“You mean the underwater work?”
“Yes.”
Surely you are not telling me you’re afraid?” Denning sounded incredulous.
“That’s exactly what I am telling you, and I don’t mind admitting it. But even if I wasn’t, I’m not sure I’d want to do it.”
“So much for gratitude,” Leonora said.
There was enough scorn in her voice to sting a little, and Fletcher turned on her sharply.
“Don’t push it too hard. I don’t think anyone was acting solely in my interests. Anyway, I’ve had strict orders not to meddle any further in this business.”
“Orders from the police?”
“Yes.”
“You think you owe them anything? Looks to me like they’re not using any kid-glove methods with you.”
“You mean the beating up? That wasn’t the police; it was another lot.”
“We know who it was; but all orders come from the same source, ultimately. They’re all working for the same man. You know that. Are you going to take this sort of thing lying down? Don’t you want to hit back at them? Don’t you have any spirit, for Pete’s sake, or are you just one big spineless slob?”
He was stung again by her words and the tone in which they were spoken, though he knew that that was her purpose. She wanted to goad him into doing what they asked. But he saw no reason why he should, and a lot of very good reasons why he should not.
“If you’re so keen on the damned photos,” he said, “why don’t you get somebody else to take them? Why doesn’t one of you go down there and have a shot at it?”
“We don’t have anyone with the necessary experience, that’s why. If we had, do you think we’d bother with you?”
Fletcher laughed. “So now we’re getting to the truth. You really need me, don’t you?”
“You need us, too,” Denning said softly.
Fletcher glanced at him quickly. “How do you figure that out?”
“You’re in our hands. We could hand you over to the police.”
“The police haven’t got anything on me.”
“No? You think they won’t connect the death of two men in a burnt-out hut in a junk-yard with you? There’ll be witnesses to swear that you left Port Morgan with the two men in a car. They’ll take fingerprints from the car and match them up with yours. Would you like to make a bet you didn’t touch anything? Think about it, Mr. Fletcher; think about it.”
Fletcher thought about it and saw the kind of situation he was in. If the police got hold of him again they would surely lock him away this time, and maybe he would never get out again alive, however hard he tried to explain things and however much he might protest his innocence. Protestations would not be enough, not nearly enough.
“With us,” Denning said, “you are safe. Being with us is possibly the only way you are safe. You have so many enemies, so few friends. Think about it.”
It was a situation that left him little choice. He was in it now, in it up to the neck, and he could see no way out.
“I came to write a book,” he said, “and look what’s happened.”
“You’ll still live to write the book,” Denning said. “But you’re with us now.”
It was what King had said. Fletcher was beginning to think it might be true.
“So I’m to stay here tonight?”
“There is a room prepared for you?” Denning said.
It was a large pleasant room with a balcony. From the balcony there was a magnificent view, as he discovered when he got up in the morning. From the terrace in front of the house the ground fell away fairly steeply at first, then more gently. He could see the road up which they had come the previous night; it was like a narrow stream meandering between outcrops of rock, trees, undergrowth; creeping ever downwards until it finally disappeared from sight. To the left and right the hills were green with the abundant vegetation, mist still rising like steam from hollows into which the sun’s heat had not yet penetrated. It was the kind of country in which a man could vanish and evade pursuit, perhaps for years, perhaps for ever. Guerrilla country.
He went to the bathroom and found that a razor had been provided. He shaved and took a shower and went down to breakfast. Leonora was there, but not the others. She was wearing a multi-coloured shirt and a brief denim skirt. It was the first glimpse he had had of her legs and he could find nothing wrong with them. Taken all in all, he decided that she was the kind of girl it would be pleasant to have breakfast with; and perhaps not just once, either.
She cocked her head on one side and gave him a critical inspection. “John!” she said. “You look well enough. How do you feel?”
“A lot better than might have been expected,” Fletcher told her. “Apart from a few bruises and some stiffness here and there, I feel fine.”
“That’s good. We wouldn’t have wanted a cripple on our hands.”
“You’re looking at it simply from your own point of view, of course?”
She lifted an eyebrow. “Oh, come now, John; you’re not expecting tea and sympathy and all that jazz, are you? This is a tough, cynical old world, and you have to face up to it.”
“What you’re telling me is that you and the others rescued me solely for your own advantage and that you don’t give a damn whether I’m alive or dead, except in so far as it affects your plans, whatever they may be. Is that it?”
She smiled. “I believe you’re feeling hurt. You really are looking for sympathy.”
“I’m not hurt,” Fletcher said; “except physically. But I resent being used. By anybody.”
“We all use other people; it’s a fact of life. You’re using us.”
He supposed it was true in a way, though it was hardly the same thing; he had not forced himself on them. But he decided not to get into an argument about it; and at that moment King and Lawrence appeared, followed a little later by Conrad Denning.
Breakfast was served on the terrace by an elderly black manservant, and there was that magnificent view which Fletcher had seen from his balcony.
“You have a fine place here,” he said.
Denning agreed. “I am lucky. Perhaps I should feel guilty about having so much.”
“And do you?”
“A little. Sometimes I ask myself why one man should have so much more than another.”
“It’s always been like that. Always will be.”
“Is that what you think?”
“I’m not expecting to see any big change in my lifetime. Even in communist countries there’s inequality.”
“Well, we shall see,” Denning said; “we shall see.”
He left soon after breakfast on his way to Jamestown, explaining that he had legal business to attend to; which served to remind Fletcher that this cousin of President Rodgers was still a practising lawyer. He drove away in an open Aston Martin, another example of his somewhat opulent style of living; and Fletcher could not help wondering how such a man came to be involved with people like King and Lawrence, or even Leonora. And if it came to that, what was Leonora doing there anyway?
King and Lawrence soon disappeared, perhaps by previous agreement, and he was left with the girl for company. He suspected that she had been deputed to keep him under surveillance; which was just fine as far as he was concerned; he could think of no one he would rather have had to keep him under surveillance. She took him on a tour of the property; there was an extensive garden on several levels with a stream running through it; there were waterfalls and shade trees and rocky pools and rampant vines and creepers; and there was not another building in sight. They sat by one of the pools and watched the water cascading into it from a lip of rock above.
“What are you doing here?” Fletcher asked. He had already discovered that her surname was Dubois, which suggested French ancestry.