Blame The Dead

He started to argue, then realised he'd understood me, and just said, 'All right, Mr Jamie.'

I had a coffee and skimmed a couple of Sunday papers and then the buffet opened and I had a beer as well. And then it was time to try Tanner's office again. He'd left a London number for me; I rang it straight away.

'Morning, Major. What's the hurry?'

'I need to get abroad, and I don't want to put the passport boys to any bother.'

After a moment, he asked, 'Are you hot?'

'Barely warm. I don't suppose it'll even be in the papers.'

Another thoughtful hush. 'Well, if you're really not in bad trouble… I'll see what we can do. Anywhere special or just out?'

'Just across the Channel will do me. I'd prefer not France, but I'll risk it if I have to.'

'0-okay, Major. Where are you now?'

I instinctively paused, and he felt it, chuckled, and said, 'Doesn't matter. Ring me here at half past three and maybe I'll have something. But these things work better on Fridays and Saturdays.'

After that I had another beer, found an Indian restaurant a couple of streets away, and loaded up on curried beef and rice. Eating might become rare in the next twenty-four hours. Then I spent a couple of hours in a cinema learning the Real Truth about the Old West. It seems they didn't only spend all their, time shooting each other, but – this was the big news – they bled a lot too. Someday somebody's going to do the Real Truth about the chances of hitting anybody with a -44 or -55 without five minutes' aiming time first.

Or then again, maybe they won't.

I got through to Tanner again at the right time.

'You're travelling, Major. I'll meet you at the office – long as you make sure you come alone. Right?'

'Right.'

'Hate to mention it, but how are you for money – real cash?'

'I can do you fifty as a down payment,' I said carefully.

'Yes, all right. Seeing as you're an old and trusted client. See you.'

I got my suitcase out of the left-luggage and strolled across towards the taxi-rank in the middle of the station. Nearly there, I noticed one of those copying machines they stick in railway stations nowadays for no good reason I can think of except they must make a profit. I changed some money into five-pence pieces, got out the log, and copied off the last four pages. The copies went in my pocket, the log back in the case.

My car could just stay where it was; it was too complicated to start organising anybody to collect it. It was in a quiet street with the steering lock on, so… I shrugged to myself and lined up for a taxi.

Dave's office was in a converted Georgian terrace literally on the fringes of the law north of Gray's Inn and the Theobald's Road police station. All around were the small-time solicitors who could remember the name of the Duke but not where they'd put your file, the income-tax advisers who were careful not to call themselves accountants, the doctors who could get your friend into a good nursing home cheap. Dave's organisation didn't belong with them, but he'd move if they did; he knew his place and it wasn't behind a big glass front in Leaden-hall Street. If you had a problem that was a teensy-weensy bit disgusting or just slightly illegal, he might or might not take your case, but he didn't want a classy décor to put you off telling him about it.

I was let in by a lad who couldn't have been more than twenty-five – which was probably why he found himself handling the Sunday business – but already had the hard, prove-it eyes of his trade. I said I was Jamie to see Dave and he led me upstairs without a word.

Dave nodded to him, waited till he'd closed the door, then waved me to a seat. 'Evening, Major. Sorry to hear about all this.'

I shrugged and sat. His office, and the others in his organisation, had the atmosphere of an oldestablished newspaper: big battered desks, solid filing cabinets, a general air of inexpensive efficiency. In the corner was a big grey safe, a really serious job where Dave told his clients he kept their files and actually did keep a few.

'Does Dunkirk suit you? – sorry I can't do Belgium direct, but you'll be over the frontier in half an hour or so.'

'It's fine. When?'

'You're on the eight-o'clock boat from Dover. Coach trip -five capitals in four days, lucky you. Denniston's Tours, here's your ticket. Have you got any luggage, or want to borrow some?'

'I'm okay. It wasn't that much of a hurry.'

He lifted his eyebrows but let it pass. Then he opened a drawer and took out a British passport almost handed it over, then remembered to scrub it clean of fingerprints first. Just in case.

'Victoria coach station, five o'clock. See the tour guide; give him your ticket and that passport.'

I'd been looking at my new identity. Apart from the fact that it was about a man of roughly my age, it fitted me as well as a halo did. He was two inches shorter, with different-coloured eyes and hair, and the photograph showed glasses.

'I hate to quibble, Dave, but somehow this just isn'tme, if you know what I mean.'

'Doesn't matter, Major. Could be for a performing bear and nobody would know. The courier hands it up with twenty-four others, they count twenty-five heads, twenty-five passports, bingo, you're through. On these tours half the old berks would lose their passports if you let 'em keep them for themselves.'

'Is that how you came by this one?'

'Not quite. This one lost his life, too. There're always some, every year. Run a coach over a cliff, caught in an avalanche, hotel burns down, or they just freeze to death waiting for it to be built. The Army's got nothing on these tours, Major. And if the passport's still with the courier or. hotel, well, who can prove it?'

And there's always somebody to remember there's a market for these things. In some countries, of course, it's a state monopoly: the KGB could make them, all right, but an agent's too valuable to risk with a forged passport that needs only a single check to show its number was never issued, or to a different name. It takes longer to pin down a real one, even if the owner's dead; how many widows remember it's their duty to turn hubbie's passport in once he's planted?

I nodded. 'And after that, what?'

'Once you're on the boat you're on your own. Use your own passport – you've got it, haven't you? – to get off at Dunkirk. No problem.'

'And nobody cares that I've gone AWOL from the tour?'

'It's no crime, even if anybody noticed. Same thing for the passport control over there: they get twenty-four passports, they count twenty-four heads. Just don't wiggle your hips at any rich widows in the coach: they might start asking what happened to the nice man with the military manner.'

'I'll try and remember, Dave.'

'Fine. This Sunday work knocks hell out of me. Care for a quick one?'

Before I could answer he'd lifted the bottle out of the deep file drawer on the right of the desk – just like the classic private detective. So? So you get plenty of people behaving like the popular image of themselves, including judges and politicians as well as private eyes and sergeant-majors. It keeps their clients reassured.

It was a very pale single-malt Scotch; good, maybe too good for me. I still prefer my whisky soaked in soda. There had to be a good reason why the Cards left Scotland.

We toasted each other. Outside in the main office the phone rang and got answered, the typewriter clattered, a drawer in a filing cabinet screeched.

Tanner said, 'There's just the sordid business of money, Major.'

'Of course.' I took out my wallet and dealt him a double flush in fivers. He collected them slowly and stacked them on one side by the desk intercom, and asked, "You're sure you don't mind about it being France?"

'I'll survive.'

'I expect so. Did you have time to get some protection into your luggage, or d'you want to borrow something? Hire it, I mean."

I smiled a little bleakly. 'No thanks, Dave. I'm all right.' At any rate I wasn't going to land in France carrying an extra, and unfamiliar, pistol. The derringer on my arm was risk enough.