Such an unwelcome distinction became more likely with each silent minute that ticked away on the face of the sunburst clock above the door. Dawn was breaking with a cold, grey light over the roofs of London spread below the high window, and still the telephone had not rung.

  What the hell was Fairborne doing in Majorca?

  Nairn shook his head, telling himself that giving vent to anger would not hasten events beyond his control and would probably speed up his discomfort into sharp pain. He got to his feet and began to pace the deep pile carpet, adding more wear to the circular route around the mahogany desk. It was only a few days since his name had been gold-blocked on the door in succession to that of the dead Ralph Hooker and already the carpet was beginning to show signs of his nervous pacing.

  It calmed him and he halted in front of the window and pulled up the Venetian blinds. The air on the other side of the double-glazed panes looked cold. Dawn is a bad time to face trouble: especially a dawn at the end of a night without sleep.

  He tried to think what Hooker would have done in such a situation and was faced with two alternatives: to wait with calm patience for his orders to be carried out, or to put a contingency plan into operation. His thinking progressed thus far, he went into the private washroom connected with the office and showered, shaved and brushed his teeth. When he was finished, his eyes still seemed to be filled with grit and the aching and churning had not abated. There was no real alternative, of course, for he was not Hooker and in inheriting the dead man’s position he had not been granted Hooker’s ability to remain calm in the face of the unexpected.

  He sat down behind the desk again, spun the combination lock on a drawer and took out a telephone number indicator pad. At such an hour there was no delay at the international exchange on calls to Majorca and there was an instant connection with Kiki Anson’s tiny apartment in the Calle del Sindicato. The operator allowed the number to ring more than a dozen times before persuading Nairn to accept that there would be no answer.

  This left Nairn with another decision to make: whether to place a call to Alonso Palomo, who was top man behind Drake Espana S.A. in Madrid, or to Riachi in the Lebanon. Since he could not be certain that something had gone radically wrong, he elected to make the Lebanon call.

  Night switches automatically re-routed the call from the private line in Riachi’s office to bleep the instruments in his three homes. The first voice Nairn heard when the connection was made belonged to Salem Assam.

  ‘Nairn, London,’ he said quickly, relieved to have made contact with another company man. ‘It’s urgent I talk to Mr Riachi.’

  Riachi came awake with a groan as the instrument on the bedside table bleeped him out of a heavy sleep. The two young girls on either side of him were undisturbed, exhausted by their performance for him and their performance on him. The pressure of their warm nakedness against him offered fresh arousal, but he rejected the urge as he leaned across Bianca and hooked the receiver from the cradle.

  ‘Yeah?’ he said through a yawn, as he pressed a wall switch and the drape curtains swished back across a large window. Beyond, was a breathtaking panoramic view of the snow-covered mountains, sparkling in cold morning sunlight.

  ‘London,’ Assam said brightly. ‘Urgent.’

  Sunlight had shredded the greater part of Riachi’s drowsiness, and now the code word ripped away the final traces of sleep and he pressed the scrambler button.

  ‘Mr Riachi?’ Nairn asked.

  ‘Nairn?’ Riachi wriggled up into a sitting position. ‘What’s wrong?’

  ‘Perhaps nothing. It’s just that I’ve lost contact with Fairborne.’

  Riachi used a word which had appeared in many languages on the Scrabble board last night.

  ‘I’m sorry, I didn’t catch that,’ Nairn said.

  The Lebanese extricated his obese, hirsute body from between the sleeping girls and slid from the bed. ‘It doesn’t matter,’ Riachi muttered, and cursed again, this time under his breath. Nobody on the international board of the company approved of Nairn’s appointment; but Hooker had been such an institution in the British arm that his deputy remained something of an enigma. Hooker had always handled the international connections personally, and not until Hooker was taken out and Nairn had to step unexpectedly into the breech were his many failings brought to the fore. So jealously had Hooker protected his own power that there had been no opportunity for Nairn to show his strengths and weaknesses until he was thrust into the top spot, when the company discovered its British arm was controlled by a man capable of following orders to the letter but diffident and lacking in confidence when it came to giving them.

