Operation Nassau (31 page)

‘True,’ I said bitterly. ‘But I can always sit on my ass and then see what’s left over.’

I changed, wigged and looked up the old Who’s Who in the Begum’s dark library on my way out to the barbecue’s fading attractions.

Johnson Johnson, it said; and a lot of truncated stuff about expensive education, a Royal Navy career, portrait painting, clubs, a public appointment or two and addresses in London and Surrey. He was in his late thirties. And ten years ago he had married Judith Cicely Ballantyne, daughter of High Court judge the Rt Hon. Lord Ballantyne, without evident issue.

An unprolific espionage agent.

Krishtof Bey wasn’t married. Wallace Brady wasn’t in.

The barbecue table was a large drum of wrought iron and concrete. designed for the Begum by Bjorn-Wiinblad. with a hand-painted ceramic top in the green Akbar motif, price including delivery and fitting fifteen hundred and forty-five dollars, because I asked.

I had a late steak bespoken by the Begum, who mentioned Bart Edgecombe and my painful sunburn in the same courteous passage, but was more concerned that I should meet the lustier of her other seventy-four guests. Johnson I saw at a beach table surrounded by a knot of glossy admirers: Trotter beside him was busy with three cans of beer and another plateful of steak.

I have never seen so many photographed people together in one place: for one-night stands the Begum evidently invited one-night people. The quality might not be durable, but for a battery life of five or six hours, the sparkle was stunning.

I got between a top male model and an Italian producer and began to glow presently with well being and sunburn like a smallbore central-heating conversion between a pair of quartz-iodine spotlamps.

‘Why, hullo. Dr MacRannoch!’ said Wallace Brady.

The male model turned full face his glorious profile. He said. ‘You can’t fool me: don’t expect me to dig it. A beautiful girl like you can’t be a doctor?’

‘She is,’ said Brady. ‘Ask them at the United Commonwealth Hospital.’

‘Nonsense,’ said the producer. ‘Doctors play golf and wear boned foundations with many suspenders. Even male doctors wear many suspenders. I know. I have been to every doctor in Rome with my feet.’

‘I have.’ I said, ‘an infallible cure of my own for the many who suffer in such silence, such fortitude, with their feet.’

‘Yes?’ said the producer. The male model’s magnificent mane bent close to mine.

‘You will need pencil and paper,’ I said.

‘I have it. I have it!’ said the producer. He slit a reefer in half, smoothed the paper and waited, ball-point poised. I dictated.

I left while they were still expressing their abstracted thanks, and correcting their spelling. Wallace Brady said, ‘Beltanno?’

‘Yes?’ I said. There were seventy-odd people around me, but I clung to my beach bag with my gun in it.

‘Am I mistaken, or was that a prescription for pure sulphuric acid?’ said Wallace Brady.

The sun was hot between the beach chairs and the umbrellas:
Dolly
’s launch passed with a man and a girl on monoskis, showing off. The stereo was whisking The Cream and the sea was full of sailfish and dark glasses and brown, naked spines. Brady led me over the beach and up to the Begum’s long palmetto-thatched bar where he put in an order. ‘It was,’ I said, ‘an inert placebo containing the constituents of an excellent itching-powder. Why didn’t you come back and take me off
Dolly
?’

‘Did you want me to?’ Brady said. ‘Edgecombe’s all right, you know. The nurse was waiting for us when we stepped on the jetty.’ He grinned. ‘And the Lady Violet was a tower of strength.’ He was wearing swimming-trunks, and, set in the deeply tanned face, the grey eyes were paler than ever. I said, ‘It turned out all right, but I would have felt happier. And Sir Bart says he wanted to come back.’

‘He did,’ said Wallace Brady without any visible hesitation whatever. ‘But I put him off it. If you want the real truth, Beltanno, I didn’t want you with Edgecombe at all, and to hell with M.I.5 and C.I.A. and all the rest of the guys earning their Civil List pensions. I got knocked out last time for saying so, but that doesn’t stop me from saying so again. That Edgecombe business is dangerous. They’ve no right to get a person like you mixed up in it.’

‘A beautiful girl like me,’ I corrected him. The drink order had come. It consisted of a whole pineapple with a couple of straws in it.

‘I don’t use other people’s vapid expressions,’ said Wallace Brady. He indicated the pineapple. ‘I got it this way, since you’re creeping about like the Great Gatsby’s girl-friend. You suck that straw and I suck this one, and all we get each other’s diseases. Stick your gun under the table.’

I pushed my beach bag in silence under the table, while he carried the pineapple down and set it between us. It was filled with a number of things. Lemon. Vermouth. Angostura. And, of course, at least two types of rum. We sucked, with our noses nearly touching, and Wallace Brady stroked my hand under the table.

