The Caper of the Golden Bulls

Chapter six

On the morning of his return from Pamplona, Peter arranged a meeting with Angela and Francois at their hotel. He took Phillip along with him. At first Francois was as tense as a cat facing a mastiff. But after several cautious questions he relaxed and accepted Phillip with a relieved smile.

“So you weren’t in Algeria at all?”

“No. My unit was in Lyons.”

“You were lucky. In Algeria you never could tell who’d give you a knife in the back the enemy or your own comrades. Of course, you knew about the revolts there, the OAS, that sort of thing?”

“Yes, but it wasn’t my concern. I had a good job in the arms depot, and a reasonable commanding officer. Since I wasn’t a professional soldier, it meant nothing to me that the generals in Algeria were squabbling among themselves.”

Phillip was doing quite well, Peter decided; he sat with his huge hands folded in his lap, his eyes fixed neutrally on the shining sea beyond the terrace, composed and at ease.

Francois smiled at him. “They didn’t fool you with their talk of glory and patriotism, I can see.” He gave the big sergeant a friendly pat on the shoulder. “I’m glad to find you’re intelligent. A man chooses well or badly, that’s all there is to it. One choice makes a man a hero; the other makes him a traitor. Loyalty and honour are accidents since the verdict is delivered after the choice is made.” Francois smiled at Peter. “You don’t agree with me, I know. You believe in noble gestures. Loyalty to old comrades, regardless of risk or danger.”

The glance that Phillip flicked at Francois’s back was as swift and murderous as a flung knife. Peter noted it with alarm. He strolled past Phillip and gave him a small, warning headshake.

“Ah, you look troubled,” Francois said complacently. “What does that mean? That you’re not sure? That you have doubts about loyalty? About honour?”

“Francois, you bore me greatly.”

“Oh? Is that so?”

“Yes. You have a rash of conscience, and you can’t stop scratching it.” Peter hoped desperately to create a climate of emotional turbulence; he didn’t want to give Francois and Angela the opportunity to inspect Phillip with detachment. He didn’t know whether Angela had spotted that revealing flare of anger in Phillip’s eyes; she was reclining on the lounge, wearing a white bikini that was not much larger than the jewelled sun-glasses which concealed her eyes. Peter couldn’t tell what she was looking at, but he knew from experience that she was a precise judge of nuance and atmosphere.

“Peter, why are you trying to make Francois angry?”

“I came here to discuss business. Not to listen to tiresome justifications of the rat act.”

“But you’re seldom so rude, darling.”

“He feels he is indispensable,” Francois said angrily. “We’ll see how important he is when the job is over.”

“What do you mean by that?”

“Francois, shut up! You too, Peter. Let’s get down to work.”

“Very well,” Peter said. He had brought the films of San Fermin; the projector and screen were already in place. “Phillip, will you draw the drapes?”

“Yes, sir,” said Phillip, springing to his feet.

The room became dark. Peter snapped on the machine. They all settled back and watched the flamboyant crowds in the Plaza de Castillo; the huge Cabezudas bobbing and turning high above them; fighting bulls tearing through the barricaded streets.

Peter froze the action at the square in front of the Ayunta — when to... “Let me tell you what happens in Pamplona each morning of the fiesta,” he said. “At the stroke of six a bomb is exploded near the river. That means the bulls have left the corral. When they form an encierro and start running, another bomb explodes. We will synchronise our blasting with those explosions.”

Angela’s eyes shone like a cat’s in the darkness. “Oh, Peter, how clever you are!”

“Yes. The sound of our blasting will be completely drowned out by the roar of the bombs. We have twenty-six feet of stone and brick to get through. I estimate our progress at four feet a day; which means that on Sunday morning, the seventh and last day of the fiesta, we will reach the vaults of the bank.” He walked to the screen and pointed to a passageway at one side of the square. “Now listen carefully. This leads to the basement of the warehouse adjoining the Banco de Bilbao. Each morning Francois and I will set off two charges in that basement. On the second one, the bulls will be running. Our job is to get back into the square, and clear out as fast as we can. We’ll have about seventy seconds; we will need every one of them.”

Francois swallowed with evident difficulty; the sound was quite harsh in the silence.

“Yes, Francois? What is it?”

“Good God! What about the bulls? They’ll be on top of us.”

“Yes, but that’s the charm of it. The bulls are pure gold as far as we’re concerned. Every eye will be on them. No one will notice us.”

