Mission of Murder, page 2
“But surely in the circumstances—”
“The circumstances are that even if Valedri was operating from a base inside England he would still be legally entitled to ask any price he likes for that antidote. The fact that he’s miles away on the Aegean and there’s another Government involved only complicates the main issue. The British Government has two choices; it can pay Valedri’s price and buy the antidote from him — or it can reject his offer and wait for our research teams to equal Castel’s achievement. And with Andromavitch as part of the price we can only follow the latter course.”
Larren said slowly, “There must be something you’ve missed in regard to Andromavitch. Valedri demanding that he be handed over just doesn’t fit anywhere. Can you fill me in on his background?”
“I know it by heart. Andromavitch worked for the Russians for twenty-five years before he shook the scientific world by fleeing to the West. He brought his only daughter with him and begged political asylum for them both. He just couldn’t take any more of the lack of freedom and constant surveillance to which he was subjected in Communist Russia. He was welcomed with open arms.
“His only living relative was the daughter who had escaped with him. He had lost track of his family during the war and his wife had died in childbirth. There was no one in Russia who could be used to exert pressure upon him and the security screen passed him as clean. In view of his exceptional mental capabilities he was considered a justifiable risk and allowed to continue his work for us.
“The daughter was accidentally drowned at a beach party near Athens while on a holiday in Greece and now he has no one. There was a flap on over that at first because the body was never recovered and it was thought that she may have been picked up by the other side. However, if that had been the case the pressure would have been applied to Andromavitch long before now so she must have genuinely drowned. Apparently she was near-enough helplessly drunk at this party and the fools let her go swimming with them. By the time they’d missed her it was far too late. Since then Andromavitch has been a bit anti-social, but he still seems happy enough when he’s working.”
“And what’s his reaction to Valedri’s demand?”
“He hasn’t been told. He hasn’t really got anything to leave behind now, and in the circumstances he may be quite willing to sacrifice himself to bring the red death to an end. The Government can’t trade him, but he’s a somewhat gallant old man and it wouldn’t be out of character for him to simply give us the slip if he could and give himself up.”
“So what’s the answer?”
Smith gave him a hard look. “There isn’t one. We have no provable grounds for offending the Greek Government, or for touching Valedri. The official order is to leave the matter alone and wait for the chemists to save the situation.”
He turned his gaze away and looked out over the darkening water of the Serpentine. It was late evening now and the sun had disappeared from the sky. Courting couples were strolling through the park. Larren watched the little man’s profile again, waiting for him to go on. Smith was silent, just a pompous little clerk in a bowler hat now that Larren could no longer read his deep grey eyes.
Then very softly the little man spoke again.
“Of course, the ideal thing would be for some other criminal element to step in; some murdering blackmailer as ruthless as Valedri himself. If Valedri was eliminated and his killer offered the antidote for a price that did not include Andromavitch the Government wouldn’t hesitate to pay.”
He glanced back at Larren and added, “But that’s too much to hope for. Valedri has fitted Kyros out with electrified trip wires, a small team of bodyguards and patrolling dogs. Nobody could get near him.”
He paused again and then quietly contradicted himself. “That is not unless he was reached through Carla. She left the convent, and Valedri saw no harm in contacting her. They get on quite well and she visits him often. At the moment she’s living high in Athens and staying at the Hotel Tripolis.”
He smiled bitterly. “But even then only a fool would try it, and even if he succeeded he would have the Greek police to contend with. The law doesn’t allow any man to be murdered without retribution — not even a death-deserving scum like Valedri.”
He stood up suddenly. “There’s no point in moping over something I can’t do anything about,” he said briskly. He picked up his umbrella and briefcase and then turned to give Larren a tight smile. “I’m sorry if I bored you by rambling on. You’ll forget it all of course, some of it comes under the heading of secret information.” The smile hardened and died and he added, “That’s a direct order, Larren.”
Larren said nothing.
Smith straightened his jacket and then said as an afterthought, “By the way, what I really wanted to see you about was to tell you that you have some leave due. I’m sorry I took so long in getting round to it.”
He said goodbye and walked briskly away along the lakeside.
Eighteen hours later a B.E.A. jet airliner landed at Athens airport and Simon Larren was one of the last passengers to descend the gangway. He thanked the smiling stewardess and in answer to her respectful farewell he assured her that he would most certainly enjoy his holiday stay in Greece and the surrounding islands.
CHAPTER 3: CARLA VALEDRI
Larren took a taxi from the airport and booked a cheap room at the Hotel Sparta. He had checked the hotel list at the airport to find another hotel in the same street as the Hotel Tripolis, and he was well satisfied to find that he could observe the main entrance to the more expensive hotel from his window. He went out immediately and hired himself a car, a small green Renault saloon which he parked outside the hotel in readiness, and then he returned to his room and settled down to wait. He knew that Carla Valedri resided in the hotel on the opposite side of the street, and if he waited long enough then she must eventually pass either in or out. It was just a matter of patience.
