Osnard’s tirade had fallen on deaf ears. Instead of druckening himself, Pendel appeared to be enjoying an easing of the body, indicating that whatever he had feared was past, and whatever they were now dealing with was small beer by comparison with his nightmares. His hands returned to his sides, he crossed his legs and settled back against the bedhead.
‘So what does London propose to do about him, we wonder, Andy?’ he enquired sympathetically.
Osnard had abandoned his hectoring voice for one of puffy indignation.
‘Bleating about his debts of honour. What about his debt of honour to us? Keeping us dancing on a string -“can’t tell you today, tell you next month” – getting us all sexed up about a conspiracy that doesn’t exist, bunch o’ students only he can talk to, bunch o’ fishermen who will only talk to the students, blah blah. Hell does he think he is, for Christ’s sake? Hell does he think we are? Bloody idiots?’
‘It’s his loyalties, Andy. It’s his delicate sources, same as you. All the people he’s got to get the say-so from.’
‘Fuck his loyalties! We’ve been waiting on his precious loyalties for three bloody weeks. If he’s as loyal as all that he should never have bubbled his Movement to you in the first place. But he did. So you’ve got him over a barrel. And in our business, when you’ve got somebody over a barrel, you do something about it. You don’t keep everybody waiting for the answer to the meaning o’ the universe because some altruistic wino derelict needs three weeks to get his friends’ permission to tell it to you.’
‘So what do you do, Andy?’ Pendel asked quietly.
And if Osnard had possessed that kind of ear or heart, he might have recognised in Pendel’s voice the same undertow that had entered it at lunch a few weeks back when the question of recruiting Mickie’s Silent Opposition was first raised.
‘I’ll tell you exactly what you do,’ he snapped, once more donning his head prefect’s gown. ‘You go to Mr Bloody Abraxas and you say, “Mickie. Hate to break this to you. My mad millionaire chappie isn’t going to wait any more. So unless you want to go back to the Panamanian slammer whence you came, on charges o’ conspiring with persons unknown to do whatever the fuck you’re conspiring to do, cough up. Because there’s a bag o’ money waiting for you if you do, and a very hard bed in a very small space if you don’t.” Is that water in that bottle?’
‘Yes, Andy, I do believe it is. And I’m sure you’d like some.’
Pendel handed him the bottle, provided by the management for the resuscitation of exhausted customers. Osnard drank, wiped his lips with the back of his hand and the neck of the bottle with his podgy forefinger. Then he handed the bottle back to Pendel. But Pendel decided he wasn’t thirsty. He was feeling sick, but it wasn’t the kind of nausea that water cures. It had more to do with his close collegial friendship with his fellow prisoner Abraxas and Osnard’s suggestion that he defile it. And the last thing in the world Pendel wanted to do at that moment was drink from a bottle that was wet with Osnard’s spit.
‘It’s bits, bits, bits,’ Osnard was complaining, still on his high horse. ‘And what do they add up to? Flannel. Jam tomorrow. Wait-and-see. We’re lacking the grand vision, Harry. The big one that’s always just around the corner. London want it now. They can’t wait any more. Nor can we. Are you reading me?’
‘Loud and clear, Andy. Loud and clear.’
‘Well good,’ said Osnard in a grudging, half-conciliatory tone intended to restore their good relationship.
And from Abraxas, Osnard passed to a topic even closer to Pendel’s heart, namely his wife Louisa.
‘Delgado’s on his way up in the world, see that?’ Osnard kicked off breezily. ‘Press made him up to lord high whoosit of the Canal Steering Committee, I see. Can’t rise much higher than that without his toupee burning.’
‘I read about it,’ Pendel said.
‘Where?’
‘In the papers. Where else?’
‘The newspapers?’