Her eyes closed. The whole night seemed to tremble with a growing vibration, the clear singing note of an infinite violin string that swelled louder than the silenced drums. It blew through us like a great wind, shaking us. I felt it whip my hair about my face, send hers billowing and streaming out like smoke. Whether it was in her or me, I couldn’t tell – but as her eyes snapped open again a spark flashed between us, and light leaped up within the very heart of her, so bright that the skull blazed out beneath the flesh. Clare gave a high-pitched shriek, then clapped her hands in laughing delight. The gouts of clotted blood about Mall’s head dried, crumbled, blew away. The bruised flesh paled and cleared; the depressed gouge left across her temple by the Carib club swelled and filled. She convulsed with the force of it, then sagged back with a deep breath of infinite relief. ‘My thanks, my lord! But i’the name of all hates ill, stay not! Go settle the viper, and I –’ She swung her legs under her, and rose smoothly, unhurriedly to her feet. ‘By thy grace, I’ll shield those here for now!’ Her eyes flamed with alarm. ‘Go! Go now!’
I turned –
Clambering high on the white rock behind the altar, casting about, I saw Don Pedro. In the same instant he saw me, and across that space our gazes locked. A card turned in the air – a two of spades merged to become an ace, a pool of infinite blackness drawing me on – in – and down. Falling. Falling …
My elbow slipped sideways, my head jerked; I stopped it barely an instant before my nose hit the keyboard of my terminal and scrambled everything on the screen. My coffee-cup, untouched, teetered on the edge of the desk, and I retrieved it hastily; we’d had enough mess and breakages round here lately. Dozing off at my desk! Serve me right for spending half the week-end in discos, and not getting enough sleep. Some daydream! Some damn daydream! It’d left me still ringing with the violence of it. I struggled to pull myself together. I jumped when the intercom buzzed.
‘Steve?’ inquired Clare’s voice.
‘Y … yes?’
‘You sound a bit funny, You’re all right?’
‘Sure. Just … wrapped up in something, that’s all.’
‘You shouldn’t overdo it, really. Your four o’clock appointment, remember? Mr Peters is in Reception.’
I shook my head, swallowed a sip of the cold coffee and straightened my tie. ‘Well, then. Show him in!’
Chapter Eleven
I stood up automatically as the door opened. The man who stepped through looked like most of the clients I saw – no, like the cream of them, the ones who usually arrived via Barry’s office, suitably stoked with hospitality and charm. His dark three-piece suit was cut like an Armani diamond, his white shirt crisp and smooth, its collar tailored precisely to his throat, his ruler-straight tie as silkily iridescent as a grey opal. The sheer sleek perfection of the ensemble, down to his finely tooled dark shoes and soft glove-leather attaché case, created an air of the exotic, the foreign which exactly fitted his face – high-browed, hook-nosed, sallow, with a slender drooping moustache and eyes like sunken inkwells. Foreign clients almost always meant serious money.
‘Mr Peters,’ I said, and his thin lips curved in a smile. He held out a long hand, and I reached out –
Blackness. Noise.
I jerked back my hand, without the least idea why. It’d been the weirdest feeling. Like the time I nodded off in my first big meeting, lulled by the heat and the monotonous droning voices – and then snapped awake, flushing with guilt and adrenalin, wondering how long I’d been out for, if anyone had noticed – like that. Only here I’d been dipping down into a nightmare, hellishly vivid – like that damn daydream again. Dark, firelight, screaming and shouting, and one voice, much nearer, speaking words I couldn’t quite make out. It left me shaken, just when I didn’t want to be. Peters’ smile didn’t change, but somehow it left me in no doubt at all that he’d noticed; bad start. I hastily tried to cover up my embarrassment by waving him to a chair.
‘Er – won’t you sit down? If you’d like some coffee – or a drink, perhaps? Sherry? An excellent fino, cooled –’ Sherry seemed to go with that face, though I felt the urge for something a lot stronger myself.
‘No; no, I thank you. You are most kind, but I regret I have very little time. I would prefer, if you will forgive me the discourtesy, to proceed to our most urgent business.’
I relaxed, though his voice gave me the crawls. His English had the same exaggerated perfection as his suit. Exotic, all right, with that accent; and yet – dammit, I knew it. I knew him, somehow – God alone knew where from. And I didn’t like him one little bit. It was a struggle not to let it show. I couldn’t remember the exact details of my daydream, but he’d have fitted into it rather nicely – the voice especially. Maybe I’d dreamed it up around that voice.
‘Well,’ I said, just a trace stiffly, ‘we’re here to be of service. As I understand the situation from our conversation earlier, Mr Peters, you want us to take responsibility for handling a consignment of a highly confidential nature, from the Caribbean area. We’re more than willing to do this, naturally, at conditions you’ll find competitive and with the highest standards of care. Provided –’ I tapped the desk gently with my ruler. ‘Always provided we ourselves know the nature of it, its origin, content and destination, and are free to inspect it at any time. In total confidence, it goes without saying. Confidence is the lynch-pin of our business –’
Peters held up a hand in deferential interruption. ‘I regret not having more fully informed you sooner,’ he smirked. ‘But it is not one consignment that is involved, but many. A continuous contract, in fact. The commercial forces I represent aim to become a significant force in the trade from this area – and, confidentially, to dominate it within a very short time.’ He stabbed the air gently with a black lacquer ballpoint.
The cane-tip lifted.
I blinked. What had I just –? A flicker of movement. Something I’d recognized momentarily – yet not now, somehow …
‘Understand,’ he added, ‘this is no idle ambition. It is a project in which you personally would do very well to become involved.’
Great. Was I seeing things? And I couldn’t quite believe what I was hearing, either. I clasped the ruler in steepled fingers, and stared down at my bare desktop, trying to formulate a reply.
A spouting of yellow fire – God, a fireball! Racing across the barren ground – swelling – a swathe of his own people caught in it – fragmented silhouettes capering, blazing, falling – scythed down like smouldering grass – filling my sight –
And as if that wasn’t enough –
‘Go on!’ I said to myself. Literally. I knew my own voice when I heard it. ‘Answer him! Just as you would normally. This is where it’s all happening!’
I smiled. A bit sickly, maybe, but it wasn’t too much of an effort. Seeing things, hearing things I might be, but here at least I was on firm familiar ground.
‘You must understand, Mr Peters – in this I have to consider the interests of the company before my own. Neither on their behalf, nor on mine, have I any interest in breaching the law or the established ethics of the trade, even passively.’