The man who sold death

CHAPTER 9

Loomis sent again for Grierson, and once again Grierson sipped black and scalding coffee and listened to Loomis grumbling. It was very important that they should talk to Craig; it would save certain people, Loomis said menacingly, a great deal of work; it might even save the taxpayers' money. Why the hell couldn't Grierson produce him?

"I'm trying to, sir," said Grierson. "Linton's got half the narks in London looking for him. We're watching ports and airlines, doing spot checks on the trains. Trouble is, the only photographs we could find are the ones left over from the war. We've had them touched up a bit, but they're not exactly portraits. Do you want Linton to give them to the press?"

"Good God, no," said Loomis, genuinely horrified.

"If I had any idea why you wanted him, it might help," Grierson said.

"All right. You can't say I don't give you every chance.

I want Craig to do a job for me." Grierson's cup clattered in its saucer. "Craig? A job?" he asked.

"Don't shout," Loomis yelled. "I can't stand shouting. Certainly a job. Why not? He's the only one who can do it, except you. You might-if you were lucky, and if I can't find Craig, I may have to use you anyway. But I'd sooner use him. He won't need any luck."

"What's the job?" Grierson asked.

"The one you set up in Nice. He's made to order for it. Now where the hell do you think he is?"

Grierson said, "I've no idea."

"Well, I have," Loomis said. "It's sticking out a mile. He's still with that Tessa person. In Holland Park."

"But we searched the place twice."

"Maybe he was too clever for you. It hardly seems possible, does it?" Loomis snarled.

"Do you want me to go and look for him now?"

"No," said Loomis. "Go and listen in the flat next door. Dress up as the gas man or something. You know the stuff to use."

Grierson was in luck. The man next door was a solicitor named Reddish, a bachelor, who was attending Canterbury Sessions. Grierson sought out the porter of the flats, discussed with ominous calm the possibility of a gas leak, and was admitted without argument. He set up his equipment, and painstakingly recorded the murmur of voices, the creak of bedsprings, the prolonged crash of a flushed toilet. Once he used Mr. Reddish's phone and called Tessa's number after he'd seen her go out; there was no answer, but shortly afterwards the toilet flushed again. Then there was silence until Tessa returned, and Grierson received the full blast of Radio Luxemburg at maximum volume, and decided that he had heard enough. Loomis, inevitably, was right, and when the time came he and others, probably including Linton, would be beaten stupid trying to persuade Craig to take coffee at Queen Anne's Gate. Meanwhile all he had to do was return the gear and take a girl out to dinner while he waited for the recording to be amplified. His only problem was which girl to take.

In Tessa's flat, Craig nagged at the question of whether to phone Grierson. In his mind there was room for nothing but his survival and hers, and cautiously he tested out what he must do, andin doing that, he found it necessary to review what he had been, where he had come from. He remembered the beery cheerfulness of his father's house, and the joy of the seine-netter, an idyll of oven-bottom cake and bull's-eyes and a man's skills in handling a boat. Then his mother had betrayed him and ever since then women were suspect, an indulgence, a luxury that carried its own risks, like field mushrooms carelessly picked. With women he had always been so careful, until now. Then suddenly his mind refused to accept Tessa as a problem. He could trust her and he knew it without having to worry about proof.

He thought of the orphanage and the misery he had endured there, until his body had filled out and his speed and strength had bought him peace. At first he had wept, and been tormented, but after he had learned to hurt, no one had dared approach him. He was left in a lonely pride. Foster mothers next; good, bad, mostly indifferent. Then the Navy. The sea again, and security, so long as the war lasted; the only time when the gifts that had been thrust upon him, the aggression, the ruthlessness, the will to survive, had been welcomed by authority; they had even paid him for using them. And after the war, the advice of Sergeant McLaren, and piracy-it was the best word for it-in Tangier. Then the Rose Line, the chance of a lifetime. Craig wondered what Sergeant McLaren was doing. He'd talked about schoolmastering, but it seemed impossible that a man could teach after he had known the despair that had made McLaren state with such utter conviction that there would be room for nothing, after the war, but a man's own survival. It would be satisfying to see McLaren again, to face him and say: Here I am. I did what you advised me. Do you still think your advice was good? McLaren had said that gentility or piracy was his only choice, and Craig, being English, had compromised and tried both, because Sergeant McLaren had said that civilization was finished and the only thing to do was grab enough power to make life bearable.

He'd grabbed it, all right: grabbed it by the balls and twisted till the victims yelled. Then they hit back; the victims he'd chosen were as tough as he was; toughened in Indochina in year after year of hopeless war, until all they had left was their skill in destruction and their desperate need for a victory. Any victory. After Indochina they'd been moved to North Africa, the most elegant thugs in history. St-Cyr for polish, the paras for ruthless-ness. And in North Africa they'd run up against Craig, industriously selling mortars, bazookas, grenades, machine guns to trigger-happy Arabs who were doing well if they could get their weapons pointing the right way. The destruction they had caused had been immense, and totally haphazard. With the guns he had supplied, they had killed Frenchmen, and women, and children; and each other: hale or infirm, young or old, it had made no difference. As soon as they learned where the trigger was, they pulled it. To a European it was more than frightening, it was incomprehensible. But they paid well. On delivery. Every time.

The French had hit back, with no more cruelty-that was not possible-but with far greater efficiency. They had hunted out the freedom-fighters or terrorists (as always synonymous: only the viewpoint differed), the leaders, the staff, the lines of supply, and so, in the end, they had hunted out Craig, who, they argued, deserved to die for selling the means of death to savages. Craig remembered the men and women he had met who had been beaten up, the bare fingers and toes crushed under army boots, electric shocks in the testicles. He had been shown the machine that was used for that one, a birthday toy for the Marquis de Sade. Then there were the bomb outrages in the Arab quarters, the young colons roaming the streets, the pan lids and car horns crashing out Al-ge-rie Fran-gaise. Bee-Bee-Bee-Bee-Bee. They were no better than the Arabs; maybe worse. They should have remembered what it was like themselves.

Craig shrugged that one away. Right and wrong didn't come into it, not for him. This was a commercial undertaking to fill a need created by two conflicting ideologies. He smiled. That had been Baumer's phrase. Baumer had never felt happy until he'd smoothed down the raw issues with big, dignified words. All the same, he'd have sold to both sides if there had been a market, and if Craig had let him, but the French managed without Baumer and Craig. Craig could never have managed without them. Because of the colons and the colonels, he'd made a hundred thousand pounds. Tax free. He needn't fear the orphanage any more, or the foster mothers. Alice had been bis last. Alice had worked hard on him, come very near to changing him, but had not quite managed it. He'd made his money, and he'd run the risk of death. If he'd done what Alice wanted, that would never have happened, but he'd gone his own way, and now she might be dying. Always now he carried death with him. Lange. Rutter. Alice. Soon it might be Baumer's turn. Tessa was pretty, cheerful, not very bright, but she'd shared bis risks and taken his chances because she loved him. He couldn't let her die. Tomorrow he'd phone Grierson. Maybe he'd write to McLaren too, let him know he'd followed his advice. Craig yawned and listened to the radio. It was playing a Jewish folk song, "Almonds and Raisins." He tried not to think of Baumer.