‘Be seeing you,’ I said to Derry. Luke-John waved a freckled farewell hand. Carrying Tally I went down in the lift and turned out of the front door up towards the Strand, bound for a delicatessen shop which sold Austrian apple cake which Elizabeth liked.
Bought the cake. Came out into the street. Heard a voice in my ear. Felt a sharp prick through my coat abeam the first lumbar vertebra.
‘It’s a knife, Mr Tyrone.’
I stood quite still. People could be stabbed to death in busy streets and no one noticed until the body cluttered up the fairway. Killers vanished into crowds with depressing regularity.
‘What do you want?’ I said.
‘Just stay where you are.’
Standing on the Fleet Street pavement, holding a magazine and a box of apple cake. Just stay where you are. For how long?
‘For how long?’ I said.
He didn’t answer. But he was still there, because his knife was. We stood where we were for all of two minutes. Then a black Rolls rolled to a silent halt at the kerb directly opposite where I stood. The door to the back seat swung open.
‘Get in,’ said the voice behind me.
I got in. There was a chauffeur driving, all black uniform and a stolid acne-scarred neck. The man with the knife climbed in after me and settled by my side. I glanced at him, knew I’d seen him somewhere before, didn’t know where. I put Tally and the apple cake carefully on the floor. Sat back. Went for a ride.
10
We turned north into the Aldwych and up Drury Lane to St. Giles’ Circus. I made no move towards escape, although we stopped several times at traffic lights. My companion watched me warily, and I worked on where I had seen him before and still came up with nothing. Up Tottenham Court Road. Left, right, left again. Straight into Regent’s Park and round the semicircle. Stopped smoothly at the turnstile entrance to the Zoo.
‘Inside,’ said my companion, nodding.
We stepped out of the car, and the chauffeur quietly drove off.
‘You can pay,’ I remarked.
He gave me a quick glance, tried to juggle the money out of his pocket one handed, and found he couldn’t manage it if he were to be of any use with his knife.
‘No,’ he said. ‘You pay. For us both.’
I paid, almost smiling. He was nowhere near as dangerous as he wanted to be thought.
We checked through the turnstiles. ‘Where now?’ I said.
‘Straight ahead. I’ll tell you.’
The Zoo was nearly empty. On that oily Tuesday November lunch time, not even the usual bus loads from schools. Birds shrieked mournfully from the aviary and a notice board said the vultures would be fed at three.
A man in a dark overcoat and black homburg hat was sitting on a seat looking towards the lions’ outdoor compounds. The cages were empty. The sun-loving lions were inside under the sun lamps.
‘Over there,’ said my companion, nodding.
We walked across. The man in the black homburg watched us come. Every line of his clothes and posture spoke of money, authority, and high social status, and his manner of irritating superiority would have done credit to the Foreign Office. As Dembley had said, his subject matter was wildly at variance with his appearance.
‘Did you have any trouble?’ he asked.
‘None at all,’ said the knife man smugly.
A bleak expression crept into pale grey eyes as cold as the stratosphere. ‘I am not pleased to hear it.’
The accent in his voice was definite but difficult. A thickening of some consonants, a clipping of some vowels.
‘Go away, now,’ he said to the knife man. ‘And wait.’
My nondescript abductor in his nondescript raincoat nodded briefly and walked away, and I nearly remembered where I’d seen him. Recollection floated up, but not far enough.
‘You chose to come,’ the man in the homburg said flatly.
‘Yes and no.’
He stood up. My height, but thicker. Yellowish skin, smooth except for a maze of wrinkles round his eyes. What I could see of his hair was nearly blond, and I put his age down roughly as five or six years older than myself.
‘It is cold outside. We will go in.’
I walked with him round inside the Big Cats’ House, where the strong feral smell seemed an appropriate background to the proceedings. I could guess what he wanted. Not to kilclass="underline" that could have been done in Fleet Street or anywhere on the way. To extort. The only question was how.
‘You show too little surprise,’ he said.
‘We were waiting for some... reaction. Expecting it.’
‘I see.’ He was silent, working it out. A bored-looking tiger blinked at us lazily, claws sheathed inside rounded pads, tail swinging a fraction from side to side. I sneered at him. He turned and walked three paces and three paces back, round and round, going nowhere.
‘Was last week’s reaction not enough for you?’
‘Very useful,’ I commented. ‘Led us straight to Charlie Boston. So kind of you to ask. That makes you a side kick of his.’
He gave me a blazingly frosty glare. ‘I employ Boston.’
I looked down, not answering. If his pride were as easily stung as that he might give me more answers than I gave him.
‘When I heard about it I disapproved of what they did on the train. Now, I am not so sure.’ His voice was quiet again, the voice of culture, diplomacy, tact.
‘You didn’t order it, then.’
‘I did not.’
I ran my hand along the thick metal bar which kept visitors four feet away from the animals’ cages. The tiger looked tame, too gentle to kill. Too indifferent to maul, to maim, to scrape to the bone.
‘You know what we want,’ said the polite tiger by my side. ‘We want to know where you have hidden the horse.’
‘Why?’ I said.
He merely blinked at me.
I sighed. ‘What good will it do you? Do you still seriously intend to try to prevent it from running? You would be much wiser to forget the whole thing and quietly fold your tent and steal away.’
‘You will leave that decision entirely to me.’ Again, the pride stuck out a mile. I didn’t like it. Few enemies were as ruthless as those who feared a loss of face. I began to consider before how wide an acquaintanceship the face had to be preserved. The wider, the worse for me.
‘Where is it?’
‘Tiddely Pom?’ I said.
‘Tiddely Pom.’ He repeated the name with fastidious disgust. ‘Yes.’
‘Quite safe.’
‘Mr Tyrone, stop playing games. You cannot hide for ever from Charlie Boston.’
I was silent. The tiger yawned, showing a full set of fangs. Nasty.
‘They could do more damage next time,’ he said.
I looked at him curiously, wondering if he seriously thought I would crumble under so vague a threat. He stared straight back and was unmoved when I didn’t answer. My heart sank slightly. More to come.
‘I suspected,’ he said conversationally, ‘when I heard that you were seen at Plumpton races the day following Boston’s ill-judged attack, that physical pressure would run us into too much difficulty in your case. I see that this assessment was correct. I directed that a different lever should be found. We have, of course, found it. And you will tell us where the horse is hidden.’
He took out the black crocodile wallet and removed from it a small sheet of paper, folded once. He gave it to me. I looked. He saw the deep shock in my face and he smiled in satisfaction.
It was a photo-copy of the bill of the hotel where I had stayed with Gail. Mr and Mrs Tyrone, one double room.
‘So you see, Mr Tyrone, that if you wish to keep this interesting item of news from your wife, you must give us the address we ask.’