Quiller's Run

The telephone began ringing and she looked around. 'That'll be the office again. Unless it's for you?'

'No one knows I'm here.'

'Then it can go on ringing. When she reached a refugee camp on the Thai border she looked like a skeleton and couldn't even speak – it took a year to get her back to something like normal. I got this from the actual camp administration. There were thousands there – still are – but she gradually began standing out from the crowd, helping with the work and the organisation. She was about fourteen by then, and she'd already had something of an education as a princess of the royal house, up to the age of eight.' She swung her head, 'That bloody phone -' then it stopped ringing. 'There's a gap after that, but someone else said that by the time she was seventeen she was helping them to administrate the whole camp. That was when she killed one of the officers for trying to mess about one night in the sleeping quarters. There was an enquiry, but nothing was proved against her, not enough even to have her charged.

The woman I spoke to was a witness, but refused to give evidence – like Shoda, she'd been through absolute hell and felt that any man who started any funny business ought to be shot. Then a year later there was a camp guard found knifed, and very expertly. The next day Shoda was missing. So are you getting the picture, and would you like some zabaglione now?'

We went back to the table and she brought it in and talked some more about Mariko Shoda. 'A Thai police inspector told me that so far she's killed off fifteen of her top competitors in the drug trade, taking care of six of them personally and using her crack hit man for the others – he's from Calcutta and his name's Kishnar.' She went to put on some music, kicking off her snakeskin shoes. 'Any questions?'

I asked her for the Thai police inspector's name and phone number and she gave them to me.

'Anything else?'

'Yes. Have you heard of a woman, probably Japanese, named Sayako, who could be in the Shoda organisation?'

'How do you spell it?'

I told her.

'No. Where does she come in?'

'It was just something I picked up.'

'I'll keep my ears open.' She came over to me slowly in her stockinged feet, and it struck me that the effect made by a woman taking her shoes off has been underrated. 'We'll go on talking about Shoda,' she said, 'for as long as you want to, Martin; I asked you here to give you all the information I can. But do you feel like a brief interlude? Un petit apres-zabaglione?'

'My God, I've never seen so many scars on a man's body. All I've got is this little one.'

'Caesarian?'

'Yes.' She looked away. 'But he died. One of those bloody cot deaths. The thing is, he might have kept the marriage together, and that would have been awful. Do you believe things like that work themselves out in life?'

'I believe we create our own reality.'

'You mean we decide to mess everything up?' She lay against me again, one leg dangling off the divan onto the cushions she'd thrown down. 'How did you know I like it very slowly?'

'I didn't.'

'But I mean, I never knew foreplay could be so absolutely mind-blowing.' She began moving her hands again, stroking the sweat on the skin. 'I felt like a goddess or something. Do you always -' she left it.

The light was soft in the room; the record-player had shut itself off, hours ago. The phone had rung twice and she'd let it go on ringing. The overhead fan was turning slowly in the middle of the room, spreading the humid air. I hadn't meant to stay; looking back, I thought it was probably because I didn't want to return to the reality I'd created for myself outside. He's from Calcutta, and his name's Kishnar…

'I wish,' she said slowly, 'we could've met before.' I began playing with her again, very gently: she liked karezza. 'But I suppose it wouldn't have worked out. I mean our -' she left it, then said, 'Oh my God… do you know what that does to me?'

Through the kitchen doorway I could hear the fridge cutting on and off; the only other sounds were the sounds we made. She used pompoir, and delightfully, which I hadn't expected from her.

'Martin, will you stay the night? There's not much of it left anyway.'

'I'd like to.'

'Keep back the dawn. Wasn't that the tide of something?'

Sometimes we slept a little, and then there was a flush of rose light between the slats of the shutters, and she made coffee and we sat facing each other on the floor, sharing the discovery we'd made.

'I was absolutely wrong,' she said, 'he wasn't fantastic in bed after all — he hadn't got a bloody clue.' A sleepy laugh. 'Was I all right, a bit?'

'Exquisite.'

Then the shutters brightened, throwing silvered light across the ceiling where the fan still turned, and Katie made eggs and toast for us, not smiling very often now, not even talking much.

'I suppose what you need most,' she said at one time, 'is to know what her Achilles' heel is. Shoda's.'

'That would be useful.'

The cushions were still all over the floor when I left, and Katie was in a thin kind of nightie, looking like a child, barefooted and soft.

'Martin, I'm a bit telepathic sometimes, have you noticed? I pick up vibes.' She came as far as the door with me, lifting her thin arms to hold me and kiss. At last she said, 'It's going to be so bloody dangerous out there for you, isn't it?'

I don't remember quite what I said, something about my luck lasting, I think.

'Do something for me, will you?' Her eyes were very steady now, and dark. 'For God's sake, if and when you can, pick up a phone and call me, so that I'll know things are still all right.'

Then it was too late to go to ground because an hour after I got back to the Red Orchid I saw they'd thrown surveillance around the hotel and knew I was trapped.

14 Countdown

I phoned Pepperidge but he wasn't there. Just the answering-machine. I left a message. I'm in a red sector. Phone me.

This was at 10:03.

The first thing you do when you find a trap closing on you is to note the time because later it can save your life.

At 10:03 there were five of them outside the hotel and I checked them again, using shutters, the mirror in the bathroom of the vacant room at the end of the third-floor corridor, and the angle of vision across the courtyard at the rear between the edge of the roof and the vent-pipe from the kitchen, leaving myself only enough of a gap to sight without exposing more than the width of one eye. It took more than an hour.

11:14.

I wished Pepperidge would telephone.

That'll be my number. I'll put in an answering-machine, all right? You can always leave a signal on it if I'm out sweeping for data in the pubs.

He wouldn't be in a pub at three in the morning.

Then where was he?

Not quite the service you're used to. Sorry.

There was a chance of getting clear of the trap if I could talk to Pepperidge and set up a last-ditch thing before nightfall, but in any case I'd have to assume that Kishnar would get here before I could use it.

They'd send for him, of course.

Sayako had said he'd be leaving Bangkok the day after tomorrow, taking his time, making his plans while Shoda's people here in the city did a square search for me in the streets until they found me and cornered me and had me waiting for him. They'd had some luck and they'd done that and I was set up for the kill and they'd send for him now -had sent for him – and he wouldn't waste any time. Shoda would put him in one of her private jets and it was only a three-hour flight.