Odds against

NINETEEN

Of course I ended up where I had begun, flat on my back in a hospital. But not for so long, that time. I had a pleasant sunny room with a distant view of the sea, some exceedingly pretty nurses, and a whole stream of visitors. Chico came first, as soon as they would let him, on the Sunday afternoon.

He grinned down at me.

‘You look bloody awful.’

‘Thanks very much.’

‘Two black eyes, a scabby lip, a purple and yellow complexion and a three day beard. Glamorous.’

‘It sounds it.’

‘Do you want to look?’ he asked, picking up a hand mirror from a chest of drawers.

I took the mirror and looked. He hadn’t exaggerated. I would have faded into the background in a horror movie.

Sighing, I said, ‘X certificate, definitely.’

He laughed, and put the mirror back. His own face still bore the marks of battle. The eyebrow was healing, but the bruise showed dark right down his cheek.

‘This is a better room than you had in London,’ he remarked, strolling over to the window. ‘And it smells O.K. For a hospital, that is.’

‘Pack in the small talk and tell me what happened,’ I said.

‘They told me not to tire you.’

‘Don’t be an ass.’

‘Well, all right. You’re a bloody rollicking nit in many ways, aren’t you?’

‘It depends how you look at it,’ I agreed peaceably.

‘Oh sure, sure.’

‘Chico, give,’ I pleaded. ‘Come on.’

‘Well, there I was harmlessly snoozing away in Radnor’s arm-chair with the telephone on one side and some rather good chicken sandwiches on the other, dreaming about a willing blonde and having a ball, when the front door bell rang.’ He grinned. ‘I got up, stretched and went to answer it. I thought it might be you, come back after all and with nowhere to sleep. I knew it wouldn’t be Radnor, unless he’d forgotten his key. And who else would be knocking on his door at two o’clock in the morning? But there was this fat geezer standing on the doorstep in his city pinstripes, saying you’d sent him. ‘Come in, then,’ I said, yawning my head off. He came in, and I showed him into Radnor’s sort of study place, where I’d been sitting.

‘ “Sid sent you?” I asked him, “What for?”

‘He said he understood your girl-friend lived here. God, mate, don’t ever try snapping your mouth shut at the top of a yawn. I nearly dislocated my jaw. Could he see her, he said. Sorry it was so late, but it was extremely important.

‘ “She isn’t here,” I said. “She’s gone away for a few days. Can I help you?”

‘ “Who are you?” he said, looking me up and down.

‘I said I was her brother. He took a sharpish look at the sandwiches and the book I’d been reading, which had fallen on the floor, and he could see I’d been asleep, so he seemed to think everything was O.K., and he said, “Sid asked me to fetch something she is keeping for him. Do you think you could help me find it?”

‘ “Sure,” I said. “What is it?”

‘He hesitated a bit but he could see that it would look too weird if he refused to tell me, so he said “It’s a packet of negatives. Sid said your sister had several things of his, but the packet I want has a name on it, a make of films. Jigoro Kano.”

‘ “Oh?” I said innocently. “Sid sent you for a packet marked Jigoro Kano?”

‘ “That’s right,” he said, looking round the room. “Would it be in here?”

‘ “It certainly would,” I said.’

Chico stopped, came over beside the bed, and sat on the edge of it, by my right toe.

‘How come you know about Jigoro Kano?’ he said seriously.

‘He invented judo,’ I said. ‘I read it somewhere.’

Chico shook his head. ‘He didn’t really invent it. In 1882 he took all the best bits of hundreds of versions of ju-jitsu and put them into a formal sort of order, and called it judo.’

‘I was sure you would know,’ I said, grinning at him.

‘You took a very sticky risk.’

‘You had to know. After all, you’re an expert. And there were all those years at your club. No risk. I knew you’d know. As long as I’d got the name right, that is. Anyway, what happened next?’

Chico smiled faintly.

‘I tied him into a couple of knots. Arm locks and so on. He was absolutely flabbergasted. It was really rather funny. Then I put a bit of pressure on. You know. The odd thumb screwing down to a nerve. God, you should have heard him yell. I suppose he thought he’d wake the neighbours, but you know what London is. No one took a blind bit of notice. So then I asked him where you were, when you sent him. He didn’t show very willing, I must say, so I gave him a bit more. Poetic justice, wasn’t it, considering what they’d just been doing to you? I told him I could keep it up all night, I’d hardly begun. There was a whole bookful I hadn’t touched on. It shook him, it shook him bad.’

Chico stood up restlessly and walked about the room.

‘You know?’ he said wryly. ‘He must have had a lot to lose. He was a pretty tough cookie, I’ll give him that. If I hadn’t been sure that you’d sent him to me as a sort of S.O.S., I don’t think I’d have had the nerve to hurt him enough to bust him.’

‘I’m sorry,’ I said.

He looked at me thoughtfully. ‘We both learnt about it, didn’t we? You on the receiving end, and me… I didn’t like it. Doing it, I mean. I mean, the odd swipe or two and a few threats, that’s usually enough, and it doesn’t worry you a bit, you don’t give it a second thought. But I’ve never hurt anyone like that before. Not seriously, on purpose, beyond bearing. He was crying, you see…’

Chico turned his back to me, looking out of the window.

There was a long pause. The moral problems of being on the receiving end were not so great, I thought. It was easier on the conscience altogether.

At last Chico said, ‘He told me, of course. In the end.’

‘Yes.’

