Johnson-Johnson 06 – Dolly and the Nanny Bird (26 page)

‘I have,’ said Hugo dreamily. ‘While we were talking. There is a switch here in the hall. It locks the moat exit at one end, and the door from the workshop at the other. Overriding the switch he has stolen. On the other hand…’

The sound of a shot rang out, suddenly from outside.

‘On the other hand, some of them may have got out already,’ Johnson said. ‘Where’s your gun room?’

Hugo opened a drawer and taking out a revolver tossed it to Johnson. ‘Be my guest, I implore you. Hermann, you know where the rifles are. Booker-Readman, you shoot?’

Outside, another gun went off. Simon didn’t answer. The tie on the flowered crêpe-de-chine shirt was a little awry. He spoke to me suddenly. ‘He’s a cripple, old man Eisenkopp. A cripple back in New York. I think you’re having us on. Aren’t you?’

Gibbings had come in, his arms full of guns and ammunition. ‘Don’t believe me,’ I said. I walked as I loaded. ‘Just wait until you see Comer’s face. He’s run through all the Eisenkopp money. They won’t have a cent.’

‘What! ’ said Beverley. She sat up on her sofa, then stood up. ‘Are you talking about Gramps?’

‘Never mind,’ said Hugo briefly. “Come on. Beverley, go get the butler. Tell him to phone for the militia.’

‘I’m afraid… ’ said Donovan.

We all looked at him, and he blushed.

‘Mrs Warr Beckenstaff, I’m sorry. But I’m afraid I called the police already. Before I came here. They photographed the ransom note and resealed it. I expect the firing is theirs. They were supposed to follow me here and then trail you.’

‘And if my grandson had died? ’ said Ingmar Warr Beckenstaff.

‘He would have died anyway without Joanna,’ said Johnson shortly. ‘Hugo, where’s your bloody light switch, or do you turn that off with your nose?’

A second later we were in the dark, and the doors were open, and those of us who could shoot were scurrying over the drawbridge to join in the slaughter.

Later, we learned that only four of the so-called Army had escaped before the moat exit was sealed off. Among them was Elijah Eisenkopp. By the time we got out, one of the four had been caught, and sporadic firing from all round the grounds showed us roughly the track of the others.

Hugo captured one of the rest, with a showy shot in the dark which dropped a man with a wound in the thigh who had just drawn a bead, as it turned out, on Johnson. Then Hugo just missed being shot up himself, before Donovan got hold of the captain in charge, and explained to him how we were helping him.

The captain’s reaction, quite rightly, was to order us all off at once; but the only one to obey him was Simon. Then Hugo found another set of switches to throw and all the castle floodlighting came on, as well as the lights in the grounds; and suddenly there was Zorzi with two soldiers pinioning his arms and beyond him, a man running soft-footed across the drive to the trees where the ambulance glimmered.

It could only be Elijah Eisenkopp. I saw Johnson lift his revolver and then lower it. He didn’t have the range. Gibbings shot and missed. All round us, men were trampling and cursing: another rifle barked. In return the running man ahead swung round and fired, recklessly into the dark.

The last of his shots coincided with the crash of another rifle from the direction of the drawbridge.

Good as Hugo’s last shot had been, this was better. This went sailing with the right pace, the right trajectory, straight for the running figure and dropped it, shot through the heart. And the marksman, her screech of triumph distorting her bitter, tearbegrimed face, was Beverley Eisenkopp.

We all walked towards the dead man. Beside me, Hugo said, ‘I didn’t even know she could shoot,’ in an amazed voice. Johnson was on my other side. There was no opportunity for privacy. I said to him lightly. ‘The Folio is in his inner pocket.’

Johnson’s hair had fallen over his glasses. He said shortly, ‘Tell Hugo. Hugo, your performing doorswitch is in Eisenkopp’s pocket.’

‘He can keep it,’ said Hugo. It was Gibbings who knelt and turned Grandpa’s body over, so that his toupée dropped aside from his sparse, greying hair. The captain listened to what he had to say and sent for a stretcher from the ambulance. Then he lost interest in that particular body, and was striding away when Johnson knelt and deftly removed the contents of Eisenkopp’s inside pocket. For a moment he looked at the manilla envelope in his hand and then raised his eyebrows at me.

I nodded. And watched, all the gears in my stomach freewheeling, as the Malted Milk Folio with its translation, was placed in turn inside his own jacket by the man whose job it was to protect it.

