The Whip Hand

by Victor Canning

  I helped her on with her light coat. “I’ll walk down with you and find a taxi,” I said.

  At the door Katerina turned to me.

  “Kiss me here,” she said.

  We kissed and everything went from my mind.

  Then, as she moved gently away from me, she said, “Something worries you still, eh? Surely not this stupid business of Hans. He is mad. Perhaps you are jealous? You think I really love him, perhaps. Oh, Rex, darling, I tell you something, I love you. Yes, I think I do. I will telephone you tomorrow and let you know for sure.”

  She went laughing down the stairs, holding my hand, and we walked together through the warm summer evening as far as the front of the Tate Gallery before I flagged a taxi for her. She blew me a kiss with the tips of her fingers as she got in. I said “Claridge’s” to the cabby. She drove off, waving back through the rear window. Over the river the moon was cutting little sharp-edged black shadows along the ridges of the up-coming tide. On the Vauxhall side I could see the buses going along like moving shop-front windows and I heard Katerina saying, “Something worries you still, eh?”

  And something did. When I had checked Mrs Vadarci at the Dorchester and they said she wasn’t there, although she had been recently, I had called the Savoy, the Mayfair, and Claridge’s, on the off-chance of finding her. None of them had a Mrs Vadarci staying. At this very moment Katerina was probably pulling back the glass slide and giving the cabby another destination.

  I turned to walk back to my flat and, as I did so, a black saloon pulled into the kerb and a hand beckoned to me out of the rear window. It was raincoat.

  I went over. He gave me a tired smile.

  “It’s late,” he said, “but he wants to talk to you.”

  I said, “I don’t do business at this time of night. Besides I’ve left a saucepan of milk on for my bedtime cocoa.”

  “I’ll send a man up to turn it off.”

  “Nice of you. He can do the washing up as well.”

  We drove off towards Westminster and, as we took the roundabout at the foot of Lambeth Bridge, he said, “You’ve got lipstick on your chin.”

  CHAPTER FOUR

  HE SHALL HAVE A NEW MASTER

  I’d been there before once – with Manston. They don’t ask you to call at their office. Sometimes I think they are not quite sure where their offices are. It was a flat in Covent Garden, and I even knew his name, or at least the one that was listed with his telephone number. Raincoat did not come up with me. He stayed outside, yawning in the back of the car, and I was let in by his manservant. I did not know his name, but he was a snob like Wilkins. He had no time for me because he knew at once that I was not “regular” like old raincoat.

  He, Sutcliffe, was lying back in an armchair, a floppy old corduroy dressing-gown wrapped loosely around him, and his feet were up on a small stool. He was a fat little number, a humpty-dumpty man, except that one look at his face and eyes told you he was never going to fall. He lay back smoking a cigar. From his dress trousers and white waistcoat it was not hard to guess that he’d just come back from some intimate dinner in the Whitehall area where they had settled the fate of nations over the port, not wasting too much time on it, so that they could get quickly on to the real business of discussing England’s chances in the next Test series. But that did not mean that I underestimated his kind. For real ruthlessness the true blood line runs through Eton, Balliol and Whitehall on one side, and Wellington, Sandhurst, and the Brigade on the other.

  He gave me a warm smile and waved at the sideboard and I went and fixed myself a drink.

  “Cigar?”

  I shook my head and lit a cigarette. I had a kind of “mute from malice” feeling that I knew would take a little time to go.

  He said, less warmly, “Sit down and don’t fidget, Carver.”

  I said, “I’m allergic to red tape. There must be a piece in this room somewhere.”

  He smiled and said, “Is your passport up to date?”

  I said, “It always is.”

  He said, “Got a current visa for Yugoslavia?”

  I said, “No.”

  He said, “Apply for one tomorrow. Cost you fifteen bob, I think. Or maybe it’s seven-and-sixpence.”

  “If you say so.”

  “I do. But it’s not an order.”

  “When do I get those?”

  “You don’t. You’re a private citizen, running a private business. This is a free country.”

