"O'Donnell, Peter - Modesty Blaise 12 - Dead man's handle" - читать интересную книгу автора (O'Donnell Peter)

It was still dusk, with the sun not yet risen, when Papadakis came off the ferry and made his way to the car park. As he unlocked the door of his car a woman's voice behind him breathed, "Please, Mr. Papadakis, please, I must speak to you."
He turned, and for a moment or two did not recognise her, for she was dressed in trousers and a sweater, her hair tucked in a beret. Astonished, Papadakis said, "But you're . . . Sibyl Pray! How did you get here?"
She stared at him with eyes that seemed almost luminous; with fear, he thought. "I will explain, Mr. Papadakis," she whispered urgently, "but please may we get in the car? I must not be seen. I have something shocking to tell you."
"Really? I don't think you can surprise me with your revelations, Miss Pray, but I shall be intrigued to hear them." He jerked his head. "All right, get in."
One or two cars were being driven off by other ferry passengers as he seated himself at the wheel, put his case with camera and film in the back, and leaned across to open the nearside door. She climbed in quickly, closing the door after her. "I already know what the Hostel of Righteousness isn't," he said, taking out his cigarettes, "but I'm not sure what it is Ч"
He was dipping his head to light the cigarette when she hit him a carefully calculated blow with the edge of her hand to the base of the skull, a paralysing blow that left him barely conscious. As he sagged, she pulled him towards her so that his head was on her lap, pinched his nose firmly, and sealed his mouth with a handkerchief folded in her other hand. If he could have seen her eyes now he would have found them yet more luminous, and would have known that this was not from fear.
After perhaps thirty seconds there was a feeble attempt at movement, but she stilled it easily and sat holding him as before, gazing through the windscreen at the wall fifteen paces away, noting that the ground sloped down towards it, and deciding that this would suit her purpose very well. Five minutes later, when she was sure he was dead, she got out and went round to the offside to release the bonnet catch. The car park was silent now, with the handful of ferry passengers gone. She propped the bonnet open, lifted Papadakis from the car, carried him to the front, and draped him face down over the radiator, his head and shoulders over the engine. Using a torch, she unclipped the distributor cap, removed the rotor arm, and put this in Papadakis's pocket. Nearby was a holdall she had hidden under a van after following Papadakis when he left the dock. From quite a variety of contents she took a bottle of ouzo and a short lead cosh. Moving back to Papadakis's car, she opened his case of photographic equipment, removed a notebook, poured the ouzo in, made sure the cassettes of ruined film were thoroughly submerged, then smashed the bottle with the cosh and let the fragments fall into the sticky mess. She closed the case, dropped it to the ground in front of the offside wheel, and stood considering the situation.
The dead man's feet were trailing on the ground, and after judging what effect this might have she lifted each in turn to prop it on the front bumper, so that he was sprawled in a frog-like position. Satisfied, she checked that the gear lever was in neutral and took off the handbrake. As the wheels began to turn, she ran to the back and heaved with all the strength of her powerful and highly trained body to give the car speed down the slight slope. A wheel bumped over the case holding the films, and the car was probably travelling at no more than four or five miles an hour when it reached the wall, but its ton weight at that speed proved more than sufficient to crush a human body.
She stood back and studied the scene, not breathing hard from her efforts. It was what Dr. Thaddeus Pilgrim would call a delightful scenario, she decided. Papadakis had removed the rotor arm from the distributor to ensure that his car would not be stolen while he was away on Kalivari, but on his return he must inadvertently have taken off the handbrake, perhaps while operating the interior bonnet-release catch. Then, as he was about to replace the rotor arm, the car had run forward, carrying him with it and crushing him against the wall. It was most unlikely that anyone would question the cause of his death. Even more unlikely that anyone would imagine that his films of disciples of the Hostel of Righteousness at their selfless work had been destroyed other than by accident.
Sibyl Pray picked up her holdall and walked to the car park entrance. There was nobody about. She stripped off the surgical gloves she wore, put them in the bag with Papadakis's notebook, took out a small radio transceiver and pulled out the aerial. She pressed the call button, and a moment later the voice of Kazim sounded from the earpiece, thin and metallic. "What is the situation?" He was speaking from a doorway near the newspaper office in Athens, five miles away.
She said softly into the handset, "The matter is concluded. I will wait for you by the launch."
Kazim said, "I am unhappy to hear this. You know why." There was reproach in the tinny voice. Sibyl Pray smiled. Yes, she knew why. Kazim had very much wanted to kill Papadakis himself, because Papadakis was Greek, and Kazim was Turkish, two hereditary and virulent enemies.
