The Mortdecai Trilogy (Charlie Mortdecai #1-3)(13)

The coffee having arrived (how hard it is to write without the ablative absolute!) we guzzled genteelly for a while, passing each other sugar and cream and things and beaming falsely from time to time. Then I lowered the boom.

‘You were going to tell me how you knew I was at Spinoza’s,’ I said.

‘Charlie, why ever are you so fascinated by that particular detail?’

It was a very good question indeed, but one which I had no intention of answering. I stared at him blankly.

‘Oh, well, it’s quite simple really. We happen to know that old Spinoza has – had, rather – about a quarter of a million grubby pound notes from the Great Train job. He paid for them in clean fivers and got a hundred and seventy-five pounds per cent. Bloody old crook. Well, we knew he would be having to unload soon so we hired a little yob who works for one of the galleries in Mason’s Yard to watch the place for us. Anyone, well, interesting, goes to see Spinoza, we get the word on our yob’s little walkie-talkie.’

‘Really,’ I said. ‘Now I do call that riveting. What about callers before gallery hours?’

‘Ah, yes, well, there we have to take a chance, of course. I mean, there just aren’t funds to run shifts on all these jobs. Cost a fortune.’

I made a mental ‘whew’ of relief, believing him. A thought struck me.

‘Martland, is your nark a little tit called Perce, works for the O’Flaherty Gallery?’

‘Well, yes, I think that is his name, as a matter of fact.’

‘Just so,’ I said.

I cocked an ear; Jock was outside the door, breathing through his nose, making mental notes, if you can properly call them that. There’s no doubt that I was much relieved to learn that only Perce was suborned; had Mr Spinoza been playing the strumpet with me all would have been lost. In spades. I must have allowed my expression to relax for I realized that Martland was looking at me curiously. This would not do. Change the subject.

‘Well now,’ I cried heartily, ‘what’s the deal? Where are these riches of the Orient you were pressing upon me last night? “Nay, even unto half your kingdom” was the sum mentioned, I believe?’

‘Oh, really, come now Charlie, last night was last night, wasn’t it? I mean, we were both a bit overwrought, weren’t we? You’re surely not holding me to that …?’

‘The window is still there,’ I said simply, ‘and so is Jock. And I may say that I am still overwrought; no one has ever tried to murder me in cold blood before.’

‘But obviously I’ve taken precautions this time, haven’t I?’ he said, and he patted a hip pocket. This told me that his pistol, if anywhere, was under his armpit, of course.

‘Let us play a game, Martland. If you can get that thing out before Jock hits you on the head, you win the coconut.’

‘Oh come on, Charlie, let’s stop sodding about. I’m quite prepared to offer you substantial ah benefits and ah concessions if you’ll play along with our side over this business. You know damn well I’m in the shit and if I can’t recruit you that awful old man in the Home Office will be baying for your blood again. What will you settle for? I’m sure you aren’t interested in the sort of money my department can offer.’

‘I think I’d like a Bonzo dog.’

‘Oh God, Charlie, can’t you be serious?’

‘No, really, a greyhound; you know, a silver one.’

‘You can’t mean you want to be a Queen’s Messenger? What in God’s name for? And what makes you think I could swing that?’

I said, ‘First, yes, I do; second, mind your own business; third, you can swing it if you have to. I also want the diplomatic passport that goes with it and the privilege of taking a diplomatic bag to the Embassy in Washington.’

He leaned back in his chair, all knowing and relaxed now. ‘And what is likely to be in the bag, or is that not my business either?’

‘A Rolls Royce, as a matter of fact. Well, it won’t actually be in a bag, of course, but it will be smothered in diplomatic seals. Same thing.’

He looked grave, worried; his under-engined brain revving furiously as its deux chevaux tried to cope with this gradient.

‘Charlie, if it’s going to be full of drugs the answer is no repeat no. If it’s grubby pound notes in a reasonable quantity I might see my way, but I don’t think I could protect you afterwards.’

‘It is neither,’ I said firmly. ‘On my word of honour.’ I looked him squarely and frankly in the eye as I said it, so that he would be sure that I was lying. (Those notes from the Train will have to be changed soon, won’t they?) He eyed me back like a trusting comrade, then carefully placed all ten fingertips together, eyeing them with modest pride as though he’d done something clever. He was thinking hard and didn’t care who knew it.

‘Well, I suppose something on those lines could be worked out,’ he said at last. ‘You realize, of course, that the degree of co-operation expected from you would have to be proportionate to the difficulty of getting you what you ask?’

‘Oh yes,’ I replied brightly, ‘you will want me to kill Mr Krampf, won’t you?’

‘Yes, that’s right. How did you guess?’

‘Well, clearly, now that Hockbottle has been, er, terminated, you can’t possibly leave Krampf alive, knowing what he does, can you? And I may say it’s a bit rough on me because he happens to be a rather good customer of mine.’