An unremarkable looking man of about thirty-five, with incipient bags under his eyes, and a prim mouth. Unused to the violence surrounding him, and trying to wash his hands of it. A man with his fare paid in death and grief.
When Yardman had covered Patrick, he perched himself down on the edge of the flattened box. The overhead lights shone on the bald patch on his skull and the black spectacle frames made heavy bars of shadow on his eyes and cheeks.
‘I regret this, my dear boy, believe me, I regret it sincerely,’ he said, eyeing the result of Billy’s target practice. Like Rous-Wheeler he took out a cigarette and lit it. ‘He really has made a very nasty mess.’
But only skin deep, if one thought about it. I thought about it. Not much good.
‘Do you understand what Billy wants?’ Yardman said, shaking out his match.
I nodded.
He sighed. ‘Then couldn’t you... er... satisfy him, my dear boy? You will make it so hard for yourself, if you don’t.’
I remembered the stupid boast I’d made to Billy the first day I’d met him, that I could be as tough as necessary. Now that I looked like having to prove it, I had the gravest doubts.
When I didn’t answer Yardman shook his head sorrowfully. ‘Foolish boy, whatever difference would it make, after you are dead?’
‘Defeat...’ I cleared my throat and tried again. ‘Defeat on all levels.’
He frowned. ‘What do you mean?’
‘Communists are greedy,’ I said.
‘Greedy,’ he echoed. ‘You’re wandering, my dear boy.’
‘They like to... crumble... people, before they kill them. And that’s... gluttony.’
‘Nonsense,’ said Rous-Wheeler in a vintage Establishment voice.
‘You must have read newspaper accounts of trials in Russia,’ I said, raising an eyebrow. ‘All those “confessions”.’
‘The Russians,’ he said stiffly, ‘are a great warm-hearted simple people.’
‘Oh, sure,’ I agreed. ‘And some are like Billy.’
‘Billy is English.’
‘So are you,’ I said. ‘And where are you going?’
He compressed his lips and didn’t answer.
‘I hope,’ I said, looking at the blanket which covered Patrick, ‘that your travel agents have confirmed your belief in the greatness, warm-heartedness and simplicity of the hemisphere you propose to join.’
‘My dear boy,’ interrupted Yardman smoothly, ‘what eloquence!’
‘Talking,’ I explained, ‘takes the mind off... this and that.’
A sort of recklessness seemed to be running in my blood, and my mind felt clear and sharp. To have even those two to talk to was suddenly a great deal more attractive than waiting for Billy on my own.
‘The end justifies the means,’ said Rous-Wheeler pompously, as if he’d heard it somewhere before.
‘Crap,’ I said inelegantly. ‘You set yourself too high.’
‘I am...’ he began angrily, and stopped.
‘Go on,’ I said. ‘You are what? Feel free to tell me. Moriturus, and all that.’
It upset him, which was pleasant. He said stiffly, ‘I am a civil servant.’
‘Were,’ I pointed out.
‘Er, yes.’
‘Which ministry?’
‘The Treasury,’ he said, with the smugness of those accepted in the inner of inner sanctums.
The Treasury. It was a stopper, that one.
‘What rank?’ I asked.
‘Principal.’ There was a grudge in his voice. He hadn’t risen.
‘And why are you defecting?’
The forthcomingness vanished. ‘It’s none of your business.’
‘Well it is rather,’ I said in mock apology, ‘since your change of allegiance looks like having a fairly decisive effect on my future.’
He looked mulish and kept silent.
‘I suppose,’ I said with mild irony, ‘you are going where you think your talents will be appreciated.’
For a second he looked almost as spiteful as Billy. A petty-minded man I thought, full of imagined slights, ducking the admission that he wasn’t as brilliant as he thought he was. None of that lessened one jot the value of the information he carried in his head.
‘And you,’ I said to Yardman. ‘Why do you do it? All this.’
He looked back gravely, the tight skin pulling over his shut mouth.
‘Ideology?’ I suggested.
He tapped ash off his cigarette, made a nibbling movement with his lip, and said briefly, ‘Money.’
‘The brand of goods doesn’t trouble you, as long as the carriage is paid?’
‘Correct,’ he said.
‘A mercenary soldier. Slaughter arranged. Allegiance always to the highest bidder?’
‘That,’ he said, inclining his head, ‘is so.’
It wasn’t so strange, I thought inconsequentially, that I’d never been able to understand him.
‘But believe me, my dear boy,’ he said earnestly, ‘I never really intended you any harm. Not you.’
‘Thanks,’ I said dryly.
‘When you asked me for a job I nearly refused you... but I didn’t think you’d stay long, and your name gave my agency some useful respectability, so I agreed.’ He sighed. ‘I must admit, you surprised me. You were very good at that job, if it’s of any comfort to you. Very good. Too good. I should have stopped it when your father died, when I had the chance, before you stumbled on anything... it was selfish of me. Selfish.’
‘Simon Searle stumbled,’ I reminded him. ‘Not me.’
‘I fear so,’ he agreed without concern. ‘A pity. He too was invaluable. An excellent accurate man. Very hard to replace.’
‘Would you be so good as to untuck my shirt?’ I said. ‘I’m getting cold.’
Without a word he stood up, came round, tugged the bunched cloth out of the back of my trousers and pulled the collar and shoulders back to their right place. The shirt fronts fell together edge to edge, the light touch of the cloth on the burns being more than compensated by the amount of cool air shut out.
Yardman sat down again where he had been before and lit another cigarette from the stub of the first, without offering one to Rous-Wheeler.
‘I didn’t mean to bring you on this part of the trip,’ he said. ‘Believe me, my dear boy, when we set off from Gatwick I intended to organise some little delaying diversion for you in Milan, so that you wouldn’t embark on the trip back.’
I said bleakly, ‘Do you call sh... shooting my girl a little diversion.’
He looked distressed. ‘Of course not. Of course not. I didn’t know you had a girl until you introduced her. But then I thought it would be an excellent idea to tell you to stay with her for a day or two, that we could easily manage without you on the way back. ‘He,’ he nodded at Patrick’s shrouded body, ‘told me you were... er... crazy about her. Unfortunately for you, he also told me how assiduous you had been in searching for Searle. He told me all about that bottle of pills. Now, my dear boy, that was a risk we couldn’t take.’
‘Risk,’ I said bitterly.
‘Oh yes, my dear boy, of course. Risk is something we can’t afford in this business. I always act on risk. Waiting for certain knowledge may be fatal. And I was quite right in this instance, isn’t that so? You had told me yourself where you were going to lunch, so I instructed Billy to go and find you and follow you from there, and make sure it was all love’s young dream and no excitement. But you went bursting out of the restaurant and off at high speed to an obscure little bakery. Billy followed you in Vittorio’s cab and rang me up from near there.’ He spread his hands. ‘I told him to kill you both and search you under cover of helping, as soon as you came out.’