out of the car and followed signs for Casualty. Just inside the entrance
he found a pay phone. He opened the directory and found the number of
the hospital.
He dialed, thumbed a coin into the slot, and asked for Casualty. A phone
on a desk near where he stood buzzed twice, and the sister picked it up.
She said: “One moment, please,” and laid the receiver on the desk. She
was a plump woman in her forties wearing a crisply starched uniform and
a hara sed air. She wrote a few words in a book, then picked the phone
up again.
“Casualty, can I help you?”
Jacko spoke quietly, watching the sister’s face.
“There is a man with shotgun wounds in the back of a blue Volvo car in
your car park.”
The portly nurse paled. “You mean here?”
Jacko was angry. “Yes, you dozy old cow, in your own hospital. Now get
off your bum and go and get him!” He was tempted to slam the phone down,
but he stopped himself and pressed the cradle instead: if he could see
the sister, then she could see him. He held the dead phone to his ear
while she put hers down, got to her feet, summoned a nurse, and went out
into the car park.
Jacko went farther into the hospital and left by another exit. He looked
across from the main gate and saw a stretcher being carried across the
car park. He had done all he could for Willie.
Now he needed another car.
Felix Laski liked the office of Nathaniel Fett. It was a comfortable
room with unobtrusive decor, a good place in which to do business. It
had none of the gimmicks Laski used in his own office to give him
advantage, like a desk by the window so that his own face was in shadow,
or the low, unsteady visitors’ chairs, or the priceless bone china
coffee cups which people were terrified of dropping. Fett’s office had
the atmosphere of a club for company chairmen: no doubt it was
deliberate. Laski noticed two things as he shook Fett’s long, narrow
hand: first, that there was a large, apparently little-used desk; and
second, that Fett wore a club tie. The tie was a curious choice for a
Jew, he reflected; then, on second thoughts, he decided it was not
curious at all. Fett wore it for the same reason Laski wore a
beautifully tailored Savile Row pinstriped suit: as a badge which said
I, too, am an Englishman. So, Laski thought; even after six generations
of banking Fetts, Nathaniel is still a little insecure. It was a piece
of information which could be used.
Fett said: “Sit down, Laski. Would you like coffee?”
“I drink coffee all day. It’s bad for the heart No, thank you.”
“A drink?”
Laski shook his head. Refusing hospitality was one of his ways of
putting a host at a disadvantage. He said: “I knew your father quite
well until he retired. His death was a loss. This is said of so many
people, but in his case it is true.”
“Thank you.” Fett sat back in a club chair opposite Laski and crossed
his legs. His eyes were inscrutable behind the thick glasses. “It was
ten years ago,” he added.
“So long? He was much older than I, of course, but he knew that, like
his ancestors, I came from Warsaw.”
Fett nodded. “The first Nathaniel Fett crossed Europe with a bag of gold
and a donkey.”
“I did the same journey on a stolen Nazi motorcycle and a suitcase full
of worthless Reichsmarks.”
“Yet your rise was so much more meteoric.”
It was a put-down, Laski realized: Fett was saying We may be jumped-up
Polish Jews, but we’re not half as jumped-up as you. The stockbroker was
Laski’s match at this game; and with those spectacles to hide his
expression he did not need the light behind him. Laski smiled. “You’re
like your father. One never knew what he was thinking.”
“You haven’t yet given me anything to think about.”
“Ah.” So the small talk is over, Laski thought.
“I’m sorry my phone call was a little mysterious.