I said, ‘Oh, well. Another ho-hum day drags to a close,’ and Johnson said reprovingly, ‘You should take up a hobby,’ and rising, led the way back to the castle, with the others around us.

During the long session with the police that followed, there was no need to mention the Folio or my father. The crime, bad though it was, had been a simple one. The kidnapping and holding to ransom of an American child, in order to raise money for the self-styled Croatian Liberation Army.

A simple crime with political overtones which the militia would work out for themselves, once the foreigners had departed, satisfied to see justice done.

And the foreigners wished to depart. Donovan had already gone, his contacts with the police completed earlier. Ingmar, her painted skeletal face thrown into relief by the garish silk of her dress, had lost no time in issuing orders: for Rosamund’s clothes and her own to be packed; for the child’s case and mine to be brought from the underground bedroom. The car which brought them would take us to the airport. The first plane to come in would fly us to England.

Simon said, ‘I can’t come, Mother. You must see. I have business in New York.’

The ageless, painted eyes looked him up and down, from the golden head to the expensively shod feet. ‘You weren’t asked,’ said Mrs Warr Beckenstaff. ‘Indeed, I didn’t know you had the price of a ticket.’

He stood in front of the fire in the library, uncaring, this time, of what the rest of us thought. ‘I shouldn’t do that,’ he said. ‘They’re still my wife and son. I might sue you for alienation.’

‘He’s not your son,’ Rosamund said. Beside her, Dr Gibbings made a movement of protest, and then halted. From somewhere near at hand I could hear the kind of crying Benedict released on the world when he wanted a bottle.

Rosamund said, ‘Hugo. When I get my divorce, will you marry me?’

His velvet suit was smeared with grass and with mud and he had circles, like the rest of us, under his large liquid eyes, but his smile was as enchanting as ever. He turned it on Rosamund, and then he turned it lovingly on her mother. It was Ingmar, in fact, to whom he gave his answer. ‘My profound regrets, my dear,’ he said. ‘You see before you a hiccough in your stock cycle. You must believe me. I would willingly father you a complete management board and a chairman, but I can’t really stomach your Rosamund.’ The velvet voice slipped a tone and the smile became even more puckish. ‘Why don’t you throw her out and adopt Joanna? She’d give you a grandchild a year and look after them. Look at her. She’s all on edge because you’ve let the brat cry again. Will you never learn, Rosamund darling?’

I got out of it and went and found Benedict. Hugo’s cook heated his milk for me while I cleaned and dressed him, and then washed myself and got into my salt-stiffened gear from my suitcase. He had nearly finished his bottle when Rosamund came into the kitchen and said, ‘You probably don’t want to stay with us any more.’

I said, ‘That isn’t really the point. He needs someone of his own to care about him. Even if I came, I shouldn’t stay for ever. No one would.’

‘I know,’ she said. After a pause she said, ‘I don’t really like babies.’

I said, ‘Unfortunately, it’s the only way we know of growing adults. Why don’t you take a course in baby care? If you were going to stay in China you’d probably try and learn the language. And if your mother is going to will him all her money, you’re going to depend on him in your old age, aren’t you?’

I forgot, until I saw her eyes widen, that that was something I had learned from the video screens. Then she said harshly, ‘How can a thing four months old command such devotion? Will you hate him too, when he is a man?’

I said, ‘Who looked after you, when you were small?’

‘Fifty people,’ said Rosamund.

‘Well,’ I said. ‘There is your answer.’

The police came soon after that to offer a seat in their car back to Dubrovnik. Beverley took it. I thought a breakdown was not far off, but she took a brittle, social farewell of the Booker-Readmans as if their relationship existed, unchanged, as it had been when she boarded the
Glycera
. As though there were no rift between herself and Comer. As though the family wealth were still untouched at her disposal; as though she had not shot and killed Comer’s father. She asked Simon, before she went, what he was going to do, and he stared at her and turned away without answering. I watched her walk down to the car.

Ingmar said to me, ‘I hear you desire to leave Benedict.’

He was in his carrycot again, in Rosamund’s grasp. He was awake, and annoyed about his hands being trapped. Finally he got a fist out and pushed it, blowing, into his mouth. As I looked at him, he saw my face and grinned, dribbling.

‘Yes,’ I said. ‘Mrs Booker-Readman and I have had a talk about it.’

