"O'Donnell, Peter - Modesty Blaise 07 - silver mistress" - читать интересную книгу автора (O'Donnell Peter)
'Yes, sir.' Reilly's dark red head nodded. 'I carry on to Millau, book into the Moderne there, and wait two days for Mr Clayton to make contact. Further instructions from him. If he hasn't shown up after two days, I ring the office for orders. March code, variation six.'
'Good.' Tarrant leaned back in his seat. Reilly had been his driver for two years now, and was an efficient man, well able to deal with a routine courier job. It occurred to him that Reilly had been unusually silent during the long drive. Normally he would make a little small-talkЧnot too much, just an occasional five minutes of casual conversation in that soft Irish voice. Reilly could invariably tell when his master wanted to be quiet.
'Anything wrong?' Tarrant asked.
He saw Reilly give a little start. Then the man shook his head. 'No, sir. I'm fine. What makes you ask?'
'Oh, you seem rather quiet.'
'I thought you'd be having a lot to think of after the week in Brussels, sir. Didn't want to disturb you.'
Tarrant realized now that his own long silence, ever since Nevers, had probably given Reilly the impression that he wished to be left in peace. But he had not been thinking about Brussels, he had been thinking about his coming few days of holiday.
It was Willie Garvin who had suggested it two weeks ago, at Modesty's penthouse overlooking Hyde Park, when she had invited Tarrant to dinner and had remarked that he looked tired.
'Tell you what, Princess,' Willie had said in his gravelly voice as he refilled Tarrant's glass. 'You're spending a couple of weeks on the Tarn, so why not talk Sir G. into coming down for a few days? Do 'im good.'
Tarrant remembered the hopeful pleasure he had felt as she lifted an eyebrow and smiled at him.
She wore a long dress of dark blue silk that matched her eyes. Regrettably it covered her splendid shoulders, but it set off the long column of her throat admirably. Her black hair, piled in a chignon, was in what he always thought of as her grown-up style. When she wore it loose, either in bunches at her ears or tied back behind her neck, she looked far younger than her years. She said, 'It's a nice idea, Willie, but Sir Gerald's a VIP. He can't go running off for a long weekend with a woman of doubtful reputation.'
'Will you be alone?' said Tarrant. 'Willie's not going with you? Or ... anyone else?'
'Willie's going to be with his titled girlfriend on her farm in Bucks.'
'Lady Janet?'
'Yes. His faithful steady, and very nice to come home to. Much better than he deserves. What about it, Sir Gerald? I'll be staying at a little inn on the Tarn. Would you care to risk your reputation?'
'More to the point, what about your reputation with the patron?'
'Patronne. What will really shock Mme Martine is giving us separate rooms. She's very romantic.'
'She would surely take my advanced age into account?'
'A mature gentleman lover is an established tradition in France.'
Tarrant laughed. 'I'd better pretend to be your elderly uncle.'
'You really mean you'll join me? It won't be exciting. I just walk, and laze, and watch the river go by.'
Willie chuckled. 'Go careful, Sir G. When the Princess says "walk", she means she goes roaming out over the causse with nothing to eat or drink, no shoes, no blanket, like a perishing nomad. If you want to learn 'ow to stay alive finding berries and fungi, catching rabbits, milking a ewe, and eating things to make a hyena think twice, you'll 'ave a ball.' He looked at Modesty. 'You'd better not keep 'im out all night though, Princess. I don't think 'e'd fancy curling up in a gully with dead leaves for a blanket. Oh, and don't give 'im snake to eat, like you gave me that time in New Mexico, remember?'
'I remember the fuss you made. And it was a garter snake, much nicer than the worm snakes I've eaten in the Zagros when I was small.'
Tarrant stared from one to the other and said, 'I expect you're pulling my leg?'
Tarrant said doubtfully, 'I'm sixty-one, my dear. Such activities might stiffen my sinews in a less metaphorical fashion.'
'That's where Willie's pulling your leg. He knows I wouldn't go walk-about with you there. You could have a nice rest and we'd just do whatever you happen to feel like doing. There's good fishing to be had, so maybe you could teach me how to handle a rod?'
'It sounds like Paradise,' said Tarrant, and meant it. 'I'm more than grateful.'
