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  As a young man he had wanted power and prestige, he supposed. In that he had failed. There was no prestige in being chairman of an ailing company, no matter how big; and his power was rendered worthless by the strictures of the accountants.

  He was not sure what people meant when they talked about job satisfaction. It was an odd expression, calling to mind a picture of a craftsman making a table from a piece of wood, or a farmer leading a herd of plump lambs to market. Business was not like that: even if one were moderately successful, there would always be new frustrations. And for Hamilton there was nothing other than business. Even if he had wanted to, he had not the ability to make tables or breed sheep, write textbooks or design office blocks.

  He thought again about his sons. Ellen had been right: neither of them was counting on the inheritance. If asked for their counsel, they would certainly say: "It's yours--spend it!" Nevertheless, it went against his instincts to dispose of the business which had made his family rich. Perhaps, he thought, I should disobey my instinct--following it has not made me happy.

  For the first time he wondered what he would do if he did not have to go to the office. He had no interest in village life. Walking to the pub with a dog on a lead, like his neighbor Colonel Quinton, would bore Hamilton. Newspapers would hold no interest--he only read the business pages now, and if he had no business even they would be dull. He was fond of his garden, but he could not see himself spending all day digging weeds and forking in fertilizer.

  What were the things we used to do, when we were young? It seemed, in retrospect, that Ellen and he had spent an awful lot of time doing absolutely nothing. They had gone for long drives in his two-seater, sometimes meeting friends for a picnic. Why? Why get in a car, go a long way, eat sandwiches and come back? They had gone to shows and to restaurants, but that was in the evening. Yet there had always seemed to be too few free days for them to spend together.

  Well, it might be time for him and Ellen to start rediscovering each other. And a million pounds would buy some of his dreams. They could have a villa--perhaps not in Cannes, but somewhere in the Sud. He could buy a yacht big enough for the Mediterranean and small enough for him to drive himself. The grouse moor was out of the question, but there might be enough left for one or two decent paintings.

  This Laski fellow was buying a headache. However, headaches seemed to be his speciality. Hamilton knew a little about him. The man had no background, no education, no family; but he had brains and cash, and in hard times those things counted for more than good breeding. Perhaps Laski and Hamilton Holdings deserved each other.

  It was an odd thing Hamilton had said to Nathaniel Fett: "Tell Laski that if I sell him my company by midday, I want the money in my hand by noon." How eccentric, to ask for cash on the nail like the proprietor of a Glasgow liquor store. But he knew why he had done it. The effect had been to take the decision out of his hands: if Laski could produce the money, the deal would be done; if not, not. Incapable of making up his mind, Hamilton had tossed a ha'penny.

  Suddenly he hoped fervently that Laski would be able to raise the cash. Derek Hamilton wanted never to go back to the office.

  The car drew up outside Fett's place, and he got out.

  18

  The beauty of being an earwig, Bertie Chieseman had found, was that you could do almost anything while you were listening to the police radio. And the tragedy of it, from his point of view, was that there was nothing much he wanted to do.

  Already this morning he had swept the carpet--a process of raising dust only for it to fall again soon afterward--while the airwaves were filled with uninteresting messages about traffic in the Old Kent Road. He had also shaved at the sink in the corner, using a safety razor and hot water from the Ascot, and fried a single rasher of bacon on the cooker in the same room for his breakfast. He ate very little.

  He had called the Evening Post only once since his first report at eight o'clock: to tip them off about an ambulance call to a block of flats in Westminster. The name of the patient had not been mentioned over the air, but Bertie had surmised from the address that it might, just possibly, be someone important. It was up to the news desk to phone ambulance headquarters and ask the name; and if headquarters had been told, they would pass the information on. Often the ambulance men did not make their report until the patient was in the hospital. Bertie occasionally talked to reporters, and he always asked them questions about how they used the information he gave them, and turned it into stories. He was quite well informed about the mechanics of journalism.

  Apart from that and the traffic, there had been only shoplifting, petty vandalism, a couple of accidents, a small demonstration on Downing Street, and one mystery.

