Shah-Mak

by Alan Williams

  Alone, Packer felt a dull sense of inertia — of isolation, even anti-climax. He knew he could not return to London. The Ruler maintained a large Embassy in London and his relations with the Foreign Office were cordial — ingratiatingly so, on the British side, since Her Britannic Majesty’s Exchequer was already in hock for over £1000 million to the Ruler, with another £500 million rumoured to be on the negotiating table. Besides, London meant an empty flat and a telephone that wouldn’t ring, and nothing to do but work on his model windmills as occupational therapy.

  The pain of losing Sarah had returned as the train pulled out of the station, bound for Lyon. Customs and Immigration were perfunctory; but again — perhaps now as much to keep his mind occupied as to protect himself — he kept a close but discreet watch on his fellow passengers.

  There were no stops before Lyon. Here he caught the Rapide to Marseilles, arriving an hour and twenty minutes later. He checked the timetable, went out to the nearest tabac and bought writing paper and envelopes; then sat in a café, ordered a citron pressé and a large black coffee, and wrote, under the date, but with no headed address:

  Dear Uncle Charles,

  You will by now no doubt have heard the unfortunate news, and I can only say that I regret it as much as you. Clearly we must meet, as soon as possible, to decide what to do next, as well as settle our outstanding financial arrangements. My address, until further notice, will be the Poste Restante in Béziers.

  With my best sentiments, Your trusting nephew,

  O.W.

  He sealed the envelope and addressed it to: Monsieur Cassis, c/o Volkskantonaler Bank, Aalau, Suisse.

  He mailed it from the Post Office in the station. With forty minutes to wait for his train to Béziers, he occupied himself irritably leafing through the midday editions of the local papers. They had all taken up the rumour of an assassination attempt on the Ruler — two of them with, banner headlines — but the impact of the stories was dulled by cautious speculation. None of the papers carried any substance for the rumour.

  Meanwhile, the Ruler and Pierre-Baptiste Chamaz seemed to have one thing in common. They were both alive. Chamaz had also identified Packer and Ryderbeit, and probably Sarah; and the Ruler had laid the bait — several baits — to see which way they would jump. He had been able to scare Pol enough to make him disappear; while Packer and Ryderbeit had been brave enough, or stupid enough, to stay around and carry the operation through. The Ruler had made one clumsy attempt to kill them both last night — but a little failure like that would either needle his pride or whet his appetite, or both. It certainly would not deter him.

  Packer realized that for the first time in his life he was not only utterly alone — he was on the run. And — like Pol — running for his life. For Pol and Ryderbeit, however, this was no doubt a mere professional chore: they changed identities, loyalties, allegiances, as other men change their socks. Even Sarah, with her cool and ignorant sense of social immunity, had had the nerve to stay put — indeed, to risk attending some swank ‘do’ in St Moritz where there was a good chance that some of the Ruler’s associates might even be guests. But Sarah wouldn’t think of that, of course. Sarah would be purring over that fat cheque Pol had given her, and deciding about what dress to wear.

  Packer began to wonder how much Pol had paid her. He had paid her something, certainly. But for all his exuberance Charles Pol was a hard and careful man. He had paid Packer ten per cent against the rest when the deed was done. Would he have imposed the same conditions on Sarah? She had seemed confident enough in the hotel in Chur two nights ago, when she had spurned his offer of the Porsche — which suggested that any down payment she had received, or been promised, must be in the region of Packer’s. But what for? To press a button and mutter one sentence into a portable radio? Or did that fat, sly, giggling villain have other plans for her? Plans as bold, but far more subtle than the ones at which Packer and Ryderbeit had so mysteriously failed?

  If Sarah was to have got her other ninety per cent when the Ruler was dead, she would not only be feeling somewhat cast down by the news, or rather, lack of it — as well as furious at Packer and Ryderbeit, whom she would automatically blame — but she would also be just as keen as Packer to get in touch with Charles Pol.

  Packer found a bureau de change in the station and exchanged half his Swiss francs for French money — enough to last him comfortably for at least a month — and the other into traveller’s cheques. By the time he had retrieved his luggage, the train was about to leave. The second class was packed to standing room, mostly with noisy blue-chinned men from the Midi, laden with wine and parcels of food.

