Wrath of the Lion

by Jack Higgins

  The corridor was dimly lit, a flight of stairs rising into the shadows at the far end. She wrinkled her nose in distaste at the stale smell compounded of cooking odours and urine and moved forward.

  There was a door to the left, the legend Bar etched in acid on its frosted-glass panel. When she opened it she found herself in a long, narrow room, the far end shrouded in darkness. An old marble-topped bar fronted one wall, a cracked mirror behind it, and a man leaned beside the beer pumps reading a newspaper.

  In one corner a drunk sprawled across a table face-down, his breath whistling uneasily through the stillness. Two men sat beside a small coal fire talking softly as they played cards. They turned to look at her and she closed the door and walked past them.

  The barman was old and balding, with the sagging, disillusioned face of a man who had got past being surprised at anything. He folded his paper neatly and pushed it under the bar.

  ‘What can I do for you?’

  ‘I’m looking for a Mr Van Sondergard,’ she said. ‘I understand he’s staying here.’

  Beyond the barman the two men by the fire were watching her in the mirror. One of them was small and squat with an untidy black beard. His companion was at least six feet tall with a hard, raw-boned face and hands that never stopped moving, shuffling the cards ceaselessly. He grinned and she returned his gaze calmly for a moment and looked away.

  ‘Sondergard?’ the barman said.

  ‘She’ll be meaning the Norwegian,’ the tall man said in a soft Irish voice.

  ‘Oh, that fella?’ The barman nodded. ‘Left yesterday.’

  He ran a cloth over the surface of the bar and Anne Grant said blankly: ‘But that isn’t possible. I only hired him last week through the seamen’s pool. I’ve a new motor-cruiser waiting at Lulworth now. He’s supposed to run her over to the Channel Islands tomorrow.’

  ‘You’ll have a job catching him,’ the Irishman cut in. ‘He shipped out as quartermaster on the Ben Alpin this morning. Suez and all points east.’ He got to his feet and crossed the room slowly. ‘Anything I can do?’

  Before she could reply a voice cut in harshly: ‘How about some service this end for a change?’

  She turned in surprise, realising for the first time that a man stood in the shadows at the far end of the bar. The collar of his reefer jacket was turned up and a peaked cap shaded a face that was strangely white, the eyes like dark holes.

  The barman moved towards him and the Irishman leaned against the bar and grinned at Anne. ‘How about a drink?’

  She shook her head gently, turned and walked to the door. She went out into the corridor and paused at the top of the steps. The taxi had gone and the fog was much thicker now, rolling in across the harbour, swirling round the street-lamps like some living thing.

  She went down the steps and started along the pavement. When she reached the first lamp she paused and looked back. The Irishman and his friend were standing in the doorway. As she turned to move on, they came down the steps and moved after her.

  Neil Mallory lit another cigarette, raised his whisky up to the light, then set it down. ‘This glass is dirty.’

  The barman walked forward, a truculent frown on his face. ‘And what do you expect me to do about it?’

  ‘Get me another one,’ Mallory said calmly.

  It was some indefinable quality in the voice, a look in the dark eyes, that made the barman swallow his angry retort and force a smile. He filled a fresh glass and pushed it across.

  ‘We aim to please.’

  ‘That’s what I thought,’ Mallory said, his eyes following the Irishman and his friend as they went through the door after the woman. He took the whisky down in one easy swallow and went after them.

  He stood at the top of the steps listening, but the fog smothered everything, even sound. A ship moved across the water, its fog-horn muted, alien and strange, touching something deep inside him. He shivered involuntarily. It was at that moment that Anne Grant cried out.

  He went down the steps and stood listening, head slightly forward. The cry sounded again from the left, curiously flat and muffled by the fog, and he started to run.

  He turned the corner on to a wharf at the far end of the street, running silently on rubber-soled feet, and took them by surprise. The two men were holding the struggling woman on the ground in the yellow light of a street-lamp.

  As the Irishman turned in alarm, Mallory lifted a foot into his face. The man staggered back with a cry, rolled over the edge of the wharf and fell ten feet into the soft sludge of the mudbank.

