The Melting Man

'You were doing a lot of gabbing about master minds, Carver. Let's see you tackle this one.' O'Dowda got up and began to move towards the upturned table.

'You sit tight,' I said.

'You go to hell,' he said. 'You stay up there. This is our half of the room. And I'm thirsty.'

He salvaged a bottle and a glass and poured himself some champagne and then sat on the foot of the throne under his own outsized figure.

I said, 'Kermode. Get over to one of the windows, break it and the moment you see anyone outside give them a shout.'

Kermode looked at O'Dowda.

O'Dowda said, 'Do as the master mind says.'

Kermode went over to one of the windows, jabbed a lower pane with the leg of a chair, placed the chair by the window and sat down.

O'Dowda wrapped his loose robe tighter round himself and said, pointing, 'See that smooth city type.'

He indicated an elderly, distinguished-looking man in pin-striped trousers and black coat; a man with a square, honest face and nicely greying hair.

'Floated a company with him once. He was clever. Brilliant. And he got me to the point when he thought he had me on toast to the tune of thousands. He damned near did. As near as you are at this moment to doing me. Know where he is now? Doing time — eight years — for fraud. It must be bitter for him because the fraud was mine not his. I heard that his wife committed suicide. No kids, thankfully. I don't like hurt- ing children until they're over eighteen.' O'Dowda rose and came halfway up the room carrying a bottle and a spare glass. He put them on a chair. 'This may be a long wait. No reason why you shouldn't have a drink.'

I said, 'If you come past that chair, I'll shoot.'

O'Dowda said calmly, 'I know you will.'

He went back to his throne and sat down. He filled his glass, raised it to me, and said, 'It'll take some time, but eventually I'll be missed and one of the servants will be up here. We'll get out — and then I'm shouting for the police, for Interpol, the whole boiling. I'm laying charges. Assault, armed robbery, the whole book. I'll make such a fuss that Interpol will have to back out because they'll be scared of the publicity. They will forget the parcel. Even they have their limits. Yes, boyo, one way and another it's you sitting in the hot seat. Ever been in a French prison? No coddling like in ours. French are the practical people. Punishment is punishment.'

I said, 'Before that happens I'll set fire to this lot.' I tapped the parcel.

'Yes. I see you'd do that. I'll accept that. But I'd still lay the charges. Eventually, boyo, I'll have you keeping my city friend company. Pilch his name was. Eye for the women, he had, too. Not that his wife ever knew, or she might not have committed suicide.'

I said, 'What happens up here if you want someone, want to have something sent up?'

'Good question,' said O'Dowda. 'And I'll be honest with you. Nothing. This is my place. When I come up here, I make sure there's everything I want here. Only two men have permission to disturb me up here, Kermode and Durnford. They use the loudspeaker. But if we sit here long enough, Kermode will spot someone from the window.'

I stood up and walked towards the champagne.

He grinned. 'Thought you might get round to it. If I'd known I'd have had some non-vintage stuff up here for you. Veuve Clicquot is only for friends. But this time I'll overlook it. You get a wine issue in French prisons, you know. Probably only plonk. So enjoy that while it lasts.'

I went back and sat down, put the parcel on the floor between my feet, and opened the champagne one-handed, steadying the bottle between my knees.

I was in a jam. I drank some champagne and tried to think. Lots of thoughts came, but none of them seemed to have much comfort to offer in the present situation. I was really in it, up to my neck. We might be stuck here for hours. All day, all night. They could take it in turns to cat-doze. They were two to one. Eventually they would get me. There was no question about that.

I looked at my watch. We'd already been locked in for half an hour. I was feeling hot and tempted to take another glass of champagne, but I put the temptation from me. At any time O'Dowda or Kermode might try something. I couldn't afford to be fuddled.

Maybe some such thought had occurred to O'Dowda for he raised his glass to me and beamed over the top of it.

Across the room at the windows, Kermode kept watch on the outside world. If he did see anyone he probably would not say so, not yet, because he, too, must know that the waiting game up here was the one which would pay off for O'Dowda.

I picked up the parcel and, with the gun in my other hand, went over to the windows and pushed a chair into place. To Kermode, I said, 'You get back with him.'

He quit his place without a word and went over to O'Dowda. He sat down, rolled up his trouser leg and began to examine his pellet wounds. I sat at an angle, so that I could cast an eye outside from time to time and also keep the two of them in view. Outside it was a beautiful late September day, and miles away I could just glimpse a corner of the lake and a huddle of white houses shimmering in the heat haze on the far side. It was hot in the room. I ran the back of my hand across my forehead O'Dowda said, 'Finding it warm, eh?'

I said, 'You don't need the heating on on a day like this.'

He shrugged his big shoulders. 'On all the time. But there's an automatic control. Constant temperature of sixty-eight. You're only feeling hot because you're worried, Carver. You don't know what to do. Things are going to be much hotter for you before we finish. Pity — because if you'd played ball with me, I could have learnt to like you and put a lot of work your way. I might even have taken you into one of my organizations and made a fortune for you. But not now… oh no! I'm going to see you fry. I'm going to have you regretting that you ever knew me.'

I didn't answer. I sat there, enjoying the coolish air through the broken window. But for all the draught, I was still hot.

After a while I got up and moved so that I stood above one of the grids that covered the underfloor heating. Warm air was flooding up through it. For my money, it was a damned sight more than sixty-eight in the room. Something must have gone wrong with the thermostat. I went back to the window.

It grew hotter. There wasn't any doubt about it.

O'Dowda had noticed it too. He loosened the front of his oriental gown and said, 'What's that thermometer say?' He nodded to a wall space between the two windows close to me.

I got up and checked the thermometer.

'Something's wrong with your system. It's seventy-two. Where's the thermostat?'

'In the gallery outside.'

'Well, if it gets any hotter you'll have all your guests here melting on you.'

He grinned and drank another glass of champagne.

I lit a cigarette, and glanced out of the window, and was rewarded with a sunny world in which nothing stirred except a pair of blackbirds kicking up soil in a worm search on one of the garden beds.

Kermode and O'Dowda refreshed themselves with champagne, and I sat smoking, one sticky hand holding the gun across my knees, and thought about the closed steel doors. Durnford was crazy. What he hell was the point of shutting us all in here? In fact, if he'd known that it was going to help O'Dowda, then he would never have done it — because O'Dowda was the man he hated. Then, why the hell be content to go off just leaving us all locked in? It was like throwing a snowball at a tank as far as O'Dowda was concerned. He really was crazy — yet crazy or not he was basically an intelligent man and intelligence did not just disappear in a mad moment of hatred. Usually it reinforced the crazy action. He didn't have a very high opinion of me — largely because he thought that I'd failed him in mucking up O'Dowda's plans. But he didn't hate me as he hated O'Dowda. He'd advised me not to come in this room and see O'Dowda.