When the phone rang the bottle was a quarter empty and Craig was in the bathroom, counting the tablets. Twenty-three, that was more than enough. He poured the tablets back into their bottle and noticed that his hand was still steady. The discovery didn't please him; he wanted to be really drunk before he swallowed the damn things, so drunk that he couldn't change his mind even if he wanted to. He put the tablets in his pocket and went back to the drawing room and the view of the park Benson had liked so much. The phone shrilled at him still. He picked up first his glass, then the phone.
"Craig," he said, and swallowed.
"Where you been?" said Loomis.
"The loo," said Craig. "I'm allowed to. You gave me the night off."
The words came out with the right insolence, but he was terrified. t
"You drinking?" Loomis asked. "I've had a couple."
"Don't have any more. Come here instead. I want to talk to you." "But you said-"
"I changed my mind," Loomis snarled. "I'm allowed to. I'm the boss."
He hung up then, and Craig finished his drink reflex-ively, without thought, then realized what he had done and put the glass down, very deliberately, still looking at the park. Benson had really liked that view, he thought. But then she was young and healthy and quite sure she wasn't going to die; that kind could afford to like things. He went back to the bathroom, and noticed on the Way what a big mistake the last drink had been. He was staggering. He ran the water cold, stuck his head under it, and thought. The tablets were out now. If he took them, Loomis might send a man round—they'd find him and have him pumped out before they had a chance to work, and Craig had no intention of being as vulnerable as that to Loomis, if Loomis were going to let him live. He had to get away, have time to think—but in London Loomis was the master. There was nowhere to hide from him. And out of London? The seaports were watched, and the airports too. Always. And the men who watched them knew Craig. They'd know at once which ship, which plane—and at the other end Loomis's men would be waiting. Men who'd spot him at once, though he'd never seen them before.
"Sods," Craig said aloud. "Bloody sods." And the words came out in the hard, flat accent of his childhood. And as he said them, he remembered. There was a way.
Getting there involved two tubes, a taxi, and three buses, and time was important. But even more important was to know you weren't followed, and by the time he reached the boatyard he was sure. It was in Wapping, behind a dirty back wall and a sagging door that waited in crumbling patience for the demolition squad. But inside it was neat, tidy, craftsmanlike, filled with every kind of pleasure craft from dinghys to trimarans, and every one built with patient skill. Arthur Candlish did well out of sailing boats, and paid his taxes on them. His other incomes were all tax-free. He listened in silence, a slow, big-boned man of fifty, as Craig talked. Candlish's slowness was not stupidity, but it helped when others thought it was. Craig told him his life was in danger, and he had to get away.
"Who's after you?" Candlish asked. "The coppers?"
"No," said Craig. "Not the coppers. These lads mean it." And Candlish smiled.
"You brought a feller here once," he said. "Big fat feller. I did a job for you. Is that him?"
Craig nodded, and Candlish sighed. "Ill charge you . nowt, John," he said. "But there'll be others, and it'll cost money to beat him."
"How much?" asked Craig.
"A thousand quid."
"Fifteen hundred," said Craig. "Ill pay in dollars. You're entitled to your share."
"I couldn't take money off ye," said Candlish. "I knew your da." He paused, and Craig marveled for the hundredth time that twenty years of London hadn't modified Candlish's voice in the slightest, so that he had only to speak to carry Craig back at once to his childhood: the cobbled streets, the gulls and docks, the cold, gray-glittering sea.
"Where?" Candlish asked, and Craig had dreaded the question. "Ireland," he said.
Candlish went out and Craig saw him dismissing his men, then at the telephone. There was no other way. He'd realized it there in Regent's Park, when he looked at Joanna Benson's view. He couldn't kill himself. Not now. Maybe if he'd been left alone and got drunk enough he'd have done it then. Maybe. But he couldn't try again. And he couldn't just drift, waiting for Loomis to find him. All he could do was finish the job, and do it well enough for Loomis to lay off him till the next time. That meant going back to the States and finding Marcus Kaplan—and getting more information. There had to be more. That was why the Americans had him, but he could be found.
Candlish came back. "We'd better make a start," he said.
He rose and put on a bowler hat of antique design that made him look like a bookmaker with a taste for religion.
"That fat friend of yours won't have forgotten me," he said.
Loomis missed him by seven minutes. When he arrived the boatyard was locked up tight, and a sign outside said closed till further notice. Nobody had seen Craig, nobody had seen Candlish. The staff—three men and a lad —were on holiday, and Mr. Candlish had probably gone up North to see his relatives . . .
Mr. Candlish, in fact, was driving to Holyhead in a fish lorry, and Craig went with him as his mate. They stopped in the suburbs for Craig to have his photograph taken, and were met outside Holyhead by a young man in an Aston Martin DB6 who had Craig's new passport—not too new, not too blank, the American visa exactly as it should be. Craig found that his name was John Adams, and that he was a general dealer.
"Useful that," said the young man. "You can deal in anything you like. Early Picassos or army surplus. Two hundred and fifty quid please."
"Send me the bill," Candlish said.
"Anything you say, Mr. Candlish."
The Aston Martin roared and disappeared, nervous at being so far from London, and Candlish drove on down to the docks. In place of the fishing boat Craig had expected there was an elegant power launch complete with owners—a thin Manchester cotton broker and his fat Sal-ford wife—Craig and Candlish were the crew.
"Six hundred quid they want—and a hundred and fifty for the lorry," said Candlish. "It's a bloody scandal."
There was satisfaction in the thought that A. J. Scott-Saunders had provided the money.
They sailed at once, and made for Cork. There was relief in handling a boat again, the relief of knowing that one skill at least had not deserted him—and the realization of what waited for him in the States killed his need for alcohol. The fat lady from Salford could cook, too, and the weather was clear and bright. The trip at least was bearable, and more than bearable when Arthur started to talk about the old days, about the father Craig could scarcely remember. He took the wheel while Arthur slept, and when it was his turn, found that he too could sleep. Four healing hours that left him alert, ready, as the boat ran into a small, empty cove and Candlish and Craig prepared to go ashore in the dinghy. The thin man and fat woman said nothing, but their eyes on Craig were hungry. Money was going ashore. A lot of money.
Craig took the oars and Candlish cast off. The sea gleamed in the morning sunlight, bright and diamond-hard, without the Mediterranean tenderness Craig knew so well.
"You'll have to watch those two," said Craig.
"I'll watch them." Candlish's voice showed no trace of worry. "They're a bit scared of me, John."
Craig was still laughing as the dinghy beached. They walked ashore dry shod.
"Straight up to those cliffs," said Candlish. "Get to the top and you'll find a bit of a path. Follow that and you'll come to a farmhouse. There'll be a Volkswagen there. Take it."
"Stolen?"