  The bearded man pulled a knife from his pocket and Mallory backed away. The man grinned and rushed him. As the knife came up, Mallory grabbed for the wrist, twisting the arm up and out to one side, taut as a steel bar. The man screamed like a woman and dropped the knife. Mallory struck him a savage blow across the side of the neck with his forearm and he crumpled to the ground.

  Anne Grant leaned against the wall, her face pale in the sickly yellow light, blood streaking one cheek from a deep scratch. She laughed shakily and brushed a tendril of dark hair from her forehead.

  ‘You don’t do things by halves, do you?’

  ‘What’s the point?’ he said.

  Her Jersey suit was soiled and bedraggled, the blouse ripped to the waist. When she moved forward, she limped heavily on her right foot. She stopped to pick up her handbag and the bearded man groaned and rolled on his back.

  She looked down at him for a moment, then turned to Mallory. ‘Are you going to call the police?’

  ‘Do you want me to?’

  ‘Not particularly.’ She started to shake slightly. ‘Suddenly it seems colder.’

  He slipped off his reefer jacket and hung it around her shoulders. ‘What you need is a drink. We’ll go back to the hotel. You can use my room while I get you a taxi.’

  She nodded down at the bearded man. ‘Will he be all right?’

  ‘His kind always are.’

  He took her arm. They walked to the corner and turned into the street. It started to rain, a thin drizzle that beaded the iron railings like silver. There was a dull, aching pain in her ankle and the old houses floated in the fog, unreal and insubstantial, part of the dark dream from which she had yet to awaken, and the pavement seemed to move beneath her feet.

  His arm was instantly around her, strong and reassuring, and she turned and smiled into the strange, pale face, the dark eyes. ‘I’ll be all right. A little dizzy, that’s all.’

  The hotel sign swam out of the fog to meet them and they went through the entrance and mounted the rickety stairs. His room was at the end of the corridor and he opened the door, switched on the light and motioned her inside.

  ‘Make yourself at home. I’ll be back in a couple of minutes.’

  The room had that strange, rather dead, atmosphere typical of cheap hotels the world over. There was a strip of worn carpet on the floor, an iron bed, a cheap wardrobe and locker. The one touch of luxury was the washbasin in the corner by the window and she hobbled across to it.

  Surprisingly, there was plenty of hot water and she washed her face and hands, then examined herself in the mirror that was screwed to the wall above the basin. The scratch on her cheek was only superficial, but her suit was ruined. Otherwise she seemed to have sustained no real damage. She was sitting on the edge of the bed examining her ankle when he returned.

  He placed a half-bottle of brandy and two glasses on top of the bedside locker and dropped to one knee beside her. ‘Any damage?’

  She shook her head. ‘A nasty graze, that’s all.’

  He pulled a battered fibre suitcase from under the bed and took out a heavy fisherman’s sweater which he dropped into her lap. ‘You’d better put that on. You’re wet through.’

  When she had pulled it over her head and rolled up the long sleeves, he rested her right foot on his knee and bandaged the damaged ankle expertly with a folded handkerchief. She watched quietly.

  He was of medium height, with broad s
houlders, and wore the sort of clothes common to sailors. A cheap blue-flannel shirt and heavy working trousers in some dark material, held up by a broad leather belt with a brass buckle. But this was no ordinary man. He had a strange, hard enigmatic face, the face of a man few would care to trifle with. The skin was clear and bloodless; black, crisp hair in a point to the forehead. The eyes were the strangest feature, so dark that all light died in them.

  On the wharf he had been terrible in his anger, competent and deadly, and when he looked up suddenly his dark eyes stared through her like glass. For the first time that night genuine fear moved inside her and then his whole face creased into a smile of quite devastating charm, so great, that he seemed to undergo a complete personality change.

  ‘You look about ten years old in that sweater.’

  She smiled warmly and held out her hand. ‘My name is Anne Grant and I’m very grateful to you.’

  ‘Mallory,’ he said. ‘Neil Mallory.’

  He touched her hand briefly, opened the brandy, poured a generous measure into one of the glasses and passed it to her. ‘I got the barman to phone for a taxi. It might be some time before it gets here.’

