The white head was inclined courteously as the man took Willie's hand. "How do you do? My name is Mountjoy, and this is my spiritual confrere, the Reverend Simon Bird."

"A pleasure," said Willie, and shook hands with the man 'Grace had identified.

Bird's cherubic face was innocent and welcoming. "You do important work, Mr Pennyquick. Are you a student of the psalms?"

Willie smiled deprecatingly. "Only in a very amateurish fashion, I a.s.sure you." He did not feel it would be fruitful to admit that he knew them by heart as a result of spending six months in a Calcutta gaol in his younger days with only a psalter to read. "You're interested in the Prison Abolition Society, Mr Mountjoy?"

Mountjoy pondered the question. Then, "Obliquely, Mr Pennyquick, obliquely. The first necessity is of course to eliminate crime, thereby obviating the need for prisons. I take it your own efforts are to that intent?"

With long practice in front of a mirror Willie had found that by pulling his chin in, folding his lower lip under his upper lip, curving his mouth in a smile, and causing his head to wobble slightly as he spoke, he could create an appearance of great stupidity. He had been building this effect since first speaking to Mountjoy and Bird, and had given it full rein while Mountjoy was speaking. Now he said, "We youth club leaders are in the front line of that battle, Mr Mountjoy."

Bluey Peters appeared in the doorway, one hand holding a lapel of his jacket, thumb pointing up. Willie looked at his watch and registered surprise. "Good heavens. I had no idea. The time, I mean." He pointed to his watch as if to clarify the matter. "Do excuse me. I promised young Kevin I'd go with him to see his probation officer..." He allowed his words to fade into incoherence, and hurried away.

Mountjoy and Bird watched him go with wellconcealed contempt. Smiling about him, Bird said in a low voice, "Twenty years ago I had a probation officer who was almost as dumb as that d.i.c.khead."

Mountjoy said softly, "Don't knock it, Simon. We like dumb people. I'm only sorry the Brits and the Norwegians aren't quite dumb enough to pay up for Hallenberg."

"There's still time," said Bird, "and you never know. They might crack in the last few hours. But I don't think we'll get anything out of this evening's jaunt. n.o.body's going to believe in a militant wing of the Prison Abolition Society going in for kidnap and murder."

"I'm aware of that, Simon. But it's at gatherings like this that one meets all kinds of singleissue weirdos who might provide ideas for future use. That Greek woman who b.u.t.tonholed us is a case in point."

"Jesus, she wanted a Ladies Only Olympics! We can't use that."

"I wouldn't rule it out entirely. But in fact it made me think about the Greek-Albanian situation. There might be something for us in that."

"We've got another chat coming up," Bird murmured, watching the darkhaired girl approach. "Nice piece, too. She'd certainly give me a few ideas if I weren't a man of the cloth."

Lucy Fuller-Jones said, "Oh, do excuse me, but did you see where Mr Garvin went? He was with you a few moments ago, and then somebody spoke to me, and when I looked again he'd gone."

Mountjoy said slowly, "Mr Garvin?"

"That's right. The gentleman you were talking with just now. He told me his name was Willie Garvin."

Bird was staring at her fixedly. Mountjoy said, "Ah, yes. The gentleman who was with us just now. We must have failed to hear correctly when he introduced himself He spread his hands in a gesture of regret. "I'm afraid he's left, my dear. We had exchanged only a few words when he remembered he had an urgent appointment."

Lucy looked crestfallen. "Oh, what a pity. He's such a nice man. Well, thank you." She gave them a smile and moved away. Mountjoy and Bird looked at each other with no outward sign of agitation. Bird said in a whisper, "Garvin, by Christ! You know what that means?"

Mountjoy nodded and said without emotion, "Yes. It means Modesty Blaise is in the game. The authorities are playing their aces, and we must take immediate steps to trump them."

Together, inclining heads benevolently to any who caught their eye in pa.s.sing, they made their way through the chattering throng to the door.

The rather elderly Rover moved at a rather elderly pace along the Cromwell Road. Eighty yards behind, with one car between, Modesty sat at the wheel of a Mercedes. Beside her Willie said, "Well, we shouldn't lose 'em, unless we get 'ad up for loitering."

She said, "I hope they're not going far. It's more difficult to make this sort of tail look natural than one at normal speed. Still, we didn't have to hang around for them till that c.o.c.ktail do ended. They almost followed you out." After a few moments she said, "Was that just coincidence?"

"I don't see it could've been anything else, Princess."

"I suppose not. Still..." She let the nebulous thought fade unspoken, for the Rover had turned left down Earls Court Road. Five minutes later it drew up opposite a small and seedy hotel where no lights showed except for a dim lamp over the entrance. Mountjoy and Bird got out, crossed the road and went in by the front door.

In the Mercedes, halted well back from the hotel, Modesty said, "It looks deserted."

Willie unfastened his seatbelt. "We just pa.s.sed a pub. I'll go and ask about it."

The hotel lobby was bare of furniture except for one shabby chair in which a man with thin sandy hair sat reading a tabloid newspaper and smoking. The remains of a takeaway meal lay on the counter. As Mountjoy and Bird entered, the man got hastily to his feet, stubbed out his cigarette in some tomato ketchup decorating a cardboard plate, and showed signs of ingratiating unease.

Mountjoy ignored him and moved to the counter. Picking up the phone there, he dialled a number. Bird stared at the caretaker without expression. After a few seconds Mountjoy said, "Tabby? Good. Now listen. I want four men at the contact point within twenty minutes." A brief pause. "No, don't tell me you'll try to fix it, Tabby. Not me. There'll be some merchandise to pick up for delivery as before. Two units of merchandise, and they'll need cautious handling, you understand? Good. Just don't make any mistakes, Tabby. Any at all."

