“So you hid your secret society in a secret society,” said McHarg half admiringly. “Clever.”
He’d finished his drink. Now he poured himself another. “And what are you after? Political power or just profit?”
“‘The two often go hand in hand,” she said. “Me. I just provide the information, or the muscle, and vet the schemes. I’ve no desire to get us involved in anything that would bring us into disrepute.”
“Like arming an inefficient terrorist group,” mocked McHarg.
“Oh no, Mr McHarg, you misunderstand,” she said with a smile. “It’s failing to make a good return that brings you into disrepute in the world of business. We would supply a gang of paraplegics with blowpipes to attempt a coup against the Kremlin so long as we had our money upfront. But that end of the business has become too involved. You can get your fingers burned, especially if you overestimate your own cleverness like our Mr Partington. No, generally we stick to recruiting men of influence, actual or potential, willing or unwilling. We thought we were on to a winner with Senator Connolly. Alas, it turned out otherwise. We’ll have to find ourselves another boy. It shouldn’t be difficult. Your fellow men are often a sad, disgusting lot, Mr McHarg. Men like you are pretty rare.”
McHarg laughed. It was more like a real laugh this time. “You mean, men who are going to kill you, Mrs le Queux?”
“Oh no,” she said, laughing too. “Every man who comes into a whore’s bedroom is potentially one of those. I mean men who are reliable, inexorable. Men like Commander Grossmith, our late lamented Tyler. I take it he is late lamented?”
“Late,” said McHarg shortly. So they hadn’t found him yet? Property must be moving more slowly than of yore on the London market.
“He’ll be hard to replace,” mused le Queux. “Very hard.” She fluttered her eyelashes significantly towards McHarg, whose face registered disbelief.
“You must be crazy!” he exploded.
“Why? You’ve just heard me expound our technique,” she said, growing in confidence every minute. “First, get a hold on them to make them listen. Then show them where their advantage lies. OK, in most cases it’s spurious, self-deceiving. But not with you, McHarg. What’s the point of seeking revenge? Revenge for what? An accident, you know it was an accident. I genuinely regret it, what more can I say? But the harm we have done you, deliberately and with malice aforethought, what does that amount to? You’ve survived! You’re probably better mentally and physically than you’ve been for years.”
“Thanks,” said McHarg sarcastically. “Except that I’m out of work and on the run.”
“That’s nothing. Listen, McHarg. We can make you a hero, get you back in at the Yard. We need a top man there again. There’s a lot of small-timers like Elkin, but he’d stick out like a sore thumb if he got much higher. We wouldn’t try to hide what’s happened to you recently, no, we’d use it! Like me; too many people knew I’d been on the game for me to dare to risk simply changing my identity when I wanted to go respectable, so instead I flaunted it and became a publicly reformed harlot under the auspices of New Vision! We’ll devise a scenario for you which would fit everything that’s happened and is on the record into an acceptable pattern. You’d have influence, authority, status in a world you could help shape to your liking.”
“All that?” said McHarg softly. “And how many people would you want me to kill a week?”
Rose le Queux made an exasperated gesture.
“We don’t like killing people. It’s a last resort. We try everything else first. Besides, I know you, McHarg. There’s no way I could make you kill anyone you didn’t want to. Though once you make up your mind, by Christ, you’ve shown a pretty talent in that direction!”
Now there was another silence, longer this time, interrupted only by the chink of crystal on crystal as McHarg filled his glass again.
Jopley, a silent auditor still, viewed the protagonists in this enthralling bout with mingled admiration and sadness. His admiration was for the Preceptor who was slowly, inexorably, gaining the ascendancy. His sadness was for McHarg, this powerful, desperate, violent man who at the end by being false to his own principles of instant, straightforward action was minute by minute being staked out with threads and needles like Gulliver in Lilliput. He saw in process now what he had guessed at intuitively before, the Preceptor’s technique of holding before each new recruit a glass in which the terror, crime and raw capitalism of the organization was distorted into shapes to fit the individual’s fractured vision of life. But there was in his mind no thought or will to resist. When champions meet, mere mortals hold their breath and tremble at the thunder.
