The Melting Man

'Pity. You spent last night with this Miss Julia Yunge-Brown?'

'Yes. She's a cordon bleu cook, and we had tranches de mouton with brandy. I don't know how she cooked it, but it took about two hours.'

He nodded. 'Could have been a la Poitevine. Should have had garlic with it. If only a touch.'

'It did.'

'Where is she now?'

'I don't know. I went for a stroll before breakfast and when I got back she had gone. A friend of ours left this note.'

I handed him Panda's note. He studied it without emotion and then put it in his pocket. 'What is so special about the pyjamas?'

'The design is made up of the flags of all nations.'

'Julia picked up the parcel for you, of course? I should have thought about the Auberge du Pere Bise. And now you have safely disposed of it?'

'Yes.'

'Good. I would not want to think that anyone else could get their hands on it. That would be unfortunate for you.'

'Naturally, until I can hand it over in exchange for Julia.'

He shook his head.

'You are taking far too chivalrous a view.'

'If I didn't she could end up floating in a lake. General Gonwalla, fond though he may be of girls, isn't all that soft-hearted. He wants to keep his power seat warm, so he won't mind who he shoves out into the cold.'

'Power, politics — they are the bane of my life. It is nice to concentrate on simple things like murder, theft, forgery. Unfortunately one cannot always choose. I have the strictest instructions to obtain the parcel. Following your request, my organization have agreed to make a payment for it.' He sighed. 'Until now, I thought that it would be a simple matter of bargaining between the two of us. You would not have got the price Gonwalla or O'Dowda might have paid, but since your heart is in the right place I know you would have foregone the extra profit in order to do me a favour. Now it is very much complicated by this kidnapping — and becomes very difficult for you.'

'You think so?'

'I know so, and so do you. I must have the parcel for my employers. They insist, ruthlessly. Gonwalla may be ruthless and O'Dowda, too, but theirs is a personal form of ruthlessness. It does not approach the ruthlessness of an amorphous organization like a government or group of governments using a perfectly legitimate international organization. No individual would be personally responsible for the girl's death — not that we shan't try to find her and release her, of course — because it would be a bureaucratic necessity. It is very sad, is it not?' He drained his Pernod and called for another.

'You expect me to hand the parcel over and let what may happen happen to Julia?'

'That's what I've been saying.'

'You know that I won't bloody well do that!'

'I know that you will try to find a way around it.'

'What way?'

'That is up to you. I have no objection to anything you do, so long as I get the parcel. If I don't get it, you know, of course, what will happen to you?'

'Go ahead. Frighten me.'

'It will be out of my hands, of course. Happily another department will deal with it, so I shall have no guilt feelings. But you will be eliminated — out of pure bureaucratic pique, of course. I don't suggest that they will do it in any sadistic way, or make it particularly lingering. They will do it quickly and it will look like an accident. You are not naive enough to think I'm being flippant about this?'

I wasn't. He was pressuring me, but behind the pressure was a fact, a simple, frightening fact. They would do just as he was promising. As a bureaucratic necessity. I would have to go. It was a straightforward situation. I had the parcel. If I gave it to Najib in return for Julia — then I would go. If I gave it to O'Dowda (which I couldn't see myself doing) — then it was ditto, with the addition of Julia. And if I gave it to Aristide, which I could do by motoring a few miles up the lakeside, then Julia would go because Gonwalla would have to make someone pay for the trouble that lay ahead of him. All I had to do was to find some way of getting my hands on Julia, freeing her, and then handing the parcel over to Aristide. That was all. Simple. I ordered myself a Pernod. Beer was too insipid in the circumstances.

Aristide watched me in silence. I downed the Pernod much too fast and stood up.

'I will have to think about this.'

'Naturally. You have my telephone number. Just call me.'

'And what,' I asked, 'are you doing about the other aspect of this O'Dowda affair?'

He shrugged his shoulders. 'That is a simple matter of murder. I have had instructions to leave it in abeyance until this far more important matter is settled. You are, I imagine, going to the château?'

'Yes.'

'Then please don't mention to O'Dowda our interest in this affair. That is between us.'

'Of course, I wouldn't do anything to embarrass you.'

He grinned. 'That is the correct attitude.'

It would have been nice to sock him on the nose before leaving. But it wouldn't have done any good. He had nothing to do with it. He was just a cipher. He took his pay and went through the prescribed motions and when he went home at night everything dropped from him, leaving him stainless. Just wipe the knife down with a wet rag and you couldn't tell that it had been used. As long as the correct official form had been made out, endorsed by the right department, and neatly filed in the correct cabinet, then there was nothing to worry about.

I drove along the lake as far as Evian, and then I phoned the château and got hold of Durnford. I asked if O'Dowda was around. He wasn't. He had gone to Geneva for the day. I told Durnford I was coming along to see him.

The last person I wanted to run into at the moment was O'Dowda.

I parked on the gravel outside the château, went in and across the big marbled floor to Durnford's office. He was sitting in a swivel chair, staring at a green filing cabinet, smoking, and, from the ash scattered down his waistcoat front, he'd been in that position for a long time. He just cocked his head at me as I came in and then went on staring.

I sat down and lit a cigarette. There was a photograph behind the desk of O'Dowda on the shores of some loch holding up a pike that must have gone all of thirty pounds.

I said, 'This is a purely private talk between us. We won't go into the muck-up you've made of things. We'll just stick to some straight answers — from you. Okay?'

He nodded and then reached down and produced a glass from an open desk drawer at his side. He took a generous swig, blinked his eyes at the filing cabinet and put the glass back.

'How long have you been on that?'

'Since lunchtime.'

'Then just knock it off until we've finished our business. First of all — have you had any communication from Najib Alakwe today?'

'No.'

'Did you know that he's grabbed Julia — and she isn't coming back until I hand over the parcel from the car?'

'No.' He didn't seem much interested. Well, whisky can Hunt the susceptibilities of the best of us.

'When you've wanted to get in touch with Najib in the past, how have you done it?'

He said, 'That's my business.'

I said, 'It's my business now. I want to know and I'm in the mood where I don't mind beating up a man some years older than myself. So give.'

He considered it for a while, then turned and fished in another drawer and passed a card across to me. I looked at it and wondered how many different kinds Najib had. It was the usual Mr Najib Alakwe, Esquire, of the import, export and specialities line, but this time there was an address in Geneva. I had to turn it over. You never knew what gem the Alakwe brothers were coming up with. I wasn't disappointed. The motto read: A bon entendeur il ne faut que demi parole. Well, I was hoping to have more than half a word with Najib — and soon.