need my permission – but he can’t have been very surprised when I shot
back. Hel , he would expect it!’
‘I can see the logic,’ said Elin. ‘But don’t expect me to like it.’
‘Christ!’ I said. ‘Do you think I like it?’ ‘ ‘I’m sorry, Alan,’ she
said, and smiled wanly.
‘So am I.’ I stood up. ‘After that bit of deep philosophy you’d better
have breakfast. I’l see what Sigurlin can offer.’
Chapter IV
I left Laugarvatn at eight that night. Punctuality may be a virtue but
it has been my experience that the virtuous often die young while the
ungodly live to a ripe age. I had arranged to meet Jack Case at five
o’clock but it would do him no great harm to stew for a few hours, and I
had it in mind that the arrangement to meet him had been made on an open
radio circuit.
I arrived at Geysir in Gunnar’s Volkswagen beetle and parked
inconspicuously quite a long way from the summer hotel. A few people,
not many, were picking their way among the pools of boiling water,
cameras at the ready. Geysir itself – the Gusher – which has given its
name to al the other spouters in the world, was quiescent. It has been
a long time since Geysir spouted. The habit of prodding it into action
by tossing rocks into the pool final y proved too much as the pressure
chamber was blocked. However, Strokkur – the Churn – was blasting off
with commendable efficiency and sending up its feathery plume of boiling
water at seven-minute intervals.
I stayed in the car for a long time and used the field-glasses
assiduously. There were no familiar faces to be seen in the next hour, a
fact that didn’t impress me much, however. Final y I got out of the car
and walked towards the Hotel Geysir, one hand in my pocket resting on
the butt of the pistol.
Case was in the lounge, sitting in a corner and reading a paperback. I
walked up to him and said, ‘Hel o, Jack; that’s a nice tan ? you must
have been in the sun.’
He looked up. ‘I was in Spain. What kept you?’
This and that.’
I prepared to sit down, but he said. ‘This is too public -let’s go up to
my room. Besides, I have a bottle.’ ‘That’s nice.’
I followed him to his room. He locked the door and turned to survey me.
‘That gun in your pocket spoils the set of your coat. Why don’t you use
a shoulder holster?’
I grinned at him. ‘The man I took the gun from didn’t have one. How are
you, Jack? It’s good to see you.’
He grunted sourly. ‘You might change your mind about that.’ With a flip
of his hand he opened a suitcase lying on a chair and took out a bottle.
He poured a heavy slug into a tooth glass and handed it to me. ‘What the
devil have you been doing? You’ve got Taggart real y worked up.’
‘He sounded pretty steamy when I spoke to him,’ I said, and sipped the
whisky. ‘Most of the time I’ve been chased from hel -and-gone to here.’
‘You weren’t followed here?’ he asked quickly.
‘No.’
‘Taggart tel s me you kil ed Philips. Is that true?’
‘If Philips was a man who cal ed himself Buchner and Graham it’s true.’
He stared at me. ‘You admit it!’
I relaxed in the chair. ‘Why not, since I did it? I didn’t know it was
Philips, though. He came at me in the dark with a gun.’
‘That’s not how Slade described it. He says you took a crack at him too.’
‘I did – but that was after I’d disposed of Philips. He and Slade came
together.’
‘Slade says differently. He says that he was in a car with Philips when
you ambushed it.’
I laughed. ‘With what?’ I drew the /sgian dubh/ from my stocking and
flipped it across the room, where it stuck in the top of the
dressing-table, quivering. ‘With that?’
‘He says you had a rifle.’
‘Where would I get a rifle?’ I demanded. ‘He’s right, though; I took the
rifle from Philips after I disposed of him with that little pig-sticker.
I put three shots into Slade’s car and missed the bastard.’
‘Christ!’ said Case. ‘No wonder Taggart is doing his nut. Have you gone
off your little rocker?’
I sighed. ‘Jack, did Taggart say anything about a girl?’
‘He said you’d referred to a girl. He didn’t know whether to believe you.’
