The Blue Ring (3 page)

"A
couple of days," Michael answered.

Raoul
picked up their bags. "Blondie's in the bar. I'll take your things
upstairs."

They
walked down the corridor, opened a door and went through. It was an opulent
room: deep-pile maroon carpet, crystal chandeliers, velvet walls, a small
mahogany bar, deep leather settees and armchairs. There were four very
beautiful and elegantly dressed young women sitting in the armchairs. Sitting
at the bar was something entirely different. An old woman in an ankle-length
gold brocade gown. She had ebony black hair, a face thick with pancake makeup
and a red slash for a mouth. She had blue-white diamonds at her ears, around
her neck and around both wrists and on every one of her fingers. Her age was
indeterminate, but Michael and Creasy knew that she was in her mid-seventies.

The red
of her mouth widened as she saw them. She slid off the bar-stool as though she
were an eighteen-year-old coquette; her arms opened. First embracing Creasy and
then Michael, who could feel the stiffness of her corset. She held Michael at
arm's length, looking up at his face, and brushed a hand down his cheek, saying
in her heavily Italian-accented English, "You have become
beautiful...Before you were...just handsome."

Creasy
chuckled. Michael smiled and felt slightly embarrassed under the interested
gaze of the four beautiful young women.

"Business
seems slack," Creasy commented.

Blondie's
smile waned.

"It's
not great," she answered. "But the night is young. What will you have
to drink?"

As they
eased themselves onto the bar-stools Creasy again gasped and his left hand
moved to the centre of his chest. Blondie and Michael glanced at each other.

"What
is it?" the old woman asked sharply.

Creasy
was shaking his head dismissively. She looked at Michael who shrugged and said,
"He's been getting those pains over the last few weeks...Says it's
nothing, but they're getting more frequent."

The
atmosphere changed immediately. Blondie's face had turned very serious. She
spoke to Creasy rapidly in French. He nodded reluctantly. Michael could not
understand the language but he saw the genuine anger and concern on her face.
Abruptly she turned to Michael and spoke to him in English.

"It
has happened before with this fool who would be your father. He has so much
metal in him it could be recycled into enough tin cans to supply a baked bean
factory. Sometimes that metal moves."

Suddenly
she became a mother, mistress, manager and cyclone all in one. She snapped her
fingers and Raoul passed her the phone. She dialled a number and spoke rapidly
into it. Creasy tried to remonstrate but she cut him short with a look that
would have withered an oak tree. Michael looked on in amazement. Blondie hung
up the phone, turned to Michael and gave him his instructions.

"An
ambulance will be here within a few minutes. You are to make sure that Creasy
gets into it together with pyjamas and whatever else he may need in hospital. A
top surgeon is waiting for him in a private hospital...It is comfortable with
pretty nurses. That surgeon will take out the piece of shrapnel that is working
its way to that idiot's heart." She gave Creasy another laser-sharp look.
"I can never understand how a man of your intelligence and knowledge of
wounds can be so stupid when it comes to your own body."

Creasy coughed irritably and said, "You know I hate hospitals."

Blondie smiled. "I told you...this one is exclusive, and the nurses are
cute." She turned back to Michael and her voice was tight with authority.
"So you get him there, Michael. And instruct that surgeon to X-ray Creasy
from his toenails to the top of his head. If he finds any metal in there which
needs to be taken out, he should do it now."

Creasy coughed again, looked at Blondie and said, "You're sure this guy knows
what he's doing?"

She smiled at him sweetly. "They say he's one of the best in Europe."

"Must cost a bomb," Creasy muttered.

She smiled and shook her head. "His wife died five years ago. He compensates
his grief by hard work. He does not contemplate replacing his wife, but he is a
virile man. He comes here usually once a week. All my girls love him." She
gave a very Italian shrug. "And in his way he loves them too...His name is Bernard."

Bernard Roche was a good surgeon. He had been ten years in the French army and had done
his apprenticeship in Algeria during the war of independence. He recognised Creasy.