“And Betty Woodstock?” said McHarg nodding at the TV screen.
“No harm. Hopefully a full cure,” said le Queux expansively. “Back to her career. She’s a very bright kid. Just the kind of woman a top cop needs at his side.”
Suddenly Jopley could read her thoughts like subtitles on a screen. She was thinking that given another year, if Betty Woodstock showed any signs of still wanting to tell all, le Queux reckoned she could get McHarg himself to put her out of the way! She was high on her own power, he could see that. And, more horrifyingly, he could not be altogether sure she wasn’t right.
“I’d need to think,” said McHarg.
For the first time the gun was lowered, the muzzle pointing at the carpet.
Rose le Queux felt such an upwelling of delighted self-congratulation that she could have wrapped her long shapely arms about herself and hugged her own body in glee. She realized with surprise that for the first time in many years she felt like having a man. She regarded McHarg speculatively. That would be the finishing touch, their physical orgasms matching her orgasm of ego-power. But first, be sure. She was not going to take any more risks.
“McHarg,” she said, the huskiness of her voice no longer assumed, “think as long as you like. But we’re down to details now, aren’t we? No need for guns between us.”
It was McHarg’s last chance, thought Jopley.
He was looking straight at Rose le Queux, their unblinking gazes twisting round each other like strands of a single rope.
“No,” he said at last, tossing the revolver on to a chair. “No need for guns.”
And now she rose and took a step towards him, exerting the full force of her sexuality. It had been a long time since she had been called upon to do this professionally, but all the old power was still there. And this time it was for herself.
“You look tired,” she said. “There’s a bed next door. A long lie-down might help your thoughts along.”
“Yes,” said McHarg putting his glass down and running his fingers through his hair. “It might.”
He moved towards her. Eagerly she went to meet him.
Well, so much for the Great White Hope, thought Jopley. It was game, set, and match to the Great White Mother.
They met and embraced. Rose le Queux yielded willingly and eagerly to the passionate strength of his arms around her, pulling their bodies close together as though he purposed to take her here, now, his force ripping through their very clothes.
And then the pressure of his arms increased and pain struggled through to the surface of her passion, and she opened her eyes and saw his face.
She opened her mouth to shriek but he brought one hand from behind her back and pressed it over her mouth. She reached out a desperate arm towards the alarm button by the VTR machine but she was yards short.
He said softly in her ear, “I thought you’d never move, Rosie. And no motorway tart’s worth dying for.”
Her eyes bulged like a great Boston cod’s as she took his meaning.
To Jopley all this looked like the mere physical abandon of an obscenely erotic embrace. And even when McHarg lifted the woman off her feet, he thought it was just a simple continuation of the same.
Then McHarg took one, two, three, four steps to the open window and as a man might carelessly toss away an empty cigarette packet, he thre
w the woman over the rail of the penthouse balcony.
He didn’t stay to watch her descent twenty-four storys to the car park below but turned instantly and went back to the table with the VTR machine. He pressed the rewind button and removed the cassette which he slipped into the capacious pocket of his donkey jacket. Recovering the revolver, he dropped it in the other pocket. Finally he finished his drink.
“McHarg!” choked Jopley in terror.
Slowly the man turned to him, then jabbed out a finger, more menacing than a pistol.
“Tell them what happened,” he said. “Tell them you saw it happen. Tell them the charade’s over. Tell them that’s what the future holds for anyone who troubles me or mine. Tell them that just a scent, a trace, a mere suspicion, and the air will be so full of falling bodies, the birds will complain. Just tell them!”
The words seemed to hang between them as though carved on the very air.
McHarg turned and made for the door.
“McHarg!” cried Jopley once more. “What shall I do?”
