Raf? That was one of Pallifer’s men. Why didn’t Pallifer come on himself? “Put him on,” Curtis said, and a minute later the raspy voice said, “Morning, Mr. Curtis.”
Curtis said, “Where’s Pallifer?”
“Well, that’s the thing, Mr. Curtis,” Raf said. “Nobody knows.”
“Nobody knows?”
“Well, sir, last Tuesday, Morgan got a phone call from some banker, I dunno what about—”
Curtis knew. The location of the Manville-Baldur hideyhole, no longer a factor. “What did Morgan do?”
“He said he had to go back to Brisbane, just for the one overnight, we should lock up Manville while he’s gone.”
With all the other details to think about, Curtis realized, he hadn’t remembered to tell Pallifer that the search for Kim Baldur in Australia could stop now, that she was here in Singapore. He hadn’t really thought about Pallifer at all since leaving Australia, had simply assumed everything was in position there, waiting for further orders from him.
He said, “You locked up Manville. And then?”
“Well, that’s it,” Raf said. “We couldn’t find him.”
“Couldn’t find— For how long?”
“Ever since, Mr. Curtis.”
Curtis took a second to absorb that. “Are you telling me,” he said, “George Manville has been missing since last Tuesday? For a week?”
“Both of them, Mr. Curtis.”
“Both of them? What both?”
“Morgan, too,” the man said. “We looked for Manville and couldn’t find him, all of us, and Morgan thought maybe Manville heard some of the phone call, so Morgan just took off before it got dark, and told us to lock up Manville when we found him, but we never did.”
“A week ago.”
“We kept expecting Morgan to come back,” Raf said. He sounded worried, almost embarrassed, like a man who wasn’t used to such emotions.
“Clearly,” Curtis said, “Manville left with Pallifer.”
“No, sir, I don’t think so,” Raf said. “Morgan put his bag in the trunk, and the fella wasn’t there. And when he drove away, there wasn’t anybody in the back or on the roof or like that, or we’d of seen him.”
“Then Manville took off, on foot,” Curtis said. “And Pallifer caught up with him.”
“I’ve driven all around out there, Mr. Curtis,” Raf said, “in the Land Rover, and I don’t find anything. Not the car, not either man.”
Curtis said, “Manville could not have walked anywhere from Kennison, it’s not physically possible. He and Pallifer must have met up, somehow, there’s no other explanation.”
“Yes, sir,” Raf said. “Except, if they met up, and if Morgan killed him, I’d of heard from Morgan by now. And if they met up, and Manville killed Morgan, we’d all have heard from the law by now.”
Two men dead in the desert; the thought crossed Curtis’s mind. They’d met somewhere out there, and neither survived.
But then, why wouldn’t Raf have come across the car? Curtis said, “This makes no sense.”
“Mr. Curtis,” Raf said, “yesterday, I phoned Billie, you know, Pallifer’s girlfriend in Townville, said have you heard from him, she said no, now she’s worried. I’m sorry I did that, but I thought you ought to know.”
“So no one has seen or heard from either man since last Tuesday.”
“Yes, sir.”
Curtis would be leaving Singapore in two days, on Wednesday. His travel plans showed him flying to Manila on the first leg of an inspection tour of RC Structural projects. Only Margaret would know where he was really going, and she wouldn’t tell anyone.
He tried to work out the implications of this situation. Assume that both Manville and Pallifer are dead, because if one of them was alive somebody would know about it. Assume that one or both bodies would eventually turn up. Would anything lead back to Curtis? He said, “You and, er...”
“Steve.”
“Yes. You and Steve stay there until Thursday. If you hear nothing from anybody by then, you should just go home and consider the job finished, and I’ll get your money to you through what’s-her-name? Billie?”
“Morgan’s girlfriend, yes, sir.”
“I have her address. If anything at all happens between now and Thursday, let me know at once.”
“Yes, sir, I will. Mr. Curtis, I’m sorry I took so long to get to you, but I figured maybe, Morgan’d been stuck here a while, he might just want the weekend to himself. It’s when he didn’t come back today I figured there might be something up.”
“Well,” Curtis said, “keep me informed.”
“I will, sir.”
It’s out of control, Curtis thought, as he hung up.
That was the one thing he wouldn’t be able to stand. He had to remain in control of the whole enterprise, he couldn’t let any part of it begin to spin away on its own.
Where was Pallifer, dammit? Where was Manville? What was coming at him, from what unforeseen quarter?
The phone call from Bennett Monday afternoon was the last straw on the day. He’d finished with the architects at last and was back in his office, getting caught up on some other details, preparing for departure on Wednesday, when Margaret buzzed to say, “Mr. Bennett on the line, sir.”
Curtis said, “Good,” as he reached for the phone, thinking, at last, perhaps, some good news.
Not at all. “Still no change, Mr. Curtis,” Bennett said, by way of hello.
The man was sounding hangdog again; Curtis didn’t like that. He said, “Colin, this doesn’t make any sense. They came here with a mission, they started on that mission, they arranged to meet this spy in my organization, this person named Mark, they didn’t meet him, and now they’re doing nothing. How did they spend the weekend?”
“They went to the Botanic Gardens.”
“For God’s sake, Colin, there must be something else going on, right under your eyes!”
It was first the loss of the scuba diver, and second the double disappearance of Pallifer and Manville, and now Colin Bennett was still failing to learn anything at all of any use. Curtis felt all of his anger and frustration coming out in this last phone call, and he didn’t care.
Defending himself, more hangdog than ever, Bennett said, “I swear, Mr. Curtis, they haven’t been out of my sight. There isn’t a thing they do that I don’t know about, and they’re just not doing anything at all about you and your business.”
“You’ll have to search their rooms,” Curtis decided.
“I already did that, sir. When they went to dinner Friday, I made sure they’d stay put a while, and I went and searched, and I didn’t find a thing. Mr. Curtis, could I ask you a question?”
“Go ahead,” Curtis said.
“How many people named Mark work for you?”
“Probably a hundred,” Curtis told him. “I employ thousands, Colin, a first name isn’t enough to go on. Now, I’m leaving Singapore for a while on Wednesday. If we don’t have any progress on the Jerry Diedrich front by then, we’ll just drop it. Come into the office Wednesday afternoon, see Margaret, she’ll have some money for you.”
“Mr. Curtis, I’m doing—”
“You know what I want,” Curtis snapped. “I want to know who the spy is. I want to know why Diedrich singles me out for all this attention. Those are the two questions. It really shouldn’t be impossible to answer them, Colin, it really shouldn’t.”
Miserably, Bennett said, “No, sir, it shouldn’t.”
“Thank you for your efforts, Colin,” Curtis said, and hung up.
12