The Persian Price (27 page)

‘He was corrupted,' she said. ‘You didn't know him before. He was like a tiger. But she ruined him.'

‘Come on.' Resnais shrugged. ‘He's paid for it. Be satisfied.'

Madeleine pushed back her chair. She was drunk but quiet steady.

‘I'm going down to pay her a visit,' she said.

Resnais leaned over and caught her wrist.

‘No,' he said.

She pulled at him furiously, trying to free herself.

‘You said you wouldn't interfere! You promised me!'

‘I never said you could beat her to death,' he said. ‘You're in a nasty mood, chérie. I'll make a bargain with you. When the time comes, you can shoot her. And I promise you that. But I'm not having any Arab games played with her.'

She looked at him with hatred.

‘You want her for yourself! Now you've killed Peters, you want the bitch yourself!'

She cried out as he twisted her wrist and jerked it downwards.

‘We both killed him,' he said. He got up and pushed her back in the chair. ‘You were the decoy. You set him up. So never say
I
killed him. Never say that again!'

She slumped, rubbing her wrist. She called him a gross name in Arabic and he slapped her face.

‘You behave,' Resnais said. ‘I'm not Peters. You won't throw tantrums with me. I'm in command here now and you'll do exactly what you're told, otherwise I'll take the hide off you. Understand?'

He hadn't lost his temper; he was cool and calm. He had never liked her and they were only allies through necessity. Peters had never controlled her properly. And Peters was dead. He had no motive in protecting Eileen, except a dislike for women who asserted themselves. The sight of the Lebanese girl drunk had irritated him. Now that he had frightened her, he found her more attractive. He pulled her out of the chair.

‘I don't want her,' he said. ‘I feel like having you. Get upstairs!'

Ahmed the servant hid himself behind the door of the kitchen as they went. He had been told of the American's death and been surprised at what seemed to be a celebration. He saw the Frenchman and the woman going upstairs and into the man's bedroom. He had been told to leave the prisoner in the cellar without food or water and to ignore her if she called out. He guessed that the other two were responsible for the American's death. Westerners quarrelling among themselves did not concern him; he hated them all. They could starve the woman in the cellar if they liked and it wouldn't have disturbed him. Like his counterpart, Habib Ebrahimi in Tehran, he was a humble servant of the Arab cause. When Peters was in charge, he had obeyed him without question. The radio was never left unattended; Ahmed slept in the room where the transmitter was kept. His Algerian master had used it as an office. He had a bed in the corner, and his instructions were to wake Peters at any hour of the night if a call came through. The Frenchman had given him no instructions. They had both drunk a lot of wine. He had seen them quarrel and not come near to clear the table till they went away. He had respected the American but he was afraid of Resnais. He was Jallad, the executioner. When the transmitter call came through at two in the morning, Ahmed woke and lay awake listening to it. He didn't go upstairs. When it stopped he went to sleep again.

‘Why didn't you come to me?' Colonel Ardalan asked. ‘I told you I would always help if there was any difficulty. Now, it may be too late.'

James was walking beside him down the passage of the
SAVAK
headquarters at Niavaran. His call to Ardalan had brought a car round to the house. The Colonel was occupied but he asked Mr Kelly to come to him.

They stopped at a lift, went inside and it descended two floors. The Colonel showed him the way down a yellow-washed corridor with ugly fluorescent lighting overhead. There were several doors on the right and left and he stopped at one of them. He turned to James.

‘This isn't very pleasant,' he said, ‘but I assure you it has been necessary.'

He opened the door and James went in. The first impression was the smell. It was acrid and bit into his nostrils. Urine, vomit and a stench of human excreta. He covered his mouth with his handkerchief and was almost sick. The room was in darkness except for a single powerful light directed upon something sprawling in a chair, held there by webbing straps.

He didn't recognize Saiid Homsi. There were wires leading from the chair to a desk. The Colonel sat behind it and offered James a chair.

‘We have asked him everything,' he said. ‘His answers are taped; sometimes it's difficult to make out what he says. You have a question, Mr Kelly. Ask it.'

