Bernard Cornwell

by Wildtrack

  I limped back up through the woods and got into Micky's car. We went north, threading the maze of deep lanes that led to Dartmoor. I was silent, wondering just what we had got ourselves into, while Micky was ebullient, scenting a story that would splash itself across the headlines of two nations.

  We climbed up to the moor. Low dark cloud was threatening from the west and I knew there would be lashing rain before the evening was done. We left the hedgerows behind, emerging on to the bare bleak upland where the wind sighed about the granite tors. We were over an hour early reaching the village pub in the moor's centre where Jill-Beth had said she would meet me. Micky took me into the pub's toilet where he fitted me with the radio-microphone. It was a small enough gadget. A plastic-coated wire aerial hung down one trouser leg, a small box the size of a pocket calculator was taped to the small of my back, and the tiny microphone was pinned under my shirt. "I'm going back to the bar," Micky said, "so they don't think we're a couple of fruits, and you're going to speak to me." He had the receiver, together with a tape-recorder, in a big bag. To hear what was being recorded he wore a thin wire which led to a hearing-aid.

  The device worked. After the test we sat at a table and Micky gave me instructions. The transmitter was feeble and if I went more than fifty yards away from him he'd likely lose the signal. He said the microphone was undirectional and would pick up every sound nearby so I should try and lean as close to Jill-Beth as I could. "You won't mind that, will you?" Micky said. "You fancy her, right?"

  "I used to."

  "Fancy her again. Get in close, Nick. And keep an eye on me. If I can't hear what she's saying I'll scratch my nose."

  "Is this how we trap one of the world's richest men?" I asked. "With nose-scratching and toy radios?"

  "Remember Watergate. It all spilt out because some CIA-trained prick couldn't tape up a door latch. You are suffering from the delusion that the world is run by efficient men. It isn't, Nick. It's run by constipated morons who couldn't remember their own names if it wasn't printed on their credit cards. Now, what are you going to say to her?"

  "I'm going to tell her to get lost."

  "Nick! Nick! Nick!" he groaned. "If you tell the birdie to fuck off, she will. She'll do a bunk and what will we have? Sweet FA, that's what we'll have. You have to chat her up! You have to go along with her, right? You've got to say all the things she wants you to say, so that she says all the things we want her to say. Especially, my son, you have to ask her just what Kassouli plans to do out there. Is he trying to knock Bannister off? Or is he just trying to scare the bastard? Got it?"

  "Got it," I said. "What about the money?"

  Micky closed his eyes in mock despair. "God, you're a berk, Nick. You take the ruddy money! It's proof!" He drained his whisky. "Are you ready for battle, my son?"

  "I'm ready."

  "To war, then. And stop worrying. Nothing can go wrong." He finished my whisky then took himself across the bar. I waited nervously. The pub slowly filled, mostly with hikers who shook water from their bright capes as they came through the door. It had begun to rain, though not heavily.

  I switched from whisky to beer. I did not want to fuddle my wits, not with so much at stake. If I was successful this evening I would stop an obsessed millionaire from pulling thousands of jobs out of Britain. I would start a scandal in the newspapers. I would also drive Angela away from me, because I knew she would never forgive me for bringing Bannister's name into the story. I had so often, and often unjustly, accused her of dishonesty, now she would say that I had been dishonest. She would say that I should have told her everything, and perhaps she was right.

  But I was going to sea anyway, and that always meant an abandonment of loves left behind. I would render Kassouli's threats impotent, then I would leave Bannister to make his attempt on the St Pierre and Angela to her ambitions. After tonight I would be free, and Sycorax and I would go to where the wind willed us.

  I waited.

  "Hi!" After Angela's slender paleness, Jill-Beth looked tanned and healthy; a glowing tribute to vitamin tablets, exercise and native enthusiasm. I wondered why Americans were so often enthusiastic while we were so often drab. She was wearing a blue shirt, tight jeans and cowboy boots, as if she had expected a rodeo. She carried a raincoat and a handbag over her arm. She stooped to offer me a kiss, then sensed from my reaction that such a gesture was inappropriate. Instead she sat next to me. "How are you?" she asked. Her back was towards Micky who offered me a surreptitious thumbs-up to indicate that he could hear her through the concealed microphone.