  This time he chose the single first-class carriage, where he found an empty compartment. As soon as the train started he pulled down the blinds on both sides and tried to sleep. The door slid open and a man in a white suit and two-tone shoes came in, carrying an expensive leather grip-bag. He muttered a greeting, and Packer noticed that he had a lot of gold fillings. He also wore dark glasses, and an obvious toupee, like a little mat on the front of his head.

  He sat down in the corner opposite Packer, and took out a copy of Le Figaro which he opened at the financial pages. Packer observed him with half-closed eyes. He had a long thin face, deeply creased like a sheet of paper that has been folded and unfolded many times. He certainly did not conform to the pattern of the Ruler’s regular retinue, or to their race; besides, for a ‘leg man’ he was far too obvious. Unless, of course, he was operating as a sophisticated ‘lamplighter’ — one of the higher echelon who would risk playing it close as a double bluff. It was possible he had a couple of gorillas riding second-class, chewing garlic and spitting melon pips; with perhaps a radio in an inside pocket, which could be operated from the toilet.

  Outside, under a misty sun, the grey-blue wastes of the Camargue swept past. The man in the toupee was still studying the fluctuations on the Bourse, without removing his dark glasses.

  Packer went into the first-class toilet and began to shave. Despite his tan, his face had a drawn, yellow look and his eyes were dull with puffed red linings.

  Shortly after he returned to his compartment the train began to slow into Arles, where there was a five-minute stop. He decided to give any ‘lamplighters’ the benefit of the doubt. No one joined them in the compartment, Toupee was happy with his financial sums, and Packer slept.

  He slept so heavily that the conductor had to shake him several times. Packer asked how long it was to Nîmes. The conductor told him five minutes. Packer began to pull down his case. Toupee had now turned to the sports page. Chess or canasta looked more like his kind of game; but then you could never tell.

  The train drew up at the platform and Packer slid open the door. Toupee did not even look up.

  He waited on the platform for three minutes, then reboarded the first-class carriage at the other end, and this time found a compartment occupied by two nuns. He slumped down and slept for the next hour and a quarter — through the stop at Montpellier — until he was woken by the rasping voice, like a klaxon, announcing ‘Béziers … Béziers…’

  He took down his case again, bowed to the nuns, and climbed out. Then, on an impulse, he jumped back aboard and ran down the corridor to his old compartment. Toupee’s seat was empty. He turned abruptly, and the tall thin figure in his dark glasses and two-tone shoes was standing in front of him.

  Packer grinned. ‘It is forbidden to use the toilet during stops,’ he said in French, reciting from the universal litany of the SNCF.

  ‘I was merely washing my hands, monsieur,’ he replied, with no trace of annoyance. A very tolerant, civilized man, thought Packer, who merely nodded and returned to where he had left his case on the platform. He picked it up and began to carry it across to the barrier. He looked back once, but the windows of the first-class carriage were empty.

  He walked through and signalled to a taxi in the square outside.

  CHAPTER 25

  Sarah had a hangover. It was very cold on
the terrace of the Palace Hotel and the sunlight hurt her eyes, even behind dark glasses. D’Arcy-James had suggested a light omelette, and Jocelyn Knox-Partington had countered with an offer of eggs and bacon.

  It was Mr Shiva Steiner who solved her problem; and without even consulting her, he had effortlessly summoned a waiter and ordered her a ‘Harvey Wallbanger’, before explaining the ingredients to her as though they were part of a game: one-third vodka, one-third Galliano, and the rest pure orange juice. ‘The best cocktails are like the best lovers,’ he said, patting her fur mitten across the table, ‘severe but gentle, and the results delectable.’

  DJ had stood up to greet a party of boisterous men in skiing gear, and Knox-Partington had stopped a snappily dressed American with whom he was trying to arrange a backgammon game.

  ‘You have not changed your mind, I hope, mademoiselle?’ Shiva Steiner’s voice transmitted the reassurance of a very good doctor. Sarah guessed that his hands, too, would have the cool dry touch of a doctor’s.