The Colonel's hand rested lightly upon a small switch in a portable electric control panel. James couldn't speak at first. He had never fainted in his life but he came close to it in the first few minutes in the room.

‘Ask him where they're holding Mrs Field.'

Another voice asked the question; there were several
SAVAK
officers in the background. There was no answer. James saw Ardalan press the switch. He turned away and choked into his handkerchief.

‘We will repeat the question,' the Colonel said, ‘but we have to be careful. The doctor says he is near the end. We don't want him to die before he tells us. Why don't you have a cigarette?'

This time there was a mumble; James couldn't distinguish a word.

‘Repeat it,' came the order. The switch was pressed once more. James had his back to the scene. But this time there was no sound. He turned and saw a man bending over the figure in the chair.

The Colonel shook his head. He seemed genuinely upset.

‘My friend,' he said, ‘I am very sorry. You came to me too late. The man is dead.'

Ardalan took him into his office. He gave him a glass of whisky and a cigarette. Even here, in the crisp modern decor, it seemed that the smell of pain came with them. James sat with the glass in his hands; he felt too sick and stunned to speak. ‘You came too late.' Nothing would have saved Saiid Homsi. A few hours earlier he could have told them where to find Eileen. Now he was dead and all hope for her had died with him. Ardalan hadn't spared him.

‘It must be known by now that we arrested him,' he said. ‘Syria has spies even in
SAVAK. SO
they will realize that the whole plot is discovered. I am afraid poor Mrs Field may already be dead.'

‘She hadn't a chance anyway,' Kelly said slowly. ‘Logan went to Tokyo to make a deal over Imshan with the Japanese Government. They found out he was going to sign an agreement with them. Homsi told me.'

The Colonel had been monitoring James's telephone ever since the murder of Khorvan; he was aware of all that had passed between him and Homsi including the rendezvous his men had intercepted. But he said nothing.

‘Do you really think she's dead?'

‘I would think so,' the Colonel said, ‘but even so, I have sent for that last tape. We can play it back and see if it makes sense.'

‘I don't believe it will,' James said. ‘It sounded gibberish to me.'

‘He was very incoherent,' Ardalan said. ‘Towards the end he was very confused. We will play it over and see. I think you should drink your whisky, Mr Kelly. You look unwell.'

10

There was a small pine growing out of the red rock fifty feet down the mountainside where Peters's car went over. The Renault had somersaulted twice before it hit the trunk. The impact threw Peters through the passenger door which had burst open. He was knocked out within seconds of the car diving over the edge. Being unconscious, his body offered less resistance. He was flung into the scrub about ten yards from the tree, while the car went on bouncing and somersaulting down the mountainside. He lay there undiscovered by the police who came to investigate reports of a fire and an accident. When he came to, the sun was blazing fiercely down and the rock was burning to the touch. He had no idea where he was or what had happened. He was bleeding from cuts to the face and his hair was brown and matted with dried blood. Every part of him ached and throbbed and a pain in his side made him jack-knife as he pulled himself up. He knew he was concussed; the ferocity of his headache and a blurring in his vision told him that.

He crouched for some time, fighting the nausea and malaise, trying to regain his equilibrium. Something was driving him, something that wouldn't let him roll over and slide back into darkness. Something sharper than the ribs he sensed were broken and the chaotic pounding in his head. He had to get to his feet. He had been in an accident; there was a memory of a bang, and then a frightful crash of glass and metal …

He dragged himself upright and the sky slid away from him. He began to crawl back up the road on his hands and knees, forced on by the fear which couldn't be identified. A motorist found him staggering along the road. There was a blessed period when he faded out on the way to the hospital in Nice and woke in time to get to the casualty department on his own feet. He gave his real name and genuinely could not remember his address. Although the headache was intolerable, he protested violently, but in vain, when he was given a pain-killing injection, and recovered consciousness to find himself in a side ward with a gendarme sitting by the bed waiting to take a statement from him.