‘I didn’t leave a mark on him, you know. Not a scratch… He said you were at Seabury racecourse. Well, I knew that was probably right, and that he wasn’t trying the same sort of misdirection you had, because you’d told me yourself that you were going there. He said that you were in the weighing room and that the boiler would soon blow up. He said that he hoped it would kill you. He seemed half out of his mind with rage about you. How he should have known better than to believe you, he should have realised that you were as slippery as a snake, he’d been fooled once before… He said he’d taken it for granted you were telling the truth when you broke down and changed your story about the negatives being in the office, because you… because you were begging for mercy and morphine and God knows what.’

‘Yes,’ I said. ‘I know all about that.’

Chico turned away from the window, his face lightening into a near grin, ‘You don’t say,’ he said.

‘He wouldn’t have believed it if I’d given in sooner, or less thoroughly. Kraye would have done, but not him. It was very annoying.’

‘Annoying,’ said Chico. ‘I like that word.’ He paused, considering. ‘At what moment exactly did you think of sending Bolt to me?’

‘About half an hour before they caught me,’ I admitted. ‘Go on. What happened next?’

‘There was a ball of string on Radnor’s writing desk, so I tied old Fatso up with that in an uncomfortable position. Then there was the dicey problem of who to ring up to get the rescue squads on the way. I mean, the Seabury police might think I was some sort of a nut, ringing up at that hour and telling such an odd sort of story. At the best, they might send a bobby or two out to have a look, and the Krayes would easily get away. And I reckoned you’d want them rounded up red-handed, so to speak. I couldn’t get hold of Radnor on account of the office phones being plasticated. So, well, I rang Lord Hagbourne.’

‘You didn’t!’

‘Well, yes. He was O.K., he really was. He listened to what I told him about you and the boiler and the Krayes and so on, and then he said, “Right”, he’d see that half the Sussex police force turned up at Seabury racecourse as soon as possible.’

‘Which they did.’

‘Which they did,’ agreed Chico. ‘To find that my old pal Sid had dealt with the boiler himself, but was otherwise in a fairly ropy state.’

‘Thanks,’ I said. ‘For everything.’

‘Be my guest.’

‘Will you do me another favour?’

‘Yes, what?’

‘I was supposed to take someone out to lunch today. She’ll be wondering why I didn’t turn up. I’d have got one of the nurses to ring her, but I still don’t know her telephone number.’

‘Are you talking about Miss Zanna Martin? The poor duck with the disaster area of a face?’

‘Yes,’ I said, surprised.

‘Then don’t worry. She wasn’t expecting you. She knows you’re here.’

‘How?’

‘She turned up at Bolt’s office yesterday morning, to deal with the mail apparently, and found a policeman waiting on the doorstep with a search warrant. When he had gone she put two and two together smartly and trailed over to the Cromwell Road to find out what was going on. Radnor had gone down to Seabury with Lord Hagbourne, but I was there poking about in the ruins, and we sort of swapped info. She was a bit upset about you, mate, in a quiet sort of way. Anyhow, she won’t be expecting you to take her out to lunch.’

‘Did she say anything about having one of our files?’

‘Yes. I told her to hang on to it for a day or two. There frankly isn’t anywhere in the office to put it.’

‘All the same, you go over to where she lives as soon as you get back, and collect it. It’s the Brinton file. And take great care of it. The negatives Kraye wanted are inside it.’

Chico stared. ‘You’re not serious.’

‘Why not?’

‘But everyone… Radnor, Lord Hagbourne, even Kraye and Bolt, and the police… everyone has taken it for granted that what you said first was right, that they were in the office and were blown up.’

‘It’s lucky they weren’t,’ I said. ‘Get some more prints made. We’ve still got to find out why they were so hellishly important. And don’t tell Miss Martin they were what Kraye wanted.’

The door opened and one of the pretty nurses came in.

‘I’m afraid you’ll have to go now,’ she said to Chico. She came close beside the bed and took my pulse. ‘Haven’t you any sense?’ she exclaimed, looking at him angrily. ‘A few quiet minutes was what we said. Don’t talk too much, and don’t let Mr Halley talk at all.’

‘You try giving him orders,’ said Chico cheerfully, ‘and see where it gets you.’

‘Zanna Martin’s address,’ I began.

‘No,’ said the nurse severely. ‘No more talking.’

I told Chico the address.

‘See what I mean?’ he said to the nurse. She looked down at me and laughed. A nice girl behind the starch.

Chico went across the room and opened the door.

‘So long, then, Sid. Oh, by the way, I brought this for you to read. I thought you might be interested.’

He pulled a glossy booklet folded lengthwise out of an inner pocket and threw it over on to the bed. It fell just out of my reach, and the nurse picked it up to give it me. Then suddenly she held on to it tight.

‘Oh no,’ she said. ‘You can’t give him that!’

‘Why not?’ said Chico. ‘What do you think he is, a baby?’

He went out and shut the door. The nurse clung to the booklet, looking very troubled. I held out my hand for it.

‘Come on.’

‘I think I ought to ask the doctors…’

‘In that case,’ I said, ‘I can guess what it is. Knowing Chico. So be a dear and hand it over. It’s quite all right.’

She gave it to me hesitantly, waiting to see my reaction when I caught sight of the bold words on the cover.

‘Artificial Limbs. The Modern Development.’

I laughed. ‘He’s a realist,’ I said. ‘You wouldn’t expect him to bring fairy stories.’