  "You'd like a beer?" I asked.

  She shook her head. "How about going for a walk?"

  "In this?" I gestured at the rain that was now blurring the window panes.

  "I thought you were a soldier! Are you frightened of rain?"

  I was frightened of getting out of range of Micky's radio, but Jill-Beth would not take a refusal, so I followed her on to the road where she pulled on the raincoat and tied a scarf over her hair. "Yassir says hi."

  "Great."

  She seemed not to notice my lack of enthusiasm; instead she opened the handbag and showed its contents to me. "One hundred thousand dollars, Nick. Tax-free."

  I stared at the tightly wadded notes, each wad bound in cellophane. I'd never seen so much money in my life, but it didn't seem real. I tried to look impressed, but in truth I found the situation ludicrous. Did Jill-Beth really believe I could be bought?

  "It's all yours." She closed the bag. The rain was getting harder, but she seemed not to notice it as we crossed the bridge and headed towards Bellever Forest. I dared not look behind in case Jill-Beth also turned and saw Micky Harding's ungainly figure following us. My jacket was getting soaked and I hoped the microphone was not affected by damp. "Do we really have to walk in this muck?" I asked.

  "We really do." She said it very casually, then frowned with a sudden and genuine concern. "Are you hurting? Is that it?"

  "A wee bit."

  She shrugged and took my arm, as though to help me walk. "I'm sorry, but I just couldn't abide all that cigarette smoke in the pub." She glanced up at the sky which was threatening an even heavier downpour. "Perhaps we'd better get into cover?" She led me into the pines of Bellever. The rain was too new to have dripped through the thick cover of needles and we walked in comparative dryness. I once heard a footfall behind us and knew that Micky had kept up. He'd be silently cursing me for dragging him out of the pub, but his sacrifice was small in comparison to the rewards that this evening would give him.

  Jill-Beth let go of my arm and leaned against a tree trunk. For a moment neither of us spoke. I was awkward, and her self-assurance seemed strained. She offered me a quick smile. "It's nice to see you again, Nick."

  "Is it?"

  "You're being hostile."

  She pronounced the word as 'hostel', and sounded so hurt that I could not resist smiling. "I'm not being hostile, it's just that my back's hurting."

  "You should see a doctor."

  "I did. She couldn't help."

  "Then see an American doctor."

  "I can't afford that."

  "They are expensive bastards," she admitted.

  We were both being wary, and I supposed that if I really was being 'hostel' then I was risking all the hard work that Micky had put into this meeting. I was here to convince this girl that I would help her, however reluctantly, and so I forced another smile. "Are you here to get me wet, or rich?"

  She smiled back. "Does that mean you're going to help us, Nick?"

  I was hopeless at telling lies, and did not think that an outright statement of compliance would be convincing. I shrugged, then began pacing beneath the trees as I spoke. "I don't know, Jill-Beth. I just don't share your conviction that Bannister's guilty. That worries me. I don't like him, but I'm not sure that's sufficient grounds for ruining his chances of the St Pierre." I was making noises to cover my nervousness, then I realized that by pacing up and down I was constantly turning the microph
one away from Jill-Beth. Not that she was saying much, except the odd acknowledgement, but I stopped and faced her.

  She sighed, as though exasperated by my havering. "All you have to do, Nick, is sail on Bannister's boat. You agree to do that, and you get one hundred thousand dollars now, and another three hundred thousand when it's over."

  "I've already told him I won't sail," I said, as though it was an insuperable barrier to her ambitions.

  She shrugged. "Would he believe you if you changed your mind?" It was very silent under the trees; the wind was muffled and the dead needles acted as insulation. It made our voices seem unnaturally loud.

  "He'd believe me," I said reluctantly.

  "So tell him."

  "And if I don't do it—" I was trying not to make my voice stilted, even though I was stating the obvious "—Kassouli will pull all his jobs out of Britain?"

  She smiled. "You've got it. But not just his jobs, Nick. He'll pull out his investments, and he'll move his operations to the Continent. And a slew of British firms can kiss their hopes of new contracts on American projects goodbye. It'll be tough, Nick, but you've met him. He's a determined guy. Kassouli doesn't care if he goes down for a few millions, he can spare them."

