Vintage Stuff (23 page)

In the tumult that followed this insult to the Muslim world the Saudi delegate accused both
Botwyk and Levi-Strauss of being Zionist and Pastor Laudenbach advocated an ecumenical approach
to the Holocaust. For once Dr Abnekov said nothing. He mourning the loss of his son who had been
captured and skinned alive in Afghanistan and anyway he loathed Germans. Even Dr Grenoy joined
the fray. 'I wonder if the American delegate would tell us how many more Americans are going to
prove their spiritual integrity by drinking orange juice spiked with cyanide in Guyana?' he
enquired.

Only Sir Arnold looked happy. He had suddenly realized that Zaïre was not Eire and that the
question of Ulster was still off the menu.

The Countess finished clearing up in the kitchen. She could still hear the raised voices, but
she had long ago come to her own conclusions about the future of the world and knew that nice
ideas about peace and plenty were not going to alter it. Her own future was more important to her
and she had to decide what to do. The man who called himself Pringle was undoubtedly Glodstone.
She had taken a good look at him when she had gone up to his room with his supper tray and had
returned to her room to compare his drawn face with that in the school photograph Anthony had
brought back. So why had he lied? And why had someone broken into the Château looking for her?
She had already dismissed Grenoy's suggestion that the mob in Vegas had caught up with her. They
didn't operate in that way. Not for a measly hundred grand. They were businessmen and would have
used more subtle means of getting their money back, like blackmail. Perhaps they'd merely sent a
'frightener' first, but if that were the case they'd employed a remarkably inept one. It didn't
make sense.

Now, sitting at the big deal table eating her own dinner, she felt tired. Tired of pandering
to men's needs, tired of the fantasies of sex, success and greed, and of those other fantasies,
the ideological ones those fools were arguing about now. All her life she had been an actress in
other people's dream theatres or, worse still, an usherette. Never herself, whatever her 'self'
was. It was time to find out. She finished her meal and washed up, all the while wondering why
human beings needed the sustenance of unreality. No other species she knew of did. Anyway she was
going to learn what Glodstone's real purpose was.

She climbed the stairs to his room and found him sitting on the bed draped in a sheet and
looking bewildered and frightened. It was the fear that decided her tactics. 'So what's Glass-Eye
Glodstone doing in these parts?' she asked in her broadest American accent.

Glodstone gaped at her. 'Pringle,' he said. 'The name is Pringle.'

'That's not the way I read your Y-fronts. They're labelled Glodstone. So's your shirt. How
come?'

Glodstone fought for an excuse and failed. 'I borrowed them from a friend,' he muttered.

'Along with the glass eye?'

Glodstone clutched the sheet to him hurriedly. This woman knew far too much about him for
safety. Her next remark confirmed it. 'Look,' she said, 'there's no use trying to fool me. Just
tell me what you were doing sneaking around in the middle of the night and rescuing so-called
people.'

'I just happened to be passing.'

'Passing what? Water? Don't give me that crap. Some hoodlum breaks in here last night, beats
up the clientele, dumps one of them in the river, and you just happen to be passing.'

Glodstone gritted his dentures. Whoever this beastly woman was he had no intention of telling
her the truth. 'You can believe what you like but the fact remains...'

'That you're my son's housemaster and at a guess I'd say he wasn't far out when he said you
were a psycho.'

Glodstone tended to agree. He was feeling decidedly unbalanced. She couldn't be the Countess.
'I don't believe it. Your son told you...It's impossible. You're not the Countess.'

'OK, try me,' said the Countess.

'Try you?' said Glodstone, hoping she didn't mean what he thought. Clad only in a sheet he
felt particularly vulnerable.

'Like what you want me to tell you. Like he's circumcised, got a cabbage allergy, had a boil
on his neck last term and managed to get four O-levels without your help. You tell me.'

A wave of uncertain relief crept over Glodstone. Her language might not fit his idea of how
countesses talked, but she seemed to know a great deal about Wanderby.

'Isn't there something else you want to tell me?' he asked finally to put her to the test
about the letters.