He had a meal sent up while he waited, and as he ate he took a postcard-sized photograph from his pocket and studied it thoughtfully.
The picture had obviously been taken at a nightclub table and the central figure could certainly be classed as voluptuous. There was a man seated on either side of her but they were no more than part of the background; the woman dominated the whole table. She wore a black evening gown that ended just above the line of her nipples and even in the photograph her bearing was of shameless pride. Her mouth was full and smiling, her eyes were bold, and her hair was a falling sea of raven-black waves.
The photograph had arrived through the post at Larren’s flat in Rushlake Terrace a few hours before he had left for London Airport that morning. There had been no accompanying letter, but Larren knew instinctively that this was the last piece of assistance that Smith could give him. He had Carla Valedri’s photograph and now he was on his own.
As he studied the picture he suddenly realized that there were going to be some awkward complications if Carla Valedri didn’t speak English, for he spoke no Greek. He knew that normally Smith would never have selected a man with no knowledge of the language, but this was no normal job and there had been no question of selection. An agent with a killer streak and a preference for working completely alone was a rarity even in Smith’s organization, and there were even fewer men who could have accepted the unorthodox approach that the little man had used, or the grim terms that he had been forced to dictate. Smith’s last warning to forget their conversation had been a pointed warning that Larren was absolutely alone.
The hours passed slowly as Larren maintained his patient vigil. He rang down for a bottle of scotch and a soda syphon and drank sparingly as the dusk thickened into darkness and the night life of Athens gathered speed. Even here, away from the crowded centres of Omonia and Syntagma Squares the pulse of the city was beginning to beat.
Then at last the waiting ended. A sleek red sports car pulled up with a squeal of brakes outside the Hotel Tripolis, and Larren sat up slowly as his gaze rested on the raven-haired woman who was smiling and laughing beside the driver. It was Carla Valedri.
Her escort looked everything that the driver of a fast, open-topped sports car should be. He was young and handsome, his dark hair sleekly oiled and his teeth very white in his sun-bronzed face. He wore an open-necked white shirt and a slim gold chain hung about his throat. He was not one of the two men from the nightclub photograph.
Carla Valedri pushed open the door of the car and her lips moved in words that Larren couldn’t read. Then she turned and hurried into the hotel. The young Greek settled back in his seat and made no move to drive away.
Larren frowned. He might have expected competition with a bombshell like Carla, but the Greek in the sports car was going to prove a formidable rival. Then he realized abruptly that as the Greek was waiting for Carla then they were obviously going out again. And having made visual contact there was nothing more that he could do by sitting up at his window like a nosey neighbour.
The photograph was no longer needed now and he swiftly ripped it into small pieces and flushed them away in the bathroom. For a moment he wondered whether he ought to take a gun, or the razor-edged sheath knife that he favoured more, but he decided against both. They would prove too incriminating if they were noticed. Briskly he descended to the street.
The red sports car was still there as he climbed into his own Renault, and he hoped earnestly that Carla would not keep her boyfriend waiting for too long. He found a street map of Athens in the door pocket of the Renault and made a pretence at studying it until Carla reappeared some five minutes later.
Carla had changed into a low cut evening dress and had added a white wrap and gloves, and she was still laughing and smiling. The young Greek gave her a quick approving grin and held open the door of the sports car as she climbed in beside him. He started his engine and nosed the car slowly out into the traffic.
The red sports began to pull away and Larren quickly started his own Renault. He checked his mirror and then turned into the road to follow, and then he swore abruptly as another car a few yards ahead pulled out in front of him and forced him to brake sharply.
The car was a big American Chevrolet and Larren recalled that it had stopped beneath his window at almost the same moment that the red sports had stopped before the Hotel Tripolis. But the fact hadn’t registered properly then and it didn’t register now because he was concentrating on keeping the sports car in sight.
However, the Chevrolet lost no time in gathering speed, and although it was between him and his quarry Larren could still see the low red car ahead. He started to close up in order to overtake and then changed his mind. It was a mistake to follow a car by sitting right on its tail, and as the Chevrolet was maintaining the same speed it was best to let the American car remain between them.
It was not until the red sports had cut across two main traffic lanes with the Chevrolet still keeping its position that Larren realized that the second car was also trailing Carla Valedri.
The knowledge forced Larren to drop farther behind, letting the red car get out of sight but still keeping the Chevrolet in view. This was one complication that he hadn’t expected and it caused his unsmiling mouth to tighten grimly. The man in the American car was broad-shouldered, thick-necked and had sparse black hair, but that was all Larren could tell from the back view. He wondered who the man was — or who he represented.
The red sports car led both its pursuers down to the seafront and turned up the wide road towards Cape Sounion that Larren had travelled in the taxi on the way from the airport. The breeze blew in coolly from the dark sea as they passed the beach bars and restaurants with strings of coloured lights showing up the open-air tables. The driver of the sports began to demonstrate his car’s abilities and soon the airport flashed by on the left-hand side. Larren had the Renault flat out and found it difficult to keep the pace.
