Midnight Plus One

He said: 'No thanks. Changed my mind.'

I glared at him through the darkness and rain. I was cold and wet and I hadn't exactly enjoyed finding and then dumping that body myself – andnow I was stuck with a gunman who couldn't even make up his bloody mind about something as simple as whether he wanted a drink or not.

Well, by now I certainly wanted one myself. I took a swig and then held the bottle out again. 'Have a sip. It's going to be a long ride.'

He took it. Then his arm whipped over and the bottle exploded on the shingle by his feet.'Idon't want a drink!'

The gulp of whisky was lead on my stomach and the taste sour in my mouth. I asked quietly: 'How long have you been off the stuff, Harvey?'

He just sighed, a long resigned sound.

I said: 'How long?'

'I'll be all right. Don't you worry.'

No. No worries at all. Except for a bodyguard who was a practising alcoholic. But no more than that.

At least I knew now why he hadn't stayed to draw a pension from the American Secret Service.

'Howlong?' I asked grimly.

'Forty-eight hours. About. I've done it before. I can do it'

That's the funny thing: theycan do it. For forty-eight hours, or a week or weeks.

'You going to get the shakes on me?' I asked.

'No. I've had them. They won't happen again until I'm back on it.'

The calm assumption that he'd be going back on it shook me. I opened my mouth to say several severe but well-meant things, then shut it again before too much rain got in. All I wanted was for him to stay sober for twenty hours more. After that, he wasn't my problem.

And in a way, it was cheering that he didn't plan to stay dry for ever. When they suddenly remember how long for ever is, they're back inside the bottle with a rush. But just another day is an easy target. No need for him to crack before then.

I flashed the torch at the sea.

For a few minutes nobody said anything. The waves crashed on the beach below, their echo dulled by the steady rain. Then I asked: 'Had your first amnesia yet?'

He made a sound that might have been a chuckle. 'The first memory blackout, you mean? Now, how would a man rememberthat?'

I just nodded. I hadn't really expected an answer, but it had been worth asking. The first amnesia, the first time you can't remember what the hell happened the night before, that's the big step. After that, you're over the hill. Nowhere to go but down. Or so the doctors say.

Getting an answer would have helped me guess how committed he was, how likely to crack.

I said: 'Just interested.'

'If you're that interested, you know a man hates talking about it.'

So he'd taken the trouble to check up on the stages and symptoms. They sometimes do. It's a way of standing back, watching themselves go down the slope. Less effort than trying to hold themselves back.

'So you know something about it?' he asked.

'Something. A bit of drinking wasn't exactly uncommon in the war – particularly in our sort of business. I read it all up once. Had to know how much security risk those people'd be.'

'And how much were they?'

I shrugged, but he probably couldn't see. 'Some were, some weren't. We won the war anyhow.'

'So I heard.' Then: 'You got a light.'

'What?'

He waved at the sea. 'Out there. You got a light'

I flashed the torch again. A faint light winked back. I looked at my watch: just after two o'clock.

'Can't be him,' I said. 'He's hardly late yet.'

'You ever think a real big businessman might be efficient? And he might hire efficient people to get him around?'

We looked at each other through the rain and darkness. 'No,' I said, 'looking at you and me, I wouldn't say that thought had occurred to me. But now we're hired, maybe we'd better try.'

FIVE

The boat hit on the beach with a long, grinding crunch. Several people bounced out and grabbed hold to steady it. The next wave swamped them to their waists.

That was what they'd been hired for, and I'd got quite wet enough for one night already; we stood back on the shingle. It was a motorised whaleboat with a good width, which it must have needed coming through that surf, and a clear twenty-five feet long, which told you something about the size of yacht that carried it.

One of the men stumped up to me and said in guttural English: 'The fish are biting.'

I tried hard to think of the proper password. Passwords are fine in the right place, which means a seemingly casual remark in a crowded street which won't betray anything if the wrong person hears it. Here, they were nonsense. But Merlin had insisted.

Then I remembered. 'And the birds are singing.'

He grunted and walked back. I glanced at Harvey; he was slipping something back under his mac.

Somebody was stepping off the whaleboat and getting a lot of help from the crew. He walked slowly up to us, and announced: 'I am Maganhard.'

'Cane.'

Harvey said: 'Lovell.'

Maganhard said: 'There are twenty kilos of luggage and two of us. I believe you have the Citroën.'

He didn't ask 'Is that all right?' or anything. Just telling us. If there was anything we didn't expect, it was up to us to say so. Efficiency – as Harvey had guessed.

And there was something I hadn't expected. 'Two of you?'

'My secretary, Miss Helen Jarman.' He stood there, waiting for me to say something else. All I could tell of him in the dark was that he was a square, solid man in a dark coat, no hat, and the glint of spectacles. His voice had a flat, metallic tone like a bad dictaphone.

Somebody else crunched up the shingle and stopped beside Maganhard. 'Is everything all right?'

A clear, cool, and unmistakably English voice. Nobody could ever imitate that upper-crust-girls'-school accent. Or perhaps nobody ever wanted to.

She looked fairly tall, with dark hair and a dark coat that glistened softly in the rain.

Maganhard said: 'I believe so. Has our luggage come?'

She looked back and a sailor arrived carrying two cases. Maganhard tramped past us over the shingle bank. Harvey patted me on the shoulder, and took two fast steps to arrive just behind Maganhard's right shoulder, just where a bodyguard should be.

I tagged on behind the procession, just where a chauffeur should be.

The sailor dumped the two cases, both expensive solid-looking lumps of horsehide, into the boot of the Citroen. He got a nod from Maganhard and headed back over the bank.

Harvey was standing beside Maganhard, looking out into the night but at the same time making sure he was blocking the most likely lines of fire at Maganhard. Shooting back is only the second half of a bodyguard's job: the first half is trying to be in the way of any bullets.

I asked: 'Where d'you want to sit, Harvey?'

'Up front.'

The girl said: 'Mr Maganhard may wish to sit there.'

'He might,' I agreed, 'in which case he'll be disappointed. Harvey arranges the seating.'

Maganhard said: 'Mr Lovell – you are the bodyguard?'

Harvey said: 'Yes.'

'I told Monsieur Merlin I did not need a bodyguard. A driver would have been quite enough. I do not like shooting.'

'Don't like it myself,' Harvey said evenly, still watching outwards. 'But just you and me don't make a majority.'

'Nobody is trying to kill me,' Maganhard said. 'That is just Monsieur Merlin's idea. The only danger is in being stopped by the police.'

I said: 'I had that theory, too. But when we picked up the car tonight in Quimper, there was a dead man in it.'

The rain pattered softly on the roof of the warm, dry car beside us.

Then Maganhard said: 'You mean killed? '

'I mean killed. I imagine he was the man who was supposed to deliver the car to us.'

The girl said: 'Dead inthis car?'