Flyaway

There wasn't much to say to that. After a few moments I broke the uncomfortable silence. 'I hope you won't mind telling me a bit more about that. Did you know his flight plan, for instance?'

1 don't mind,' she said a little wearily. 'But I don't know much. I was a girl of twenty, remember — and no technician. He had that beefed-up Northrop which was a freight carrier. Jock Anderson had installed extra gas tanks in the cargo space and the plan was to fly south from Algiers to Kano in Nigeria. The desert crossing was going to be the most difficult leg, so Jock came here with a team to give the plane a thorough check before Peter took off.'

'Jock Anderson — who was he?'

The flight mechanic. Peter and Jock had been together a long time. Peter flew the planes and pushed them hard, and Jock kept the pieces together when they threatened to bust apart. They made a good team. Jock was a good engineer.'

'What happened to him afterwards?'

'When Peter disappeared he broke up. I've never seen a man get drunk so fast. He went on a three-day splurge, then he sobered-up and left Algiers. I haven't seen him since.'

I pondered on that but it led nowhere. 'What do you think of Paul Billson?'

'I think he's a nut,' she said. 'Hysterical and crazy. Totally unlike his father in every way.'

'How did you get to know him?'

'Same way as I got to know you. I have ears all over this city and when I heard of a man looking into Peter Billson I was curious so I sent for him.'

'All right,' I said. 'Where is he?'

'Gone looking for his Daddy. By now he'll be in Tanunanrasset.'

'Where's that?'

Hesther gave me a crooked smile. 'You go south into the desert until you're going out of the desert. That's Tammanrasset, in the Ahaggar about two thousand kilometres south of here. Plumb in the middle of the Sahara.'

I whistled. 'Why there?'

'If you're looking for something in the Ahaggar, Tarn is a good place to start.'

'What's the Ahaggar like?'

Hesther looked at me for a moment before she said, 'Mountainous and dry.'

'How big?'

'Christ, I don't know — I haven't measured it lately. Wait a minute.' She went away and returned with a book. 'The Annexe du Hoggar — that's the administrative area — is 380,000 square kilometres.' She looked up. 'I don't know what that is in square miles; you'll have to figure that yourself.'

I did, and it came to nearly 150,000 square miles — three times the area of the United Kingdom. 'Paul Billson is crazy,' I said. 'What's the population?'

Hesther consulted the book again. 'About twelve thousand.' There doesn't seem much to administer. People are thin on the ground out there.'

'If you go there you'll find out why,' she said. 'Are you thinking of going after him?'

'The idea has crossed my mind,' I admitted. 'Which makes me as crazy as he is, I suppose.'

'Not really. You should find him easy enough. Getting to Tammanrasset is no problem — there are a couple of flights a week.'

'If I can fly that does make it easier.' She nodded. 'Then all you have to do is to wait in Tammanrasset until he shows up. If he's in the Ahaggar and wants more gas there's no place he can get it except Tarn.' She considered for a moment. 'Of course, if you want to chase after him, that's different. You'd need a guide. Luke Byrne is usually in Tarn at this time of year — he might fancy the job.'

'Who's he?'

She laughed. 'Another crazy man. It would tickle his fancy to go looking for a lunatic.' She lit an after-dinner cigar. 'If you're going to Tarn you'll need a permit. If you try to get one yourself it'll take two weeks — I can get you one in two days. What will you do when you find Paul Billson?' I shrugged. 'Persuade him to go back to England if I can.'

'You'll find it hard cutting through that obsession.'

'His sister might stand a better chance, and she said she'd come out. Would you help her, as you're helping me?'

'Sure.'

'What do you believe?' I asked. 'Is Peter Billson's body out there somewhere?'

'Sure it is — what's left of it. I know what you mean; I read about that South African son-of-a-bitch who said he'd seen Peter in Durban. I've often wondered how big a bribe the bastard took. I'll tell you this, Max; Peter Billson wasn't an angel, not by a long way, but he was honest about money. And Helen was the next thing to an angel and no one's going to tell me that she perjured herself for half a million bucks. It just wasn't their style.' She sighed. 'Let's quit talking about it now, shall we? It's not been my practice to look too deeply into the past, and I'm not ready to start now.'

'I'm sorry,' I said. 'Perhaps I'd better go.'

'Hell, no!' she said. 'Stick around and have some more brandy and I'll match you for dirty stories.'

'All right,' I said obligingly, and told her the limerick about the Bishop of Chichester who made all the saints in then- niches stir.

I didn't see Hesther again at that time, but she certainly had some pull because I was ready to leave in a day and a half complete with permit and a seat booked on the plane at her expense delivered to my hotel by her Arab chauffeur. In a covering note she wrote:

I hope you don't mind about the plane ticket; it's just that I'd like to do my bit toward the memory of P.B. If you do find that idiot, Paul, club him on the head, put him in a sack and ship him back to Algiers.

I wired Luke Byrne and he'll be expecting you. You'll find him at the Hotel Tin Hinan. Give him my regards.

I don't know if it means anything but someone else is looking for Paul — a man called Kissack. I don't know anything about him because he blew town before I could check on him.

Best of luck, and come back for another visit.

CHAPTER TWELVE

I didn't know what to expect of Tammanrasset but it was certainly different from Algiers. From the air it was a scattering of houses set in a mist of green at the foot of barren hills. Transport from the airstrip was by truck along an asphalted road which led between tall, square pillars which were the entrance to the town. They looked like the decor for a fifth-rate B-movie about the Foreign Legion.

I called it a town, but it would be more appropriate to call it a village. Be that as it may, it was the metropolis of the Ahaggar. The main street was wide, shaded by acacia trees, and bordered by single-storey houses apparently made of dried mud which looked as though they'd wash away in a half-way decent shower of rain. The truck driver blared his horn to clear a path through the pedestrians, tall men dressed in blue and white who thronged the centre of the street as though the internal combustion engine hadn't been invented. The truck drew up outside the Hotel Tin Hinan where there was a tree-shaded courtyard filled with spindly metal tables and chairs at which people sat drinking. From a loudspeaker above the hotel entrance came the nasal wail of an Eastern singer. I went inside into a dusty hall and waited until someone noticed me. There was no reception desk.

Presently I was noticed. A dapper man in none too clean whites asked in massacred French what he could do for me. I said, 'There should be a reservation. My name is Stafford.' His eyebrows lifted. 'Ah, M'sieur Stafford! M'sieur Byrne awaits you.' He steered me to the door and pointed. 'Voila!' I stared at the man sitting at the table. He was dressed in a long blue robe and a white turban and he looked like nobody who could be called Byrne. I turned back to the receptionist only to find that he had gone back into the hotel, so I walked over to the table and said hesitantly, 'Mr Byrne?' The man hesitated with a glass of beer half-way to his lips and then set it down. 'Yes,' he said, and turned to face me. Under shaggy white eyebrows blue eyes stared out of a deeply tanned face which was thin to the point of emaciation so that the nose jutted out like a beak. Beneath the nose was a wide mouth with thin lips firmly compressed. I could not see his chin because a fold of his turban had somehow become wrapped about his neck, but his cheeks were bearded with white hair. He looked like Moses and twice as old. I said, 'My name is Stafford.'