He looked at his face, straightened in his chair and said, "First REP...I set
a broken arm for you about two weeks before you guys blew up your barracks and
marched out of Zeralda, singing Edith Piaf's Je ne regrette rien."

Creasy
looked at him with suspicion and said, "You must have been in
nappies."

The surgeon smiled. "Just out of them. I was twenty-three years old. You were
a legend. When I put that plaster on you my hands were shaking. You had a
friend then...an Italian called Guido something...He told me if I didn't put
you back into perfect condition he'd bury me neck deep in the desert and
train a camel to piss on my face every day for the next thousand years."

Creasy smiled at him. "The arm turned out fine. I'm getting pain from an old wound."

The surgeon stood up. He said to Michael, "Go away and have a drink and come
back in an hour."

Michael drank half a bottle of red wine in a small bistro across the road from the
hospital that looked no more than a large private house. On his return, the
surgeon's face was sombre.

"It was close," he said. "The legend could have died within the next week
or so. Why is it that such hard men are so frightened of hospitals and doctors?"

Michael shrugged. "Have you operated?"

Bernard shook his head. "No, in about two hours. Come and have a look."

They walked over to a wall which held a series of back-lit X-rays. Bernard pointed
to the first one. Pointed to a small, dark shadow. "A grenade
fragment," he said, "collected at Dien Bien Phu in Vietnam in the
early fifties. It spent three decades working its way through muscle to the
heart. We've caught it just in time." He pointed at the next X-ray and
another dark shadow. "The fragment of a bullet...Apparently received in
the Congo...very close to the spleen...I'll take that out as well." He
pointed at the next X-ray. Another dark shadow. "That's a steel pin which
some Italian doctor used to connect a small bone in his shoulder to his collar
bone...That was in Laos. That pin should have been taken out about six months
later but somehow it got forgotten...I may as well do it now...I may have to
replace the pin, but I won't know until I see how the two bones have fused."

Michael had been listening carefully. He asked, "Maybe leave that one well
alone?"

Bernard shook his head. "It will give him terrible arthritis later in life. Better
it comes out now."

Michael smiled as though to himself and then said, "I agree. Do it all at one
time. How long will he have to stay in hospital?"

Bernard thought for a moment and then said, "At least ten days."

Michael nodded in satisfaction. "That's perfect."

"Do nothing until I'm out of here." Creasy's voice was emphatic.

Michael shrugged. "Well," he said, "I'll just make some enquiries and
sort of mosey around. I mean, you're going to be out of it for at least ten
days and there's no point in my sitting on my ass doing nothing."

Creasy gave him a very narrow look. He said, "Put the mother situation on hold
for a while...at least until I get out of this place. But try to find out
what's bothering Blondie."

"Blondie?" Michael asked curiously.

Creasy nodded.

"Yes. Something's worrying her. I've known her many years and I can tell. I don't
think she'll talk to me about it. She likes to be independent...But something's
wrong. Hang your ears out and try to get some kind of message."

Blondie smiled at Michael across the kitchen table and said, "So Creasy is locked
up in hospital for a few days...It's about time." She leaned forward and
said in a conspiratorial whisper, "So tell me. Why are you here?"

He took a sip of his wine and answered, "I came to ask for your advice and perhaps
your help."

"Tell me."

So he told her. She knew the bare bones of the story and had been part of it, but he
fleshed it out and went all the way back to the beginning: his adoption by
Creasy and the dead English actress, Leonie, whom she had met and liked. Their
revenge against the terrorists who had planted the bomb on Pan Am 103; his
inbuilt hatred of the unknown natural mother who had abandoned him only one day
after his birth. He explained about Father Manuel Zerafa telling him about that
natural mother who was dying of cancer and wanted to see his face. He told her
of his decision to see her. Told her of the woman with the ravaged bald-headed
face lying on the hospital bed. Told her of the woman who had sat on the wall
every Sunday during his childhood. Finally he told her of the reason why the
woman on the wall had no choice but to abandon him the day after he was born.
Then he told her what he planned to do, and again asked her advice and possibly
her help.