“But that’s insane. Why not wait till they’ve gone by?”

“Because it won’t work. The instant the bulls charge from the square, policemen and workers spring up. To handle the crowds and remove the barricades. We’d be spotted leaving the basement, or coming down the passageway.”

“But what in God’s name is to prevent our being gored? Or killed?”

“For my part I intend to run like the devil. If you think up anything cleverer, let me know. But, Francois, since my hide is just as vulnerable as yours, I’ve studied the possibilities very carefully. If our timing is precise, and no one panics, there’s an excellent chance of bringing it off. Phillip, you can open the drapes now.”

Sunlight splashed into the rooms. The white oval of the sea beyond the terrace was like the eye of a giant staring up at the sky.

“Now we come to your part, Angela. I want you to get up on Phillip’s shoulders, and stand there till I tell you to get down.”

“Are you serious?”

“Please do as I say. We have an enormous lot to do, and damn little time.”

Phillip spread his legs wide, crouched slightly and gave Angela a hand.

She put a foot against his thigh and swung up on to his shoulders, as easily and gracefully as if she were mounting a horse. Phillip cupped his hands behind her knees to brace her swaying figure. When he straightened to his full height, she gasped nervously.

“You’re all right,” Peter said. “Phillip, move about now. Skip and dance a bit.” He glanced at his watch. Let me know when you’re tired.”

“Very well, sir.”

Angela shrieked as Phillip commenced to caper about the room with an air of elephantine gravity. She clutched at her bra and hissed questions at Peter.

“What’s this for? What’re you trying to prove?”

“Never mind. I’ll explain later.”

The telephone rang and Francois answered it.

“It’s for you, Peter. Your bar-keep, Mario.”

Peter experienced a quick stir of hope and excitement. He had called Grace’s villa three times this morning, but she hadn’t been in. The maids had not been helpful; in fact, they seemed to have no clear idea of where she was, or when she might be back. All they knew was that she had not returned from Pamplona. This had added to Peter’s confusion and apprehension. He was still shaken to the depths by the astounding implications of that slim little knife with the Ace of Diamonds attached to it. If it meant what he thought it did, how could he ever trust his judgment again? Or regard the world as anything but a crazy house of mirrors? But what else could that knife mean? He recalled the spiteful hiss as it whizzed past his ear. The metallic thunk as it struck the wall. And how it quivered there like a tuning fork, inches from his eyes. Had she tried to hit him? Or miss him?

And where is she now? That was the most maddening thing of all.

He snatched the phone from Francois. “Mario? Did she call?”

“No, no. But Mr. Shahari is here. You said you wanted to talk to him.”

“You’re sure Grace didn’t call?”

“Of course I’m sure.”

He sighed. “Okay. Put Mr. Shahari on.”

“Good morning, Mr. Churchman. What can I do for you today. Some money to change perhaps?”

“When are you returning to Gibraltar?”

“This afternoon.”

“All right, I’d like you to do me a favour. I need a set of walkie-talkies. You can get them at Purdy’s, I think.”

“You wish me to buy them for you?”

“Yes. I’ll be over to Gibraltar to pick them up tomorrow or the day after. I need a first-rate set, Mr. Shahari.”

“The Japanese make a very good walkie-talkie. With a smart carrying case, imitation alligator leather.”

“No. No Japanese. Zeiss or Audioflex. Don’t economise Mr. Shahari.”

“Is there anything else?”

Peter hesitated. He didn’t care to mention what else he needed, not on an open telephone line. “Yes, there are several other items,” he said.

“But I think I’d better make a list of them. Can you wait in my office for a bit?”

“Of course. But perhaps you will do me a favour, Mr. Churchman. You know the fat American named Morgan?”

“Oh yes.”

“He tells people he is going to kill me in Pamplona. It had to do with his religion. Or philosophy. I’m not sure which. But it is very upsetting.”

“I wouldn’t worry too much, Mr. Shahari. I’ll have a talk with him. Morgan’s harmless. Last month he wanted to kill all the fishermen. He feels they’re poisoning the world with iodine. Before that he tried to start a children’s crusade to liberate Moscow. He thinks it belongs to Belgium.”

“Belgium?” Mr. Shahari’s voice rose slightly. “France may have a claim. But Belgium? He must be crazy.”

