The Satan Sampler

by Victor Canning

  Well, that gives you some idea of what’s in store—though I hope that all this is just me being over-cautious and that I can tell you face to face, you wandering bastard, and we can take action together. But even so I’m going to write you a letter to give you the full story just in case anything goes wrong. And who knows in this world what next is going to happen? And for all I know—though I was damned careful—the buggers may have twigged me, and I wouldn’t put it past them to try something. Odd thing is, though—putting aside their methods—I’m a bit in favour of what they’re after. But that’s something else. Well, with God’s good grace, here’s hoping you never have to listen to all this, but that we’ll be sitting together and me telling you all about it. Funny thing, though—using Sarah’s old room and her mirror. She’d have loved it all. Probably volunteered to play a part.’

  After the tape finished Seyton sat for a while, emotion high in him from hearing Punch’s voice, and running with it a bitter sense of irony; irony that small details could play hell with people’s lives. If only Punch had been able to get him early on the telephone then the odds were that Punch would have still been alive, would never have made his usual trip to Hereford . . .

  He played the remaining tapes, but now there was no real surprise in him. In most of them just Sir Manfred Grandison and another person figured. But on some Felbeck was present. Most of the second or third people present were unknown to him entirely, some though were known by name because they were public figures, and two were people whom he had met at the Hall. The theme was always the same. The victim—not always a man—had been prompted to indiscretions in Sarah’s bedroom and these had been recorded on film. It was blackmail affably and sophisticatedly handled. The price to be paid was not to be made in money, but in future services when the need arose. Surprisingly very few of the victims made any resistance. One or two even treated the matter lightly, giving the clear impression that had they been approached directly they would have co-operated willingly. As an object lesson on human nature it left Seyton feeling sick. In all Punch had recorded only five conversations. Of the film sequences there were even fewer—just three. Their quality, as Punch had said, was poor, but without any doubt of the identity of the two people involved or of their sex and activities. It was clear, too, that Punch’s film sequences were not concerned with any initial indiscretion. They were clearly from the manner of the individuals involved a continuation of an already established liaison and he recognized clearly the two women involved. Sitting there he could hear Punch’s voice saying . . . ‘I’m a bit in favour of what they’re after. But that’s something else.’ So it was, but he could understand Punch’s momentary feelings. But more than that he recognized that Punch, going bull-headed after what he wanted, had run an enormous risk. Only good luck had saved him from being discovered at his work. And it was no good his saying he did not have a thing to worry about. They would not have quietly packed their bags and stolen away. There was plenty to worry about and now he had it all in his lap. The thing had to be handled properly and all along the line he had to look after his own safety.

  As a start he locked the tapes and film away in Punch’s safe. Then he got out the Land Rover, put the projector and tape recorder aboard, drove to the river and dropped them into a deep pool. One thing he knew for certain was that he was not now going to take a step without considering the risks which might arise for himself. And that needed thought. And—quite positively—he knew that he needed help and certainly advice.

  He sat for an hour back at the Dower House thinking things over and sorting out a course of action in his mind. Excitement of any kind at the prospect of getting the Hall back was far distant from him at that moment. He could wait for the flags to be put out. In the meantime he had to find the right approach and to look after himself.

  At six o’clock he telephoned Figgins in London and after a few moments business and social chat with her said, “Figgy—I’ve got a little job on hand. And I rather fancy I’d like a chat with Helder about it. But I don’t want to come all the way to London. Do you think you could get in touch with him now and ask him if he could meet me in Cheltenham at three o’clock tomorrow? I’ll be in the Rolls in the main car park across the road from the big store . . . you know . . . Cavendish House.”

  In her most non-committal voice Figgins said, “I’ll try. But he’s difficult to find at times. I’ll ring you back. Will the day after tomorrow do if he can’t make tomorrow?”

  “Yes.”

  “Okay, then.”

  An hour later Figgins rang back to say that Helder would be in Cheltenham on the next day.

  * * * *

  He rang at eight o’clock just as she had finished her supper of baked beans on toast and was about to listen to a symphony concert on the radio. She sensed at once that his mood had changed, but felt that it was to be expected. One could not live on the top of a mountain all the time, or coast blissfully along on the crest of a wave. From any blissful high there had to come some following low . . . and who knew, maybe in his case, a reappraisal of what had happened and, perhaps quite understandably, a wish that it never had; but at least he kept to a comforting verbal standard.

  “Georgina, love . . .”

  “Richard.”

  “What are you doing?”

