Vintage Stuff

The Countess smiled sweetly. 'Let me introduce myself,' she said. 'My name's Deirdre, Countess de Montcon. And please don't apologize for your husband's language. He's just a little overwrought. And now if you'll excuse us...'

Mr Clyde-Browne didn't budge. 'You're not leaving this house until I've got to the bottom of this...this...'

'Murder?' asked the Countess. 'And of course there's the little matter of kidnapping too but I don't suppose that's so important.'

'I didn't kidnap you,' said Peregrine and blew his father's mind still further. If the sod was prepared to deny kidnapping while openly admitting he'd murdered, he had to be telling the truth.

'All right,' he said. 'How much do you want?'

The Countess hesitated and made up her mind not to go back to American slang. Kensington English would hit Mrs Clyde-Browne's gentility harder. 'Really,' she said, 'if it weren't for the obvious fact that you're not yourself I would find your attitude extremely sordid.'

'You would, would you? Well let me tell you I know sordidity when I see it and I know blackmailers and add that lot to your calling yourself a countess and '

'But she is a countess,' said Peregrine as his father ran out of words, 'I saw her passport and she lives in this jolly great Château. It's called Carmagnac and it's ever so nice. And it's there I shot the professor.'

'Oh, you never did,' said Mrs Clyde-Browne reproachfully, 'you're making it up.'

'Christ!' said Mr Clyde-Browne, and downed his Scotch. 'Will you keep out of this. We've enough...'

'I most certainly won't,' retorted Mrs Clyde-Browne, 'I'm his mother...'

'And he's a fucking murderer. M-U-R-D-'

'I know how to spell, thank you very much. And he's not, are you, darling?'

'No,' said Peregrine. 'All I did was shoot him. I didn't know he was '

'Know? Know? You wouldn't know mass murder from petty larceny,' shouted his father, and grabbed the paper, 'well, the rest of the bloody world knows...'

'If I might just get a word in,' said the Countess. 'The rest of the world doesn't know...yet. Of course, in time the French police will be in touch with Scotland Yard but if we could come to some arrangement...'

'I've already asked you how much you're demanding, you blackmailing bitch. Now spit it out.'

The Countess looked at him nastily but kept her cool. 'For a man supposedly at the top of your profession you are really remarkably obtuse,' she said. 'The truism about the law applies. You are an ass. And what's more, if you don't moderate your language I shall call the police myself.'

'Oh, you mustn't,' wailed Mrs Clyde-Browne on whose dim intelligence it had slowly dawned that Peregrine really was in danger. Mr Clyde-Browne edged onto a chair.

'All right,' he said, 'what are you suggesting?'

'Immunity,' she said simply. 'But first I would like a nice cup of tea. It's been a hard two days getting your son out of France and '

'Get it,' Mr Clyde-Browne told his wife.

'But, Harold '

'I said get it and I meant get it. And stop blubbing, for God's sake. I want to hear what this blo...this lady has to say.'

Still sobbing, Mrs Clyde-Browne left the room. By the time she returned with the tea-tray Mr Clyde-Brown was staring at the Countess with something approaching respect. He was also drained of all emotion except terror. In a life devoted to the belief that all women were an intellectual sub-species whose sole purpose was to cook meals and have babies, he had never before come across such a powerful intelligence. 'And what about that?' he asked, glaring with horror at Glodstone.

'I have arranged his future,' said the Countess, 'I won't say where, though it may be in Brazil...'

'But I don't want to go to Brazil,' squawked Glodstone, and was prompdy told to hold his tongue.

'Or it may be somewhere else. The point is that Mr Glodstone is going to die.'

On the couch Glodstone whimpered. Mr Clyde-Browne perked up. This woman knew her onions. 'And about time too,' he said.

'And isn't it time you phoned your brother?' asked the Countess. 'The sooner he can get the ball rolling the sooner we can wrap this up. And now if you'll excuse us...'

This time Mr Clyde-Browne didn't try to stop her. He knew when he was beaten. 'How will I get in touch with you if '

'You won't, honey,' said the Countess patting his ashen cheek, 'from now on in the ball's in your court.'

'Well, really!' said Mrs Clyde-Browne, 'She didn't even touch her tea.'

'Bugger tea. Take that murderous bastard upstairs and bleach his hair back to normal.'

'But we haven't any peroxide and '

'Use whatever you pour down the lavatory. Even if his hair falls out it'll be better than nothing.' And he hurried down the passage to the study and phoned his brother.

The Countess drove steadily towards London. She didn't want to be stopped by a patrol car and she had to get back into the sprawl of the metropolis and anonymity in case Mr Clyde-Browne's brother refused to cooperate.

'I've booked you a room at Heathrow,' she said.

'But I don't want to go to Brazil,' said Glodstone.

'So you're not going. You flew in on a Dan-Air Flight from Zimbabwe, arrival time 6 a.m., name of Harrison. And you're not to be disturbed. It's all arranged. I'll pick you up around noon for the funeral.'

'Funeral? What funeral?'

'Yours, sweetheart. Mr Glodstone's going to die. Officially. And don't take on so. You'll get used to the after-life.'

Glodstone doubted it.

Slymne didn't. Given the choice he'd have willingly died. Once again he was being interrogated. This time by three American agents from Frankfurt who were under the impression that he had spent time in Libya. In another room Major Fetherington was getting the same treatment. Unfortunately, he had.

'In the war,' he moaned, 'in the bloody war.'

'Yom Kippur or the Seven Days?'

'In the Eighth Army. A Desert Rat, for God's sake.'

'You can say that again, bud. You and Gaddafi both.'

'I'm talking about the war, the real war. The one against the Afrika Korps.'

'The who?' said one of the men who'd obviously never heard of any war before Vietnam.

'The Germans. You must know about Rommel.'

'You tell us. He train you or something?'

'Damned near killed me,' said the Major, rather wishing he had.

'So you were threatened into this, is that what you're saying?'

'No, I'm not. I'm not in this, whatever it is. I was sent down here by the Headmaster to try to find Clyde-Browne...'

'Tell us something new. We've been through that routine before.'

'But there's nothing else to tell. And what are you doing with that fucking hypodermic?'

In the passage outside Commissaire Roudhon and the man from the Quai d'Orsay listened with interest.

'The space shuttle and truth drugs and not an inkling of history,' said Monsieur Laponce. 'So much for the special relationship. The President will be pleased.'

'Monsieur?' said the Commissaire, who hadn't a clue what the Foreign Office man was talking about.

'Between London and Washington. We are standing at the end of an era.'

Commissaire Roudhon looked up and down the passage. 'If you say so, monsieur,' he said. Eras meant nothing to him.

'From now on Britain will be what she should always have been, a dependency of France,' continued Monsieur Laponce, indulging his taste for rhetoric. 'The idiots in Whitehall have played into our hands.'

'You really think the British government sent these men?'

'It is not what I think that matters, Commissaire. It is what those charming Americans in there report to Washington.'

'But Gaddafi '

' has nothing to do with this. Nor have the Red Brigade or any other terrorist group. It was a stratagem to worsen our relationship with the United States and it has failed.'