“Miguel thinks we ought to put him into the river to drown.”
“And what did you say?”
“I said the police would be interested in a body found three hundred kilometres away from the car.”
“The idea’s absurd,” Doctor Plarr said. “You can’t murder Charley Fortnum.”
“I try not to think in those terms, Eduardo.”
“Is killing a matter of semantics to you now, Léon? I remember you were always good at semantics. You used to explain the Trinity to me in the old days, but your explanation was more complicated than the catechism.”
“We do not want to kill him,” Father Rivas said, “but what can we do? He saw you.”
“He won’t remember when he wakes. He always forgets things completely when he’s drunk.” Doctor Plarr added, “How on earth did you make such a mistake?”
“That I must find out,” Father Rivas replied, and he began to talk again in Guaraní.
Doctor Plarr took one of the candles and went back to the doorway of the other room. Charley Fortnum looked quite peacefully asleep on the box, just as though he were in his own great brass bedstead at home, where he lay always on the right side near the window. A sense of fastidiousness made the doctor choose the left side, near the door, when he slept in it himself with Clara.
Charley Fortnum’s face as long as he had known him had always been a little flushed. His blood pressure was high and he was too fond of whisky. He had passed sixty, but his thin hair retained a soft and mouse like tint like a boy’s, and his colouring to the unprofessional eye gave a false impression of health. He looked like an out-of-doors man, a farmer. Indeed he had a camp about fifty kilometres from the city, where he grew a little grain and mate. He liked trundling from field to field in an old Land Rover which he called Fortnum’s Pride. “Off for a gallop,” he would say, grinding at the gears, “hi-yup.”
Now he suddenly raised his hand and waved it. His eyes were closed. He was dreaming. Perhaps he thought he was waving to his wife and the doctor, as he left them on the verandah to deal with dull medical business. “Women’s insides,” Charley Fortnum had said once. “Never understood them. One day you must draw me a diagram.”
Doctor Plarr went quickly back into the outer room. “He’s all right, Léon. You can dump him safely by the road somewhere for the police to find.”
“We cannot do that. He may have recognized you.”
“He’s fast asleep. Anyway he would say nothing to hurt me. We are old friends.”
“I think I know what must have happened,” Father Rivas said. “The information you gave us-it was quite correct up to a point. The Ambassador came from Buenos Aires by car, he spent three nights on the road because he wanted to see the country, and the Embassy sent a plane from Buenos Aires to bring him back after his dinner with the Governor. All those details were correct enough, but you never told us your Consul was going with him to the ruins.”
“I didn’t know. He told me about the dinner-that was all.”
“He did not even go in the Ambassador’s car. At least we would have grabbed both of them then. He must have taken his own car and then have left while the Ambassador was still lingering around. Our men were only expecting one car to pass. Our outpost flashed the signal when it went by. He had seen the flag.”
“The Union Jack, not the Stars and Stripes. He hadn’t even the right to fly that.”
“In the dark you cannot see clearly and he had been told about the diplomatic number plate.”
“It was CC not CD.”
“The letters look much the same in the dark on a moving car. You cannot blame him. Alone in the dark-frightened probably. It could have happened to me or you. A fatality.”
“The police may not know what has happened to Fortnum yet. If you release him quickly…”
Doctor Plarr, in face of their attentive silence, felt as though he were pleading before a tribunal. He said, “Charley Fortnum’s no good to you as a hostage.”
“He is a member of the diplomatic corps,” Aquino said.
“No, he isn’t. An Honorary Consul is not a proper Consul.”
“The British Ambassador would have to intervene.”
“Of course. He would report the affair home. Just as he would for anyone British. If you kidnapped me or old Humphries it would be much the same.”
“The British will ask the Americans to bring pressure on the General in Asunción.”
“You can be sure the Americans will do nothing of the kind. Why should they? They don’t want to anger their friend the General for the sake of Charley Fortnum.”
“But he is a British Consul.”
Doctor Plarr began to despair of ever convincing them of how unimportant Charley Fortnum was. He said, “He had not even the right to put CC on his car. He was in trouble for that.”
“You knew him well, I think?” Father Rivas said.
“Yes.”
“And you liked him?”
“Yes. In a way.” It wasn’t a good sign that Léon already spoke of Fortnum in the past tense.
“I am sorry. I can understand how you feel. It is always much easier to deal with strangers. Like in the confessional box. I used to hate it if I recognized a voice. One can be harsh so much more easily to a stranger.”
“What can you gain by holding him, Léon?”
“We came over the border to do a job. There are a lot of our people who would be discouraged if nothing happened. In our situation something must always happen. Even the kidnapping of a Consul is something.”
“An Honorary Consul,” Doctor Plarr corrected.
“It will be a warning to people who are more important. Perhaps they will take our next threat seriously. That is a small tactical point gamed in a long war.”
Doctor Plarr said, “So I suppose you’ll be prepared to hear the stranger’s confession and give him absolution before you kill him? Charley Fortnum’s a Catholic, you know. He’ll appreciate having a priest at his deathbed.”
Father Rivas said to the Negro, “Give me a cigarette, Pablo.”
“He will be even glad of a married priest like you, Léon,” Doctor Plarr said.
“You were willing enough to help us, Eduardo.”
“In the case of the Ambassador, yes. His life wouldn’t have been in any danger. They would have given way. In any case an American… he’s a combatant. The Americans have killed plenty of men in South America.”
“Your father is among those we are trying to help-if he is still alive.”
“I don’t know whether he would have liked your method.”
“We have not chosen our method. They have reduced us to this.”
“What on earth can you ask in return for Charley Fortnum? Perhaps a case of real Scotch?”
“For the American Ambassador we would have demanded the release of twenty prisoners. For a British Consul I think we shall have to halve the bill. That is up to El Tigre.”
“Where the hell is your El Tigre?”
“Only those in Rosario are in touch with him until the operation is finished.”
“I suppose his schedule did not allow for mistakes. Or for human nature. The General can kill the men you name and say they died years ago.”
“We have been through that argument many times. If they kill them our demands will be greater next time.”
“Léon, listen to me. If you can be sure that Charley Fortnum will remember nothing, surely…?”
“How could we ever be certain? You have no drugs to wipe out memory. Does he mean so much to you, Eduardo?”
“He’s a voice in the confessional box which I have recognized.”
“Ted,” a familiar voice called to bun from the inner room. “Ted.”
“You see,” Father Rivas said, “he knows you.”