By this time it was dark and he knew now what had driven him back up the mountainside and onto the road. Madeleine had left the car just before the tyre burst; there was no question of coincidence. She had insisted on taking the Corniche road instead of the faster coastline route. She had set him up for Resnais. Seconds before the tyre blew apart, he had seen a movement in the brush above the road. They had tried to kill him.

Eileen. He had to stop himself yelling at the policeman and leaping out of the bed. He had driven off in the morning; he had been unconscious and concussed for most of the day.

‘You don't remember your address, Monsieur?'

‘No,' Peters said. ‘Just my car going over the edge. But my memory is improving. After a night's sleep I will be able to tell you everything.'

‘You were very lucky,' the man said, putting his notebook into his breast pocket. ‘That car of yours was completely burnt out. Nobody even thought to look for you. I'll send in the nurse.'

He went out and Peters waited. He smiled at the nurse when she came in.

‘You're feeling better? Very good. I've got some tablets here. You take these and have a good sleep. That
flic
will be back tomorrow.'

Peters took the tablets; he palmed them, pretending to swallow them with a little water.

‘Thanks,' he said. ‘I'll sleep now. What time is it?'

‘Past eight o'clock,' she said.

She went out, drawing a screen round the end of his bed. Eight o'clock. Ten hours. Ten hours in which they could have done anything to her. He thought of Resnais and flung the bedclothes back. His side was strapped up with adhesive and there was very little pain from the broken ribs. His head was the worst. There was a dressing on it. He crept on bare feet to the locker by the bed and opened it. His clothes hung inside. His shirt was torn and bloodstained, but his shoes and trousers were there. He pushed back the screen. It was a little room, leading directly into a bigger ward. The window was masked by a mosquito screen. He unhooked it and opened the window. The ward was on the first floor and a balcony with a fire escape stairs ran right round each of the five tiers of the hospital building. He pulled his pillows down into the bed, wrapped the cover over them and thumped them into some kind of shape that might deceive a casual glance. Then he climbed out into the darkness and began to make his way down the iron steps into the grounds.

At ten o'clock that night, one of the casualty officers came off duty and couldn't find his car. The police were not very sympathetic when he admitted that he had left his keys in it.

Peters drove slowly. He kept suffering periods of dizziness and in the lights from oncoming cars his vision played tricks. Twice he almost veered across the road. There was a blare of horns from outraged drivers and he swung back to safety. The drive from the centre of Nice took him an hour because he missed a turning and circled for twenty minutes. The pain in his head was getting worse. On the coast road he pulled into the side and rested. Nobody would expect a raid on the villa. They must think he was dead. He remembered that he carried keys to the gates and the front door and frantically searched for them in his trouser pockets. But they and his money had been lodged in the hospital for safe-keeping. He would have to break in. He put the car into gear and drove on. He couldn't take it too near the villa because it would be reported stolen and the police might well call in to houses in its vicinity in case anyone had seen the thief. He parked down a side road and began to walk the three hundred metres to the villa. His watch had been taken and he had no idea of the time. When he approached the house was in darkness. He could hear the sea breaking on the rocks at the back. The gates were closed. He had been taught to pick locks but he had nothing, not even a pin. The only way he could get in was to go down to the beach and swim the distance to the rocks below the villa.

Fortunately the night was clear and bright. By the time he reached the shore, he was staggering like a drunken man. He had climbed a fence and stumbled down three hundred steep stone steps to the sandy beach which was the private preserve of a neighbouring villa built up on the headland. It belonged to a German industrialist who had built a huge swimming pool and never used the sea. Peters fell onto the sand. He fought off the weakness that wanted to give up and fall asleep. The sea hissed and murmured in front of him.

He knew he had to rest before he attempted to swim round the rocks. There was no current there, but a rough sea would have proved too much for him. It was as smooth as black silk, with the moonlight painting a silver path out to the horizon. He leaned back against the rocks and closed his eyes for a moment. He had suffered injury before, but he was very strong and always fit. A bullet wound would have been easier than the waves of dizziness and weakness that were the legacy of concussion.