'Tell you? What the hell more do you want to know? That he hasn't got goitre or something? Or
if he's been laid? The first you can see for yourself or Miss Universe 1914 can tell you. And the
second is none of your fucking business. Or is it?' She studied him with the eye of an expert in
perversions. 'You wouldn't happen to be an asshole freak, would you?'

'I beg your pardon?' said Glodstone, stung by the insult.

'No need to,' said the Countess nastily. 'It's not my sphincter you're spearing and that's for
sure. But if I find you've been sodomizing my son you'll be leaving here without the
wherewithal.'

'Dear God,' said Glodstone crossing his legs frantically, 'I can assure you the thought never
entered my head. Absolutely not. There is nothing queer about me.'

'Could have fooled me,' said the Countess, relaxing slightly. 'So what else is on your
mind?'

'Letters,' said Glodstone.

'Letters?'

Glodstone shifted his eye away from her. This was the crunch-point. If she didn't know about
the letters she couldn't possibly be the Countess. On the other hand, with his wherewithal at
stake he wasn't going to beat about the bush. 'The ones you wrote me,' he said.

'I write you letters about Anthony's allergies and you make it all the way down here to
discuss them? Come up with something better. I'm not buying that one.'

But before Glodstone could think of something else to say, there was the sound of a shot, a
scream, more shots, a babble of shouting voices, and the floodlights in the courtyard went out.
Peregrine had struck again.

Unlike everyone else, Peregrine had spent an untroubled day. He had slept until noon, had
lunched on baked beans and corned beef and had observed the comings and goings at the Château
with interest. Now that he knew Glodstone was alive, he wasn't worried. People were always
getting captured in thrillers and it never made any real difference. In fact he couldn't think of
a book in which the hero got bumped off, except The Day of the Jackal and he wasn't sure the
Jackal had been a hero. But he had been really cunning and careful and had nearly got away with
it. Peregrine made a mental note to be even more cunning and careful. No one was going to bump
him off. Quite the reverse.

And so through the long hot afternoon he watched the floodlights being installed and the
police van being stationed on the road by the bridge and made his plans. Obviously he wouldn't be
able to go up the cliff as he'd wanted and he'd have to make sure the lightning conductor hadn't
been spotted as his route in. But the main thing would be to create a diversion and get everyone
looking the wrong way. Then he'd have to find Glodstone and escape before they realized what had
happened. He'd have to move quickly too and, knowing how useless Glodstone was at running
cross-country and climbing hills, that presented a problem. The best thing would be to trap the
swine in the Château so they couldn't follow. But with the guards on the bridge...He'd have to
lure them off it somehow. Peregrine put his mind to work and decided his strategy.

As dusk fell over the valley, he moved off down the hillside and crawled into the bushes by
the police van. Three gendarmes were standing about smoking and talking, gazing down at the
river. That suited his purpose. He squirmed through the bushes until they were hidden by the van.
Then he was across the road and had crawled between the wheels and was looking for the petrol
tank. In the cab above him the radio crackled and one of the men came over and spoke. Peregrine
watched the man's feet and felt for his own revolver. But presently the fellow climbed down and
the three gendarmes strolled up the ramp onto the bridge out of sight. Peregrine reached into the
knapsack and took out a small Calor-gas stove and placed it beneath the tank. Before lighting it
he checked again, but the men were too far away to hear and the noise of the water running past
would cover the hiss of gas. Two seconds later the stove was burning and he was back across the
road and hurrying through the bushes upstream. He had to be over the river before the van went
up.