Now he was within a quarter of an hour's drive from the Auberge du Tarn, looking forward to a bath, dinner with Modesty, and a leisurely cigar as they talked afterwards, perhaps by a window looking out over the river, with the cruel and devious world of his profession forgotten for a few blissful days.
It was extraordinarily kind of her, he thought, considering the sweat, toil and blood she had expended for him. Scars could be invisibly mended by surgery, but that did not cancel the reality of torn flesh and pain. He was responsible for at least two bad wounds her body had borne. How she could have any affection for a man who had put her at appalling risk on several occasions he could not fathom. But there was no doubt she was fond of him in some very real way. Perhaps he was a kind of father-figure to her, he thought. If so, he was well content with that, and had no inclination to ponder how intriguing it would now be if he were thirty years younger at this moment.
His thoughts were interrupted by a sudden slowing of the car, and he saw that they had entered a downhill bend where a Dormobile stood parked at the widest point, a jack standing by one wheel. There were two nuns, one studying an instruction manual, the other looking hopefully towards them.
Reilly brought the car to a halt ten paces away, switched off the engine and said without looking round, 'Shall I give them a hand, sir?'
'Yes, you'd better. They look rather lost.'
Reilly got out, then opened the rear door. 'Like to stretch your legs, Sir Gerald?'
'No, just carry on. I don't feel like making laboured French conversation with the good sisters if it can be avoided.'
'I thought you might fancy a breath of air, sir.'
Tarrant looked at the man curiously. His face was pale and there was a film of sweat on his brow.
'If I want to get out I'll make up my own mind, Reilly. Are you all right?'
Reilly's hand came into view. Absurdly, there was a revolver in it, pointed at Tarrant, a .38 Smith and Wesson Bodyguard with a two-inch barrel. Tarrant blinked once, then caught at the slackening muscles of his face to prevent his jaw sagging in a foolish gape.
'Get out,' Reilly said in a low voice.
Tarrant looked down the barrel which could drive a piece of lead into his body at a velocity of 855 feet per second. So Reilly had sold out to the opposition. Or to somebody. The opposition did not usually go in for killing or kidnapping Heads of Intelligence these days. The profession had become much more sophisticated since the almost open warfare of the Fifties.
Slowly he slid along the seat to the open door, and saw Reilly step back a pace, keeping the gun levelled. Tarrant was getting the first primitive reaction of shock and fear under control now, and said quietly, 'You know I'm carrying no documents, Reilly.'
'Just get out.'
Tarrant obeyed, wondering what he could do. 'I'm over sixty,' he thought. 'Reasonably fit, but the edge is long gone and I've no experience of this.' Ironic to remember that he had been responsible for the training of hundreds of men and women for this kind of situation. He had visited the big house in Surrey where they were sent for instruction, and watched them at work, but he had little idea how best to tackle Reilly.
He saw the two nuns moving forward. They were part of it, of course. Glancing along the road towards them he said, 'I take it the nuns are all part of the team? And the gendarme?'
Reilly's head twitched round, and in the same instant Tarrant took a pace forward and struck at the forearm with an outward sweeping motion, to carry the gun out of line. His body hit Reilly's chest to chest, and his knee came up hard for the groin. It almost worked;, but he was a fraction slow. Reilly had seen in a split-second glance that there was no gendarme, and had turned slightly so that the knee drove into his thigh. Then the gun looped over and hit Tarrant on the side of the head. It was only a glancing blow, but enough.
He staggered, sparks exploding before his eyes as his mind reeled, and would have fallen but for the car at his back. His limbs were rubber, and he half-turned, clutching at the car to prevent himself going down. The nuns were there in front of him now. Something jabbed hard against his back, and from behind him Reilly's voice said in a husky whisper, 'Keep still!'
Hands gripped his arm, and he felt the sleeve of his jacket being pushed back. He tried to wrench his arm away, but the hands holding it were very strong. For a moment his vision cleared, and he saw the face of the taller nun. She locked his wrist under her arm-pit and said, 'The needle, Angel.' The face of the other nun swam into Tarrant's view, a young and pretty face, marred by the eyes. They were muddy brown, and the eyes of an evil child.
There came a sharp prick, followed by the small but longer pain as the injection coursed into him. Then nothing.
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