  ‘I’d like to know why the driver who brought me didn’t wait,’ she said. ‘I asked him to.’

  ‘They’re not too keen on hanging around the dock area at night. It’s a rough place and taxi-drivers are obvious targets.’ He grinned. ‘That goes double for good-looking young women, by the way.’

  She smiled ruefully. ‘Don’t rub it in. I’d no idea what I was letting myself in for, but I was getting desperate. I’d been waiting in Lulworth for someone for most of the day. When it became obvious that he wasn’t going to show up I decided to come looking for him.’

  ‘Van Sondergard?’ Mallory said. ‘I heard you ask the barman about him.’

  ‘Did you know him?’

  ‘He had a room along the corridor from here. I had a drink with him once when he came in the bar. Nothing more than that. Where did you meet him?’

  ‘I didn’t,’ she said. ‘The whole thing was arranged through the seamen’s pool. I told them I need someone to take a motor-cruiser across to the Channel Islands for me and captain her for a month or so until my sister-in-law and I were capable of looking after her ourselves. I also told them we’d prefer someone who’d done a little skin-diving. They put me in touch with Sondergard.’ She sighed. ‘He seemed rather keen on the idea. I’d love to know what changed his mind.’

  ‘It was very simple really. He was sitting in the bar half drunk, feeling rather sorry for himself, when one of his old captains walked in, due out on the morning tide for Suez and short of a quartermaster. Three drinks was all it took for Sondergard to pack his duffel and go off with him. Sailors have a habit of doing things like that.’

  He swallowed his brandy, took out an old leather cigarette case and offered her one. ‘Are you a sailor, Mr Mallory,’ she asked as he struck a match and held it forward in cupped hands.

  He shrugged. ‘Amongst other things. Why?’

  ‘I wasn’t sure. If I’d been asked I’d have said you were a soldier.’

  ‘What makes you say that?’

  ‘I think you could say I know the breed. My father was one and so was my husband. He was killed in Korea.’

  There didn’t seem anything to say and Mallory lit a cigarette and walked to the window. He peered outside, then turned.

  ‘The motor-cruiser you mentioned, what kind is it?’

  ‘A thirty-footer by Akerboon. Twin screw, steel hull.’

  ‘Only the best?’ He looked suitably impressed. ‘How’s she powered?’

  ‘Penta petrol engine. She’ll do about twenty-two knots at full stretch.’

  ‘Depth-sounder, automatic steering, every latest refinement?’ He grinned. ‘I’d say she must have cost you all of seven thousand pounds.’

  ‘Not me,’ she said. ‘My father-in-law. All I did was obey orders. He told me exactly what he wanted.’

  ‘Sounds like a man who’s used to getting his own way.’

  She smiled. ‘A habit he finds hard to break. He’s a major-general.’

  ‘Grant?’ Mallory frowned. ‘Are you talking about Iron Grant? The Western Desert man?’

  She nodded. ‘That’s right. He’s been living in the Channel Islands since he left the army. I keep house for him.’

  ‘What does the old boy do with himself these days?’

  ‘He’s almost blind now,’ she said, ‘but he’s still amazingly active and he’s made quite a reputation for himself as a war historian. He uses a tape-recorder and his daughter Fiona and I type up his notes for him.’

  ‘You said you wanted Sondergard to have had some experience as a skin-diver? Why was that?’

  ‘It wasn’t essential, but he could have been useful. In the fifteenth century a small fishing village and fortress on Ile de Roc were inundated. The ruins are now about eight fathoms down a few hundred yards off-shore. We’re making a survey. Fiona and I have been doing most of the diving so far.’

  ‘Sounds interesting,’ he said. ‘You shouldn’t find any difficulty in getting another man from the pool to take on a job like that.’

  As he looked out of the window and down into the yellow fog she said quietly, ‘I was wondering whether you might be interested?’

  He turned slowly, a slight frown on his face. ‘You don’t know anything about me.’

  ‘What is there to know? You told me yourself you were a sailor.’

  ‘From necessity,’ he said. ‘Not choice.’