  But the British company had to have a chief executive and Nairn must stay in the post until a more suitable man could be groomed. And because of this state of affairs, existing at a time when it was imperative to restore the European narcotics operation to full capacity, Riachi had been given far more influence in the deal than would normally have been granted. Ordinarily he would have been no more than an observer of the British-Red Chinese operation, involved only because the diamonds and heroin swap was to take place in his territory. But because of Nairn’s ineffectual leadership, Riachi found himself allotted the role of a kind of benign puppeteer, and Riachi did not possess a naturally benign character.

  ‘Give me the details,’ he said, taking great care to moderate his tone as he swung the base of the telephone in his free hand while ambling across to the big window.

  ‘You’ve heard about Calbiac?’ Nairn asked.

  Riachi’s naked body stiffened and the frown on his fat face deepened and became fixed. Assam had interrupted a particularly delightful experience with the girls to inform him of the havoc Stark had wrought in France.

  ‘Are you telling me Stark knows about this operation?’ he demanded, fear making his tone harsh.

  ‘I don’t know,’ Nairn replied thickly, and spoke rapidly as he gave the Lebanese a report of everything that had happened. He didn’t have to detail the possible implications of the events, for Riachi’s mind was racing ahead of Nairn’s words.

  ‘What do you think?’ the man in London asked anxiously, to fill a pause that stretched along the international connection when he had finished his report.

  Riachi was staring through the window, watching a lone, early-morning skier skimming down the slope on the far side of the valley. ‘I think you should have let me know sooner,’ he replied at length. ‘But what is done is done. You will stay in your office and await my call. I don’t know when that will be.’

  ‘Yes. Yes, certainly, Mr Riachi.’ The Lebanese detected the tone of relief in the man’s voice. Nairn had unburdened himself of the responsibility for instituting action and now it was only necessary for him to do what he did best: comply with an order. As Riachi rattled the cradle bar and released the scrambler button, his small mouth was fixed in a tight smile: Nairn would probably remain at his desk for a week, perhaps a month, if that was how long it took to return the call.

  ‘Yes?’ Assam asked.

  ‘Where’s East One?’

  ‘Karachi, Mr Riachi. There’s a delay. A malfunction in one of the engines. I’m expecting to be told the duration at any moment.’

  ‘A delay is good,’ Riachi said, and Assam didn’t question why. His job was communications, which he did well, and he did not concern himself with any other aspect of company business. ‘Get me Palomo in Madrid.’

  While he waited for the call Riachi continued to watch the far slope of the valley as more skiers appeared on their first runs of the day, but his mind was not on the view. Instead, he thought about the man named Stark and tried to consider him objectively. But it was not possible. No man in the company could do that, for each and every one of them was a potential target for the Englishman’s driving need for revenge; and such was the reputation he had acquired that even hard-bitten realists like Riachi (and Fairborne) could not completely suppress the fear that they might be next in line to die at the revenger’s hand. First Britain, then France. Where next would he strike?

  ‘Palomo,’ a voice rasped sleepily in Riachi’s ear.

  ‘Urgent,’ the Lebanese said and scrambled the conversation. Then he gave the Spaniard the bare outline of what Nairn had reported and received in return the telephone number of the company’s chief field operative based in the Balearics.

  José Blanco was feeling particularly pleased with himself as he answered the telephone in his Terreno apartment, for last night he had successfully completed arrangements which extended company protection coverage far beyond its previously restricted area of Palma and the satellite resorts. Now, every developed strip of coast from San Telmo in the southwest to Puerto Pollensa at the foot of Cabo Formentor was company territory. Bars, hotels, car-rental agencies—even the hawkers with beach concessions—would soon have to pay a percentage of their profits into the coffers of the Spanish arm of the company. Either that or suffer at the hands of company enforcers drafted in from Barcelona.