  I looked at him over the rim of my glass. He looked absolutely sincere, and I said, “That’s what we fought the Hundred Years War for, and a few others. But when I apply for the renewal of my licence or what-have-you things could be awkward. The police will develop a habit of picking me up week after week for doing twenty-eight in a thirty-mile limit. It could be hard for an honest man to make a living. I might have to give it all up and get a job.”

  He chuckled. Then he said, “You should have taken Manston’s advice and come in with us.”

  “No thank you.”

  “Then you can’t blame us for using you now and then. A man of your talents. We’ll raise your fee this time.”

  “I’d rather go home.”

  “No,” he said, shaking his head sadly. “You stay.”

  There was no arguing against that. I had tried it on my first visit here and it had not worked. I did not try this time.

  “Just brief me.”

  He stood, and went and helped himself to a glass of water, but in passing he took my glass and helped me to whisky.

  “Hans Stebelson and Katerina Saxmann. We have a quite passionate interest in them.”

  I liked that. I wondered whether he knew that I had a quite passionate interest in one of them. I decided that he did.

  “Where do I come in?”

  “Very soon Hans Stebelson is going to extend his commission to you. I don’t think you know it, but he has picked you for a special assignment. That shows good sense on his part. He couldn’t have found a better man.”

  “Compliment?”

  “No, fact. You’re intelligent and not easily fooled. Also, the less sterling side of your character has been nicely assessed by him. You’ve got an itch for money—”

  “Who hasn’t?”

  “And you can’t resist a pretty face and a pair of well-turned buttocks.”

  “Thank the Lord.”

  “And you’re as stubborn as a mule when you’re crossed.”

  “It’s a great character reference. I’ll have it typed and you can sign it.”

  He rearranged his feet on the stool and stared up at one of the modern paintings. Without looking at me, he said, “You’ll accept his assignment, give him good service, and you’ll keep in touch with us and pass everything back to us.”

  “Two masters?”

  “And two lots of fees, and two lots of expenses. You should do well out of it. Just so long, Carver, as you don’t get any ideas of your own for further financial advancement. Plenty of men have had their arms broken while trying to put too much in their wallets.”

  “Don’t I get anything, not even part of a fairy story to cut my teeth on? At least you could hint that it was in the higher interests of State, maybe World, Security?”

  “I thought you knew that,” he said, smiling. “Anyway, while we are on characters, don’t underestimate Stebelson. And don’t pay too much attention to any mistakes he makes. He knows he’s making them, for your benefit, just to keep you primed with the idea that you’ve got him cold.”

  “And how do I pass this information – if I’m going to be travelling?”

  He stood up, and I knew that the interview was coming to an end. He stretched his arms a little and put two fat fingers to his mouth, delicately laying the ghost of a yawn.

  “There will always be someone around.”

  “And if I doubt their credentials?”

  “Ask for the word.”

  “And what is the word?”

  “You tell me. That way you’l
l be certain that so far it hasn’t been compromised.”

  “All right. Mother Jambo.”

  “Nice. Mother Jambo. It came first in the three o’clock at Brighton today.”

  “That’s right. I’ve a weakness for horses and Brighton. Particularly Brighton.” I was drifting towards the door with him and when we got there, I pulled from my pocket the Italian Beretta which I had, without her knowledge, taken from Katerina’s handbag after dinner, stroking her knee with one hand and lifting the gun with the other. “And this?” I held it up. “How much cover do I get? I’m thinking of the moment when I’m bending over my wallet stuffing too much money into it and someone comes up behind me.”

  “You’ve a right to protect yourself and your property to the limit,” he said. “But not with that.” He took it from me. “We’ll see you get another before you move. We’d like to check this one just to see if we can discover where it came from before she acquired it.”

  Going back in the car, old raincoat was silent until we were going past the Houses of Parliament. Then he said, “Got yourself a job?”

  I said, “Yes.”

  He grunted, and it said clearly that he didn’t have much time for anyone who wasn’t a regular. At heart he was a union man.

  I went up to an empty flat, and a sink full of washing up. I ran the hot water, and wondered why they hadn’t put a regular on Katerina’s tail. Maybe it was their busy season and they were shorthanded. Casual labour, that was me.

