Villaroel nodded, his face serious and thoughtful. He said, ‘She thinks, you see, of my mother. My mother is from Argentina. She is an Argentinian by birth, from Buenos Aires.’
‘I see. Then do you think—’
‘She has influence there still, I would say,’ Villaroel went on. ‘She visits there from time to time, and she knows certain quite prominent persons. But what precisely do you wish, Commander Shaw?’
Shaw hesitated. ‘At this stage, very little — indeed, nothing. All I ask is that I may regard Debonnair and yourself as friends whom I may contact when necessary. And if and when I do so, Senor, then I may ask you to bring some of yours or your mother’s influence to bear, to apply perhaps a little pressure in certain quarters — if you follow me?’
Villaroel nodded gravely. ‘Yes, I believe I do. You cannot come out into the open and involve your Governement… and yet you may find it necessary to, shall I say, find out certain things, perhaps from the governments of the countries where you intend to work?’
Shaw grinned in relief. ‘I think you have it!’ he said. ‘At any rate, it’s close enough. Now, it’s asking a lot of you, I know that. Will you do it, if it becomes necessary?’
‘Yes, I will do it, provided it brings no harm to my own country.’
‘It won’t do that, I promise you.’
‘Then I will do it, and happily.’ He seemed, Shaw fancied, glad to have the prospect of something to do, glad to become involved once again in things that mattered. ‘You may rest assured that any such request will not go unanswered, Commander Shaw.’
Shaw nodded. He said gratefully, ‘I needn’t say how glad I am to have that assurance… thank you, Villaroel. I’m really grateful for a line of communication, believe me.’ He finished his drink and stood up, wanting to get away now. ‘I hope you won’t think I’m abrupt or rude to run out on you again the moment I’ve finished talking business,’ he said with a smile, ‘but if you’ll be so good as to excuse me, I’ll leave now for the airport.’
‘So soon?’ Villaroel was concerned. ‘You are in a great and unnecessary hurry, Commander, are you not? Come — I insist that you dine with me, and afterwards Miss Delacroix will drive you to the airport… no, I insist, really I do.’
Some time later in the car, a vehicle which seemed far too big and resplendent for a girl to drive — there should have been a chauffeur and a couple of footmen, Shaw thought — he chuckled suddenly and asked, ‘Does he always call you Miss Delacroix?’
‘Yes,’ she said seriously, ‘always. They’re like that, out here. Terribly formal. He won’t call me Debonnair till…’ she tailed off, embarrassed, frowning through the windscreen.
Shaw prompted, ‘Yes? Go on — till when?’
‘Well…’ She swung the car expertly round a corner with a long drop on one side into a deep valley touched to silver by the moon. ‘Not until I’ve been properly introduced to his mother and the old homestead, anyway.’
‘I see. D’you know,’ he went on with a glint of amusement in his eyes, ‘he didn’t even ask if you were willing to drive me in? He just “insisted.” Twice. Once before dinner and again after.’
‘Oh,’ she said airily, ‘they’re like that, too, in South America! You sound as if you’re criticizing, and that doesn’t become you any more than sarcasm, Esmonde darling, but I rather go for the tough approach, I must say.’ She added, ‘What woman doesn’t?’
Shaw murmured ruminatively, ‘So I didn’t treat you tough enough… I should have been more old-fashioned. I’ll remember that with my next girl-friend.’
She gave a tight, brittle laugh. ‘You don’t need any lessons in being a he-man, Esmonde dear! No — it’s not that.’
‘What is it, then?’
‘You know quite well,’ she answered a little tartly. ‘Oh, don’t let’s talk about it now, Esmonde. We haven’t much longer. I want you to go off on this job without recriminations, my dear.’
He said, ‘All right, we’ll leave it. Now I’ve got something to ask you, Deb. It’s not,’ he explained carefully, ‘that I don’t trust your Carlos, but I’m not at liberty to say more to him than I did say. You’re in a different category, naturally, so far as Latymer and I are concerned at any rate.’ He hesitated. ‘I’m going south — right south, to the Magellan Strait area. Don’t ask me why, but I’ve got a nasty feeling that things may start happening in a big way when I get down there. I said I might contact Villaroel… Well, if I don’t come through to him or you in one way or another I want you to contact the British Ambassador in B.A and tell him where I was heading for. Also, I want you to ask him to get in touch right away with a certain U.S. Admiral — Clifford Pullman, in the Pentagon. Will you, Deb? I don’t suppose I need to tell you, it’s a matter of the highest importance and urgency.’ He paused again, then added, ‘Among other things, a girl’s disappeared, and—’
‘Oh, so there’s a girl.’ She glanced sideways at him. ‘What’s she like?’
‘Nice.’
‘She would be. Trust you.’
He gave a fleeting grin. ‘Getting nowhere fast, aren’t we? Will you do what I’ve asked?’
‘Yes, of course. How long shall I give you?’
He considered. ‘Let’s say four days from now. I’ll be in touch by then if everything goes all right. If it doesn’t — well, I won’t be able to for reasons to be hereinafter discovered!’
She moved her shoulders in what seemed to be sudden irritation and he noticed that her face was a little stiff. ‘Look,’ she said, ‘why couldn’t you contact the Ambassador yourself — in the early stages, I mean? Talk to him now. Use him as your contact. The whole thing would be much more direct, wouldn’t it? Why on earth use Carlos?’
He lifted an eyebrow. ‘I’m surprised at you, Deb — you of all people to ask me that! You know the answer, in a general way — or you damn well ought to! This snooping of mine is very strictly off the record unless something goes dead wrong, when other measures have to be taken. Until that happens, I don’t talk. I’m not even working directly for Latymer at the moment, which means in effect that I’m not working for the U.K this time. Before I start coming out into the open, I’ve got to know just a little more than I do right now.’ He added, ‘Don’t tell me you’re upset about what I did — asking Villaroel for help?’
‘Upset?’ Her knuckles showed white on the wheel, like cold marble. She said in a troubled voice, ‘I just don’t want to go through all that hell again… worrying, wondering. Why couldn’t you leave Carlos alone?’
‘I’m hardly asking him to risk his neck,’ he reminded her patiently. ‘Only to act as a link. He won’t even need to leave La Paz, or Concepción, or wherever home is. I may never need his help anyway.’
‘But if you do, don’t you see, he could get involved deeper than he realizes!’ There was passion in her voice, in the tautness of her body. ‘Oh, I know he was a diplomat, but he was never an agent and he just doesn’t understand in the way we do. I don’t want him to get caught up — or to acquire a taste for it, either.’ He heard the tears in her rising voice as she went on, ‘I hate it, Esmonde, I hate it! You’re going on a job — you’ll very likely have to kill someone, won’t you? You’ll be in danger yourself. You might be killed. Don’t you understand what that sort of life does to the people who love you? Don’t you see that I can’t bear it for Carlos? Don’t you see… haven’t you always seen… that that’s the — reason for us? What’s the point of marrying a man who only lives to kill or to be killed?’
Shaw didn’t answer. He was furiously, perhaps irrationally, angry. What she had said undeniably held an element of truth, but it was demonstrably unfair to talk about him as though killing was his whole life, almost his pleasure. She knew that to be utterly untrue — or she ought to! They finished that drive to the airport in silence and she drove away fast as soon as she’d dropped him, and she didn’t look back.