  Realizing that there was fresh ice to be broken, she told him, talking without change to her semi-intimate manner. He might sleep around occasionally but never with an indifferent promiscuity. Anything he did had to mean something to him, if only while it happened. Gossiping away about her day since she had seen him she had the wry but poignant wish that it could all have been and would go on being on a very different plane from the one from which she had been forced . . . bribed . . . to operate. Few women could really put from them the abiding, primitive hope that promiscuity, rare or frequent, might hold some promise, however remote, of love’s permanence. Talking to him, surprised at the ease with which she could do it as though she had long rehearsed the dialogue, she knew in herself that given an innocent, uncomplicated freedom of will and emotions she would have wanted him for herself always. Just the clean, clear, simple and developing relation common to all lovers who were free to give themselves with honest, mutual desire and turn a passionate, physical relationship into an abiding force to which they both made a true obeisance . . . love and marriage, children and mortgage repayments; all the supposedly hum-drum trappings and bonds of true sharing. To hell with Quint. The oddity turned like a sharp pain in her breast . . . what if she suddenly came clean with him? She had no idea what Birdcage wanted with or from him. But she knew what she wanted. She could tell him the truth and risk his reactions. Love, she speculated with a moment’s cynical sourness, might conquer all difficulties. Might. But there was dear Daddy, and God knows what other complications, equally dear to Quint, which could turn her and his world upside down and lose for them both even this small. . . a ghastly word, an occasional favourite of her father’s, surfaced . . . this small serendipity.

  He was saying, “. . . Nancy—that’s his daughter—you know he wanted you to do some horse studies for him—wants us to go over on Sunday to supper. Would you like to?”

  “Would you like me to?”

  “Of course. I know it was the wine and the music and all that, love. But things have to start somewhere, or somehow. So, yes, I would like you to. Well, you know I’m not really one for delving too deeply into things right off. Things happen, but then I think you have to stand back and see how they shape up. Are you with me?”

  “Oh, yes. There’s really no need to rush into the future. I’m happy that what has happened has happened. Let’s both be sensible and see what old Father Time comes up with.”

  He laughed. “You’d be bloody surprised sometimes.”

  “Nicely, I hope.” But as she spoke she knew that there was no hope. Just gather ye rosebuds while ye may. Old Time, sod him, was already flexing his wings.

  “Good. I’ll pick you up. I shan�
��t see you tomorrow because I’ve got to go to Cheltenham on business.”

  “In that gorgeous great Rolls?”

  “Yes. I’m taking Roger out to lunch and then I’ve got some business to clear up afterwards.”

  “I’d like to meet him some time.” She was now really hating herself for what she knew she had to do. All was grist to the Birdcage mill, and dear Daddy while not exactly picking oakum was having a bad time.

  “I’m sure you will some time.”

  After he had rung off, she called London and Kerslake on late duty answered the telephone. She was brief and Kerslake let it stay that way. When she had finished, he rang Quint at his flat, and Quint who was mellow from a meal of omelet laced with a Grand Marnier sauce, listened while he was given the model, colour and registration of the Rolls and the location of Roger Seyton’s school, and then said, “Have a driver around here for me at half-past nine. It’s a long time since I’ve been to Cheltenham. How was dear Georgy?”

  “Brief—not to say curt.”

  “How understandable. Share a bed and the molecular structures of the human psyche undergo some rearrangement. I think the time might well be coming when we will have to call her off. Women have an emotional logic and fidelity unknown to men, and a surprising capacity—given the right circumstances—of suddenly turning round and without heed for the consequences saying, ‘Well, fuck you, Jack!’ Or, more analytically explicit, she could be tempted to ditch Daddy and protect Seyton. Yes, we must watch dear Georgy less she should show signs of becoming ‘A dancing shape, an image gay—To haunt, to startle, and waylay.’ You agree?”

  “Of course. I would never quarrel with Wordsworth.”

  Quint chuckled and rang off.

  Kerslake, late-night duty ahead of him, put his receiver back and began to leaf through his latest copy of Playboy. Reaching the centre spread he stared at its naked subject with less interest than he would have given to a colour gravure of a red Devon heifer.

  * * * *

  He had a pleasant lunch with Roger, and was finally softly bullied into promising that the boy should have his motor scooter to ride around the estate for the next vacation. For a moment or two during the lunch, too, he was unexpectedly touched with a sharp emotion, the rare now recurrence of a feeling of the loss they had both suffered when Ruth had died; knowing, too, that it probably bore harder now on Roger than himself. A man could find other comfort, to ease the deprivation. But Roger had none, and he was at the age when he needed a home with a woman in it. One nail drove out another, as some Italian had once said to him. Although he felt that could not ever be entirely true for him, he knew it could be for Roger. Just as he fast grew new body tissues, so he could—given the chance—grow new emotional ones. They had all the world before them, all their life—not just half a life to reshape and re-order. Thinking this, unbidden came the images of Nancy and Georgina into his mind. God knew it was not a matter of making a choice in any immediate future . . . Time would work it out. Or would it? In the end the choice would—and there was no arrogance in his conception of a freedom of choice—come and come with an insistence not to be denied; and might, too, concern neither of them.

  He drove Roger back to school, masking all signs of his own mood, and then went to the main car park. Helder arrived five minutes late. As before he was wearing heavy tweeds, black brogues and an immaculate white shirt, but—maybe as a note of respect to Cheltenham—had abandoned his black tie for what looked like a regimental one, though exactly which regiment Seyton failed to recognize. He apologized for being late—he had been held for a while at the main check point by the queue of shoppers’ cars coming in after lunch.