“Yes. So stop worrying. If you’d like a coffee or brandy while you’re waiting, just tell Mario. I’ll be along shortly.”

Peter put the phone down and turned his attention to Phillip and Angela. Tiny blisters of perspiration stood out on the Frenchman’s forehead, but Angela seemed over her first queasiness and was now balancing herself with considerable skill.

“Well, Phillip, how do you feel?”

“I could go on for a while, sir. But there’s an ache starting in my shoulders.”

Peter glanced at his watch. This area of his timetable would be tight and chancey, too, he realised. He made a mental note to add Metercal and Rye-Krisp to the list of things he needed from Gibraltar.

“All right, that will be enough. Come along, Phillip.”

Angela slipped down from the Frenchman’s shoulders and smiled at Peter.

“It’s too bad you have to rush away. But why not let Phillip stay with us for lunch? After all, we should get to know each other a bit better.”

“I’m sorry, but we have work to do.”

“Wouldn’t you like to stay, Phillip?”

“Well, yes. But work is work, no?”

“Peter, don’t you want us to know Phillip any better?”

She smiled but he noticed that she was drawing a fingernail slowly across the back of her small hand, ploughing a thin white furrow in the deeply tanned skin. He couldn’t bluff; she held the aces, of course.

He knew what she was up to. She wanted a line on Phillip, wanted to get her claws into him and scratch away at his secrets. But he realised it wouldn’t be wise to refuse her a chance at him. That would only make her more curious. All he could hope was that the sergeant was discreet and nimble.

Angela read his expression and smiled a victor’s smile. She hooked an arm companionably through Phillip’s and looked up at him with innocently masked eyes. “We’ll have a good talk, won’t we! Francois, ask them to send up some wine. We’ll order lunch later.”

Peter went away with heavy misgivings.

Morgan had lost Quince. This had made him sad. On the sunny terrace of Peter’s bar, he confided his gloom and disquietude to new friends.

“Quince was a good chap, but he had his quirks like the rest of us. Had a fear of things getting around, as he put it. Well, turn down a glass. All we can do now. He’s gone back to Wales. Didn’t say why. He was a deep one, all right.” Morgan smiled mysteriously and tapped his forehead. “But he had quirks. Afraid of things causing rows.”

Morgan’s heavy sigh caused a gentle ripple on the surface of his vast stomach. “Good old Quince. He needn’t have worried about it. We could have killed Mr. Shahari quite easily. Taken his money, and thrown it about like confetti.”

Until that instant, Morgan’s grip on his audience had been very tentative; the two Americans who shared his table by accident had been idly watching girls saunter through the sun-splashed plaza; they had kept their interest in Morgan’s nostalgic rumblings quite well in hand.

But now they exchanged glances of mild curiosity. Then they shifted their chairs and looked thoughtfully at Morgan. Their reactions seemed almost reflexive; they responded to the mention of money as men with hearty appetites might have to the sound of a steak beginning to sizzle in a frying pan.

Their names were Tonelli and Blake. Tonelli was the smaller and older of the pair, with thinning grey hair and the eyes and mouth of a migratory used-car salesman. He wore black slacks, a red sports shirt, a gold wrist watch and a ‘sportsman’s’ ring. Blake was a hairy man with bunched-up features and bunched-up shoulders. Tufts of hair grew from his ears. More of it, the colour and texture of steel wool, sprouted from the collar of a wash-and-wear shirt, which seemed to have seen considerably more wearing than washing lately. Blake’s eyes were muddy and dim, and his temper was chronically bad. He enjoyed pushing things to their ultimate limits, whether it was machines or animals or people, but that instant of fierce pleasure which accompanied the breaking point was so painfully fleeting that it set up all kinds of agitations and frustrations inside his head. Blake hated things that quit just when he got them going full speed.

Tonelli’s practised grin flickered over his lips. “Who’d you say you were planning to kill, Fatso?”

“The money changer from Gibraltar. Mr. Shahari. But he’s a victim like the rest of us. Know who we should get our hands on?” Morgan peered warily at groups of incurious patrons seated near them, shifted closer to Blake and Tonelli, his great face rippling with secrets. “Got to get the lawyers,” he said, lowering his voice. “They feed on people in trouble, right? And since everybody’s in trouble, everybody’s fair game, right? Look at you two poor devils. You’re thieves, I imagine. In trouble, aren’t you?”

Tonelli stared at the mountains and said quietly, “You got a big mouth, Fatso.”