McHarg turned and smiled grimly. He held up his black-gloved hands.
“I’d wipe anything you touched,” he said. “Then I’d get out of here before someone comes. Goodbye, Captain Jopley.”
He stepped out of the room and the door closed quietly behind him.
PART SIX
LEAVES FROM A SCRAPBOOK
Washington PostMarch 19
News of the tragic death of Senator Conal Connolly in a hunting accident in Maine has stunned his colleagues on Capitol Hill. Widely regarded as a presidential hope for the not too distant future, Senator Connolly stood for much that is best in the vital young political life of the country. One of the great Boston-Irish families, the Connollys have been dogged by tragedy and this latest sorrow has hit the immediate survivors hard. Old Pat, the nonagenarian patriarch, had a stroke when told of the news and is currently dangerously ill in the Massachusetts General. Professor Christie Connolly of Boston University was not available for comment but was reported to be under medical observation himself, while the Senator’s sister, Deirdre Connolly, is said to have suffered a nervous collapse and to be recuperating in a private clinic…
Boston GlobeMarch 22
A verdict of accident was reached in the coroner’s enquiry into the circumstances surrounding the death of Mrs Rose le Queux, an English visitor who fell from the 24th floor of the Mayflower Hotel. Mrs le Queux was alone in her room when the incident occurred. Lord William Hunsingore, leader of the New Vision evangelical movement under whose auspices Mrs le Queux was visiting the United States, assured the coroner that there was no possibility of suicide. “Mrs le Queux was a very strong-minded, mature and balanced person,” he said. “Her life had a deep-rooted religious base. To her, human life was sacrosanct, whether others’ or her own. She will be deeply missed both personally and as a force for good. God moves in mysterious ways…”
Montreal StarMarch 24
Despite still being visibly affected by the severe cold caught while staying at Chris Emerson’s mountain retreat last weekend, the Prince managed a smile as he climbed aboard his plane at the end of his highly successful tour…
Miami HeraldApril 1
The alarm was raised by a business associate when Mr Partington, one-time member of the British Government’s inner cabinet and more recently acquitted of alleged crimes involving bribery of officials and illicit trading, failed to keep an appointment. A pile of clothes found on the remote stretch of beach where Mr Partington had said he was going bathing was identified as his and it is presumed that he was swept out to sea…
Pet-Pro Monthly BulletinMay 4
Interesting news from head office at Sudbury is the appointment of ex-Chief Inspector Elkin as head of company security. Till recently engaged in the international division at Scotland Yard, it is expected that ex-Chief Inspector Elkin will bring many new insights into the growing problems of security within the firm…
The London GazetteMay 13
Captain Edward Jopley has resigned from his post of equerry to Prince Arthur and returned to active duty with his former regiment currently serving in Belfast.
Sanderton Evening PostJune 2
At the postponed inquest into the deaths of John Parker (21) and Moira Griffiths (18) in a car accident in March, the coroner heard new forensic evidence that the car that struck Mr Parker’s Mini, a Volvo owned by Detective-Inspector D. McHarg of Sanderton CID, had been tampered with. Inspector McHarg, the court was told, had recently been the victim of a vicious attack with a suspected revenge motive…
Daily ExpressDecember 11
Buckingham Palace yesterday refused to comment on rumors of an engagement between Prince Arthur and Miss Deirdre Connolly. An angry reaction is expected from Ulster religious and political leaders who have in the past demanded reassurances about the constitutional issues involved in marriage with a Roman Catholic. Miss Connolly’s grandfather, whose whole-hearted support of the Republican movement would have been a major obstacle to such a marriage, died last month. He had been bedridden since March this year when…
The TimesApril 30
The news of the marriage took even the most informed of observers by surprise but if anything this was surpassed by the impact of the simultaneous revelation of the completeness with which Prince Arthur intends retiring into private life. All Civil List income has been completely renounced and with it all titles and their privileges, even though this may require an Act of Parliament. It is believed that the young couple intend to settle in America…
The ScotsmanMay 2
To Elizabeth and Douglas McHarg of Gulvain Lodge, Inverness, a son, Angus, 7 lbs 3 ozs.