  She gave a quick laugh. ‘Why should I? Provided there are no strings.’

  ‘Ah, my dear young lady —’ Steiner’s gaze moved out across the white roofs of St Moritz — ‘one makes a down payment — one takes a small percentage.’

  Sarah winced behind her dark glasses. Her café au lait had grown cold in front of her and was covered with a wrinkled grey skin. ‘That sounds rather mercenary, Mr Steiner.’

  ‘You are a romantic, I think?’

  Sarah shrugged, pulling her silk cashmere poncho closer around her shoulders. ‘I don’t know. You’d better ask one of my friends.’

  ‘Or your lovers, perhaps?’ Shiva Steiner laughed — a pleasant laugh without the least innuendo. But she did not laugh with him, or even smile. Steiner’s manner became more serious. ‘Permit me to ask you, my dear Sarah — I may call you Sarah, may I not? — but you are here toute seule?’

  ‘Toute seule,’ she replied, as the waiter placed a glass of innocuous-looking pale orange juice in front of her.

  ‘Your health, my dear!’

  They touched glasses and drank. Sarah sipped hers, swallowed, sipped again, then took a deep drink. ‘It’s good. It’s very good indeed, Mr Steiner. Just what I needed.’

  ‘You can always trust me, Sarah. I am a man of my word. And please — call me Shiva. It is not a beautiful name, but it is my own and I cherish it. It is Armenian in origin — a memory of my mother. I am, I fear, what you pure-blooded English would call —’ he gave a supplicating gesture, palms upwards — ‘well, you probably have several very rude words for it, but the politest I can think of is “mongrel”.’ He smiled. ‘My pedigree is really the most awful mess. However, I can honestly claim to have a dash of royal blood. I am distantly related, on my father’s side, to His Imperial Highness.’

  She was clasping her glass in both mittens, only half listening as he made some joke about blood not being as thick as oil. ‘Who is Harvey Wallbanger, anyway?’ she asked suddenly. D’Arcy-James, who had come up to their table just as she spoke, answered, ‘Probably some dirty old Yank who likes tossing himself off against walls!’ and laughed uproariously. Sarah did not even look at him. Shiva Steiner smiled with oriental blandness.

  D’Arcy-James pulled up a chair. ‘Is old Shiva giving you the lowdown on the oil business, darling? Well, I warn you, don’t believe a quarter of what he says. If even that much was true, we’d have the whole Western world declaring a state of emergency. I’ve told Shiva —’ he winked knowingly across the table — ‘that the best thing the West can do is team up with the Russians and take over every oilfield in the Middle East.’

  ‘You would find nothing to take over but sand,’ Shiva Steiner replied. ‘There are contingency plans to destroy every well and pipeline within twenty-four hours of such an event.’

  ‘Twenty-four hours, my foot! The wogs take longer to tie their shoelaces — those that wear shoes, that is!’

  There was an awkward silence. The waiter returned with Sarah’s fresh drink. Steiner, with a veneer of discreet insult, neglected to ask D’Arcy-James what he was drinking. They were joined by Jocelyn Knox-Partington. ‘Hello, Sarah! Shiva! Wonderful air for blowing away the night before!’ He turned to D’Arcy-James. ‘Feel like being a hero, DJ? Simon and I are doing the Alpspitz after lunch. You on?’

  D’Arcy-James’s tough baby face looked up at him. ‘You know Roddy Sampson broke both legs on that run last week?’

  ‘Yes, but think of all the girls he can get to sign his plasters!’ He raised his hand. ‘Farewell, gang! I must get that damned wife of mine out of the hairdresser’s.’

  D’Arcy-James took his leave and followed. When he had gone, Steiner said, ‘Has that man been a friend of yours for long?’

  ‘Oh, I’ve known him on and off for years,’ Sarah said. ‘He’s a bit of a fool, I’m afraid.’

  ‘Not a fool. He is merely typical of the society which invades St Moritz for the season. Unfortunately, they do not realize that this is one of the most vulgar places in the world.’