‘No doubt you have your reasons,’ Ingmar said. The chinchilla, pulled round her shoulders, gave her face a grey, deadened look. She swept her lashes round us all and then walked out to the car. They all got in, Ingmar, Dr Gibbings, Rosamund and the baby.

I watched the carrycot vanish inside, swinging. Benedict wouldn’t like that. I had made up three more feeds and pushed them in the bag, with a scribbled note. I didn’t know if I was right. Right for Benedict, that was to say. I knew there was nothing right about it for me.

Then the car door opened and Rosamund got out. It wasn’t to call me, or even miraculously to shove the now shrieking child in my arms. It was to face the drawbridge and say abruptly, ‘Simon?’

We were standing in the doorway, Hugo, Johnson and I; and Simon had turned aside into the hall.

I looked back. His head came up. On his face were all the expressions I recognised: of resentment and anger and calculation.

Calculation won. He said, ‘Well. It seems I’m getting a lift. Thank you so much.’ And shaking hands, walked over the drawbridge.

He got into the car. The engine revved, and after a moment it drove slowly off.

Johnson said. ‘Well, they’ll be cosy at least. We seem to have the whole of Lenny’s ridiculous car to ourselves. Why not shut shop and come with us, Hugo?
Dolly
’s at Herceg-Novi, and there’s a berth if you want it.’

‘Brother,’ said Hugo. ‘You can walk away laughing, but I have a houseful of hysterical servants to placate down here. Not to mention the shambles in the basement. You must excuse me. Joanna, you will know without lengthy speeches that I consider you have qualified for a civil list pension. Will you marry me?’

I said, ‘A hiccough in somebody’s stock cycle? No, I shan’t marry you. But I’d be glad if you would overlook the absence of a bottle of Moet and Chandon. If you come across any underwear down there in the hearts and flowers department, it’s mine. In fact, it’s got my name and address on it.’

I tell you, compulsory, at the Maggie Bee. Johnson said, ‘It’s all right. I collected all your stuff when I brought the cases up. Wiped the machines; made everything tidy. Why a fifty-foot hose for the waterbed?’

‘Connects with the moat,’ Hugo said. He appeared to be thinking. ‘Listen. Do you mean there’s a bunk on the
Dolly
?’

‘If Joanna’s left anything on board but matchsticks,’ Johnson said. ‘Yes. of course. Want to come?’

‘I think,’ said Hugo, ‘I will. Two minutes, to talk to the underlings. Can you wait for me?’

I was pleased. I got into the car beside Johnson and said, ‘Just think. I could have a Balkan castle for the asking, with a love nest in it.’

‘Handy for getting your chin lifted as well,’ Johnson said. He looked regrettably undisturbed. Then Hugo got in the back and Johnson started the engine.

Behind us, the floodlighting was still on. Through the trees, the castle looked once again like the model in the Golden American Wonderland: strange and foreign and dramatic, with the moat and the drawbridge and the windows still standing lit. I had asked about the dragon. There was one, but it was off to be repaired. Hugo said, ‘I told the bastards to turn the lights off. They don’t have to pay the bloody electricity bills.’

A moment later the lamps did all go off, except for two or three in the first floor. There was just enough light to see that the ambulance had gone from its hiding place. And the police cars and the militia, the wounded and the dead and the prisoners. And all the other five who had crossed the sea to celebrate fifty years of pore-clogging cosmetics on board the
Glycera
.

I said, ‘Was it a good party? The
Glycera
? ’ and Hugo said, ‘Mind-bending, my darling. Think of the Street Offences Act, fitted with stabilisers.’

1 thought I might sleep, and then a swing to one side reminded me that we had to go down the twenty-five famous hairpin bends cut in the mountain range here above Kotor. The headlights, scything round in the dark, lit the verge of the road and beyond that, the drop into nothing. I said, ‘How awake are you?’ to Johnson.

He didn’t answer.

Unusual. The light from the dashboard, reflected in both masking lenses, told nothing at all except that he was concentrating on the road. Which was sufficient answer, I supposed, in itself. He took the next bend rather fast.

I was glad Hugo was with us, and I was also sorry. There was a lot I wanted to ask. There was a lot, too, I wanted to rejoice about. With Hugo there, I couldn’t talk about my father. And I wanted to talk. I didn’t want to think about Benedict.

The next corner rolled me right over against Johnson’s arm. I got off as soon as I could, and heard from the graphic curses behind that Hugo had also been thrown off balance. He said, ‘Friend: we hold the slalom competitions in the winter. Do you mind? My molecules are easily disconnected.’