Betty pasted the back of the last cutting and pressed it firmly onto the page of her scrapbook. McHarg had not been pleased when she had insisted on putting the announcement in the paper but she was adamant that things had to be done properly. Like marrying a girl you’d got pregnant. Dr Kitchingman had been furious when he found out and had made it quite clear to McHarg who he blamed. Betty had sat with her best demure look on, remembering her assiduous and inventive campaign to get McHarg inside her as frequently as possible till the desired result was achieved. And McHarg’s thoughts had gone back a quarter of a century to his lost Mavis who had also assured him that all precautions were taken. But nothing of this showed in his expression or speech. All he said was: “It won’t be born in America.”
Surprisingly, far from impeding Betty’s progress in regaining the use of her legs, the pregnancy seemed to aid it. At least it surprised the doctors to start with, but as usual with their kind, they rapidly developed explanations which eventually devolved into foreknowledge.
Privately Kitchingman had expressed his doubts to McHarg whether Betty would ever achieve anything beyond a sixty percent recovery. Casually McHarg passed the opinion on. The reaction was what he had anticipated.
“By the time I’m done, I’ll be able to walk that cocky sod off his feet!” she averred angrily.
Well, that time was still a long way off, but now, freed from the weight of young Angus, she was looking forward to bringing it a bit nearer every day.
She closed the scrapbook and put it away. Then she went to the open window and peered out. It was a fine soft morning and Angus was lying in his pram on the stone flags behind the house, enjoying the good Scots air.
McHarg was out on the estate somewhere, but she expected him back for his mid-morning break. He nearly always returned two or three times a day, no matter how distant his work. It had won him a reputation for uxoriousness among the estate workers, though none dared make even the gentlest of jokes to his face. And even Betty did not know the number of times in a day he would clamber to some vantage point of tree or scaur and scan through his binoculars the long narrow road winding between the loch and the heather-deep braes which was the only approach to the house. If he saw a strange car on it, then no matter what he was doing he would abandon it and head straight home. There was one
this morning, a Ford Granada.
He caught it in his glasses, followed it along the road for a while, then turned abruptly and plunged down the hillside towards his Range-Rover. The two foresters with whom he had been discussing a new plantation moments earlier watched his departure with knowing grins.
Drive as fast as he could, he was unable to get down to the house before the Granada.
He parked the Range-Rover some distance away, deliberately slewing it across the estate road, and stepped out, his shotgun in the crook of his arm. He moved lightly towards the house. He could hear voices, not from the interior, but somewhere round the side. Carefully he approached the angle and peered round.
There were two of them with Betty, a man and a woman. The woman was bending over the pram, lifting Angus out of it.
McHarg stepped forward. They all looked round. “Here he is now!” said Betty.
“McHarg! How are you? And many congratulations!”
It was the Prince; beside him, with Angus cradled lovingly in her arms, Deirdre Connolly. Her hair beneath a headscarf was still cut short, her face would probably never recover that fresh girlish clarity which had been the envy of her sister-in-law. But the pain had gone from her eyes, and from the way she held Angus, she was eager to create a family of her own to replace the one which the previous year had taken away from her.
“I’m fine, sir,” said McHarg. “We weren’t expecting you.”
“Good,” said Arthur with a grin. “If you weren’t, then the press won’t be. With a bit of luck, they’ll still be staking out the estate we were staying on in the Bahamas. One thing I learned in my old job was how to get out of places unobserved!” He grinned engagingly.
“Is Mrs MacTavish expecting you?” worried Betty, who had a healthy respect for the fierce old housekeeper who looked after the Castle which wasn’t really a castle at all but a comfortable small mansion, more French chateau in style than Scottish baronial.
Who Guards a Prince? Page 25