  Sarah smiled. ‘That’s not very flattering to us, is it?’ She glanced round the terrace, where most of the tables were now empty except for a few elderly couples swaddled in blankets, and a solitary man in a raincoat and dark glasses who looked as though he had damaged his face skiing.

  Shiva Steiner was saying, ‘Last night I saw at once, my dear Sarah, that you have rather more grace than the rest of your friends. I find your company most refreshing.’

  ‘Thank you, Shiva. But you know D’Arcy-James too?’

  ‘Yes. Occasionally my work has involved me with him. As you probably know, he is a public relations consultant, and in the oil industry — as in most industries — one is obliged to use such people.’

  Sarah sipped her second Harvey Wallbanger, then tilted her head to one side. ‘You don’t mind me being direct, do you, Shiva?’

  ‘I should be delighted — providing you do not expect me necessarily to give you a direct answer.’

  ‘I’m not going to sleep with you, Shiva.’

  His bland expression did not change; she would have been less disconcerted if it had. ‘My dear young Sarah, I do not wish to sound conceited, but I must inform you that if I want a pretty woman I have only to crook my little finger. It is perhaps a sad reflection on humanity — at least, on the female of the species — but the two greatest aphrodisiacs are wealth and power. When I say wealth, I do not mean the common millionaire with a yacht and a fast car — I mean wealth that can make and break the economies of nations. And I talk of power that is absolute. Power such as that held by Robespierre, of whom it was once said, “He woke in the morning with a whim, and by afternoon it was law”. In the case of a certain individual, that law would have been passed by lunchtime.’

  ‘Are you referring to yourself, Shiva?’ Sarah asked, with uneasy sarcasm.

  ‘My dear, I am not a modest man, but you claim too much for me.’

  Sarah finished her drink. At the table across the way the man in dark glasses was paying for his coffee. She noticed again his bruised cheek and cut lips; then looked back at Shiva Steiner. ‘You are talking about the Ruler, aren’t you? Why?’

  ‘Why?’ Shiva Steiner’s thick brown fingers with their winking jewels built tents on the tablecloth. ‘I must make a confession to you, Sarah. I am a man of very humble origins, but everything I have tried my hand at has been a success. And not only in affairs of business. I also have a talent for weighing the value of people — particularly those of the female sex. I have weighed you, Sarah, and I have calculated that you are at least twenty-four carats’ worth.’

  The man with the damaged face passed their table, but Steiner did not appear to have noticed him. He was now leaning forward with the air of a player who already has the winning move in sight. ‘You must not misunderstand me, Sarah. If you did, it would be a sad loss — not only for both of us, but for each other. Do I make myself clear, or am I talking in riddles?’

  ‘Perfectly
clear,’ Sarah said calmly. ‘You’re pimping for the Ruler.’

  Shiva Steiner gave his light rippling laugh. ‘My dear! I trust that your language has not been infected by that of your social playmates? But I will be generous and interpret your remark as meaning that I intend to introduce you to His Imperial Highness. This is indeed true. For just as I am a fine judge of women, I am also a good judge of the Ruler himself. Like all very powerful men, he is obliged to spend much of his time surrounded by inferiors and parasites. He is rarely free from formality and protocol.’ He paused. ‘You understand that I am speaking now in the strictest confidence? The Ruler is a lonely man. It is my opinion that he would exchange a hundred hours with any of the world’s great statesmen for just a few hours with you.’

  ‘Goodness, Mr Steiner, you flatter me!’ she cried teasingly.

  ‘I flatter you, perhaps, but I also speak the truth.’

  ‘So?’

  Shiva Steiner sighed. ‘You doubt my sincerity?’

  ‘Not at all. I’m just waiting for you to come to the point.’

  Steiner spread his hands flat on the table. ‘If I may say so, my dear Sarah, if either of us is evading the point, I suggest it is you. You still have not given me a positive answer to my invitation of last night.’

  ‘I don’t accept invitations from strange men without thinking about it first. I’m still thinking.’

  ‘You have my word, there will be no compromising conditions. In these days of what is called “Women’s Lib” a woman is surely her own mistress?’

  ‘Not in the Ruler’s country, from what I hear. Don’t they still stone women for adultery and flog them for fornication?’