The Night Manager полностью

"The old Adam's apple, eh? You're quite a brawler, aren't you? Nice to think Ireland's been some use to somebody. Sure it wasn't your knife, old love? You do seem quite partial to a knife, from all one hears."

"It was his knife. I told you."

"Who did Harlow flog the dope to ― any idea?"

"None. Zero. I was just the sailor. Look, go away. Go and persecute someone else."

"The mule. Mule is the term we use. Mule."

But Jonathan kept up his attack. "That's who you are, then, is it? You and Roper? Drug-runners? That's perfect. Home from bloody home."

He dropped back on the pillows, waiting for Corkoran's response.

It came with a vigour that found him unprepared. For, with remarkable agility, Corkoran had sprung to his bedside and helped himself to a substantial handful of Jonathan's hair, which he was now pulling very hard indeed.

"Sweetheart," he murmured reproachfully. "Old love. Little boys in your position do well to watch their fucking language, actually. We are the Ironbrand Gas, Light & Coke Company of Nassau, Bananas, short-listed for the Nobel Prize for Respectability. The question is, who the fuck are you?"

The hand relinquished Jonathan's hair. He lay still, his heart thumping. "Harlow said it was a repossession job," he said huskily. "Somebody he'd sold a boat to in Australia who'd welshed on the debt. Jumbo had traced the boat to the Channel Islands through some friends, he said. If I could bring it to Plymouth we could flog it and get ourselves off the hook. It didn't seem such a tall story at the time. I was a fool to trust him."

"So what did we do with the body, old love?" Corkoran enquired chummily, back in his chair. "Dump it down the proverbial tin mine? The great tradition?"

Change the rhythm. Let him wait. The voice grey with despair.

"Why don't you just call the police, extradite me, claim the reward?" Jonathan suggested.

Corkoran removed his makeshift ashtray from his lap and replaced it with a buff, army-style folder, which seemed to contain nothing but faxes.

"And Brother Meister?" he enquired. "How did he offend?"

"He robbed me."

"Oh, you poor lamb! One of life's true victims.... But how?"

"Everyone else on the staff got a piece of the service money. There was a scale, so much for rank and how long you'd been employed. It came to quite a lot each month, even for a newcomer. Meister told me he wasn't obliged to pay it to foreigners. Then I found out he was paying the other foreigners, just not me."

"So you helped yourself from the safe. Well, he was jolly lucky you didn't top him too. Or unzip his whatnot with your penknife."

"I did overtime for him. Day work. I did the fine-wine inventory on my day off. Nothing. Not even when I took guests sailing on the lake. He charged them a fortune and didn't pay me a cent."

"We left Cairo in a bit of a hurry too, one notices. Nobody quite seems to know why. No hint of foul play, mind. Not a stain on our escutcheon, according to Queen Nefertiti. Or perhaps she just never rumbled us."

Jonathan had that fiction ready. He had worked it out with Burr. "I got mixed up with a girl. She was married."

"She have a name?"

Fight your corner, Burr had said. "Not for you. No."

"Fifi? Lulu? Mrs. Tutankhamen? No? Well, she can always use one of yours, can't she?" Corkoran was leafing lazily through his faxes. "What about the good doctor? Did he have a name?"

"Marti."

"Not that doctor, silly."

"Then who? What doctor? What is this, Corkoran? Am I on trial for saving Daniel? Where's this leading?"

This time Corkoran waited patiently for the storm to pass.

"The doctor who stitched up our hand at Truro Casualty," he explained.

"I don't know what he was called. He was an intern."

"A white intern?"

"Brown. Indian or Pakistani."

"And how did we get ourselves there? To the hospital? With our poor bleeding wrist?"

"I wrapped it in a couple of dishcloths and drove Harlow's jeep."

"Left-handed?"

"Yes."

"The same car we used to remove the body to other premises, no doubt? The law did find traces of our blood in the car. But it seems to have been a bit of a cocktail. There was some of Jumbo's too."

Waiting for an answer, Corkoran was busily writing himself little notes.

"Just get me a lift to Nassau," Jonathan said. "I've done you no harm. I'm not asking for anything. You'd never have known about me if I hadn't been such a fool at Low's. I don't need anything from you, I'm not applying for anything, I don't want money, I don't want thanks, I don't want your approval. Let me go ― "

Corkoran ruminatively worked his cigarette while he turned the pages on his lap. "What say we do Ireland for a change?" he proposed, as if Ireland were a party game for a wet afternoon. "Two old soldiers having a chin-wag about better times. What could be jollier than that?"