But at least I did the job properly; did it without being disturbed or attracting attention and got back upstairs without being seen on the way.
This time, when I searched with the binoculars, I couldn’t locate Yves. An hour earlier, that would have worried me.
Now, it didn’t. I went down to my bedroom, cleaned myself up and then, after pushing a note under Melanie’s door, descended to the drawing-room. The note told her not to bother returning to the attic as I had revised our security arrangements.
Now, there was no point in having a sentry up there.
Now, all I had to do was continue to think clearly and to give Connell and Henson, already heading towards me from the terrace, the prescription for our collective survival.
Oh yes, and I had to decide, too, how to reply to Mat.
He would call, I knew; not just to make sure that his spell was working — he would have few doubts on that score — but to make sure that I remained faithful unto death, and that, if the process of my dying should happen to take longer than planned, I wouldn’t spend the extra time drawing unpleasant conclusions and making wild statements to ambulance attendants.
That was the one chore he wouldn’t leave to Frank Yamatoku.
Moulding the minds and hearts of men was work for gods.
CHAPTER TEN
The fireworks began soon after dinner.
When the first rockets went up from a boat along the coast off Monte Carlo, they seemed to act on Krom as a signal.
We had eaten simply, as Melanie had arranged, so that the servants could get off early to their local Quatorze juillet fête. While they were clearing the table we had moved to the terrace, though keeping close to the house in what even a sulkily nervous Yves had had to agree was an unexposed area. A drink tray had already been set up for us. I had opened a bottle of brandy.
As the popping sounds of the distant red-white-and-blue bursts arrived, Krom leaned forward and raised his glass. For a moment I thought absurdly that he must be about to propose a Bastille Day toast, but no; he had seen an insect drown itself in his brandy.
‘I am glad to tell you, Mr Firman,’ he said as he fished out the corpse with the tip of a napkin, ‘that I am now prepared to discuss your Paper Number Two and to receive your Paper Number Three as per our agreement.’
‘What agreement is that, Professor?’
I had avoided him after my talk with Connell and Henson. They might be allies now, but only allies of a sort. I couldn’t expect them, when it came to fresh haggling with Krom over the threats and promises made in Brussels, to ignore his just claims on their moral support. It had been important, therefore, that they had time to get used to the idea of helping me with what mattered without having to oppose me again over something that by then scarcely mattered at all. The solution had been to stay in my room, leaving Melanie to ply From with pre-dinner drinks. Mat wouldn’t, I knew, call unannounced. First, there would be a figurative rolling of drums or a clap or two of stage thunder calculated to strike fear into the hearts of us simple men. One could only wait for such a great moment. I had used the time to get all the tapes properly wrapped and hidden in the small bag I intended to take with me on the escape run, and to check out the local radio-taxi services. The bottle of frozen champagne brought to me by the cook’s husband had thawed out sufficiently for me to be able to drink two glasses and the burgundy with dinner had been good enough. The strain had been there all right, but it had been under control. When we had moved to the terrace I had been ready to be kind to Krom.
Now, he was showing me his teeth again, and not just in normal quantities.
‘I speak of our original agreement,’ he said, ‘and it is no use rolling your eyes, Mr Firman. I intend to enforce the original terms in all respects.’
‘Using what sanctions to enforce them, Professor?’
He gave me the wide-angle view of his bridgework. ‘Twenty per cent of what I could have used before, my friend. Twenty per cent of Symposia instead of one hundred per cent, plus the knowledge that, even if it were one per cent and we were dealing with a figurehead criminal, the Director of the Institute for International Investment and Trust Counselling still has to maintain the fiction that he is a man of probity.’
‘Any attempt on your part to contend that I’m not, Professor, will land you with actions for libel, slander and defamation of character, depending on how you make your allegations and where. Meanwhile, take my advice. You’re going to need all your strength before long, so don’t push yourself too hard. I have more files prepared for you and you shall have them in due course. Melanie has the copies ready and waiting. At the moment, however, she’s listening for the phone call I’m expecting, the one from Mat Williamson. You can hear it if you like. In fact, I think you should hear it, all of you.’ I had turned, as I spoke, to Yves. ‘That could be arranged, couldn’t it, with some of the equipment you have?’
Yves squirmed visibly, then tried to pull himself together. Sulkiness was succeeded by pomposity. ‘With respect, Patron, I think that with such a conversation, if it takes place, it would be wiser if you used your own recorder.’
‘Yves is sensitive about his special skills,’ I explained. ‘It was just an idea. I thought you might all like to hear it as it’s happening.’
‘I’m for that,’ Connell said. ‘More authentic, I’d say. Don’t you agree, Professor?’
‘If Mr Firman wishes us to hear a telephone conversation, the question of its authenticity doesn’t arise. It may be presumed false.’
I shrugged. ‘Well, it’s up to you. I thought I’d mention it.’
That was when Yves cracked. He suddenly stood up.
‘Patron, why trouble to wait? Why wait for bad news? Because it is polite to do so? I will have no part in it and I have told Melanie so. I think that she now feels the same.’
‘About what, Mr Boularis?’ Dr Henson was smiling up at him. ‘What would you like us to do?’
‘You?’ He looked down at her as if in surprise and then made a sweeping gesture of contempt. ‘You can do what you like, Mrs Doctor. You belong with your friends. You can die with your friends. Why should I. . ‘
He broke off. Something beyond the terrace had caught his eye. He stared, then turned again, bewildered. He had given up trying now to retain his dignity.
I got up, too, to see what it was that he hadn’t been expecting at that moment.
The big motor cruiser which, until then, had arrived only at breakfast time was gliding past the headland into the bay. She was carrying a lot of lights. Beneath the awning over the after deck, there was a dinner table set and awaiting a party of four. Around another table, with bottles and an ice bucket on it, were gathered two couples. The women wore denim jackets with their slacks and one of the men had put on a sweater. It was probably cool out there on the water. There was much animation. I had no binoculars handy, but I didn’t think I had seen any of them before.
‘I thought there were only three passengers,’ I said, ‘the one man and the two women who swim from the outer beach.’
‘The one in the pullover must be a guest or the other husband.’ He gave a strangled sort of laugh. ‘They all look drunk to me.’
And indeed they did, in a way; the falling-about, arm-waving way of film extras pretending to be drunk in the orgy sequence of a biblical silent. Sounds of the revelry came faintly across the water. Much louder was the sound of diesels suddenly going astern and the squawk of the chain as an anchor was let go.
To celebrate their arrival, the man in the sweater rose unsteadily to his feet from the cushion on which he had been sitting cross-legged and flung a hand in the air as if to call for three cheers. The next moment he had swooped on a long cardboard box lying on the deck by the table and was staggering forward with it to the bows. The crewman there securing the anchor took no notice at all when the man with the box dumped it beside him and began tearing at gummed-paper fastenings on the lid.