She lowered
her head in thought for a long time, then looked up at him and quietly said,
"Those people that you seek. Those people who forced your mother to
abandon you. Those people who are the dregs of the earth. They have been around
a long time. Many decades. They are very powerful and well-connected, both
politically and financially, in several countries."

"You
know these people, Blondie?"

"I
know of them. They have tried to do business with me in the past, but I don't
deal with that filth. I don't need to. My girls work for me because they want
to. I look after them. I take care of their money and when the time comes I
make sure they leave the business in a better condition than when they joined
it."

He
smiled and asked, "Like Nicole?"

She
nodded solemnly. "Exactly like Nicole. You will see her, of course...and
Maxie." She smiled. "And that young sister of hers."

Michael
smiled in return.

"Of
course. I'll go there for dinner tomorrow night. Why not come with me?"

Sadly
she shook her head.

"It's
not a good time for me to be away from the Pappagal."

"You
have problems?"

"Only
small ones, but I have to be here."

"Anything
I can do?"

She shook her head, reached out and touched his cheek. "You have problems of
your own. These people you seek are dangerous. They kill without thought and
they protect their interests with cunning and ferocity."

"Who are they, Blondie?"

"They come and go. Different faces but from the same area. They work in southern
Europe, the Middle East and northern Africa. I've heard a name, but I'm not
sure whether it means anything."

"What name?"

"I have heard that they are called 'The Blue Ring'."

"Are they Mafia?"

She shook her head. "They are worse than Mafia."

Michael swirled the wine in his glass. "Where would I start to look?"

She
considered the question for a long time, then stood up and said,
"Wait."

She
came back five minutes later, holding a white business card. She put it on the
table between them, saying, "About six months ago a man came here and
hired one of my girls. It turned out that he did not want to make love. He
wanted to talk. Such things happen, even at three hundred dollars a session.
Some want to talk about their fantasies without doing anything, some want to talk
about themselves."

She
tapped the card. "This man did not want to talk about any of those things.
He wanted to ask questions. He was curious about the modern white slave trade.
My girl thought he was a nice man and sympathetic. He told her he was a writer
researching a book. At the end of his hour she suggested he talk to me. We
talked in the bar for a couple of hours and we became friendly. During the
conversation he mentioned 'The Blue Ring'. At the end he admitted he was not a
writer." She tapped the card again. "Perhaps you and Creasy should
start by talking to this man."

Michael
picked up the card and read, "Jens Jensen, CID (Missing Persons Bureau)
Copenhagen, Denmark."

Michael
was woken just after midnight by a gentle tap on the door. He pulled himself
out of bed, padded across, unlocked the door and opened it. Raoul stood there
with a silver tray in his hand. On it was a bottle of Hennessy Extra brandy and
two glasses.

He
said, "I thought we might have a drink. I hope I didn't wake you."

Michael
yawned, smiled and said, "You did, but let's have a drink anyway."

He was
puzzled because Raoul was a taciturn man, not given to conversation,
conviviality or socialising. They sat at the small table and Raoul poured two
large measures. Michael studied him. He was a man in his mid-forties, blessed
with a face to frighten small children, old ladies and clients who got out of
line. He had worked for Blondie for over ten years and was a combination of
bartender, bouncer, handyman and silent companion. Blondie was the only person
in his life that meant anything to him. He opened the conversation. "How
is Creasy?"

"Creasy's just fine," Michael answered. "That surgeon really is good. He mined
a great deal of metal from Creasy's body." Michael smiled at the
recollection. "He also filled him full of morphine...It's one very happy
Creasy lying in bed there, and he probably weighs half a kilo less."

"How long will he have to stay there?" Raoul asked.

Michael shrugged. "The doctor says ten days...but knowing Creasy he'll discharge
himself the minute he can walk...I'd guess four to six days."