“It won’t have to, then, will it?” The girl was watching for cars in her rear mirror. Oncoming drivers—and there were very few at this time of day—went by too quickly to be of much account as potential witnesses; one intent on overtaking, though, would be far more likely to memorize details.
“What was bothering me,” said the rug, “in that awful hideout—apart from snakes and rats—was a pronounced doubt of how reliable those other two are. Why should they take this kind of a risk on my account?”
“Why should I, for that matter?”
There was silence for a while, then: “Because you wouldn’t like getting the chop any more than I should, and our necks would be side by side, believe me.”
They passed through Pennick village. After another half mile, Birdie began to watch for a silo on the right-hand side that served as a guide to the opening of the lane to Stamper’s house. There it was. She braked, swung the car sharply at right angles, and within a few seconds it was safely among trees. They had passed only four vehicles during the whole journey from Hambourne.
They entered the house by the kitchen door. Grail, still inclined to extravagant secretiveness, scuttled inside with the rug over his head. He looked like a prisoner on a multiple rape charge, dodging Press cameras.
He threw himself into an armchair in the sitting room, winced as if in memory of protracted suffering, and said something about a drink for Christ’s sake.
Lanching stood by, frowning anxiously. “Shouldn’t he be in his room? It’s all ready.” He glanced at the window. “Somebody’s only to look in...”
Becket entered with gin and tumblers. He had the calmly sanguine expression that he had worn ever since that conference in the early hours at which desperate measures had been propounded to deal with a desperate situation.
Grail seized his drink and swallowed half of it at once. “I was hours in that damn place. What are we doing about lunch?”
Before anyone could offer an answer, Grail was bent forward, frantically massaging an ankle with his free hand. “One of those bloody things bit me,” he declared. Some gin splashed from his agitated glass.
“Ken’s perfectly right,” said Birdie. “You’re going to have to go up to that room now and stick there. Lock it and keep it locked. Boring as hellikins, and all that, we know. But it’s the only safe way. One little slip and the thing blows up in our face.”
“I get claustrophobia,” complained Grail. He drank what remained of his gin.
“Hard luck.” Birdie stood over him, waiting. With great show of pain and reluctance, he struggled to his feet. He beckoned to be handed the bottle. Lanching gave it to him. “Come on.” Birdie led the way out of the room.
When they reassembled, minus Grail, it still was the girl who seemed to be the organizer. She looked at her watch. “When do we start showing anxiety about the poor man?”
Becket pointed out that there was no one around for them to show anxiety to.
“Mrs Whatsit will be back before long,” Birdie replied.
“She’ll do for now. Then I’m hoping the office will ring during the evening. Richardson has a head start over the entire human race when it comes to worrying.”
“What happens,” asked Lanching, “if London wants us to call in the police?”
Birdie smiled wrily. “In that case, the phone will have to ring just as we are about to summon the constabulary and, lo, we shall hear the disguised voice of one of poor Clive’s captors. I originally thought that one o’clock in the morning would be a good time for a ransom demand, but if we’re pushed, we shall simply have to bring it forward a bit.”
Becket was rummaging in a sideboard cupboard. He produced a couple of cans of beer.
“Even so,” he said, “the office could still insist on the police being told.”
Birdie handed him her tumbler. She shook her head. “Not if we make the threat sound bloodthirsty enough. The saintly Mr Grail isn’t a person in the Herald’s reckoning but a property. And like all property nowadays, he’s grossly overvalued. They’re not going to risk having his frontage defaced. They’ll agree to terms, all right.”
“Outright cancellation of the story?” Becket poured her some beer.
“That, yes. They’ve dodged stickier ones than this before without blushing. Yes, cancellation. And...”—she paused—“fifteen thousand.”
The others looked at each other, then at the girl. Lanching was frowning. “Money, you mean?”
She laughed lightly. “What else do you suggest—cowrie shells?”
“But we agreed to keep money out of it. Christ, Clive won’t play along with this, girl. I’m not sure that I should want to, either.”
“My dear Ken, Clive is in no position to have any say in the matter—or he won’t be, by tonight. And who’s going to believe that he’s in real life-and-death danger for the sake of small-town ethics, for God’s sake?”
“It’s quite true,” Becket put in mildly, “that our employers tend to be money-orientated, if that’s the phrase. You could have a point, Birdie.”
Lanching’s lips had been moving. “Three and three-quarter thou apiece would at least be some compensation for what we’ve put up with in this bloody place.”
“Pay my fine tomorrow,” remarked Becket.
“Christ, I’d forgotten about that. Hey—we’ll be unable to produce our star witness.” Lanching grinned happily into his beer.
“Five,” Birdie said. “Actually.”
They stared at her.
“What do you mean, five?”
“Five thousand. Not three and three quarters.”
Her meaning dawned first on Lanching. “Oh, come on—you can’t cut the poor bugger out. He’s going to be the one to be hammered if anything goes wrong.”
“I don’t think you understand, Ken. We’re not ‘cutting him out’ in any mean-minded sense of dividing loot. We are showing respect for his conscience, as he defined it last night. And for his public image, of course. That above all.”
Becket regarded her levelly.
“You’re a hard bitch,” he said. He made it sound like a compliment.
“I think,” said Birdie after a while, “that there ought to be a note at some stage. Something more tangible than a phone call.”
Lanching looked doubtful. “It would increase risk,” he said.
“We do need to bear in mind,” Becket said, “that at worst the police could be called in. If they are, we don’t want them crawling round after samples of handwriting and taking our fingerprints.”
“Not yours, anyway,” Birdie said. “You’ll be a convicted felon by then. Careless driving, no less.”