnot entitled to this certificate, that would not bring back Caspar’s holdings either.’
I asked: ‘How much would Caspar’s holdings be worth, now?’
He lifted his shoulders. The companies we control are valued very low – because, of course, all the profit is directed to Caspar. But we would be selling not just our shares, butcontrol of these companies. That might make the prices ten times what they are now. One might guess -at thirty million pounds.’
After a time I wagged my head to show that I understood. I didn’t, of course. You can’t understand a sum like thirty million. Perhaps Maganhard and Heiliger and Fiez hadn’t really understood it, either. When you start playing around with that sort of money in dark corners, you shouldn’t be surprised at the people you meet in dark corners.
‘I see,’ I said. ‘Thirty-four per cent of that would keep a man in beer and cigarettes until his pension came due.’
He stood up. ‘Do you now understand enough to get me to Liechtenstein safely?’
‘At least I’ve got a better idea of the odds against it.’
He bowed to Ginette, frowned at me, and went away.
Ginette shoved back from the table and swung to face me. ‘Well, Louis?’
‘Well, Ginette?’
‘What do you believe of this – fairy-tale?’
‘Maganhard’s story? I’ll give you odds it’s true. If he had any imagination, he’d have seen this sort of trouble coming.’
‘But this Belgian – Calieron – can he do this thing? ‘
‘With bearer shares you can do damn nearly anything. They shift the burden of proof: you don’t have to prove you own them – somebody’s got to prove you don’t. Jesus, the trouble these people go to just to make trouble for themselves.’
She cocked her head at me, puzzled.
I said: ‘People like Heiliger – and Maganhard. They spend their lives wrapping up their money in bearer shares, Liechtenstein registrations, numbered Swiss bank accounts -all so that the tax man can’t find it. Then they drop dead -andnobody can find it. Nobody inherits anything off these characters; the banks hang on to most of it. How d’you think Swiss banks get so rich? Some of them have still got Gestapo funds they’ve refused to reveal. You think they’re keeping it-for the Gestapo? The hell. They’re just keeping it.’
‘I did not realise you knew so much about High Finance, Louis. You must be a millionaire by now – no?’ She smiled at me. ‘I would like a, cognac, please – and not a lecture on how the English would make it.’
I gave her a look and went across to a tray of fat, dusty bottles that Maurice had left on the long sideboard. I found a 1914 Croizet and tried to pour but there was only a dribble left.
‘Sorry,’ I said. I was, too; I would have liked a drop for myself. I don’t much like the sweet modern brandies, but I’ve no prejudices against a 1914.
She frowned. That bottle was opened only a week ago. I have taken perhaps a glass a day.’
‘Maybe Maurice has got the taste.’
She tinkled the little bell. After a while, Maurice padded in. I walked away over into the patch of brilliant sunlight slanting through the french windows, and stared down into the valley, not listening.
The garden below the gravel terrace was a steep slope of coarse, close-cut grass ending in a mass of laurels and monkey-puzzle trees that hid the road. And up beyond it, the hazy blue hills on the far side of the Rhône, very calm and gentle. From here you couldn’t see the dead men and crashed cars and the people running round biting each other’s tails and sweating into telephones.
Ginette said: ‘All is solved, Louis. Maurice gave your friend Mr Lovell a glass – and he took several glasses.’
I stood in the sunlight feeling as cold as a corpse’s toes. She was smiling cheerfully.
‘It only needed that,’ I said. ‘Only that.’
SIXTEEN
He looked like a man sitting out on the terrace in the sun, taking occasional small sips at a glass of whisky, chatting with Miss Jarman. And why should he look anything else? There was no reason why I should have expected to find him in a dark back room with the bottle tilted to his face. He didn’t have to be a fast drinker. All he had to be was continuous. He’d go on sipping until he dissolved.
But that’s the only difference.
His face had loosened up, and his wound didn’t seem to be troubling him. He’d changed into a black wool shirt that hid the bandages. The girl, parked on another white-painted metal garden chair, was wearing a flame-coloured silk blouse, a skirt of expensive oatmeal tweed.
Harvey stood up as we came across. A smooth, balanced movement.
I said: Turned out wet again, hasn’t it?’
‘It’s been a long t
rip, so far.’ He smiled crookedly, and offered Ginette his chair. She shook her head politely and leant against a tall flowerpot in the shape of a Grecian urn.
I said:‘So far is right. We aren’t there yet. We’re starting at midnight.’