  Their brief greetings done, Seyton said, “Helder, I want your help.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “I can’t go into details. You’ll understand that?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “You have, I imagine, had or still have some connections with the police?”

  “Yes, sir.” Helder stared straight ahead, watching a woman back her car out to leave, scratching the bodywork of the adjacent vehicle and then driving straight off.

  “And, I fancy I’ve heard, with organizations which . . . well, let’s say, operate for obvious reasons above and independently of the police.”

  “Would you mean in matters of State security at home and abroad?”

  “Yes, I think I would.”

  “Well, sir, it depends what you mean by connections. There was a time when I have taken pay from such, but never been on a permanent payroll. I like to work on my own account—and in less exalted spheres. But sometimes one favour deserves another. Yes, I think we could fairly say that. But then again, sir—the field is very wide. If I give you a few options perhaps you might feel free to indicate which one would seem appropriate to the matter which is concerning you. But I should point out for ordinary mortals the standard procedure is to go to the police.”

  “Bugger the police.”

  “A view widely—but far from fairly—held, sir.”

  “All right then. Now give me your options.”

  For a moment or two Helder was silent, his face turned slightly away from Seyton, his regard on a large black labrador sitting in the seat of a sports car and assiduously licking at the tax disc on the windscreen. Then, clearing his throat politely, he said, “Well, sir . . . there are the Armed Forces, and then those concerned with foreign affairs, a few others of a far too esoteric nature, I imagine, to meet your requirements, and then the most important possibly, that which is concerned with the internal security of this country itself at home but which ranks—or can when it needs—higher than any of the others. Which would you fancy to meet your needs?”

  “The last.”

  “You are sure?”

  “Yes. The police are no good to me, nor any of the others. What I want is to have a quiet talk to someone who will see at once that I am not fooling around—and then will do something about it with discretion. And I don’t want to talk to some underling the equivalent of a police station sergeant. I want to go right to the top or as damned near it as can.”

  To Seyton’s surprise Helder sighed and said, “You’ve thought about this carefully, sir?”

  “Of course I damned well have or I wouldn’t be here. You get me what I want if you can—and you can name your fee. This is urgent and important.”

  “I’ve no doubt about that, sir. May I ask on what sort of common ground—if I can arrange it—that you would like to meet?”

  “Anywhere, so long as it is well away from Seyton Hall and my part of the world.”

  “I will do my best for you, sir.”

  “You’ll do better than that.” Seyton grinned. “I know you, Helder. And as soon as you’ve got it fixed up, phone me and give me the details . . . where I can meet whoever it is. But I don’t want any understrapper. Just give me a ring.”

  “Oh, no, sir. That would never do if matters are the way you’ve given me to understand. I’ll do it through Miss Figgins. As soon as I’ve fixed it she’ll phone you and give you a time and day to meet me in London outside Burlington House and then I will take you to your man. Will that be all, sir?”

  “Yes, Helder, and thank you very much.”

  “No, thank you, sir. It’s a long time since I’ve had a nice drive out into the country.”

  Helder got out of the car and began to walk to his own. As he came to the car whose paintwork had been scored by the incompetent woman driver the owner was standing frowning at the damage.

  Helder said, “The good lady who did it was driving a white Rover 3500. Registration number—BOU 351K. BOU 351K.” He walked on to his own car, and sat in it until he had seen the Rolls Royce depart when he switched on his radio and drove off himself. Five minutes later Quint in his chauffeur-driven car followed.

  Some hours later Quint was with Warboys in his room enjoying a glass of Tio Pépé with his superior. Sitting sideways in his desk chair Warboys was gently flexing an ivory paper-k
nife in his hands and studying an arrangement of cherry blossom that stood in a large alabaster vase on the desk. The blossom was good this year. A cherry year, a merry year. But there was no merriness on Quint’s mandarin face. Quint’s face, he thought, in repose showed signs of strain. He must repose his own some time and take a good look in his mirror.

  He said, “Do you think we ought to bring Helder in?”

  “On what count?”

  “Do we have to have one?”

  “With Helder you do. Unless you held him in chains it would get back to Seyton. After all Seyton runs a big business show. He’s used Helder a lot for that. This could be the same thing. What more natural if he goes over to take his boy to lunch than that he should meet Helder half-way for some business reason?”

  “You think that?”

  “No. But for comfort I would like to make myself able to.”

  “Something worries you?”

  “And you, I think.”

  “Possibly. But then there is always something to worry one here. If you wish to be frank I am discretion itself.”

  “There’s nothing. Only a feeling. No knowledge.”

  “ ‘Knowledge is the wing wherewith we fly to heaven.’ ”

  “It might be hell.”

  “We approach a little closer. But close enough I think, dear Quint.”

  “I agree. But there are times I think when this sort of work turns one psychic. And it’s not a feeling I like.”

  “Nor me. Still, we must let nature take its course. When the wind blows the blossom will fall from the tree. Shall I just say—let us wait to see if there comes a wind in good time?”