She pressed the switch to transmit, and said, "I will make it up to you. I will make you forget your disappointment completely." Her voice shook as she was swept by a wave of lust. "As soon as we are on the launch. I will be marvellous for you . . ." she glanced across the car park to the car pinning the dead man against the wall, ". . . after this."

Chapter 4
Willie Garvin got up from the bench and poured a scoop of water over the sauna bricks. A cloud of steam engulfed him as he turned away and sat down again beside Modesty Blaise, absently massaging his ribs where she had caught him with a foot-strike towards the end of their work-out in the combat room. This was part of the long, sound-proof and windowless building that stood near the river in the grounds of Willie's pub, The Treadmill.
They had devoted the whole afternoon to a training session, to target practice with handgun and knife, to quarterstaff combat, to techniques for sharpening reaction, and finally to a jam session of unarmed combat using a variety of disciplines from the martial arts. For the last ten minutes they had been in the sauna. Modesty wore a shower cap and was dabbing with a towel at the sweat trickling down between her breasts. As Willie took his seat beside her again she said, "It's a pity you found nothing in that gunman's wallet to identify him or give us some sort of lead. Do you think it's remotely possible they were after Molly Chen rather than you?"
He mopped his face and said doubtfully, "I wondered about that, but Molly couldn't think of any reason."
"Her grandfather was in the rackets, but that wouldn't put Molly on the spot unless she knew something or had offended a Triad. What about her late husband?"
"She won't say much about 'im, but I get the impression he wasn't a lot of good. A bit of a loser, and treated Molly pretty rough. He could've been in the rackets, but I doubt if he was important enough for anyone to put out a contract on 'is wife months after he was dead."
"You whisked her out of Hong Kong. Perhaps they took a long time finding her."
"Could be, but he still doesn't seem important enough, not from what Molly says." He looked at her curiously. "Is your instinct running, Princess?"
She half smiled and wiped a drip of sweat from the tip of her nose. "I don't think so, Willie love. I'm just wondering aloud." Suddenly the smile was full and sparkling, and her eyes danced with pleasure in the way that uplifted him, making him feel that this was the smile he would gladly cross the whole world to see. She said, "I told Danny and the others the bit about you using Molly's bikini bottom for a sling. Danny loved it. So did I. Our poor Dinah worries too much about us to enjoy the moments of light relief, I'm afraid, and I suppose Steve's the same, but he hides behind caustic comment. Said that in his view the Garvin boy's action showed lack of savoir faire. To put down a contract killer with a pre-warmed slingshot was over-courteous to the point of being ingratiating."
Willie chuckled. "I'll tell Molly. She'll like it. By the way, she's leaving the circus when they finish at Clapham Common next Saturday."
Modesty looked surprised. "I thought she loved it."
"Oh, she does. She'll be going back when they come out of winter quarters next year, but I managed to get 'er into the Barton Circus School in Surrey. She starts there the week after next, so I've fixed 'er up with a little apartment at Chobham. She's over the moon about it."
Modesty punched his shoulder gently. "You're pretty fond of Molly, aren't you?"
He grinned and ran fingers through his wet hair. "Yes, I like 'er, Princess, but I'm not into a heavy romance or anything like that. It's just I'm glad to do something for Molly because . . . well, she was there with the Seahound to pick me up with old Wei Lu all those years ago. I'll always owe 'er for that."
Modesty thought, "So will I," but did not speak. She and Willie were not given to nostalgic reminiscence of times gone by, or to reflecting on the changes wrought in them and between them over the passing years. She was profoundly aware that she was the touchstone of his life and likely always to remain so. She was equally aware of all that he meant to her and of the immeasurable contribution he had made to her own life. Long ago he had come to her as a grateful hireling. Now, by degrees, there had grown up between them an effortless intimacy deeper than that of lovers. But neither she nor he dwelt on such things; they were no more to be thought about and analysed than breathing or the heartbeat.
For a few minutes they sat in easy silence. Willie Garvin, mightily content, was pondering the merits and demerits of a small secondhand car he was considering buying for Molly when she left her caravan for the flat at Chobham. Modesty was trying to recall something she had meant to say a few minutes before, when they were talking about . . .
It came to her, and she said, "Willie, the morning after you rang from Malta to tell me what happened, Dinah had one of her weird flashes. She didn't know what it was about or what it was connected with, but Steve told me later that when he tried to probe for an image she came up with an impression of a man's head with a halo round it like a saint. But not saintly. Pretty frightening, Dinah said. She had the feeling of someone dead inside. A zombie. Does that strike any chord with you?"