  I paused. It seemed to me that Micky must have struck his pure gold for, in a few sentences, Jill-Beth had described Kassouli's threat and, with any luck, all that damning evidence must be spooling silently on to the take-up reel of Micky's recorder. All I had to do now was cross the Ts and dot the Is. "And Kassouli won't do that if I sail on Wildtrack?"

  "Right." She said it encouragingly, as though I was a slightly dumb pupil who needed to be chivvied into achievement. "Because we need your help, Nick! You're our one chance. Persuade Bannister to take you as Wildtrack 's navigator, and count your money!"

  It seemed odd to me that Yassir Kassouli, with all his millions, could only rely on me, but perhaps Jill-Beth was right. My arrival at Bannister's house must have seemed fortuitous, so perhaps that explained her eagerness. I was a very convenient weapon to Bannister's enemies, if I chose to be so. "And exactly what do I have to do?" I wanted her to spell it out for the microphone.

  She showed no impatience at the pedantic question. "You just navigate a course that we'll provide you."

  "What course?"

  "Jesus! How do we know? That'll depend on the weather, right? All you have to do is keep a radio watch at the times we tell you, and that's it. The easiest four hundred thousand you ever earned, right?"

  I smiled. "Right." That word, with its inflection of compliance, had been hard to say, yet I seemed to be convincing Jill-Beth with my act. And it was an act, a very amateur piece of acting in which I was struggling to invest each utterance with naturalness so that, consequently, my words sounded heavy and contrived. Yet, it occurred to me as I tried to seek my next line, Jill-Beth herself was just as mannered and awkward. I should have noted that with more interest, but instead I asked her what would happen when I had navigated Wildtrack to wherever I was supposed to take her.

  "Nothing happens to you. Nothing happens to the crew."

  "But what happens to Bannister?"

  "Whatever Yassir wants." She said it slowly, almost as a challenge, then watched for my reaction.

  I was silent for a few seconds. Jill-Beth's words could be taken as an elliptical hint of murder, but I doubted whether she would be more explicit. I think she expected me to bridle at the hint, but instead I shrugged as though the machinations of Kassouli's revenge were beyond me. "And all this," I asked with what I thought was a convincing tone of reluctant agreement, "on the assumption that Bannister murdered his wife?"

  "You got it, Nick. You want the hundred thousand now?"

  I should have said yes. I should have accepted it, but I baulked at the gesture. It might have been a necessary deception, but the entrapment was distasteful.

  "For Christ's sake, Nick! Are you going to help us or not?" Jill-Beth thrust the handbag towards me. "You want it? Or are you just wasting my time?"

  I was about to accept, knowing the money was the final proof that Micky needed, when a strangled shout startled me. It was a man's cry, full of pain.

  I turned, but instantly, and treacherously, my right leg numbed and collapsed. I fell and Jill-Beth ran past me. I cursed my leg, knelt up, and forced myself to stand. I used my hands to straighten my right leg, then, half limping and half hopping, staggered on from tree to tree. I wondered whether my leg would always collapse at moments of stress.

  I found Jill-Beth twenty yards further on, stooping, and I already knew what it was she crouched beside.

  It was Micky. There was fresh vivid blood on his scalp, on his wet shirt, and on his hands. He was alive, but unconscious and breathing very shallowly. He was badly hurt. The bag lay spilt beside him and I saw the radio receiver but no sign of the small tape-recorder. Whoever had hit Micky had also stolen the evidence.

  "Did you bring him?" Jill-Beth looked at me accusingly.

  "Get an ambulance." I snapped it like a military order.

  "Did you bring—"

  "Run! Dial 999. Hurry!" She would be twice as fast as I could be. "And bring blankets from the pub!"

  She ran. I knelt beside Micky and draped my jacket over him. I tore a strip of cotton from my shirt-tail and padded it to staunch the blood that flowed from his scalp. Head wounds always bleed badly, but I feared this was more than a cut. He'd been hit with too much power, and I suspected a fractured skull. Blood had soaked into the dry brown needles that now looked black in the encroaching and damp twilight. I stroked his hand for, though he was unconscious, he would need the feel of human warmth and comfort.

