Читать книгу The Golden Keel / The Vivero Letter - Desmond Bagley, Desmond Bagley - Страница 15

A couple of weeks later I was in a bar on Adderley Street having a drink or three. It wasn’t that I’d taken to drink, but I was certainly drinking more than I had been accustomed to. I had just started on my third brandy when I felt a touch at my elbow and a voice said, ‘Hallo, I haven’t seen you for a long time.’

I turned and found Walker standing next to me.

The years hadn’t dealt kindly with Walker. He was thinner, his dark, good looks had gone to be replaced by a sharpness of feature, and his hairline had receded. His clothes were unpressed and frayed at the edges, and there was an air of seediness about him which was depressing.

‘Hallo,’ I said. ‘Where did you spring from?’ He was looking at my full glass of brandy, so I said, ‘Have a drink.’

‘Thanks,’ he said quickly. ‘I’ll have a double.’

That gave me a pretty firm clue as to what had happened to Walker, but I didn’t mind being battened upon for a couple of drinks, so I paid for the double brandy.

He raised the glass to his lips with a hand that trembled slightly, took a long lingering gulp, then put the glass down, having knocked back three-quarters of the contents. ‘You’re looking prosperous,’ he said.

‘I’m not doing too badly.’

He said, ‘I was sorry to hear of what happened to your wife.’ He hurried on as he saw my look of inquiry. ‘I read about it in the paper. I thought it must have been your wife – the name was the same and all that.’

I thought he had spent some time hunting me up. Old friends and acquaintances are precious to an alcoholic; they can be touched for the odd drink and the odd fiver.

‘That’s finished and best forgotten,’ I said shortly. Unwittingly, perhaps, he had touched me on the raw – he had brought Jean back. ‘What are you doing now?’

He shrugged. ‘This and that.’

‘You haven’t picked up any gold lately?’ I said cruelly. I wanted to pay him back for putting Jean in my mind.

‘Do I look as though I have?’ he asked bitterly. Unexpectedly, he said, ‘I saw Coertze last week.’

‘Here – in Cape Town?’

‘Yes. He’d just come back from Italy. He’s back in Jo’burg now, I expect.’

I smiled. ‘Did he have any gold with him?’

Walker shook his head. ‘He said that nothing’s changed.’ He suddenly gripped me by the arm. ‘The gold’s still there – nobody’s found it. It’s still there – four tons of gold in that tunnel – and all the jewels.’ He had a frantic urgency about him.

‘Well, why doesn’t he do something about it?’ I said. ‘Why doesn’t he go and get it out? Why don’t you both go?’

‘He doesn’t like me,’ said Walker sulkily. ‘He’ll hardly speak to me.’ He took one of my cigarettes from the packet on the counter, and I lit it for him, amusedly. ‘It isn’t easy to get it out of the country,’ he said. ‘Even Sergeant High-and-Mighty Coertze hasn’t found a way.’

He grinned tightly. ‘Imagine that,’ he said, almost gaily. ‘Even the brainy Coertze can’t do it. He put the gold in a hole in the ground and he’s too scared to get it out.’ He began to laugh hysterically.

I took his arm. ‘Take it easy.’

His laughter choked off suddenly. ‘All right,’ he said. ‘Buy me another drink; I left my wallet at home.’

I crooked my finger at the bartender and Walker ordered another double. I was beginning to understand the reason for his degradation. For fourteen years the knowledge that a fortune in gold was lying in Italy waiting to be picked up had been eating at him like a cancer. Even when I knew him ten years earlier I was aware of the fatal weakness in him, and now one could see that the bitterness of defeat had been too much. I wondered how Coertze was standing up to the strain. At least he seemed to be doing something about it, even if only keeping an eye on the situation.

I said carefully, ‘If Coertze was willing to take you, would you be prepared to go to Italy to get the stuff out?’

He was suddenly very still. ‘What d’you mean?’ he demanded. ‘Have you been talking to Coertze?’

‘I’ve never laid eyes on the man.’

Walker’s glance shifted nervously about the bar, then he straightened. ‘Well, if he … wanted me; if he … needed me – I’d be prepared to go along.’ He said this with bravado but the malice showed through when he said, ‘He needed me once, you know; he needed me when we buried the stuff.’

‘You wouldn’t be afraid of him?’

‘What do you mean – afraid of him? Why should I be afraid of him? I’m afraid of nobody.’

‘You were pretty certain he’d committed at least four murders.’

He seemed put out. ‘Oh that! That was a long time ago. And I never said he’d murdered anybody. I never said it.’

‘No, you never actually said it.’

He shifted nervously on the bar stool. ‘Oh, what’s the use? He won’t ask me to go with him. He said as much last week.’

‘Oh, yes, he will,’ I said softly.

Walker looked up quickly. ‘Why should he?’

I said quietly, ‘Because I know of a way of getting that gold out of Italy and of taking it anywhere in the world, quite simply and relatively safely.’

His eyes widened. ‘What is it? How can you do it?’

‘I’m not going to tell you,’ I said equably. ‘After all, you wouldn’t tell me where the gold’s hidden.’

‘Well, let’s do it,’ he said. ‘I’ll tell you where it is, you get it out, and Bob’s your uncle. Why bring Coertze into it?’

‘It’s a job for more than two men,’ I said. ‘Besides, he deserves a share – he’s been keeping an eye on the gold for fourteen years, which is a damn’ sight more than you’ve been doing.’ I failed to mention that I considered Walker the weakest of reeds. ‘Now, how will you get on with Coertze if this thing goes through?’

He turned sulky. ‘All right, I suppose, if he lays off me. But I won’t stand for any of his sarcasm.’ He looked at me in wonder as though what we were talking about had just sunk in. ‘You mean there’s a chance we can get the stuff out – a real chance?’

I nodded and got off the bar stool. ‘Now, if you’ll excuse me.’

‘Where are you going?’ he asked quickly.

‘To phone the airline office,’ I said. ‘I want a seat on tomorrow’s Jo’burg plane. I’m going to see Coertze.’

The sign I had been waiting for had arrived.