He had swum across and had already climbed halfway up the hill before the Calor stove made its
presence felt. Having gently brought the petrol tank to the boil, it ignited the escaping vapour
with a roar that exceeded Peregrine's wildest expectations. It did more. As the tank blew, the
stove beneath it exploded too, oil poured onto the road and burst into flames and the three
gendarmes, one of whom had been on the point of examining a rear tyre to find the cause of the
hiss which he suspected to be a faulty valve, were enveloped in a sheet of flame and hurled
backwards into the river. Peregrine watched a ball of flame and smoke loom up into the sunset and
hurried on. If anyone in the Château was watching that would give them something to think about,
and take their minds off the lightning conductor on the northern tower. It had certainly taken
the gendarmes' minds off anything remotely connected with towers. Only vaguely thankful that they
had not been incinerated, they were desperately trying to stay afloat in the rushing waters. But
the Calor stove hadn't finished its work of destruction. As the flames spread, a tyre burst and
scattered more fragments of blazing material onto the bridge. A seat burnt surrealistically in
the middle of the road and the radio crackled more incomprehensibly than ever.

But these side-effects were of no interest to Peregrine. He had reached the tower and was
swarming up the lightning conductor. At the top he paused, heaved himself onto the roof and
headed for the skylight, revolver in hand. There was no one in sight and he dropped down into the
empty corridor and crossed to the window. Below him the courtyard was empty and the smoke
drifting over the river to the west seemed to have gone unnoticed. For a moment Peregrine was
puzzled. It had never occurred to him that the gendarmes were really policemen. Anyone could
dress up in a uniform and gangsters obviously wouldn't bring in the law to protect them, but all
the same he'd expected them to have been on the lookout and he'd gone to a lot of trouble to draw
their attention away from the Château. But no one seemed in the least interested. Odd. Anyway he
was in the Château and if they were stupid enough not to be on their guard that was their
business. His was to rescue Glodstone and this time he wasn't going to mingle with people in
passages and bedrooms. He'd strike from a different direction.

He went down the turret to the cellar and searched the rooms again. Still there was no sign of
Glodstone. But in the abandoned kitchen he could hear people arguing. He went to the dumb-waiter
and listened but the voices were too many and too confused for him to hear what was being said
and he was about to turn away when it occurred to him that be was in a perfect position to kill
all the swine in one fell swoop. Swoop wasn't the word he wanted, because coming up in a
diminutive lift wasn't swooping, but it would certainly take them by surprise if he appeared in
the hatchway and opened fire. But that wouldn't help Glodstone escape. Peregrine suddenly
realized his mistake. They were holding Glodstone hostage. That was why they'd only had three
guards on the bridge and had put floodlights on the terrace. They knew he'd return but because
they'd got Glodstone there would be nothing he could do except give himself up. It explained
everything he found so puzzling.

In the darkness Peregrine's mind, as lethal as that of a ferret in a rabbit warren, gnawed at
the problem: and found an answer.

In the grand salon the members of the symposium had long since abandoned the topic of World
Hunger. There were no experts on nutrition or agricultural techniques among them and even Dr
Grenoy had failed to rally them around the topic by recourse to those generalities which, as a
cultural attaché, and a French one, were his forte. In fact his attempt had made things worse.
Only the multi-modular approach remained and, thanks to the enormous dinner and now the brandy,
found increasing expression in national prejudices and personal feelings.

Curious bonds had been formed. Dr Abnekov's antipathy to American capitalism had been overcome
by Professor Botwyk's observation to the Saudi delegate that any man who couldn't hold his liquor
ought to stop spouting about the power of petroleum products, and Pastor Laudenbach had brought
them even closer together by supporting the refusal of Muslims to touch alcohol. Even Professor
Manake and Sir Arnold had found a common interest in big-game hunting. Only Dr Zukacs remained
obstinately doctrinaire, explaining to no one in particular that the only way the under-developed
countries could free themselves from imperialism was by developing heavy industry and
collectivizing farms. Since he was sitting next to the Polish delegate, who was under orders to
keep his mouth shut and who knew what collective farming had done to his own country, and who
resented the imputation that Poland was under-developed anyway, only Dr Abnekov's threat to beat
their collective heads together unless they shut up prevented a fight. Pastor Laudenbach's appeal
for peace brought Botwyk to his feet.

'Listen, you dirty kraut,' he shouted, 'Don't you start yammering about peace. Two world wars
your lousy country's started this century and don't think we've forgotten it. Six million died in
the gas chambers and it wouldn't surprise me to learn you were the camp doctor at Auschwitz.'