“You could catch something in it,” Blake said.

Morgan looked pleased; he leaned forward, chuckling and the press of his stomach drove the table into Tonelli’s ribs.

“Of course you’re thieves. You’ve been stealing God’s precious air since the day you were born. Right?”

“Oh,” Tonelli said, rubbing his side. After a moment of consideration, he added: “Well, if you look at it that way, you got a point, Fatso. But let’s talk about this Indian, this Mr. Shahari, for a minute. He’s got a lot of money, I guess.”

“Oh, yes. One day he’ll have it all. But he wouldn’t come to Pamplona.”

“What’s that got to do with it?”

Morgan looked judicious. “Quince would be the man to see about that. He was a deep one, you know.”

“Well, what were you going to do with the Indian’s money?”

“We planned to scatter it about the city. A gesture of contempt, you understand.”

Blake said wearily: “Let’s find a bottle and go back to the hotel. Maybe we can get something besides a muchissimo gracias from them maids.”

“No, not yet,” Tonelli said. “Fatso’s got me hooked. Okay, Fatso. The big question. Why wouldn’t the Indian go to Pamplona?”

“Well, he can’t. The government smiles on him in the south, but frowns on him in the north. He has a territory, you see.”

Tonelli nodded slowly. “So if he got robbed up north, he couldn’t squeal to the cops. That’s interesting. Tell me something else. What made you think he’d go to Pamplona in the first place?”

“He would if there were enough money involved,” Morgan said sadly.

“He’s very greedy. But he didn’t trust me. You see, I told him I wanted to change twenty thousand dollars. I told him I got it from my father’s estate.”

“Your old man’s dead?”

“No. That’s why Mr. Shahari lost confidence in me, I think.” Morgan sighed philosophically. “He’s a stickler for detail.”

“But let’s say someone he trusted asked him to bring a lot of money to Pamplona. He’d do it right?” Tonelli stared hard at Morgan. “Well? Wouldn’t he?”

“Pay attention, Fatso,” Blake said.

Morgan was smiling and waving at a red Porsche which had just pulled up before the terrace of the bar. “Come over and have a drink, Peter,” he called out happily. “I want you to meet my new friends.”

“A pleasure,” Peter said, nodding to the men who had been introduced to him as Mr. Blake and Mr. Tonelli. He summed them up with an experienced eye, and was not impressed by the totals. They looked tough and street-smart, and shady as a rainy day.

Peter smiled and patted Morgan on the shoulder. He liked Morgan.

Morgan was quite, easy to do business with. “You’ve been giving Mr. Shahari a bad time,” he said.

“Oh, that’s all over, Peter. Would you tell him, please? It’s the lawyers we want to get our hands on.”

“Well, he’ll be relieved to hear it.”

“Peter, are you going to Pamplona?”

“Yes.”

“It’s a blast, I hear,” Tonelli said, grinning. “Bunch of nuts running around in front of cows. Booze, broads, the works.” He winked at Blake. “We might give it a whirl, eh, old buddy?”

“Sure. What’d you think, Mr. Churchman? Think it’s our kind of town?”

“You’ll be perfectly at home,” Peter said pleasantly. “Everything’s on the American plan, even the jails.” He gave them a nod to share between them and went on into his bar.

Tonelli looked after him. “Big deal,” he said drily, and smiled at Blake.

“Big deal in a little game.”

“Listen, Fatso,” Tonelli said. “Does the Indian trust this character, Peter What’s-his-name?”

Morgan nodded enthusiastically. “Everybody trusts Peter.”

Tonelli and Blake exchanged glances, and arrived at a meeting of minds.

Tonelli put a hand on Morgan’s arm.

“Come on, Fatso. Let’s go over to our hotel. We got some things to talk about.”

“That’s very kind of you. But I’m going to have lunch here. Why don’t you join me?”

Blake put a big hand on Morgan’s other arm. “Look, Porky, get used to doing what you’re told.”

They assisted Morgan from the table, and steered him into the street, manoeuvring his great bulk through the eddying crowds like a pair of ruthless tugboats.

It was all very puzzling to Morgan. He would have liked to have a good talk with Quince about it. Quince would set him straight. No doubt of that.

