“Through the nose.”
“Nick, Nick!” I had disappointed my father who had the haggling skills of the bazaar. He frowned in thought. “Ask him about Montagu Dawson.”
“The artist?” I was puzzled, but that was nothing new when I was with my father. I did remember, though, how he used to have two classic Dawsons hanging in his London offices; both paintings showed tall ships driving through foam-flecked seas.
“George sold a few Dawsons,” my father said. “They were as bent as a snake’s wedding tackle, of course, but George used to find American yachtsmen in the Barbican pubs, and he’d spin this yarn about Dawson having been a friend of the family.” My father chuckled. “The paintings were done by a fellow at Okehampton.
He’s the same chap who painted that Matisse your mother’s so very fond of. Talented fellow, but a piss-artist, I fear. Anyway, point of it all, one of George’s bent Dawsons ended up in the wrong hands, the police were tumbled out of bed, and officially the case has never been closed. It isn’t a major threat to George, of course, but he won’t like to be reminded of it, and he certainly wouldn’t like it if you suggested you might drop a line to Scotland Yard. Do they still have a fine-art squad? I don’t know, but George has certainly got a couple of those fake Dawsons still hanging in his home. Have you ever been to his house?”
“No.”
My father shuddered. “Ghastly place. Plastic furniture and music-box cocktail cabinets. The old bastard’s as rich as Croesus, but he’s got the taste of a camel. Oh, good shot!” The ball flicked across the grass straight towards our chairs. I fielded it with my foot, then flinched as I bent to pick the ball up. I threw it to the nearest fielder and my father watched me sadly. “Is it bad, Nick?”
“It’s all right. I can sail a boat.”
“Round the world?” he asked dubiously.
“Round the world,” I said stubbornly.
He was quiet for a moment or two. His cigar smoke drifted up into the oak leaves. He’d been pleased with Harry Abbott’s gift, and I wished I had brought him something. He looked very relaxed and confident despite the blue prison clothes. He gave me one of his shrewd, amused glances. “Harry Abbott came to see me a week or so back. He gave me some news of you.” I was watching the cricket and said nothing.
“Been in the wars again, have you, Nick?”
“Harry should keep his mouth shut.”
“You know Kassouli was setting you up, don’t you?” For a second I didn’t react, then I turned to look into his eyes.
“What the hell do you know about it, Dad?”
He sighed. “Nick! Do me a small favour. I might not be able to sail a small boat through a hurricane, but I do know what makes the wicked world go round. I did some business with Kassouli once.
He’s a tough bugger. Still got the stink of the souk about him, despite his Boston wife and Savile Row suitings.”
“Setting me up?”
He drew on his cigar. “Tell me about it, Nick.”
“I thought you knew the answers already.” I was defensive.
“Just tell me, Nick.” He spoke gently. “Please.” So I told him. I hadn’t planned to tell him about Angela, but I did in the end, because I wanted to tell somebody. I missed her horribly.
I kept telling myself that she was not for me, that she was too urban-ized and ambitious, too elegant and difficult, but I could not persuade myself that I would be better off without her. I missed her, and so I found myself telling my father about the visits to London, the nights in her small bedroom, the weekend in Norfolk, and then the recent news of her engagement and forthcoming wedding. The date had been announced in the papers. Angela would marry Bannister in the English Church in Paris after the coming weekend.
I told my father more. I told him about Mulder and Jill-Beth and Bannister and Kassouli. He listened in silence. He finished the cigar, threw it away, and its stub smoked in the grass like a newly fallen fragment of shrapnel. He rubbed his face. “This Kirov girl. You say she phoned you at Angela’s flat?”
“Yes.”
“Why would she do that?”
“She wanted to reach me, of course.”
He shook his head. “Ostensibly she wanted you to be Kassouli’s man in Tony Bannister’s crew, yes? The whole essence of that, Nick, is that Bannister wouldn’t know that you were Kassouli’s man. So why risk alerting him by leaving a message on his girlfriend’s answering machine? There’s only one answer to that, Nick. They wanted Bannister to know you were dodgy. They gave you a high profile, didn’t they? She makes sure you rescued her from Mulder, she flies you to the States, and she smudges a damn great fingerprint on Angela’s answering machine. Why?”
A ribald cheer went up as one of the prison batsmen was run out.
The prison needed fifty-three runs to win and still had eight wickets left. “And someone sent Mulder a picture of me, too.” I spoke slowly.
It was like a moment after an awful storm when the clouds rend, sunlight touches an angry but settling sea, and the storm damage at last becomes visible. Seeing the sense of my father’s words, I felt foolish. “It was a photograph taken at Kassouli’s Cape Cod house.
He didn’t say who the sender was.”
My father gave me a pitying look. “It was the Kirov girl. Or Kassouli. They wanted Bannister to know you were tied up with them.
And who do you think told this Mulder fellow where to find you and Jill-Beth Kirov on Dartmoor?”
“She did?” I said it hesitantly, not wanting to believe it.
“Of course! They want Bannister to feel safe. They want Bannister to believe that he’s found the fly in his ointment: you. So they set you up to be the threat. You just happened to be convenient, Nick, so they pointed a damned great finger at you. They did some clumsy sabotage, but only when the boat was where you could get at it. And all the time the real man was lying very low.”
“Mulder.” It was obvious.
“Bingo. How did Bannister meet Mulder?”
“His wife found him.”
“Who took the tape-recording?”
“Mulder.”
“That was just a happy accident, of course,” my father said. “He probably had a camera with him, and planned to take a snap of you and the Kirov girl together, instead of which he lumbers on your mate with his tape-recorder. So who, my dear Nick, do you think Mulder works for?”
“Kassouli.” I sat there, feeling very foolish. “And Mulder beat me up because he had to prove his loyalty to Bannister?”
“I would imagine so, wouldn’t you?”
“But the rumour says Mulder helped with the murder!”
“Who’s spreading the rumours?” my father asked patiently.
“Kassouli?”
“And who has convinced Kassouli that his daughter was murdered?” my father asked, then answered it himself. “Mulder.
And why? Because a rich man’s gratitude can be very bankable.
Mind you, I’d have smelt a rat the moment Kassouli offered four hundred thousand! The going rate for a killing can’t be much over twenty grand, but people like you always think that a big sum only increases the seriousness of something.”
“But Jill-Beth brought it with her!” I protested. “I saw it. A hundred thousand dollars.”
“Which Mulder would have taken from you as proof that you were betraying Bannister.” My father spoke gently. “Why do you think he followed you in the boat that night? He probably thought you had the hundred grand in Sycorax. My dear Nick, they were stitching you up. Kassouli probably hoped you might help him by being a back-up to Mulder, which is why he laid it all out for you in America, but once he saw you were going to be boring and honourable he danced you like a puppet to distract Bannister.” He saw my face. “Don’t blame yourself, Nick. Kassouli’s played for higher stakes than this and against some of the slimiest creatures that cap-italism ever spawned. You musn’t feel bad at being beaten by one of the best.”