He shook his head slowly, anxiety touching his eyes. "No . . . does Steve think it's linked with Dinah?"
"That was my first question, but it's all right. Steve says she never gets psychic impressions involving herself. If it was valid, the link could be with Danny or with me, because we were there, or with you because we were talking of you."
Willie relaxed. "I'd just been in a bit of danger. Maybe Dinah picked up a distortion on that."
"Could be. Outside the divining and locating, that's a pretty wild talent of hers." She stood up and wrapped the towel round her waist. "I must get back to the penthouse. Are you ready for a shower?"
"Sure."
Later, as they stood under needles of icy water in the two shower cubicles, he said, "Is Danny Chavasse still with you, Princess?"
"Yes, I think he's going to spend the rest of his vacation with me. He's out with Weng this afternoon, at that club where Weng makes a fortune playing bridge. Danny plays to a good standard, but I think the wily Weng fancies there's an excellent chance Danny will distract a particular woman opponent Weng's been gunning for. I've told him Danny's magic doesn't work like that, but he just smiled inscrutably."
Willie chuckled. Weng was Modesty's houseboy and chauffeur, and it was Willie's opinion that he could easily have been a captain of industry, but he much preferred to be employed by Modesty Blaise. When they had dressed, and Modesty stood fixing her hair in front of a mirror, she said, "Will you do me a favour, Willie?"
She saw his pained look reflected in the glass, and smiled. "Well, if it's convenient, will you come to dinner on Friday and stay through Saturday? Dinah and Steve will be joining us."
"That's a favour?"
"I haven't got to the sting yet. Georgi Gogol is at Clapham Common with the circus, which is very handy. Steve was at a business meeting when I took Dinah to the circus at Guildford, so he's never seen you do your knife-throwing act as El Cazador and he says it's his overwhelming ambition." She pulled a wry face in the glass. "What he actually said was that though he has unfortunately had occasion to observe your expertise with trenchant weapons, which is why he could easily pass for a geriatric, he has never yet had the pleasure of seeing you throw to miss a human target." She turned to face Willie. "Could you slip your act in on Saturday so we can all come and watch?"
He laughed and took her arm as they walked from the dressing room down through the long combat room to the double doors at the end with security locks. "I'd planned to do the El Cazador bit on Saturday anyway," he said. "It's Molly Chen's last chance to make an appearance as a living target until next season, and she doesn't want to miss it."
They walked along a brick path and through a back door that led into Willie's kitchen. Beyond lay a private sitting room and then the saloon bar of the pub. It had opened half an hour before, and there were already plenty of customers, some at the bar, some playing darts, one or two at the small oak tables or in the inglenook seats. Modesty acknowledged greetings from Hazel and Mr. Spurling behind the bar, and Willie held the door for her as they went out to the car park. Her Mercedes Coupщ stood in a space marked "Reserved" which was for her alone.
As Willie took her keys to unlock the door for her, he rubbed an ear with his palm, frowning a little. She looked about her and said quietly, "Trouble, Willie?"
It was a matter of intense interest to Steve Collier that Willie's ears would sometimes prickle when there was danger about. It was equally a matter of regret to Collier that this phenomenon was not subject to controlled experiment, but he fully believed in the fact of it since he had been with Willie on one memorable occasion when this curious forewarning had proved astonishingly accurate.
It was Collier's belief that all humans were, if not psychic to some degree, then at least hypersensitive within certain individual limits, though often a lifetime could be lived without a person becoming aware of the faculty. Dinah was exceptional. Lucifer, the poor deranged young man who believed himself to be Satan, was also exceptional within the narrow limits of being able to foretell the imminent death of an individual, if provided with a suitable object to use for psychometric contact. It was Lucifer who, by sensing the Breguet watch belonging to Danny Chavasse when Danny was in the Limbo slave camp, had declared him to be alive somewhere in the world Ч or rather, as the Prince of Darkness saw it, declared that this was a subject of his who had not yet been transferred by death from the upper levels of Hell to the lower. Few had such exceptional powers as these, but Collier held that Willie's prickling ears were also a minor psychic phenomenon, as was Modesty's extraordinary faculty for anticipation in combat.
In the car park Willie opened the door and handed Modesty the keys. "I just got a bit of a tingle as we came through the bar," he said apologetically. "It's gone now. Must've been a false alarm."
She stood looking at him for a few seconds, holding the hand from which she had taken the keys. "It's never been a false alarm before, Willie."
"No." He frowned. "I'd better check the car."