  The possibility that Stark was on the island deflated Blanco’s high spirits like a stiletto piercing a balloon. His hand was shaking so much that he nicked his chin twice while he shaved. Looking at his shallow handsomeness in the mirror of the bathroom cabinet, he looked for some sign of courage in his eyes, his jawline or the set of his mouth. He saw only fear, and he spent a great deal of time in shaving; actively putting off the moment when he would have to check out whether or not Stark was in Majorca. That Stark, he was almost like a ghost. Wanted by the police and the company, he managed to travel thousands of miles undetected, and with the apparent ease of a woman getting on a bus to do the shopping. But the bargains he sought were not to be found on the shelves of a supermarket. For him, it was human life that was cheap. And the brand was company.

  Just like Nairn before him, Blanco spent a long time listening to the unanswered ring of the telephone in Kiki Anson’s apartment before acknowledging that nobody was about to lift the receiver, so that the unwanted inevitable happened and he drove his car from the parking garage and set out for Morton Eldridge’s villa.

  When Stark recovered from the nauseating shock of seeing Amanda’s severed head he found his mind to be clear and cool-thinking. His expression was impassive and his movements dispassionate as he lifted her body and carried it, with the head, into the villa, taking care not to get her blood on his suit. The villa had three bedrooms, all downstairs at the front, with doors and windows opening directly on to the beach. He opened the window and shutters in the master suite to let in the light, then arranged the body with the head in position on the bed. He covered Amanda’s remains completely with the red counterpane and left the window open so that the fresh sea breeze would combat the miasma of putrefying flesh.

  Then he went out and closed the door, returning to the upper storey. He became aware of the gushing water from the ruptured pipe in the kitchen and located the stop-cock in a cupboard under the sink. His Colt was empty and he picked up the Ruby automatic. A check of the clip showed that only two bullets had been fired. His actions throughout were efficient, but not hasty. If the sounds of the shots had been heard in the village above the noise of wind and sea, the police would have been at the villa by now. He put both guns into his waistband, one on each hip, and stood at the side of the table upon which Clyde Fairborne was spread. The bullet wounds had been washed clean by the spray of escaping water. The film of blood was already beginning to dry.

  The contents of his pockets were sopping wet. The carbon of an Iberian airline ticket from Madrid to Palma. A handkerchief. Some loose pesetas. A comb. A United States passport which told of a short stay in Britain and of an arrival in Spain only two days previously. A wallet containing an American Express credit card, seven thousand five hundred pesetas in bank notes and an international driver’s licence. Inside the licence was a scrap of paper scrawled with the message: Kiki, 1030 Calle del Sindicato.

  Stark kept all the money and the paper with the name and address, leaving the other stuff on the floor where he had dropped it, then he went down the hallway into the living room and found the body of Morton Eldridge slumped in the chair by the window. He checked for wounds and found none. So, as far as he could see the girl had been telling the truth when she said Eldridge had died of an heart attack.

  He felt no pity for the American fag as he looked for and found a well-stocked liquor cabinet. There was no Scotch, but an unopened fifth of Bourbon. He drank a large jolt straight from the bottle. The fire it set alight in his belly suggested to him that he should be feeling rage, but he didn’t, and he had no intention of forcing it upon himself. Amanda had died from a bullet and he had shot the man who fired it. The revenger had dealt out his punishment in the standard manner and so anger was pointless now. As was self-recrimination. She had known the risk she was running when she agreed to join Stark. And Eldridge? Was Stark to blame for contributing to his death? Who knew? Eldridge had not agreed to help with the escape out of the goodness of his weak heart. There had been a price tag and, as in any deal, a man had to take a chance on whether or not he was being played for a sucker.

  No, Stark told himself, now that the grief was done with, there were no other emotions to contend with. Death stayed as close to him as his shadow at midday and once this fate was accepted, a man had either to give way to a mental crack-up, or survive by complete detachment. Out in front of the villa, in the path of the racing car, he had come close to not surviving, and he was determined never to allow that to happen again. Emotional involvement in the future was forbidden because a man who had death as a constant companion could not afford the distraction of having to protect anybody but himself.