  ‘You couldn’t handle Foxhunter, you mean?’

  ‘Is that her name? Oh, yes, I’ve handled boats like that before. I’ve even done a little skin-diving.’

  ‘Eighty pounds a month and all found,’ she said. ‘Does that tempt you?’

  He grinned reluctantly. ‘It does indeed, Mrs Grant.’

  She held out her hand in a strangely boyish gesture. ‘I’m glad.’

  He held it for a moment, looking into her eyes gravely. Her smile faded, and again she was conscious of that vague irrational fear. Something must have shown on her face. Mallory’s hand tightened on hers and he smiled gently. In that single moment her fear disappeared and an inexplicable tenderness flooded through her. A horn sounded outside in the street and he helped her to her feet.

  ‘Time to go. Where are you staying?’

  ‘An hotel in the town centre.’

  ‘You should cause quite a sensation going through the foyer,’ he told her as he took her arm and helped her across to the door.

  The fog was clearing a little as he handed her into the taxi. She wound down the window and leaned out to him. ‘I’ve several things to attend to tomorrow, so I can’t get down to Lulworth again until the evening. I’ll see you down there.’

  He nodded. ‘You could do with a morning in bed.’

  She smiled wanly in the pale light, but before she could reply the taxi moved away. Mallory stood looking into the fog, listening to the sound of the engine die into the distance, then turned and went up the steps.

  When he entered the bar the barman was still reading his newspaper. ‘Where are they?’ Mallory asked.

  The man lifted the flap and jerked his thumb at the rear door. ‘In there.’

  When Mallory opened the door he found the Irishman sitting at a wooden table beside a coal fire, a basin of hot water in front of him. His clothes were plastered with mud and he was wiping blood from a gash that ran from his ear to the point of his chin. The man with the black beard lay on an old horse-hair sofa, clutching his right arm and moaning softly.

  The Irishman lurched to his feet, his eyes wild. ‘You bastard. What were you trying to do, kill us?’

  ‘I told you to frighten the girl a little, that’s all, but you tried to be clever. Anything you got, you asked for.’ Mallory took several banknotes from his wallet and tossed them on to the table. ‘That should settle the account.’

  ‘Ten quid!’ the Irishman cried. ‘Ten lous
y quid!’ What about Freddy? You’ve broken his arm.’

  ‘No skin off my nose,’ Mallory said calmly. ‘Tell him to try the Health Service.’

  He walked out and the Irishman slumped into his chair again, head swimming. The barman came in and stood looking at him. ‘How do you feel?’

  ‘Bloody awful. Who is that bastard?’

  ‘Mallory?’ The barman shrugged. ‘I know one thing. He’s the coldest fish I’ve ever met and I’ve known a few.’ He looked down at the bearded man and shook his head. ‘Freddy doesn’t look too good. Maybe I should phone for an ambulance?’

  ‘You can do what the hell you like,’ the Irishman said violently.

  The barman moved to the door, shaking his head. ‘You know what they say. When you sup with the devil you need a long spoon. I reckon you and Freddy got a little too close.’

  He sighed heavily and disappeared into the bar.

  3

  London Confidential

  The room was half in shadow, the only light the shaded lamp on the desk. The man who sat sideways in the swivel chair, gazing out through the broad window at the glittering lights of London, was small, the parchment face strangely ageless. It was the face of an extraordinary human being, a man who had known pain and who had succeeded in moving beyond it.

  The green intercom on his desk buzzed once and he swung round in the chair and flicked a switch. ‘Yes?’

  ‘Mr Ashford is here, Sir Charles.’

  ‘Send him in.’

  The door opened soundlessly and Ashford advanced across the thick carpet, a tall, greying man in his forties with the worried face of the professional civil servant who had spent too much of his life close to the seats of power.

  He sat down in the chair opposite, opened his briefcase and produced a file which he placed carefully on the desk. Sir Charles pushed a silver cigarette box across to him.

  ‘What’s the verdict?’

  ‘Oh, the P.M. agrees with you entirely. The whole thing must be investigated. But we don’t want the newspapers getting on to it. You’ll have to be damn’ careful.’