In Peter’s office Mr. Shahari sat neatly in a straight chair, his rings and fountain pens and gold teeth gleaming softly in the shafts of cool sunlight falling through the windows. With a polite and interested smile he read from Peter’s list: “Diet chocolate and diet crackers. Yes. And six one-quarter-inch chrome drills, specification number two-nine-seven-eight. Ring-feed diamond cutter bar, Mark Seven. Trade name?” Mr. Shahari looked over his glasses at Peter. “I can’t make it out, Mr. Churchman.”

“The trade name is Wolverine.”

“Oh, yes. Wolverine. And that’s all?”

“Yes.”

The Indian smiled benignly at Peter. “They will be expensive.”

“I realise that.”

“I have a friend in a sapper company on the Rock. A lance corporal who gambles unscientifically. I think he can find these items in their demolition stores.”

“I’d rather counted on something like that.”

“But there is a problem. Getting these items off the Rock may be difficult. If I were given to pessimism, I’d say it’s quite impossible.”

“I’ll have to think about that.”

“Yes. The customs officers are extremely sensitive to such items.” Mr. Shahari smiled. “In the wrong hands, these tools might be put to criminal use.”

“Yes, I see what you mean.”

“Therefore, I must say one thing: While I may find these items for you, I cannot help smuggle them through customs. If there were any miscalculations, it would go very hard on me. And you, too, for that matter.”

“You try to get the things I need. I’ll try to get them off the Rock.”

“I wish you the best of luck. It won’t be easy, you know.”

“Well, it’s my headache, Mr. Shahari. Don’t worry about it.”

“In that case, I shall look forward to seeing you in Gibraltar. Perhaps you will let me give you lunch. I will ask my wife to make us a curry. Would you like that?”

“Very much indeed. And thank you.”

“It’s my pleasure, Mr. Churchman.”

“You’ll remember the walkie-talkies?”

“Yes, yes. Audioflex or Zeiss. No Japanese.”

After the Indian had gone, Peter took a table on the terrace and considered his various problems. It was not an activity calculated to bring him peace of mind; there were dark clouds everywhere and not a silver lining in sight. Hawk-eyed customs officers at the Spanish border. Angela fishing craftily for Phillip’s secrets. Lethal bulls pounding along barricaded streets.

Twenty-six feet of stone and brick sealing off a great vault of tempered steel. And a timetable so exquisitely wrought that even a broken shoestring could smash it to bits. On top of all this there was Grace, flinging aside her mask to smile at him for being such a lugubrious fool. How amused she must be! But no. She hadn’t been in a comic mood. Hurling that knife was not a light-hearted gesture.

The sun sank into the sea. Dancing shafts of lemon and purple light played over the softly moulded flanks of the hide coloured mountains.

The air became cool. But still Peter sat frowning at his thoughts.

The life of the village flowed by him. The plaza was a busy hub, with streets stretching out like spokes to the markets, to the hills, to the beaches. Burros clip-clopped over the old stones. Maids in black uniforms with twists of jasmine in their hair hurried about on last-minute errands before the cocktail hour. Shoeshine boys and crippled lottery vendors screamed for customers. A string of gypsies, complete from stooped ancients to black-eyed babies, stood out against the crowd like a tableau limning the ages of man. In their wake a tinker pushed a cumbersome wagon which was hung with dented and tarnished pots and pans. He was an old, old man with a flat nose and a beard the colour of moss. At regular intervals he blew into a reed, and the sound rose and fell above the noise of the plaza in slow and mournful loops.

Peter straightened suddenly and stared at the tinker’s rig with narrowing eyes. Ideas and schemes began to flicker in his mind like quicksilver. He noted that a canopy protected the wagon from sun and rain. There was a work-bench, a wooden tub of blackish water, a gas flame and soldering equipment, dull knives, sharp knives and broken knives, and a big stone grinding wheel connected to a sprocket and foot pedal.

Here was a link in the chain he must forge! Staring him straight in the face. He realised that he had been drifting listlessly towards swamps of despair and self-pity, ignoring the challenges he faced, doubting his own strength and skills. Enough of it, he thought, springing to his feet.

He hailed the tinker and went over to him. They talked for a few minutes. The old man named a price, which Peter slashed in half to indicate he meant business. After a series of proposals and counter-proposals, each made in final and regretful tones, they struck a bargain which they sealed with smiling handshakes.

“You can depend on me, senor. Absolutely.”

“I’m sure of it. Thank you very much.”

Peter climbed into his car then and headed for the road which twisted up through the mountains to Grace’s villa.

