Quiller's Run

I was given an envelope with the insignia of the British High Commission in the top left-hand corner and I slit it open.

I've been doing a bit of homework for you that I think might help. Why not let me cook some spaghetti for you this evening if you 're not doing anything? You know my address.

It was now 15.31 and I thought about it. She wouldn't be fooling: underneath the ingenue breathlessness she had a good mind, and she knew what sort of information I wanted.

'Drop me here, will you?'

South Canal Road, with some of the best cover in the area to protect my return to the Red Orchid. Al said there were no messages but in any case they could only be from the Thai Embassy, because this was my safe-house and security hadn't been breached, but just before five o'clock Lily Ling told me there was a phone call and I went down to the bar.

'I am glad you did not take plane.'

A soft woman's voice, but it sounded like an explosion because security had been blown away.

'What plane?'

'Flight 306.'

Smells came into the lobby from the street: fruit, spices, chickens. It had rained again, and the air was sticky, even in here.

I didn't ask her how she'd found this number – it was better to let her think it wasn't important. Instead I said, 'I owe you my thanks.'

'You are welcome, Mr Jordan.'

'May I know your name?'

'It is Sayako.'

'Sayako-san, how did you know dial plane was going to crash?'

Silence, then: 'Someone tell me.'

'Who gave the order?'

'Enemy of Shoda.'

Target: Dominic Lafarge. I said, 'Which enemy?'

'Is not important. Was important to warn you.'

'Why are you telephoning me now, Sayako-san?'

'To warn you again.'

'About what?'

'Shoda has ordered you killed.'

'Quite probably.' I didn't like the way she was using short sentences, which was the classic method of drawing people out.

'She is furious with you.'

I knew that. I didn't say anything.

Lily Ling came slipping from the kitchen to the desk in the lobby, walking like a flame in her red shift. Al had fired her twice since I'd arrived here; the humidity was getting people down.

'Do you know -why?'

Why Shoda was furious with me. 'She lost face, I suppose.'

'Yes. You went to temple knowing she could not attack you there. It was insult, as if you say, you wish to kill me, so here I am, yet you cannot. You understand, Mr Jordan? This is very important.'

'I understand.'

Lily Ling was still at the desk and I could ask her to get Al very fast and ask him to phone the special number I had at the Thai Embassy and tell Rattakul to see if he could get her number traced, Sayako's, through the Singapore police; but at best it would take twenty minutes and I wouldn't be able to keep her talking that long.

'Shoda has ordered one man to kill you, Mr Jordan. His name is Manif Kishnar. He has never failed to kill. He will leave Bangkok soon now.'

'What does he look like?' All Indians didn't wear turbans. But the real experts favoured piano-wire.

'I do not know. Of course, you must now leave your hotel. But he will find you, unless I can warn you in time where he will be, and what he will be doing.'

Longer sentences, which made me feel better. There was also a timbre in this woman's voice that attracted me, in terms of trust.

Don't trust anyone.

Quite, but she'd saved my life, and even though she'd done it for her own purposes it meant she was a friend, not an enemy, and might remain one. A friend in Shoda's camp was worth having. But I'd better check that out.

'Sayako-san, are you in .Shoda's organisation?'

In a moment she said, 'I have access to information.'

I watched a cockroach skirting the base of the bar, darting around a bottle-top and a half-burnt match. I knew what Ferris would have done with that.

'Why are you helping me, Sayako-san?'

'You are here on mission to destroy Mariko Shoda. I wish for that.'

The only way this woman could have got my number was from the Thai Embassy. They didn't have it officially even though I was working for them but they'd come here to take me to the birthday party. They could be working, then, through this woman, to help me.

I didn't think so. She sounded like a lone wolverine.

'You wish for Shoda's destruction,' I said carefully. 'Why?'

Shoda had deadly enemies but I wanted to know if there was something personal.

In a moment: 'It is not important.' Her voice was like ice suddenly. 'But you know that others have tried, and not succeed. It is because no one can kill Shoda with a gun, or a way like that. You make the right way, I think. You know how to do this thing, by knowledge of woman.'

I didn't ask her, but was Shoda a woman? The divine face, the slender body, yes, but what I'd seen in her eyes was the evil of Diabolus. And it was attracting me, and I knew it, and knew its dangers. This was going to end when one of us brought death to the other.

'If we could meet, Sayako-san, you could tell me more about her.'

She hesitated so long that I began listening for background sounds, other voices, the turning of a tape. 'No, we cannot meet. It is too dangerous for me. I will help you as much as I can, by telephone.'

That could be true. Anyone informing on Mariko Shoda was in deadly peril.

'All right,' I said.

'I will need to know where to telephone to you, when you will leave your hotel.'

I was going to ground now as soon as I could but it wouldn't be to any kind of safe-house because I didn't know of one, and in any case you don't give away the phone-number of your safe-house even to someone who's just saved your life. But a temporary number would work.

'How do I contact you?' I asked her.

'Write your new number down and place into an envelope with name Sayako on. Deposit in night safe at Bank of Singapore, in Empress Place.' She added quietly, 'I will call.'

She knew some of the rules. 'I'll do that,' I told her.

'Very well. Now please listen to me, Mr Jordan. Manif Kishnar is to leave Bangkok by air, at some time on day after tomorrow, which is Thursday. I will find out his movements for you, and tell you what I can. But please believe me that you must do everything possible to protect your life. This man succeed to kill always. Always.' Noted.

13 Zabaglione

Bolognaise. 'Too much garlic?" 'Not for me. It's excellent.'

'I didn't think you'd come.'

'Why not?'

She spilled some spaghetti from her fork. 'God, I've always been a messy eater. Because you put me through the third degree the other day at the embassy.'

'That day I wouldn't have trusted my own mother.'

Day of the plane crash.

'Yes, I understand that now, but it took a bit of time. I was furious when I left there.'

'Then it didn't show.'

'That's not bad, for me. Have you still got a mother?'

'What? Oh. No.'

'Father?'

'No.'

'I thought not.' She gave me her level stare, her blue-grey eyes narrowing as they focused. 'You come across like an orphan.'

What can you say to a thing like that?

The shutters were still open to the last of the daylight; if I asked her to close them now it'd be too early. She was looking particularly sensual this evening, not exactly looking but behaving, with slight body movements, bringing her thin shoulders forward in that now-familiar way, her head tilting in brief gestures as she left things unsaid, her hand brushing the air when she couldn't find the word she wanted. Sensual because intimate, knowing I trusted her again.

'Did you lose them when you were young?'