  The mystery was in East London, but that was about all Bertie knew. He had heard an all-cars alert, but the subsequent message had been uninformative: the cars were asked to look out for a plain blue van with a certain registration number. It might simply have been hijacked with a cargo of cigarettes, or it might be driven by someone the police wanted to question, or it might have been in a robbery. The word "Obadiah" had been used; Bertie did not know why. Immediately after the alert, three cars had been detached from regular patrol to search for the van. That meant very little.

  The fuss might be over nothing at all--perhaps even some Flying Squad inspector's runaway wife; Bertie had known it to happen. On the other hand, it could be big. He was waiting for more information.

  The landlady came up while he was cleaning his frying pan with warm water and a rag. He dried his hands on his sweater and got out the rent book. Mrs. Keeney, in an apron and curlers, stared in awe at the radio equipment, although she saw it every week.

  Bertie gave her the money and she signed the book. Then she handed him a letter.

  "I don't know why you don't have some nice music on," she said.

  He smiled. He had not told her what he used the radio for, as it was against the law to listen to police radio. "I'm not very musical," he said.

  She shook her head resignedly, and went out. Bertie opened the letter. It was his monthly check from the Evening Post. He had had a good spell: the check was for five hundred pounds. Bertie paid no tax. He found it difficult to spend all his money. The job compelled him to live fairly simply. He spent every evening in pubs, and on Sundays he went out in the car, his one luxury, a bright new Ford Capri. He went to all sorts of places, like a tourist: he had been to Canterbury Cathedral, Windsor Castle, Beaulieu, St. Albans, Bath, Oxford; he visited safari parks, stately homes, ancient monuments, historic towns, race-tracks, and funfairs with equal enjoyment. He had never had so much money in his life. There was enough to buy everything he wanted, and a little left over to save.

  He put the check in a drawer and finished cleaning the frying pan. As he was putting it away the radio crackled, and a sixth sense told him to listen carefully.

  "That's right, blue Bedford six-wheeler. Alpha Charlie London two oh three Mother. Has it what? Distinguishing marks? Yes, if you look inside you'll notice it has a most unusual feature--six large boxes of used notes."

  Bertie frowned. The radio operator at headquarters was being funny, obviously; but what he said implied that the missing van was carrying a large sum of money. That sort of van did not go missing accidentally. It must have been hijacked.

  Bertie sat down at his table and picked up the phone.

  19

  Felix Laski and Nathaniel Fett stood up when Derek Hamilton entered the room. Laski, the would-be buyer, and Hamilton, the vendor, shook hands briefly, like boxers before a fight. Laski realized with a shock that he and Hamilton were wearing identical suits: dark blue with a pinstripe. They even had the same six-button double-breasted jacket without vents. But Hamilton's gross body took away any elegance the style had. On him, the most beautiful suit would look like a length of cloth wrapped around a jelly. Laski knew, without looking in a mirror, that his own suit appeared to be much more expensive.

  He told himself not to feel superi
or. The wrong attitude could ruin a negotiation. He said: "Nice to see you again, Hamilton."

  Hamilton nodded. "How do you do, Mr. Laski?" The chair squeaked as he sat down.

  The use of "Mr." did not escape Laski. Hamilton would only employ the unadorned surname with his equals.

  Laski crossed his legs and waited for Fett, the broker, to open the proceedings. He studied Hamilton out of the corner of his eye. The man might have been handsome in his youth, he decided: he had a high forehead, a straight nose, and bright blue eyes. Right now he looked relaxed, with his hands folded in his lap. Laski thought: He has made up his mind already.

  Fett said: "For the record, Derek owns five hundred and ten thousand shares in Hamilton Holdings, Limited, a public company. Another four hundred and ninety thousand are owned by various parties, and there are no unissued shares. Mr. Laski, you offer to buy those five hundred and ten thousand shares for the sum of one million pounds, on condition the deed of sale is dated today and signed at twelve noon."

  "Or that a letter to that intent is so dated and signed."

  "Quite so."