‘He’d better believe me,’ I said. ‘That girl isn’t far from here, and
she has a bullet wound in her shoulder that was given to her by Philips.
He was within an ace of kil ing her. Now, there’s no two ways about
that, and I can take you to her and show you the wound. Slade says I
ambushed him. Is it likely I’d do it with my fiancee watching? And why
in hel would I want to ambush him?’ I slid in a trick question. ‘What
did he say he’d done with Philips’s body?’
Case frowned. ‘I don’t think the question came up.’
‘It wouldn’t,’ I said. ‘The last I saw of Slade he was driving away like
a maniac – and there was no body in his car. I disposed of it later.’
‘This is al very wel ,’ said Case. ‘But it happened after Akureyri, and
in Akureyri you were supposed to deliver a package to Philips. You
didn’t, and you didn’t give it to Slade, either. Why not?’
‘The operation stank,’ I said, and went into it in detail.
I talked for twenty minutes and by the time I had finished Case was
pop-eyed. He swal owed and his Adam’s apple jumped convulsively. ‘Do you
real y believe that Slade is a Russian agent? How do you expect Taggart
to swal ow that? I’ve never heard such a cock-and-bull story in my life.’
I said patiently, ‘I followed Slade’s instructions at Keflavik and
nearly got knocked off by Lindholm; Slade sent Philips after me into
Asbyrgi – how /did/ he know the Russians were holding a fake? There’s
the Calvados; there’s Case held up his hands. ‘There’s no need to go
through it al again. Lindholm might have been lucky in catching you –
there’s nothing to say al the roads around Keflavik weren’t staked out.
Slade says he didn’t go after you in Asbyrgi. As for the Calvados. . .’
He threw up his hands. ‘There’s only your word for that.’
‘What the hel are you. Jack? Prosecutor, judge and jury, too? Or have I
already been judged and you’re the executioner?’
‘Don’t fly off the handle,’ he said wearily. ‘I’m just trying to find
out how complicated a cock-up you’ve made, that’s al . What did you do
after you left Asbyrgi?’
‘We went south in the wilderness,’ I said. ‘And then Kennikin pitched up.’
‘The one who drinks Calvados? The one you had the hassle with in Sweden?’
‘The same. My old pal, Vaslav. Don’t you think that was bloody
coincidental, Jack? How would Kennikin know which track to chase along?
But Slade knew, of course; he knew which way we went after we left Asbyrgi.’
Case regarded me thoughtfully. ‘You know you’re very convincing
sometimes. I’m getting so I might believe this sil y story if I’m not
careful. But Kennikin didn’t catch you.’
‘It was nip and tuck,’ I said. ‘And the bloody Yanks didn’t help.’
Case sat up. ‘How do they come into this?’
I pulled out Fleet’s pass and skimmed it across the room into Case’s
lap. ‘That chap shot a hole in my tyre at very long range. I got out of
there with Kennikin ten minutes behind.’ I told Case al about it.
His mouth was grim. ‘Now you real y have gone overboard. I suppose
you’l now claim Slade is a member of the CIA,’ he said sarcastical y.
‘Why should the Americans hold you up just so Kennikin could grab you?’
‘I don’t know,’ I said feelingly. ‘I wish I did.’
Case examined the card. ‘Fleet – I know that name; it came up when I was
in Turkey last year. He’s a CIA hatchetman and he’s dangerous.’
‘Not for the next month,’ I said. ‘I cracked his skul .’
‘So what happened next?’
I shrugged. ‘I went hel -for-leather with Kennikin and his boys trying
to climb up my exhaust pipe – there was a bit of an affray at a river,
and then I lost him. I suppose he’s around here somewhere.’
‘And you’ve stil got the package?’
‘Not on me, Jack,’ I said softly. ‘Not on me ? but quite close.’
‘I don’t want it,’ he said, and crossed the room to take my empty glass.
‘The plan’s changed. You’re to take the package to Reykjavik.’
‘Just like that,’ I said. ‘What if I don’t want to?’