If he was disconcerted that we had come back alive, he didn’t show it: quite the reverse. All it proved was that he was perfectly sure of himself, and that neither the damage on
Dolly
nor the radio installations on the
Haven
could possibly be traced back to him. We talked, rather stiltedly, about golf. He didn’t ask me to go anywhere with him, and I wouldn’t have gone if he had. I had the larger share of the pineapple because I wanted rather suddenly to get away quickly. As my straw bubbled its way to dry dock he raised his head and said, ‘Beltanno: don’t marry Mr Tiko?’

Jesus Christ, Mr Tikol I rose to my feet and the Begum, floating gauzily in the distance, turned and registered reception of my anxiety. I bent and received my beach bag from Wallace Brady. I thanked him for that and the punch. ‘You won’t, will you?’ he said. ‘His long game is maybe all right, but his putting is terrible.’

I walked off without answering him, and the Begum received me. ‘You’ve remembered your dear Japanese gentleman.’

I do not enjoy apologizing, but it was through me, after all, that Mr Tiko had been invited at all. The Begum heard me through, smiling, and said, ‘Darling Beltanno, he is charming and I would marry him myself tomorrow were I five feet high and not already supporting the id of James Ulric.’

It came to me that the Begum improved on acquaintance. I said,’What happened?’ There was no trace of a bloodbath.

‘Mr Tiko has been the centre of attention,’ said the Begum. ‘Do you know what happens if a woman eats too much Yang in the Zen macrobiotic diet?’

‘No,’ I said.

‘That’s funny,’ said the Begum, looking thoughtful. ‘I thought you did.’

‘But my father?’ I said impatiently.

‘Hasn’t even met him, my dear,’ said the Begum with a kind of quiet triumph. ‘The moment he came into the house, I sent Mr Tiko down to the beach, and the moment he came down to the beach, I sent Mr Tiko back to the house. You know those Japanese watches with dumped Russian movements?’

‘Yes,’ I said, and waited, but she appeared to believe her remark fully concluded. I said, ‘Does Mr Tiko know who we are?’

‘Mr Tiko,’ said the Begum, ‘knows that you and your father are resident in my house and that your name is MacRannoch. He has no doubt discovered that numbers of his fellow-guests are also named MacRannoch. Whether he has made any deduction from this, I cannot quite say. My own dear late Achmed had the same gift for concealing his systems.’ She put an arm on my shoulder and said, ‘While you are here, darling. Has someone tried to kill Sir Bartholomew Edgecombe again? Krishtof wanted to know.’

It was too complicated to go into details. ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘But I can’t tell you who it was. Johnson is working on it.’

There was a little silence. Then, ‘Johnson?’ said the Begum slowly, and the blood retreated from my digestive organs, leaving my steak in bleak tête-à-tête with my rum.

I had made a gross error of judgement. In order to provoke the opposition into action, Johnson had let it be known to our limited circle who and what Edgecombe was. He had said nothing of his own share in the present giant slalom event. I had blown his cover.

The Begum’s large, made-up eyes grew steadily luminous. She stood struck into stillness, her painted nails still on my shoulder. ‘Not two of them?’ she said. “Two espionage agents in one Hurst Volumetric Spore Trap?’

I looked round. There was no one in earshot. ‘Should I have James desensitized?’ asked the Begum with some anxiety.

Even after ten days of this, I still felt at times like a corn weevil in a shredded-wheat packet. I pulled myself together. ‘I shouldn’t have told you. I’m sorry, but you realize that no one is supposed to know that. Promise me, please, promise me you won’t tell anyone else.’

The Begum’s eyes, on closer inspection were not anxious at all. ‘Only James Ulric?’ she suggested.

My God! ‘Not James Ulric. Especially not James Ulric.’

The Begum put her dark glasses on, effectively preventing me from evaluating all her further pronouncements. ‘You are asking me,’ she said, ‘to destroy the spirit of the whole fine relationship between your father and me, built up, trust upon trust, through the years of endurance and love?’

She slid her grasp down to my elbow and, turning me, walked slowly through waves of Nancy Sinatra back up to the house, ‘I wouldn’t consider it,’ said the Begum, ‘unless . . .’

We were nearing the castle. From behind the battlements my father’s carrying voice could be heard. ‘Where’s that bloody woman?’ he was roaring.