The Canadian girl who looked after the children let Peter in, but only confirmed what the maids had told him earlier; Grace wasn’t at home, and no one seemed to know just where she was, or when she might be back. Peter felt quite deflated. He had been certain she was simply avoiding him.

A child in a white nightgown came into the living-room and smiled tentatively at Peter. “Hello, Mr. Churchman. I thought it was Mommy, maybe. Do you still have that bad cat?”

“Why, hello, Debby.”

“He made a mess on the floor,” Debby explained to the Canadian girl.

“The first time I went to Mr. Churchman’s house with Mommy. He’s all black except for a spot on his chest. Would you like to come and see my sisters, Mr. Churchman?”

“Well, yes, of course. But maybe it’s past their visiting hours.”

“That’s all right,” the Canadian girl said. “They’ve had their supper and tubs. We usually read a while before bedtime, but I’m sure an unexpected visitor will compensate nicely for that.”

“They’re just babies, you know,” Debby said. “Miss Marian, could Mr. Churchman read to them?”

“If he’d like to, yes, dear.”

Debby smiled and took Peter’s hand. “Come on. They’ll fall right asleep. Then if you want I’ll show you my flamenco dress. It’s green and white. Mommy bought it and the maids sewed sequins on it.”

They went down a wide and dimly-lighted corridor, with Debby pulling him along by the hand. She looked wonderfully sweet and well-cared for, like Grace in miniature, he thought sentimentally, with her scrubbed face and shining hair, and her eyes dancing with conspiratorial excitement. There were small blue flowers stitched about the high yoke of her white nightgown, and these, to Peter’s eye, resembled the running lights of a ship, and heightened his illusion that her slender body was breasting the gloom of the hallway like a tiny graceful sail boat. Images, he thought anxiously. Was it something glandular in both mother and daughter that prompted these metaphorical responses? When Debby stopped to look up at him, Peter fancied he saw sparks flashing in her eyes. Bonfires? No. But campfires, anyway.

She opened a door, and they went into an empty bedroom. There was a single lamp on a table, and drapes were drawn over the windows. Peter smiled at Debby. “Well? Where are your sisters?”

“Bend down so I can whisper.”

“Now what’s this all about?”

Debby’s lips brushed his ear, soft and light as feathers. “There’s somebody sneaking around outside in the garden.”

“Oh?” Peter glanced at the drawn drapes. “How do you know?”

“I was playing with Cathy and Elspeth in their room. After our baths. I saw him looking in our window. He was behind a bush.”

“Did he realise you had seen him?”

“I don’t know. He stood behind the bushes for a little while. I kept on playing like I didn’t see him. Then he walked into the garden.”

“Could it have been the gardener?”

“He goes home before dark.”

Peter turned off the lamp and moved to the windows. Debby clutched his hand tightly. Peter drew the drapes back an inch or so, and let his eyes sweep over the gardens. In the darkness there was faint moonlight, faint breezes; trees and bushes were stirring gently, and the swimming pool at the foot of the garden shone like a patch of clouded silver. The gravelled walks gleamed in white irregular patterns where they circled lily ponds and cut through oleander hedges.

“Do you see anybody?” Debby whispered.

“No, everything looks normal.” He let the drapes fall back into place and turned on the lamp. “Maybe you dozed off without knowing it, and had a bad dream.”

“I wasn’t dreaming, I saw him.”

It must have been her imagination, Peter thought; she was indeed her mother’s child, full of fancies and secrets. “Debby, why didn’t you tell your nurse, Miss Marian, about this prowler?”

“Well, because she’s so sensible,” Debby said. “She’s levelheaded, and not afraid of anything. She’s always laughing at the maids. She would have grabbed a flashlight and rushed outside. That might not have been a good thing to do. But I couldn’t have stopped her. That’s why I told you.”

Peter realised that her position was formidably logical. “You stay here,” he said. “Leave the light on, but keep away from the window.”

He gave her a pat on the shoulder, and went swiftly out the door.

A car laboured in the mountains. Fishermen sang in the straw-roofed bars on the dark beaches. Leaves rustled under slow, fragrant winds.

Peter listened intently to every faint sound, his senses scanning the garden like radar screens. Then he drifted along the wall towards the swimming pool. At the base of a lemon tree he found the stub of a Players cigarette. He squeezed the black tip between thumb and forefinger and found it still warm.