He swore softly as the tail lights of the Chevrolet slowly pulled away ahead of him. They were out of the suburbs now and there were open stretches of beach spacing the seafront villas on their right. After passing the airport the road had shrunk from a six to a four-laned highway, but it was still a dual carriageway and made no difference to the sports car’s speed.
Then suddenly Larren found that he was closing the gap with the Chevrolet and realized that the car in front was slowing up. He touched his brake pedal gently and eased off the accelerator in order to keep his distance, and then he saw why the Chevrolet had slowed.
The red sports had stopped and was turning up the drive to one of the seafront villas, and the sounds of music and laughter that came from the house made it plain that there was a party of some kind going on. The Chevrolet shot past at reduced speed and a moment or two later Larren’s Renault followed. Neither Carla or her driver bothered to look back.
The Chevrolet kept going for another three or four hundred yards and then that too began to stop. Without hesitation Larren pulled past it and continued to keep his foot down as he roared on into the night. Half a mile farther on the road curved enough for him to stop without any risk of being observed and he pulled the Renault off the road.
He waited just in case the man in the Chevrolet was trying to be smart and came after him, but after five minutes he climbed out of the Renault and gazed back up the road. There was still no sign of the big American car.
So the man in the Chevrolet must have settled down to watch the villa. Larren wondered what the hell was going on.
Finally he decided to ignore the complications and concentrate on what was now his main problem — how to gatecrash the party at the villa and charm Carla Valedri away from her present escort. He knew that every delay he made meant more victims for the red death, and now that he had located Carla and tracked her down this far he could not afford to waste the time already spent.
For over an hour he stood by his car or paced around it, wrestling with a dozen different ideas. He evolved plans, discarded them, searched for new ones and rejected them again. Finally he decided that he could think better while driving and climbed back into the Renault.
The road became a two lane switchback that curved and dipped along the magnificent stretch of coastline known as the Akti Apollon. Even by starlight the endless string of wide bays and tiny coves was beautiful, but Larren barely noticed. Then abruptly a pair of dazzling headlights swept round a bend towards him, the car behind them slithering drunkenly across the road.
Larren was blinded. He stood hard on the brake and fought the Renault to a screaming, slithering stop. Although he couldn’t see instinct told him that the car coming at him was in the middle of the road. He ran up the sandy verge out of its way and heard it shoot past him. Then the Renault was at a standstill and he opened his eyes. He was sweating hard.
He cursed the drunken driver who had missed him so narrowly and then broke off abruptly. He almost forgave the man who had nearly killed him as he realized that here was one idea for literally gatecrashing the party at the villa.
He thought no more about the incident as he reversed the Renault and raced back the way he had come. He stopped at the first bar he came to and purchased six bottles of wine and two of spirits and then drove on again.
He slowed down as he neared the villa and slipped his shoulders into the safety straps that were fitted to the car. He spotted the parked Chevrolet still waiting on the other side of the road and decided that he might as well make a good impression with all concerned. He allowed the Renault to wander over the road in the same manner as the car that had almost ran him into the sea.
The driver of the Chevrolet didn’t even look up. He had switched on his interior light and settled down for a long wait with a book.
Larren shrugged and aimed the bonnet of the Renault at the far side gatepost that flanked the drive of the villa where the red sports car had vanished.
At the last moment he swung his legs up on to the passenger seat beside him. Twisting his body in the straps he threw his left arm over the back of the seat and hung on with his face pressed against the upholstery as the car crashed.
The sound almost deafened him as the Renault’s bonnet shrieked and buckled. The force of the impact jerked fiercely at his shoulders but the safety straps held him as the car skidded round in a half circle and finished up by blocking the gateway. There was a brief moment of silence as the echoes of the collision died away and then there was an uproar of startled cries from the villa.
Larren unbuckled the straps and climbed out slowly to inspect the damage. He had buckled the front of his car far more than he had intended to, but at least it was nowhere near as bad as he had feared from that hideous shrieking sound. The concrete gatepost had been faced with yellow plaster and a lot of that had cracked and shaken off, but on the whole there was no real harm done.
He turned to face the small crowd that came running down the drive towards him. Shocked for a moment into sobriety their faces showed relief when they saw him standing unharmed beside the car. A barrage of questions flew at him in meaningless Greek.
He took a deliberately unsteady pace towards them and made his voice sound slightly slurred and shaken as he answered in English. “I — I’m terribly sorry. My car skidded and I ran into your gatepost.”
Another wave of words he couldn’t understand and then a short, barrel-chested man with excited hands pushed forward from the crowd. “You speak English?” he asked.
Larren nodded. “Yes, I am English. Look, I’m terribly sorry about this. You must let me pay for the damage.”