  I felt sick. I'd guarded Sycorax against Kassouli, but I had not thought to guard Micky. So who had done this? Kassouli? Had Jill-Beth brought reinforcements? Had she suspected that I might try to blow Kassouli's scheme wide open? Those questions made me wonder whether she would phone an ambulance and, leaving Micky for a few seconds, I struggled to the edge of the trees and stared towards the village. My right leg was shaking and there was a vicious pulsing pain in my spine. I wasn't sure I could limp all the way to the village, but if Jill-Beth let me down then I would have to try.

  I cursed my leg, massaged it, then, as I straightened up, I saw headlights silhouetting running figures at the bridge. I limped back to Micky. He was still breathing, grunting slightly.

  Footsteps trampled into the trees. Efficient men and women, trained to rescuing lost hikers from the moors, came to Micky's rescue. There was no need to wait for an ambulance for there was a Rescue Land-Rover nearby which could take him to hospital. He was carefully lifted on to a stretcher, wrapped in a space blanket, and given a saline drip.

  I limped beside him to the Land-Rover and watched it pull away towards the road. Someone had phoned the police and now asked me if I'd wait for their arrival. I said I wanted to go to the hospital, then remembered that Micky still had the car keys.

  "I'll drive you," Jill-Beth said.

  I hesitated.

  "For Christ's sake, Nick!" She was angry that I did not trust her. She held out her car keys. "Do you want to take my car?"

  I let her drive me. "Who is he?" she asked.

  "A newspaper reporter."

  "You're a fool," she said scornfully.

  "Not me!" I snapped. "You're the bloody fool! Just because Kassouli's rich doesn't mean that he's right!"

  "His daughter was murdered!"

  "And who did that to Micky?" I waved towards the Land-Rover which was a mile ahead of us on the road. "You brought your thugs along, didn't you?"

  "No!" she protested.

  "Then who, for Christ's sake?"

  She thought about it for a few seconds. "Did you drive straight here from London?"

  "No. I went..." I paused. I'd gone to Bannister's house and seen evidence that Fanny Mulder was there. I hadn't thought, not once, to check that anyone had followed Micky and I to the moor. "Oh, Jesus," I said hopelessly. "Mulder."

&nb
sp; Jill-Beth shrugged, as if to say that I'd fetched this disaster on myself. We drove in silence until we reached the hospital where the Land-Rover was standing at the entrance to the casualty department. An empty police car, its blue light still flashing, was parked in front of it.

  Jill-Beth killed her engine. "I guess this means you're not going to help us, Nick?"

  "I won't be the hangman for a kangaroo trial."

  "You don't want the money?" she asked.

  "No."

  Jill-Beth shrugged. "It wasn't meant to be this way, Nick."

  "What wasn't?"

  "Americans against the Brits. Truly it wasn't. Kassouli believes his daughter was murdered. If you shared that belief you'd be helping us."

  I opened the car door. "It isn't America against us," I said; "it's just a conflict of old-fashioned honesty, that's all. You don't have proof. You don't have anything but suspicion. You're playing games to make a rich man happy, and if he was a poor man you wouldn't be doing it at all."

  She watched me get out of the car. "Goodbye, Nick."

  I didn't reply. She started the motor, put it in gear and drove away.

  The hospital smelt of disinfectant. It brought back memories I didn't want. I waited beneath posters which told me to have my baby vaccinated and that VD was a contagious disease. I waited for news that, at last, was brought to me by a very young detective constable. Mr Harding had a fractured skull and three broken ribs. He was unconscious. Why had I come to the hospital and asked after him? Because he was a friend of mine.

  Had I seen the accident? No.

  Was I aware that Mr Harding was a newspaper reporter? Yes.

  Was I a newspaper reporter? No.

  Had we gone to the moor together? Yes.

  Why had I not seen the incident? Because I'd gone into the trees for a piss.

  Did I know who had assaulted Mr Harding? No. Privately I was certain it was Mulder, but I could not prove it, so I repeated my denial.

  How had I reached the hospital? In a friend's car.