“You are joking, I hope.” Jasper Lockhart’s voice came like an echo of long ago and he leaned heavily against the driver’s door. He had passed out. The girl with the French maid’s outfit left her friend and asked if she could help.
“My friend isn’t feeling well,” I told her. “It’s probably just too much to drink.”
“Perhaps a glass of water would help.” It took her a long time to push her way through to the kitchen. In the meantime Jasper Lockhart shook his head and breathed heavily. “I’m sorry,” he said, “you probably think I’m a complete prat.”
“Something like that, but don’t worry about it, we’ve known each other far too long for it to be a problem,” I said, “I know exactly how you feel.” I knew all to well.
“You’re all right, you know that, Jake,” he said. “But what should I do, go to the police, make a statement and try to bargain my way out of this mess? Hell, I’m just small fry. Those fuckers Hawkworth and Flackyard are the ones.” He closed his eyes at the thought.
I was about to say that a statement at the appropriate time would be sensible, when the French maid came back with a jug of water.
“There aren’t any glasses left in the kitchen,” she said, thankfully without the French accent.
She offered the water to Jasper Lockhart, who said, “She’s one of them,” in a shrill, excitable voice and lost consciousness again.
“Is the really big guy with the tux, Australian bush hat and the foul coloured dickey bow still serving at the bar?” I asked.
“Yes,” said Frenchy, adding. “He says that this is the driest do he’s ever been to.”
“Would you do me an immense favour and take him this note, oh and tell him that he can go home now.”
“OK,” she said and went back inside to the party.
A minute later Vince Sharp came through the doorway. His seventeen stone frame waddled over to the Jaguar. “Looks like our baby will be out for the count, do you want a hand getting him to bed?” Vince asked.
“No, you get off, I’ll get his friends to put him to bed. I’ll see you tomorrow.”
“Oh and Vince, please take off the bow tie, it’s making me feel very sick.”
Chapter 35
If you ever get clear away from a dangerous or difficult situation by abandoning a large number of your personal possessions, you may feel a compelling need of certain things you have left behind, like your seventy-foot luxury power cruiser. Don’t send for them, because that’s how Robert Flackyard was traced.
I asked Zara for a box file and wrote “Fulcrum” on the front. Into that I put copies of Jasper Lockhart’s bank statements and his written statement that he had made the day after the party. A precaution in the event that he or possibly I met with an unfortunate accident.
I secured the file with the firm’s official seal and locked it into the top drawer of my desk. So far it had no file number and had not been entered onto the firm’s computerised system. It was my little secret, for now.
Vince Sharp had left a file on my desk, so I flicked open the front cover.
The report was thorough, with satellite images to support the maps laid out before me. Flackyard’s yacht was moving south and looked as though it had made good time, sailing through the Bay of Biscay and the Gulf of Cadiz. I wondered — was she heading for the Strait of Gibraltar and on into the Mediterranean or would she sail on down to the coast of Africa?
That evening, LJ called me into his office for a drink. He had been harassed to hell and back, organising the administrative protocol for the New Network, so much so that I’d hardly seen him all week. I knew that BinghamCarter was still making things difficult for us. BinghamCarter, mid 40s, divorced twice, propped up the corner of the bar at his club, twenty-four hours a day. What he was giving up in food he was gaining in influence. BinghamCarter was trying to get certain Foreign Office people to assert their considerable power on the Partners of Ferran & Cardini. His motive was quite clearly to get control of the New Network for M16, and more importantly for himself. LJ said that, at the meeting I had missed, he had taken the liberty of putting me up as convening chairman of the field-training group.
I told him that I might be away for a few days. LJ said he thought that might be the case. He blew his nose loudly and smiled dryly from behind his big handkerchief. “I’ll convene the meeting and you delegate your vote to me.”
“It will be all right.”
“Thank you, that would help me enormously,” I said, and drank to his success. LJ came from behind his desk and stood in front of the large portrait of Winston Churchill. Taking hold of a corner he gently raised it and then stepped back to satisfy himself that it was straight.
“Did you check with Interpol about Harry Caplin?” I asked him.
LJ gave a histrionic sigh. “Don’t you ever give up?” he said. “You are quite impossible, Caplin has never been, and is not our concern. Miss Price has been assigned, I am told, to the team searching for Caplin and Flackyard, somewhere in southern Europe.” We stared at each other for a minute or so.
“Oh, very well, I’ll see if I can find out where they are.” He closed his eyes, gulped down his claret and leaned back in his chair like a worn-out roll of carpet. He said, “That liaison officer from Scotland Yard — what’s he called, Jefferson — was on the phone today. He said they can’t keep Jasper Lockhart locked up and available for questioning unless they’re considering charges.”
“I’ll clear that in a couple of days,” I said. “He’ll make no complaint; he wants to be kept in custody — he feels safe there.”
LJ said, “Look, I realise it’s not yet quite over, but I’m feeling a certain amount of pressure from upstairs in respect of this Poseidon business in Dorset.”
“No! You look,” I said, “I didn’t ask you to hold the door open. But don’t start closing it now that I’m half-way through.”
LJ got up and paced the office, his hands clasped behind his back as he walked up and down the room. “Careful not to slam it on my fingers,” he told me, “there’s a good boy. Oh, I know that you have a thousand reasons for not slipping up, but remember what the man who fell off of the high building said to a resident on the seventeenth floor as he fell past him. So far so good.” LJ smiled blandly.
“Thank you for those kind words of encouragement,” I said.
LJ walked across to his map cupboard, and his secret stash of alcohol. He spoke over his shoulder. “There are certain things which if I know about I must act upon. As it is I’m happy enough to leave them. But if you get it wrong I’ll tear you to shreds and anyone you try to protect will be torn up with you.”
“What about another drink?” I said.
“Well, old son, it’s a jolly good thing you like sangria,” replied LJ self-consciously.
LJ thought I was heading for the land of flamenco dancers and sherry.
Chapter 36
As a king watches over his kingdom, the stunning Boquer mountain range overlords the port of Pollensa at the northernmost tip of the island of Mallorca.
Along the streets, which lie between pastel coloured buildings, a shabby old mongrel, its muzzle grey with age, yawns scratching behind its ear while it lies in the shade of a doorway, taking pleasure from the cool sea breeze.
Tourists of all ages casually stroll along the waterside pine walk; the aroma of mouth-watering local fish dishes waft out from the many fine restaurants along the tree-lined natural harbour. People sit, laughing and drinking, letting the burden of modern life float away while they absorb the mellow atmosphere. Children play tirelessly on the beach and splash around in the crystal clear water of the bay.