  Laski tuned out as Fett continued to enunciate formalities in a dry monotone. He was thinking that Hamilton probably deserved to lose his wife. A woman as vivacious and highly sexed as Ellen was entitled to a full-blooded love life: her husband had no right to let himself run to seed.

  Here I am, he thought, stealing the man's wife and taking away his life's work, and still he can make me squirm by calling me Mister.

  "As I see it," Fett was concluding, "the deal can be done just as Mr. Laski has outlined it. The documents are satisfactory. There remains only the larger question of whether, and under what conditions, Derek will sell." He sat back with the air of one who has completed a ritual.

  Hamilton looked at Laski. "What are your plans for the group?" he asked.

  Laski suppressed a sigh. There was no point to any kind of cross-examination. He was quite free to tell Hamilton a pack of lies. He did just that. "The first step would be a large capital injection," he said. "Then an improvement in management services, a shakeout at top level in the operating companies, and some streamlining in low-performance sectors." Nothing could have been farther from the truth, but if Hamilton wanted to read the script from the top, Laski was happy to go along with it.

  "You've chosen a crucial moment at which to make your offer."

  "Not really," Laski said. "The oil well, if it happens, will be a bonus. What I'm buying is a fundamentally sound group which is going through a bad patch. I shall make it profitable without meddling with its infrastructure. That happens to be my particular talent." He smiled self-consciously. "Despite my reputation, I'm interested in running real industries, not trading in equities."

  He caught a hostile glance from Fett: the broker knew he was lying. "So why the twelve o'clock deadline?"

  "I think the price of Hamilton shares will go up unreasonably if you get the license. This could be my last chance for some time of buying at a sensible price."

  "Fair enough," Hamilton said, taking the initiative away from Fett. "But I, too, have set a deadline. How do you feel about that?"

  "Quite happy," Laski lied. In truth he was desperately worried. Hamilton's wish to see the money "in his hand" at the time the deal was signed was unexpected. Laski had planned to pay a deposit today and the balance when final contracts were exchanged. But although Hamilton's stipulation was eccentric, it was perfectly reasonable. Once the letter had been signed Laski was able to trade in the shares, either selling them or using them to raise a loan. What he planned was to use the shares--at their oil-inflated price--to raise the money to pay for the original purchase.

  But he had fallen into the pit he had dug. He had tempted Hamilton with a fast deal, and the old man had gone for it too well. Laski did not know what he was going to do, for he did not have a million pounds--he would have been scraping the barrel for the one-hundred-thousand deposit. But he did know what he was not going to do: he would not let this deal slip through his fingers.

  "Quite happy," he repeated.

  Fett said: "Derek, perhaps now is the time you and I should have a few minutes together--"

  "I don't think so," Hamilton interrupted. "Unless you plan to tell me that this deal is riddled with pitfalls?"

  "Not at all."

  "In that case"--Hamilton turned to Laski--"I accept."

  Laski stood up and shook Hamilton's hand. The fat man was mildly embarrassed by the gesture, but it was one Laski believed in. Men like Hamilton could always find escape clauses in a contract, but they could not bear to renege on a handshake.

  Laski said: "The funds are in the Cotton Bank of Jamaica--London branch, of course. I imagine this presents no problem." He drew a checkbook from his pocket.

  Fett frowned. It was a very small bank, but perfectly respectable. He would have preferred a check drawn on a clearing bank, but he could hardly object at this stage without seeming obstructive: Laski knew he would feel like this.

  Laski wrote the check and handed it to Hamilton. "It's not often a man pockets a million pounds," he said.

  Hamilton seemed to become jovial. He smiled: "It's not often a man spends it."

  Laski said: "When I was ten years old our rooster died, and I went with my father to market to buy a new one. It cost the equivalent of . . . oh, three pounds. But my family had saved for a year to accumulate that money. More heart searching went into the purchase of that rooster than any financial deal I have ever done, this one included." He smiled, knowing they were uneasy to hear this story, and not caring. "A million pounds is nothing, but a rooster can save a whole family from starvation."

  Hamilton mumbled: "Very true."