Clinging to the shadows, Peter crept about the pool, circled the bath-house, and moved silently up a gravelled path that brought him back to the terrace of the villa.

He crouched in the shadow of an oleander bush, and peered through the green leaves and pink blossoms. He saw the lights in the living-room where Miss Marian was reading and the lights in the bedroom where, hopefully, Debby was waiting for him. He could still hear the labouring engine of the car, and the singing from the beaches. But that was all. The silence bothered him; the garden was too quiet.

Nesting birds and foraging insects were aware their domain had been invaded; tiny feathers and claws and feelers had all become still and motionless.

Suddenly between him and the terrace a footstep sounded on the gravelled walk. He froze. Silence settled again, and Peter knew that single revealing sound had been inadvertent; whoever had made it must now be crouching in the darkness, not daring to move, hardly daring to breathe. Peter took a rapid inventory of what he was wearing, and what he had in his pockets, but found nothing resembling a weapon. No penknife, no belt, not even a tie Again he heard a leather heel crunching softly on the gravel. After a few seconds the sound came again... Peter moved with infinite care about the curving bulk of the oleander bush, and saw the silhouette of a man in a dark suit standing only six or eight feet from him. He was staring up at the stone railing that rimmed the terrace.

Peter rose swiftly and silently through the darkness. “Put your hands up,” he said, in a voice like a cracking whip. “Then freeze.”

“Very well,” the man said, in soft, musical tones, but even as he spoke he flung himself backward, swiftly as a cat, a foot lashing out murderously at Peter’s groin. Peter dodged the blow and struck down at the man’s back, his locked hands coming down like a savagely swung axe.

He thought that would be the end of it, but the man’s forearm swept about viciously and cut Peter’s legs out from under him. They went to the ground in a churning heap, fighting for an advantage in the darkness. Peter struck with the edge of his palm, and was rewarded by a gasp of shock and pain. Then an elbow smashed into his jaw. He ducked another punch, locked an arm about a waist that was like whalebone, and, with a hip-roll, flipped the man into the oleander bush. With sweet and savage expectations, Peter leaped after him to finish the job, but a pair of feet slammed sickeningly into his stomach, and he jack-knifed, staggered, and fell into the murky waters of the lily pond.

Peter tried to get to his feet, but the man’s weight landed abruptly and solidly on his back, as authoritative and unwelcome as an anchor.

He bucked and heaved to get his head from the water and air into his lungs. His hands gathered fistfuls of lapels; he stood with a burst of strength, and snapped his shoulders down, catapulting the man over his head into the lilac hedge beside the pond. Peter splashed out of the water and leaped forward at exactly the right instant to catch a short, chopping blow on the chin that caused batteries of lights to explode before his eyes. Lights were everywhere, flooding the garden.

Peter’s patience was at an end; he swung hard and savagely, one, two, three times, and the sounds of his fists landing were like the sound of pile drivers slamming into hard-packed earth.

He jumped on his fallen foe, but the man laughed and struck him in the stomach with a blow that caused the air to burst from his lungs.

Peter got a grip on his throat and prepared to kill him.

“Stop it! Stop it, you fools!”

Dazed, stupefied, gasping for breath, Peter turned and stared blearily in the direction of that marvellously familiar voice.

The outdoor lights were shining, flooding the gardens and the terrace.

They gleamed in Grace’s eyes, gleamed in her golden hair, as she towered above him on the terrace like a splendid angry statue. At her side was a small round man with a bald head and shy eyes. Shock streaked through Peter like bolts of electricity.

He stared incredulously at the man he was sitting on, at the hawk-faced man he had been trying to kill; his head reeled; the tugs of reason strained at their moorings.

“No,” he gasped weakly.

“I got here ahead of them, so I thought I’d take a look around. Lucky they arrived in time, eh?”

“Paddy, I might have killed you!”

“Ah, you old bastard,” the Irishman said smiling. “It’s good to see you, lad, even if you are choking the life out of me. Let me up now. This calls for stronger waters than you’ve got in that bloody fishpond.”

Peter rolled off the Irishman and lay flat on his back, more spent and helpless than he had ever been in his life, while all the bright stars revolved about him in wild derisive circles.

“Let me give you a hand, lad.”

“Easy now, you’re all right,” he heard Bendell say gently.

“Oh, darling, you do need a drink,” said Grace.

Tenderly and gently, they took him up the stairs and into the villa.