  Stark took a second swig at the whiskey, then replaced the cap and closed up the liquor cabinet. When he crossed the threshold of the villa he became aware of how much time he had spent in taking care of Amanda’s remains, checking the dead gunman and submitting himself to self-analysis. For the sky was streaky with the greyness of a new day: the wind of the night had dropped and the trees were still. There was an expectant hush as nature prepared to welcome the sunrise. Spots of Amanda’s blood, dried brown in the sand, plotted the course to where she had died. Footprints marked the remaining yards to where the little SEAT was parked.

  Stark reached the car and was about to pull open the door on the driver’s side when an engine in low gear sounded further up the track, beyond the stand of pine trees. He crouched down behind the car as the other vehicle approached. It was a red Austin Mini Clubman.

  Abruptly the engine was cut out and José Blanco started to coast down the remainder of the slope towards the gateway in the boundary wall. He saw the SEAT and knew from the licence plate that it was Kiki Anson’s car, and this did not reassure him. When he saw the signs of violence at the front of the villa—the smashed window, the lop-sided doors of the garage, the food mixer lying on its side in the sand, and the ominous looking stains—Blanco found himself in a throat-constricting grip of naked fear. He stomped hard on the brake pedal and stared wide-eyed at the scene as his hands tightened around the wheel rim.

  ‘It was a rough night,’ said Stark, straightening up and levelling the Ruby.

  Blanco had stopped the Mini slightly ahead of the SEAT and as Stark rose and pointed the gun across the front of the Spanish car he had a clear shot into the rolled-down window through which the terrified driver looked at him.

  ‘No hablo ingles!’ Blanco blurted out around his bobbing Adam’s apple.

  ‘Pity,’ Stark said easily. ‘Means you’re no good to me. Might as well shoot you.’

  ‘No!’ Blanco screamed. ‘I speak. Not very well.’

  ‘Some language teacher this,’ Stark said, patting the automatic’s barrel with his free hand. ‘Get out of the car.’

  ‘Si Señor. I do it.’

  Blanco had forgotten to fix the handbrake and the car started forward down the slope as he hurried to comply with Stark’s order. Sweat oozed in enormous beads as he corrected the mistake and half fell from the car, thrusting his arms high above his head. Now, for the first time, he concentrated his attention on Stark’s face rather than the gun, staring very hard, his dark eyes raking the features in minute detail. He visibly trembled as he fitted the company-circulated description to the man pointing a gun at him.

  ‘Stark!’ he said in a low whisper.

  It was his second, far more dangerous mistake, and the flicker of cold anger that showed in Stark’s deep-set blue eyes was a confirmation of the error. Then Stark spelled it out for him.

  ‘I haven’t announced my arrival in the local press yet,’ he said softly. ‘So that means you’re either fuzz or company, feller. You want to show me your warrant card or the guardia equivalent?’

  Perplexity made an inroad into his fear. ‘That I don’t understand, señor,’ he pleaded.

  ‘Forget it,’ Stark told him. ‘You’re no cop. So you’re company.’

  Blanco wanted to deny it, but his gaze was trapped by Stark’s level stare and although he knew the idea was ridiculous, he sensed the unblinking eyes were penetrating into his mind. ‘Small, señor, a—how you say—tiny cog in a big máquina ... machine.’

  ‘It’s the little cogs that supply power to the big wheels,’ Stark countered, and realised from the other’s expression that he had lost the Spaniard again. ‘Have you got a gun?’ he snapped harshly.

  Again Blanco realised the futility of lying. He nodded. ‘In my belt, señor.’

  He looked like any one of a million young Spaniards on his way to work at the start of what promised to be a hot day, dressed in canvas shoes, lightweight white trousers and a richly-patterned shirt open at the neck and hanging loosely outside his waistband.

 

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