‘Why us?’ asked Connell. ‘You’re the one who knows him. You’re the danger. And why in two parties?’
‘I’ve blown him to you. He knows that, just as he knows that Dr Henson came bearing gifts from a British intelligence branch. The same person will have told him. I’m sorry, but you asked me. It’s a special occasion. You get the truth. He just wants to do the killings quietly, with a minimum of fuss and expense. Two small parties are cheaper to kill than one big one. In this case, particularly, because separate explanations would be cheaper.’
‘Cheaper?’ Henson was indignant. ‘And what have explanations to do with. .?’
‘Killing can be very expensive these days, or it can be cheap. It all depends on what’s left behind and how difficult the mess is to explain. On the roads or just off them, they’re the easiest dumping grounds. All you need leave behind on them is either another ugly monument to our vulgar autoroute society or, if there are bullets to be found in any of the bodies, another tragic by-product of gangster-ridden monopoly capitalism. That’s as long as you don’t complicate things for the traffic police by mixing criminologists with the tax-consultants.’
Or by letting a victim talk before he dies. How thoughtfully I had been programmed! Should my final moments be unduly prolonged, I could spend them reminding myself sadly that dear old Mat had been right after all. He’d told me to stand still, and like a fool I hadn’t listened.
‘Are you saying the Professor’s right?’ demanded Melanie; ‘that we should freeze?’
‘No, dear, I’m not. Mat will be doing everything he can to make us run because that would give him what he wants for the lowest price. But he’s not too proud to have had a contingency plan prepared and ready. By using the agent in place he has here, he should be able to mount a quick two-birds-with-one-stone operation with no trouble at all. Cars with bodies in them aren’t news. A bunch of psychos rampaging through an expensive villa, and killing five foreign-visitor occupants, would made headlines. And think of the cost! With all that easy money going on the tycoon kidnap circuit, the reliable people want danger money and fringe benefits if there’s the remotest chance of their being caught, or even identified.’
No, better by far if I acted as programmed. Better for me. Better for our friendship. That was what he’d been telling me with the sob in his throat at the end.
Connell said: ‘The agent in place you’re talking about must be Yamatoku. Right?’
Wrong, and the look that Henson gave me said that she knew it was wrong, but Krom was suddenly emphatic.
‘We must stay,’ he insisted, ‘stay here. .’
That beautiful spell, woven to impose the sorcerer’s will upon me, had failed with me because its beauties had been too knowingly and lovingly displayed for my taste. However, with Krom, not a man to be put off by schmaltz if he found the tune familiar, it had succeeded remarkably; though not in producing the effect Mat had intended.
He hadn’t been telling Krom anything in particular, except possibly that this wasn’t the real Mat Williamson speaking; but Krom had listened and what he had heard had made the most exquisite sense to him. Mat had said freeze, so that was what Krom had found he wanted to do, all he wanted to do — stay absolutely still where he was, until some kind stranger came to take his arm and lead him to safety.
It wasn’t, I think, that he was over-susceptible to the brand of hypnotic suggestion that Mat favours and can use with such effect when dealing with the unwary, or even — since, as far as I know, Krom was never in his youth caught in a minefield — that the evocation of the intense fear experienced in the past triggered an irrational response to events occurring years later. What threw the man so completely was that set of facts which Mat had used to construct his Makefing-sur-Mer fantasies happened to be not only familiar to Krom but also essential to his own fantasies, those about that arch-liar and able criminal, Oberholzer-Firman. He had known for years that there was nothing imaginary about the two men code-named Kleister and Torten. His original Swiss police contacts had confirmed the men’s existence and their strange, psychotic retirement hobby. With those and other vengeful bogeymen like them crouching out there in the darkness, nursing pent-up hatreds and waiting, fingers on the triggers, to kill anyone who broke cover, what else was there to do but stay put and keep your head down until help came?
‘Stay here and telephone for the police,’ he repeated.
Connell glanced from Krom to me. ‘I can see, Mr Firman, why you might think it inadvisable to try busting out of here. I can also see why you’d consider this garrison a bit short on the arms and know-how needed to beat off an attack by trained assault troops. Unless you have guns as well as brandy to hand out I mean. I don’t see what’s wrong, though, with calling the police. If the Professor thinks it’s a good idea and we can figure out a way of requesting protection that they’ll take seriously — suspected prowlers, maybe — I say let’s do it. And in view of the other prospects and possibilities you’ve been outlining, I say let’s do it right now. Let’s call in the relief column, dammit!’
‘Yves will tell you why we can’t,’ I said. ‘Tell them, Yves.’
He stared out fixedly at the boat.
‘Yves has a gun,’ I went on; ‘he’s the only one amongst us who has, and he’s being very careful to sit where none of us can get behind him. He’s worried because he’s badly afraid of the consequences of failure at the moment. He couldn’t shoot more than two of us before the others jumped him, so he’s playing it cool, or trying to, and waiting for his friend Frank to tell him what to do next. We can’t use the phone because he cut both lines right after Mat’s call. I know because I checked. He’s not going to let us try finding the place and repairing the lines, I’m sure. The gun’s inside his shirt under his left arm. I think we’d like it to stay there.’
Krom nodded. ‘Status quo,’ he said, and reached for the brandy bottle.
Henson sighed. ‘Oh dear.’
‘Oh dear, indeed. Our forthright, no-nonsense Mr Boularis has been very busy here. Busy making booby-traps, busy reporting progress at the lower-road gate, thoughtfully recommending instant flight as the way out of all difficulties, even offering to drive Melanie and me to our own private holocaust in your car. Mr Williamson and Mr Yamatoku wanted us to leave in a particular way, so naturally Yves did his level best to see that we did. My goodness, how hard he’s been working. Not his fault that I’m nervous of drivers who tell you how good they are. Didn’t you wonder too, Dr Henson, how Mat had found out about your connection with British intelligence?’
‘Yes, I did. Especially as the only connection that exists is the one I told you about. Mr Boularis wasn’t present when I told you about it though.’
‘He must have been listening at the door.’
‘Or else. .’ Connell hesitated, wondering if what he had suddenly thought of saying might be tactless. About some things he could be very quick on the uptake. It had been he, I recalled, who had voiced aloud his doubt of modern man’s ability to spot a room-bug just by looking for it.
Melanie dealt with him firmly. ‘Well, it no longer matters. Look! His friends on the boat are sending him signals.’
A couple of cardboard volcanoes had begun to spout red lava and golden rain.
‘Signals to say what?’ Connell’s mind was still with the room-bug hypothesis, but he looked at Yves.
Yves didn’t answer. His face was shiny with sweat.
I answered for him. ‘Signals to say that the fun’s over. I would think. Now, he’s waiting for the bangs he’s been warned to expect. Mat Williamson is a great believer in the loud bang as an argument. Simple people respect it. Not-so-simple people can often be fooled by it. As a means of inducing sensible people to behave stupidly or irrationally there’s nothing to equal it.’