‘Unless what?’ I prompted. I was gravely anxious. If the Begum informed James Ulric of Johnson’s identity, the news would spread like a barium meal. My father’s voice yelled, ‘Thelmal’

The Begum’s handsome black head cocked to one side. ‘Perhaps,’ she said, ‘we should go in.’ And discarding both Johnson and blackmail in a single, unreliable smile, she began to sweep her way up the wide castle steps.

My father appeared at the top, heaving; and I could only hope he had had a prechallenge inhalation of disodium chromoglycate. ‘Thelma,’ he said. ‘That bloody Nip! That you invited to your bloody barbecue!’

Mr Tiko and James Ulric had met.

‘Well?’ said the Begum Akbar calmly.

‘He’s finished the jigsaw!’ screamed my father. The air filled with spume. Mr Tiko, appearing deferentially behind his left elbow, said, ‘My humble regrets, Mr MacRannoch. I understood from your wife that she wished the puzzle completed.’

My father, throbbing, gazed from Mr Tiko to the Begum and back. ‘That’s not my wife!’ he shouted.

Mr Tiko gazed at him impassively. ‘I beg your pardon,’ he said.

My father, who looked like Albert Schweitzer this evening, had sudden trouble with his Wurlitzer. Gliding past him, the Begum slid Mr Tiko and myself from the threshold into the library and waited until James Ulric beat in with a full head of steam. She shut the door. James Ulric pointed a muscular finger at his Japanese guest and said, ‘You’re running after the bitch for her money!’

‘I beg your pardon,’ said Mr Tiko again. Above his neat beach shirt his face was still courteous, but he was bending his mind to the problem. ‘The Begum, I understand, is not your wife,’ said Mr Tiko. ‘But Dr MacRannoch is your daughter?’

My father walked round him. The distance was not far. ‘You thought all Achmed’s bloody rupees were coming to Beltanno,’ he said. ‘You thought you were marrying money. I have news for you, my funny wee buff Mickey Mouse. If you marry my daughter, you won’t get the decimal point in my bank book. I’ll spend it all.’

‘James,’ said the Begum’s voice smoothly.

Beside him, my father merely swelled and jerked his white quiff at his mistress. ‘And I’ll spend all her money as well.’

The Begum’s thin eyebrows rose. Mr Tiko said, ‘Pardon me. I am one of your daughter’s most devoted admirers, but -’

The Begum said, ‘But James. We are not married yet.’

‘No,’ said my father. ‘And neither are they. You’ll see. Tell him no money, and he’ll be on the next jumbo jet back to the geishas.’ He paused. ‘What do you mean, we’re not married yet?’

The Begum sat down with grace. ‘It seemed to have a bearing on the conversation,’ she said. ‘Further, I have told you I will not become Mrs MacRannoch until Beltanno is married.’

My father gasped. ‘You want her to marry that Nip?’ he said. ‘And all my grandchildren sweetie-egg colour?’

‘I didn’t say so,’ said the widow of the late Achmed Akbar, with some coolness.

‘I beg your pardon,’ said Mr Tiko, but he hadn’t a chance. My father broke in, snapping his fingers. ‘Broody! Who was that man who phoned you, Beltanno? I offered him -’

‘Wallace Brady,’ I said. I was surprised I could still speak. ‘That was Wallace Brady. I told you.’

‘I offered him -’ said my father, and got no further, because the door opened and Wallace Brady poked his head round. ‘Calling me, someone?’ he said.

‘Yes,’ said James Ulric smartly. I opened my mouth. My father said, ‘I offered you seventy-five thousand dollars once to marry my daughter.’

My all-American golf partner entered the library very carefully and shut the door after him, his eyes sliding over the persons of Mr Tiko and the Begum, sitting bolt upright in her chair. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘You sure did. I thought you were pulling my leg.’

‘I’ll double it,’ said James Ulric briefly.

There was a short silence. Wallace Brady’s round pale eyes wandered in my direction. ‘Don’t trouble,’ I said. ‘I’ve got my own plans. Mr Tiko, I owe you an apology.’

Like a canary whose cage has been opened, Mr Tiko hopped with relief into the sunshine. ‘Not at all,’ he said. ‘I think it is your father who has mistaken my intentions. Long your admirer, I have at no time ventured to aspire to your hand. I say so with personal regret.’

I smiled at him. The pineapple of rum had left my mind perfectly clear. I said, ‘Your intentions were perhaps somewhat in doubt, but mine have been fixed from our first meeting. Mr Tiko, setting aside all question of money . . . would you consider me as your wife?’

Mr Tiko’s mouth opened. He shut it, looked round the room, and then gave a small bow. ‘It would be an honour,’ he said. ‘I could wish for no higher. But in my country, there is a custom before which all must bow. I could not bind myself without the consent of your venerable parent.’