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

"Okay, raincheck." She cocked her head, listening. "I hear the sound of feet on that gravel path. Two pairs of feet. They must have been out for an early morning run."
Collier sighed and got out of bed. "I don't know how a nice girl like her can do things like that," he said.
In the big kitchen Modesty Blaise closed the back door, glanced at the clock, and said, "It's getting late, and the Colliers will be using the guest bathroom. You'd better join me for a quick shower, Danny."
He smiled. "There must be worse ways to start the day."
Twenty minutes later, when he had shaved, he came down to find her slicing bread, with eggs and bacon set out in readiness on the work surface beside the cooker. She wore a shirt, a pleated skirt, and sandals. Her legs were bare, her hair tied loosely back, and she wore no scrap of make-up. She gave him a smile and he began to set the table, watching her as she worked, remembering.
When she had recruited him in the early days of The Network he had been a little afraid of her. Most of her people were. It had never once occurred to him to attempt to use upon her the gift that was his, of making women want him. Two or three years later, when she had sent him on a routine mission to seduce a woman for information she required, there had come the moment of shock when he found, in the hotel on Lanzarote, that the name she had given him was false, and that the subject of his mission was herself.
In the days that followed he learned that two rapes in childhood had left her emotionally crippled. Behind the faчade presented to the world of a feared and efficient creator of The Network, she was sexually afraid of men. His task was to make her whole, and in this he had succeeded, gently, patiently, with the genuine sympathy and affection he was able to command within himself, which was perhaps the core of his success with women.
It had been his last mission for her, and he knew it at the time, knew that she could not have him return to The Network once she had been his mistress. The parting had been affectionate and she had made generous provision for him. More than that, much more in Danny's opinion, she had become his friend. With a shiver he remembered Limbo, the bizarre plantation in the Guatemalan jungle where some of the wealthiest men and women in the world had been brought as captives and made to work as slaves. His own slavery had been a chance affair, but he had endured three years in Limbo before a freak of fate roused Modesty Blaise's suspicions. He remembered her coming, with Willie Garvin, and the fearful battle of the last day in Limbo.
Watching her now, relaxed and serene, he was immensely glad that he had contributed something to the making of her as she was today. Not everything, by any means. He had watched her create Willie Garvin as he was today, but that had not been a one-way affair, for Willie had given much in return. Danny Chavasse remembered that the first time he had seen her almost smile had been the day Willie came to her in Tangier after his extraordinary feat of bringing Wei Lu out of Red China. Later he had seen her truly smile, and even laugh. This was Willie Garvin's gift to her, and over the years it had put tiny crow's feet at the corners of her eyes which, strangely, seemed to make her look younger.
The Limbo affair had come long after she had wound up The Network and retired; and following his rescue with the other slaves, Danny Chavasse had been an occasional visitor, either to her London penthouse or to the Wiltshire cottage where he had joined her three days ago. She had never regarded her debt to him for healing her female psyche as having been repaid, and he knew that he was always welcome to her home. By profession he was now a cruise director, a job for which he was ideally suited, and at the moment he was on a six week vacation.
With the table set, he sat down and said, "Are you worrying a little bit about Willie?"
She cut rind from a rasher and said thoughtfully, "Perhaps a tiny bit. We just can't afford to worry too much about each other. If we did we'd be old and grey by now."
"When he rang last night from Malta did he have any idea who was behind the attempt to kill him?"
"None at all, Danny. He gave me the whole story in a mixture of free cryptic and Arabic, but I had no ideas to offer. I don't think he expected me to. He phoned because if somebody's after him, they may be after me, too, and he wanted to warn me. Also, he knows Dinah's here, and we're both practically paranoid about her getting mixed up in any sort of trouble."
Danny said, "Yes. Steve told me how you've pulled her out of one or two real horror stories, but they didn't happen because of you, did they?"
"No, but they happened. How many eggs, Danny?"
"May I have two, please?" He pondered for a moment, then said, "What will you do? Explain to Dinah and ask Steve to take her home today?"
She broke eggs into the pan, then gave him a wry smile. "I know it sounds ridiculous, with Dinah being blind and weighing in at maybe eight stone, but she's sort of ... protective towards me. If she thought trouble was brewing she'd stay around so she could sit up all night listening."
Danny nodded. It had not required his particular sensitivity to the female of the species to realise that the blind girl with the gentle face and beautiful hair had a deep affection for Modesty Blaise. Not many women would like Modesty, he acknowledged candidly to himself. Perhaps that was at least partly why Dinah's affection was so clearly reciprocated.
"What will you do?" Danny repeated.
The toaster ejected four slices. She put them in a toast rack and fed in four more. "Just keep my eyes open," she said. "You might do the same."
"Sure." He made an apologetic gesture. "But I was never a combat man."
"I don't want you to beЧ"
She broke off as there came the sound of footsteps from the hall, and Stephen Collier's voice saying, "My darling, I would love to go running before breakfast, but I have this old war wound."
Dinah came in saying, "War wound? You were never in any war."
"At The Treadmill last year. My knee Ч"
"That? You tried to play a war game with Willie Garvin, you knelt on a lead soldier, and you promptly surrendered." She looked towards the cooker. "Hallo, honey." Then at the table. "Hi, Danny."
As salutations were exchanged, Collier clasped Modesty round the waist from behind and peered over her shoulder at the pan. "Who's that for?"
"Danny."
"What about mine, eh?"
"After I've done Danny's and then Dinah's."
Collier sighed and mooched to the table. "Why does everybody hate me? It's enough to give a chap a persecution complex."
Danny held a chair for Dinah to be seated and said, "Dinah, how did you know I was here when you came in, and where I was sitting?"
When she hesitated, Collier chuckled and said, "She smells you, laddie. No, I'm not being my usual offensive self. What does Danny smell like, sweetheart?"
"Sort of like . . . well, the way that Chopin Prщlude sounds. I forget which one."
"She confuses the senses," Collier explained, taking a chair and reaching for the coffee pot. "Modesty smells like brandy tastes, and Willie like a muted trumpet sounds. Mind you," he slid a cup of coffee in front of his wife and guided her hand to it, "she doesn't always confuse the senses. An occasional exception is made."
Modesty gave a snuffle of laughter. Collier said, "Yes, I thought that would get a guffaw from our beloved hostess and renowned hooligan. Before our marriage Dinah indicated that I smell the way suede feels, an acceptable simile I think. However, she has now revised this, and asserts that I, her lord, smell like rice pudding."
Danny choked on a laugh, and said, "I'm sorry."
Dinah said, "I only asserted it once, lord, and anyway you know I love rice pudding. I really do."
"Be that as it may, I prefer to smell like the sound of temple bells, or the taste of caviar. My God, is that splendid dish really for Danny? Ah, well. While I'm waiting and starving, tell us what young Garvin is up to in Malta."
"He took a friend there for a little holiday," said Modesty.
"A girlfriend?"
"What else, dopey?" said Dinah. "Is she nice, Modesty?" Without waiting for a reply she turned her head, the sightless eyes gazing a little to one side of Danny. "I adore Willie, so I take an interest in his girls."
"Brazen hussy," remarked her husband.
Modesty said, "Yes, she's a nice girl. Her name's Molly Chen, and she comes from Hong Kong."
Danny looked surprised and said, "Not the Molly Chen who ... ?"
"The same. Two eggs, Dinah?"
"Please, honey."
Collier said firmly, "Let's not digress, because I scent a story here. Right, Danny?"
"Well, yes. But it's up to Modesty whether or not she tells it."