He slanted his eyebrows. ‘Not spending the night?’
‘I want to cross at Geneva at first light. Will you be ready?’
Miss Jarman was looking at me with a curious frown. ‘Do you think he should rest, with his wound? I think so.’
Harvey said gently: ‘I don’t think he meant that.’
She frowned again. ‘Well, what did you mean, Mr Cane?’
‘Tell us what you mean, Cane,’ Harvey said, still wearing his twisted smile.
‘I mean the man’s an alcoholic! ‘ I snapped. ‘By midnight he’ll be a puddle singing Sweet Nellie Dean! ‘
The Psychological Approach, of course.
The girl came out of her chair like a loosed spring. ‘Who told you that?’ she demanded. ‘Why shouldn’t he have a drink? He got hurt!’
It surprised me. I hadn’t quite expected her as Harvey’s defence counsel. I calmed down a bit. ‘All right. So he got himself shot. But he’s still a three-shifts-a-day boozer.’
She turned to him. ‘Is that true, Harvey?’
He shrugged and smiled. ‘I just wouldn’t know. I ain’t been psychoanalysed except by Professor Cane here.’
She swung back to me. ‘What makesyou so sure, then?’
I shook my head wearily. ‘Just hang on and make your own analysis. By midnight he’ll be as much use as a kid with a cap pistol.’
He seemed to shudder – and the little revolver was pointing at my stomach. The glass in his left hand was quite steady. Half a bottle of 1914 brandy and a layer of Scotch on top must have slowed him up a little – but at least he hadn’t reached the stage when your resistance to alcohol cracks and you can hit the stratosphere on just two glasses.
I let out a long breath and stared down at the gun. ‘You must try that sometime when I’mexpecting to have guns pulled on me by my friends.’
He chuckled. ‘Like midnight?’
He slid the gun back into his belt-holster and pulled his shirt down over it.
Then he seemed to notice the silence.
For some time nobody said anything. Then Ginette brought her hand from behind her back and flipped a small gardening hand-fork into a flowerbed. It hit spikes first with a small crispthud. Harvey’s eyes opened a little wider.
She said calmly: ‘I was playing these sort of games before you were, Mr Lovell – and when they mattered a great deal more.’
Harvey looked carefully round at each of us. Miss Jar-man was watching him with a slight, perplexed frown. Then he drained his glass quickly and nodded. ‘I get it. Maybe the Professor was being a bit more subtle than I figured. So – what d’you do now, Professor? Sit on my hands the rest of the day?’
‘You could take a couple of pills and get to bed.’
‘You don’t want to stick around and play watchdog?’
I shook my head. Miss Jarman said: ‘Harvey – is ittrue?’
He banged the glass down on the metal table. ‘If the Professor says so.’ Then he walked in through the french windows, and his face was a mask again.
There was another silence. Then Ginette unpropped herself from the flowerpot-urn and held out her hand. ‘A cigarette, please, Louis.’
I dealt her one and lit one myself. She started to walk slowly down on to the sloping lawn. Miss Jarman hung back, staring at the french windows where Harvey had gone.
‘Shouldn’t somebody go and – and keep an eye on him?’ she asked doubtfully.
I shrugged. ‘I’m not stopping you. But that’s what he wants: somebody to sit and criticise him, somebody he can blame for something, somebody he can pull a gun on. Somebody to play the enemy. He doesn’t want to remember that he’s all alone with the enemy.’
‘Professor Cane,’ she said flatly. ‘Your Problems Solved While You Wait.’
‘Not solved; just diagnosed. Like the doctor who told the man with rheumatics to get himself turned into a mouse because mice don’t have rheumatics, I don’t bother with details.’
I could hear the next question whistling down at me like a bomb. I’d just got the direction wrong: it was Ginette who asked it.
‘How do you cure him, Louis?’
I took a deep drag on the cigarette. ‘You smash his life,’ I said slowly. ‘You destroy it – his past, his work, everything you can get your hands on. They have a fancier name for it than that, of course – but that’s what they do.’
‘Why do you need to do that?’ Ginette sounded a bit too calm, like a prompter at the edge of the stage. Maybe that’s what she was.
‘Like you burn a house where you’ve had the plague in. There’s a germ in there somewhere. So you burn everything: furniture, carpets, beds – the lot. It’s the same with an alcoholic: something in his life made him a drinker. So, you smash up the life. Maybe, at the end of that, he won’t be one any more.’