  A special messenger delivered it at nine-thirty the next morning. I signed for it and left it still wrapped on my sideboard. Automatic pistol, one, Rex Carver for the use of. I then called Stebelson and made an appointment with him. Going to Brown’s I kept remembering something that Sutcliffe had said to me on the moment of my leaving him. “You serve two masters, but at the ultimate moment you obey our orders.” The ultimate moment. It gave nothing away. I wondered if Stebelson would feed my curiosity a little more, not with the truth necessarily, but at least with something to stop me worrying too much before I went to sleep at night.

  When I got up to his room there was a bottle of champagne waiting on a tray. He opened it while I talked. Before coming there I’d done a little quick telephoning.

  I said, “Katerina came to London. She told me she was staying at Claridge’s – but that was a lie. She’s a great one for making life difficult. Actually she was at the Cumberland Palace – with her new employer.”

  “Employer?” He held his glass still, brown eyes on me, as though he were contemplating some toast. The big hand shook a little and I suddenly realized that he was nervous or, at least, apprehensive.

  “A Mrs Vadarci,” I said, and I watched him. But he gave no sign that the name meant anything to him. I went on, “She’s got a job as a companion to Mrs Vadarci. She’s a wealthy old trout with red hair. They both left for Paris this morning.”

  He took a sip of the champagne and turned a little away from me, and said, “How did she meet this woman?”

  “In the dress shop. She took a fancy to Katerina. So there it is – they’re both out of the country. That lets me out.”

  He picked up the bottle of champagne and came over to me. He refilled my glass and then stood looking at me, pursing his big lips, and I could guess what he was going to say. It had to be because otherwise Sutcliffe would never have sent for me.

  He didn’t disappoint me. He said, “It only lets you out if you object to foreign travel and a substantial fee.”

  I said, “I’ve no objection, so long as I know what is expected of me – and a reasonable idea of what it’s all about.”

  He took his time sorting that one out. I had the feeling that he was walking a thin diplomatic edge, wanting to be sure that he kept me and yet not wanting to reveal too much.

  He said, “I think I can say that you would be expected to follow Katerina. You see I am not the principal in this affair.”

  “You mean your little story about a big brotherly interest in Katerina wasn’t true?”

  “Not entirely.” He was quite blunt about it, almost relieved.

  “And what about the reasonable idea – the truth this time – of what it’s all about?”

  “It would be up to my employer. I think I could persuade him to enlighten you. Enough, anyway, to ease your mind about the legality of the commission.”

  “You went a hell of a way around the houses about this, didn’t you? Or were you just putting me through my paces first, checking my wind and trotting action?”

  He smiled, the big face contorting momentarily, then he picked up a writing-pad and began to scribble on it. “This is the address. Be there at six o’clock tomorrow evening and ask for me.” He tore the sheet away and handed it to me.

  Slipping it into my pocket, I said, “Katerina knows who I am. She lifted a business card from my pocket. She says you want to marry her. To be frank, that you pester her.”

  He shook his head. “It’s not true. I have a great affection for her. Her family, long ago, were very kind to me. Katerina, as you probably know, will say anything that happens to suit her. I shall see you tomorrow?”

  He sounded a little anxious.

  “Yes.”

  As I reached for the door handle, he said, “One word of advice, Mr Carver. Please don’t fall in love with Katerina. Excuse me if I sound impertinent. But, for your own good, it is a temptation which should be sternly resisted.”

  I gave him a reassuring little shrug, but as I went down to the lobby I had a feeling that the advice was already a little tardy. But, like a good boy, I made a mental note – temptation, resist. I gave a debby-looking number in the reception desk one of my great big diamond-drilling smiles just to check that everything was in working order and she looked right through me.

  At the office, Wilkins was out to lunch, but there was a telephone memo on my desk. It read:

  Miss Katerina Saxmann called. 10. 00 hrs.

  Message: Still not certain answer to question.

  If anxious for answer, try Paris, Balzac 35.30.

  Flying this morning.

