It had gone well, spirits were high. It had been whispered to him that even the old irritant dear Kenneth had been warned off, his palm read for him by the Cabinet Secretary, no less… and at the Club, too. That news had especially delighted him. Aubrey, like some ancient Lear-figure, had been shown a kingdom of friends, influence and self-satisfaction in danger of forfeiture. He had been humbled — and yet Marian stood at the foot of the bed like one of Scrooge's ghosts, damn her, so palpable was the sense of what was to happen to her. Campbell had tried to thwart his intent, keeping her safely in public places. It had been wise to alter the strategy and include his demise. He glanced at his watch. Soon, very soon now The value of Winterborne Holdings had risen seven per cent in three days, and the conglomerate's worth was still climbing. And yet it was not that which ran through him like a sexual charge, it was what was imminent for Marian. The gold-strapped watch had been a crystal ball, showing the future, the point in time that was he looked again less than five minutes away. The smile she still smiled in his head would soon disappear for ever. Miss Priss the Puritan he had angrily called her when they had been children one summer afternoon of bickering and rain-clouds.
"Why is it so difficult!" he breathed aloud, startling himself and looking quickly round as if he feared discovery.
Campbell had to be got rid of. He would be just another accident victim to be added to the list of names that had appeared in the press when the two Vance 494s went down. Yet something in him kept reciting, like a prayer without content, but this is Marian… Roussillon had telephoned only minutes before. She and Campbell were in the car, heading towards the port and the Laeken park. Campbell, so the Frenchman seemed certain, was in poor shape. Winterborne looked at his watch again.
In two minutes, give or take, a truck would plough into Campbell's BMW while a van sandwiched it, providing the anvil against which the hammer would strike.
There would be few witnesses Campbell's delay had been both futile and helpful — but two people in a car would pull over and dash to assist… and ensure there were no survivors in the BMW.
Simplicity itself, the soul of efficiency.
He felt the dampness along his hairline, as if the pressure of the impact he envisaged so vividly had squeezed the cold droplets through the pores of his skin.
The seconds ticked precisely, steadily in his mind. In one minute, metal would tear, cry out and then crumple, glass would shatter, leather rip. The BMW would implode like a squashed beer can between the truck and the van.
He listened to his slow, deep breathing and felt his shoulders relax.
Kismet. It could not be undone, it was already almost accomplished, the vehicle's shrinkage to the proportions of a coffin-sized box. A road accident, a statistic this is Marian… It possessed a great deal less force. Her features had all but faded from his mind.
He looked at the gold watch.
Now She glanced out of the passenger window. A white anonymous van was beside them as the BMW crossed the Rue Marie-Christine, beyond which rose the Gothic Eglise Notre-Dame. They crossed the sea canal and she glimpsed long, dark barges as lifeless as oil spill ages on the flat black mirror of the water. Ahead of them were the beaded lights along the Avenue du Pare Royal.
Campbell's monotone had hardly varied or diverged, except to react to other vehicles or his own fears. The traffic was heavier, with trucks making for the port and its ocean-going ships. What she was recording seemed no more real, and offered no more excitement, than a description of a book he had read. Somehow, they were not things that had actually happened, his dead voice insinuated.
Perhaps he could only deal with it by making the whole account sound like a police statement in a courtroom; dry, matter-of-fact, uninflected, monotonous' Look out!" she cried, her throat tight, eyes wide.
"Ben, for God's sake, look out-!"
She heard the metal of the car begin to scream. Saw Campbell's terrified, betrayed face turn to her as the shadow of the truck blotted out all light, all other movement.
She felt the passenger door torn off and the impact of her body with There what did I tell you?" Blakey breathed, as if he had been present at the birth of his first child.
After a moment, Gant murmured: "Surf's up." Blakey chuckled in his beard.
The relief map that Blakey had produced on the computer, the guess worked map of the snapshot's scenery, had been transferred to a transparency. It lay over the printout from the CD-ROM atlas that
Blakey had chosen. Layers of geological strata, pages of a book. The relief map was almost a perfect twin of the atlas layout… the Three Sisters Wilderness Area, Oregon.
This lake's called' — Blakey raised his glasses away from his eyes
"Bonner Lake.
A couple of miles south of South Sister, right between that peak and Mount Bachelor." He let his breath whistle out between his teeth, as if someone else had performed the magical trick that had made the guess and the atlas match. Gant gripped Blakey's shoulder, the tremor of his hand displaying his excitement.
The snapshot is looking north, so…" Gant said, studying the map by peeling away the transparency,"… this place is Squaw Camp."
Tourist season place. Just a collection of necessary stores and accommodation.
Strickland if he's there probably has a lodge somewhere in the woods."
"It would suit him." Gant remembered the farmhouse in the Dordogne, its isolation, the sufficient proximity of the small village. Another tourist area. Strickland would be away off the backroads somewhere, a couple of miles or more from Squaw Camp-telephone. He needed a telephone, fax, computer link. To run his business.
"Ron, you got the telephone directory on computer?"
Blakey grinned.
"You'd better believe it. Oregon, right? Coming right up, sir!" He almost ran towards the keyboard.
Barbara came back into the room, carrying a tray with three coffee mugs on it, sugar and milk.
"What is it?" Her features struggled with disbelief, as if ashamed of her conscious choice of scepticism.
"Oregon. Strickland's in Oregon," Gant said, taking a coffee, sipping at it.
"Where? Three Sisters…" She sounded as if she had become lost in the Wilderness Area, plunged into some forest.
"What is it?"
"I went there once, on summer camp. I was just a kid. Alan sent me there when Momma died—" Her hand flailed at his movement of sympathy, and he retreated carefully. She shook her head violently.
"I'm sorry. Just surprised me the name, the place." She sniffed and looked up, brightly dry-eyed.
"Is he there — really there?
Now?"
"I think so—"
"You could be wrong, Mitchell. There's no Strickland listed," Blakey called out.
"It's no surprise," Gant murmured, apparently without any real sense of disappointment.
"But it was worth trying. His number's unlisted."
Blakey tugged at his beard.
"If it is, then no one's going to give it out."
Then I'll have to go up there and find him, won't I?"
To Barbara, he seemed suddenly filled with a nervous energy he could not expel.
Then his demanding eyes turned to her.
"You must have something on the plant that I can fly up to Oregon? To save time?"
There's…? Ron?" His demand angered her.
"For Christ's sake, Mitchell, we're bankrupt and now you want an air-taxi?"
There's the Vance Executive you used to fly the chief around in,"
Blakey offered apologetically. He was, Barbara realised, apologising for his continued enthusiasm.