Miss Jarman said coldly: ‘I don’t believe it.’
I shrugged and took another drag on the cigarette and pitched it into the laurels.
She said: ‘They must know something better than that by now.’
‘The miracles of modern medicine, eh? A few years ago, most doctors would have looked on him as a moral failure and told him to snap out of it – and then reckoned they’d done a good day’s work. By now they’ve got this far. They don’t yet know what causes it, hi most cases. They just know enough to burn the house down. Progress.’
Ginette said: ‘And they call that a cure?’
‘No. I’ll grant them that – they don’t call it a cure. That’d be putting him back to taking a beer at lunch-time, a martini at six o’clock – and able to leave it at that. They can’t do that. They just unhook him from the stuff; stop him drinking for ever. But at least they don’t call it a cure.’
Miss Jarman said softly: ‘Is that all they can do?’ Then she turned on Ginette. ‘Is that true?’
‘My dear child,’ Ginette said gravely, ‘if I could tell when Louis was telling the truth I might have married him fifteen years ago.’
I gave her a sharp look, then said to the girl: ‘But just remember what life you’d be smashing, for Harvey. He’s a bodyguard. If he keeps that up, he isn’t likely to die in bed, anyway, soberor drunk.’
She pounced. ‘Is that his trouble?’
‘I don’t know. As I said – most times nobody knows the trouble, not unless a man’s had deep psychoanalysis. And personally, I’d say that was just another way of burning the house down. But if you want to guess at causes, Harvey’s killed a number of men in his time – and he knows he’s going to kill more. Not everybody finds that easy to live with. Anyway,’ and I resumed my normal level of tact, ‘why should you care?’
Her chin came up. ‘I like him.’
‘You didn’t yesterday. You thought we were a couple of Hollywood gangsters.’
‘I’ve changed my mind abouthim.’ Then her eyes became worried. ‘No, I’m sorry. I was wrong about both of you. But you know him – can’t you help him?’
I shook my head. ‘I’m part of his old life. Two days ago I didn’t know him from Abou Ben Adhem, but I’m still part of it. He connects me with guns; if they have to go, so do I.’
She stood for a moment, arms folded and hugging herself tightly, staying very still and staring sightlessly down the long lawn. Then she suddenly unfolded. ‘I’m going back to – to talk to him.’ She turned.
I said quickly: ‘He knows all this himself. He stayed dry for three days up to now, because he knows he can’t mix guns and booze. So he’s not fooling himself: he knows the way out. All he needs is a good enough reason to take it Just stopping killing may not be enough.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Just why a man becomes an alcoholic doesn’t always matter much. Alcohol becomes a cause on its own. So he needs
a reason to stop – not just no reason to go on.’
Her eyes searched my face. Then she nodded slowly, and walked away and into the Château.
SEVENTEEN
Ginette watched her go. ‘Were you trying to tell her to become his reason, Louis?’
I shrugged. ‘Just telling her you don’t dry a man out with a couple of church pamphlets and a cup of cocoa.’
‘And is it really true, there is no cure?’
‘One in a hundred, they say. That many they can send back to normal drinking. But they don’t know how or why. Should I have told her that?’
She shook her head thoughtfully. ‘No. I do not think she believed you, anyway. She is young enough to believe in miracles. Perhaps even young enough to perform them.’ She looked at me. ‘And is he one in a hundred, Louis?’
‘He’s one in several million already. How many people become bodyguards – and as good as he is? He’s rated the third best in Paris.’ Then I remembered. ‘Second best, I suppose now, with Bernard dead.’
She gave me a hard look. ‘If he remembers that himself, it may not help him.’
I just nodded. She was right – and it wasn’t something Harvey was likely to forget.
She started walking around the edge of the coarse lawn. I dropped into step beside her.
‘And where do they rate you nowadays, Louis?’
‘I’m not a gunman,’ I said coldly.
‘Ah – of course. You are a general now. Not just the man who carries the gun. You tell them where to have the gunfights. Perhaps you think it is not the same battle? – that in the end it will not eat you, too?
‘You see,’ she said, ‘by now I know how gunmen think. That they can never be beatert. Like the fighter pilots. Like the knights in armour, always looking for the next dragon. Always – until the last dragon. And always there is a last. Both Lambert – and you.’
‘I’m still not a gunman, Ginette.’
‘Neither was Lambert. Did you know how Lambert died?’
‘I read in the papers. A sailing accident down near Spain.’
‘Did you believe that, Louis?’