  Laski reverted to his normal image. "Let me call the bank to warn them that this check is on its way."

  "Surely." Fett took him to the door and pointed.

  "That room is empty. Valerie will give you a line."

  "Thank you. When I return, we can sign the letters." Laski went into the little room and picked up the phone. When he heard the dial tone, he looked out of the room to make sure Valerie was not listening. She was at the filing cabinet. Laski dialed.

  "Cotton Bank of Jamaica."

  "Laski here. Give me Jones."

  There was a pause.

  "Good morning, Mr. Laski."

  "Jones, I've just signed a check for a million pounds."

  At first there was no reply. Then Jones said: "Jesus. You haven't got it."

  "All the same, you will clear the check."

  "But what about Threadneedle Street?" The banker's voice was rising in pitch. "We don't have enough cash on deposit at the bank!"

  "We'll cross that bridge when we come to it."

  "Mr. Laski. This bank cannot authorize one million pounds to be transferred from its account at the Bank of England to another account at the Bank of England, because this bank does not have one million pounds on deposit at the Bank of England. I don't think I can make the situation plainer."

  "Jones, who owns the Cotton Bank of Jamaica?"

  Jones drew in his breath loudly. "You do, sir."

  "Quite." Laski put the phone down.

  TWELVE NOON

  20

  Peter "Jesse" James was perspiring. The midday sun was unseasonably strong, and the wide glass windshield of the van magnified its heat, so that the rays burned his naked, meaty forearms and scorched the legs of his trousers. He was awful hot.

  As well as that, he was terrified.

  Jacko had told him to drive slowly. The advice was superfluous. A mile from the scrap yard he had run into heavy traffic; and it had been bumper-to-bumper since then, across half of South London. He could not have hurried if he had wanted to.

  He had both of the van's sliding side doors open, but this did not help. There was no wind when the vehicle was stationary, and all he got when he moved was a light breeze of warm exhaust smoke.

  Jesse believed driving ought to be an adventure. He had been in l
ove with cars since he stole his first motor--a Zephyr-Zodiac with customized fins--at the age of twelve. He liked to race away from traffic lights, double-declutch on bends, and scare the hell out of Sunday drivers. When another motorist dared to sound his horn, Jesse would yell curses and shake his fist, and fantasize about shooting the bastard through the head. In his own car he kept a pistol in the glove compartment. It had never been used.

  But driving was no fun when you had a fortune in stolen money in the back. You had to accelerate gradually and brake evenly, give the old slowing-down signal when you pulled up, refrain from overtaking, and give way to pedestrians at road junctions. It occurred to him that there was such a thing as suspiciously good behavior: an intelligent copper, seeing a youngish bloke in a van poodling along like an old dear on a driving test, might well smell a rat.

  He came to yet another junction on the interminable South Circular Road. The light turned from green to amber. Jesse's instinct was to push his foot to the floor and race the signal. He gave a weary sigh, flapped his arm out of the window like a fool, and came to a careful stop.

  He should try not to worry--nervous people made mistakes. He ought to forget the money, think about something else. He had driven thousands of miles through the exasperating traffic of London without ever being stopped by the law: why should today be different? Even the Old Bill couldn't smell hot money.

  The lights changed and he pulled forward. The road narrowed into a shopping center where delivery trucks lined the curb and a series of pedestrian crossings slowed the flow of cars. The narrow pavements were thronged with shoppers and obstructed by several hawkers flogging substandard costume jewelry and ironing-board covers.

  The women were wearing summery clothes--there was something to be said for the hot weather. Jesse started to watch the tight T-shirts, the delightfully loose-fitting frocks and the bare knees as he crawled forward a few yards at a time. He liked girls with big bottoms, and he scanned the crowds for a suitable specimen to undress with his eyes.

  He spotted her a good fifty yards away. She was wearing a blue nylon sweater and tight white trousers. She probably thought she was overweight, but Jesse would have told her otherwise. She had a nice, old-fashioned bra which made her tits look like torpedoes; and her high-waisted slacks flared out over big hips. Jesse peered at her, hoping to see her tits wobble. They did.