  At the bottom of the slip Wilkins had pencilled in Balzac 35·30 is George V. For the moment I was not certain what she meant about the answer to a question. Then I remembered that she had promised to let me know if she loved me.

  At that moment the telephone went.

  A voice said, “Mother Jambo.”

  I said, “I’m going to Paris tomorrow to have a chat with somebody who lives at....” I fished in my pocket and brought out the slip. Slowly I read the address. It was repeated to me, and then the telephone clicked off.

  They did it very neatly, in about thirty seconds flat. I had walked down to the corner just after ten to post my three-monthly letter to my sister in Honiton, telling her that I might be away for some time. I was coming back, smoking, relaxed, wondering what bundle of nonsense would be tossed to me in Paris the next day, when it happened.

  Two of them reached out from the side entrance to Mrs Meld’s house and jerked me into the darkness. Some sack-like affair went over my head, the loose end jerked tight around my neck. I was suddenly on my back with the cigarette which had been knocked out of my mouth burning the side of my neck. I roared once and kicked out. I caught someone on the shin as a hand clamped over the sack and my mouth. Then I lay there, held, and a pair of hands went over me, and from the way they did it I knew it was a professional ... just the patter of tiny fingers that missed nothing.

  Thirty seconds flat. I heard them run and I was free to sit up and struggle with the draw-loop of the sack mouth, and that took me a few seconds to release. When I stood up there was a cab turning out of the far end of the street, and a courting couple went by me, holding arms as though they were skating side-by-side. Mr Meld turned into the side entrance and smiled at me with a great gust of closing-time beer fogging the air.

  “Nice night,” he said.

  “Lovely.”

  “Yes, very nice.” He looked up at the purple s
ky and smiled. “Yes, a very nice night for London.” Then, looking at me, he went on, “You do know you’ve got a lighted cigarette burning your collar, don’t you?”

  I brushed it off, refused an offer to come in and have a bit of late supper and watch the television, and went up to my flat, carrying my own shoe-bag in one hand. Because of the bag, I knew before I got there that they would have been through the place. But I would never have known it, except for the shoe-bag in my hand. My sister had made it for me as a Christmas present one year. There were little blue flowers embroidered to form the word SHOES.

  I got myself a drink and sat down and then went slowly through my pockets. They had taken the Paris address and the message memo from Wilkins which I had slipped into the same pocket. I sat there, wondering about it all, wondering if a fifteen per cent increase from Sutcliffe was really enough – in view of the fact that the word which one of the men had used when I had caught him on the shin with my foot had been one of about the only four I knew in that language.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  A PILLOW FROM HONEY CHILD

  Wilkins disapproved of the whole affair. There were times when I wondered why she had bothered to put money into a business which clearly offended her moral and commercial instincts. I could not believe that it was just for the pleasure of being near me. Wilkins’s whole romantic life was bound up with a Suez canal pilot – a Finn – who had stayed on to work under Nasser after the Suez blow-up. She saw him about once a year. Maybe that was as much romance as she wanted.

  She said, “Your trouble is that you keep expecting life to be larger, brighter, more exciting, and more rewarding than any decent person could tolerate.”

  “Tuppence coloured?”

  “More than that. Don’t you know that half the time it isn’t even penny plain? You’re an incurable romantic.”

  “I deny it,” I said.

  She ignored me and went on, “I’ve checked through your suitcase. You didn’t put any spare pants in. You’ll have to get some in Paris.”

  Raincoat was at London Airport, and I was given a discreet VIP treatment. There was no trouble about the automatic. I didn’t care for it much. I would have preferred something like a Webley, say, a police model with a stubby four-inch barrel, a ·32 or a ·38 that would stop an elephant from getting too close. This was a Winfield Arms Corporation job, made under licence in France by “MAB” and with the fancy name – Le Chasseur – stamped on the barrel; a ·22 calibre with a nine-shot magazine, plus one round in the chamber, and an automatic safety device so that when the magazine was removed you couldn’t accidentally kill yourself or somebody else by forgetting the one round left in the chamber. It was not new and I guessed that Sutcliffe’s armourer had just grabbed the nearest of his turned-in stock to issue. I was not a regular so I just got what was handy.