He put the phone down and looked at the caretaker. "We shall leave at once by the back way, Charles. In a few minutes you'll almost certainly be having visitors. Now listen carefully while I tell you what to do. It's much the same as before."

A stone's throw from the entrance, Willie returned from the pub and spoke to Modesty through the open window of the Mercedes. "The 'otel's closed, Princess. Went bust. Empty now except for a caretaker to keep squatters away."

They both gazed along the road towards the dimly lit entrance, calculating possibilities. After a few seconds Modesty said, "I wouldn't think they'd keep Hallenberg there."

Willie nodded agreement. "Maybe they're on to us. Went in the front, out the back and took a cab."

She considered. "Hard to see how they could be on to us." For half a minute neither spoke, then she looked at her watch and opened the car door. "It's been ten minutes now. We're not going to find out anything like this. Let's go and take a look."

Charles the caretaker was reading his newspaper again when they came into the lobby. He glanced up briefly and said, "We're closed."

Willie moved towards him. Modesty stood in the middle of the lobby, looking about her. There was a lift with stairs running up beside it, a closed door opposite the lift, a partly open door to the left of the reception counter, a corridor leading off to the right.

Willie said to the caretaker, "I want a word with the two gents who came in a few minutes ago."

Charles returned to reading his newspaper. "What gents?" he said without interest.

Willie took a twentypound note from his wallet. "Clerical gents. Vicars. Remember?"

Charles looked at the note. "Who wants 'em?"

"Me and my auntie. We're in their confirmation cla.s.s."

Charles reached out a grubby hand to grasp the note, but Willie didn't release it. "They've gone," said Charles impatiently. "Went down the 'ole."

"What 'ole?"

"The 'ole! What used to lead down to the subway. It was for airraids in the war."

Willie glanced at Modesty, then released the note. "Show me."

Charles scowled and got reluctantly to his feet. "Along 'ere," he said, moving into the corridor. "Down through the storeroom."

Less than a minute later he opened a door and put on the light in a large, windowless room. Empty steel shelving was fixed along two walls. The only furniture was a single ladderback chair with a hole in its cane seating. The floor was littered with rubbishbundles of newspapers, a galvanised iron bucket with a large dent in one side, a broken broom, and a cl.u.s.ter of small oddments and trash. Nothing was new except four large crates stacked in one corner. In the opposite corner lay a square of dirty threadbare carpet.

Willie stood by the door, watching the way they had come. Modesty was in the room, her eyes on the caretaker as he pulled the piece of carpet aside to reveal a large trapdoor secured by two coachbolts. He drew the bolts and lifted the trap, resting it back against the wall.

"There," he said with the air of a man who had performed far beyond the demands of duty. "You go down the 'ole, across the cellar, then through the pa.s.sage, and you come out in a branch of the subway. Never used now, but there's only a rope across it." Modesty took a small torch from her handbag and flashed it down into the darkness. A lightweight metal ladder rested against the thick beam at the foreedge of the trap. She turned and began to go down, shining the beam about the empty square cellar below. Charles sighed resignedly and lit a cigarette.

The cellar was about twelve feet along each side, and ten or eleven in height. In one of the walls was an arched doorway. Modesty moved towards it and shone the torch along a pa.s.sage that ended in a rightangle turn. She called softly, "All right, Willie."

In the storeroom above, Willie moved to the open trap. Charles shrugged and slouched towards the door. "I can't 'ang around all night," he said plaintively. "If you come back this way you shut it yourself."

Willie paused at the top of the ladder. "The rate you've been earning since we got 'ere works out at about two thousand quid a day," he pointed out.

Charles sniffed. "It's all relative," he said surprisingly, and went out.

The walls of the pa.s.sage leading off the cellar were rendered with concrete. With Modesty leading, they moved slowly forward. Twice in the twentyyard length she halted to listen. The only sound was that of their own breathing. When they came to the rightangle turn she moved swiftly across the width of the pa.s.sage, shining the light on the inside corner while Willie stepped quickly into the centre of the new pa.s.sage with his back to the wall.

n.o.body was lying in wait. Modesty said, "We'd better follow this through anyway." She turned the beam along the pa.s.sage and heard Willie mutter an oath. Twelve feet from where they stood, the light shone on a solid wall. The pa.s.sage had been bricked up.

Willie was racing back the way they had come, and she was on his heels. A second before they reached the cellar there came the crash of the trap falling shut and the lesser sound of bolts sc.r.a.ping home. The ladder was gone.

Modesty exhaled and said quietly, "I wasn't too clever, calling you down."

Willie shrugged, gazing up at the trap. "He 'ad me fooled, Princess. Worth an Oscar, that was."

They were both staring up, gauging the height. She said, "I think you named it, Willie. They're on to us, G.o.d knows how. But they didn't work this just to shake us off. I think this may be how they nailed Johnny Nash."

Willie's head snapped round to stare at her in the gloom. "Those crates we saw upstairs?"

"I think they expect to use a couple of them for us. We'd better not hang around."

"I'll vote for that. Seeing what's 'appened so far I reckon they've got some hired muscle pretty close. Probably on its way to get us crated."

As he spoke she handed him the small torch and her handbag, and unfastened her skirt. "What about the Oscar winner, Willie?"

"Off to the pub till it's all over. He wouldn't want to see the nasty bits."

"Are you carrying anything?"

He opened his jacket to show the twin knives sheathed on the inside left breast. "You?"

She threw the skirt aside. "Just the kongo on the handbag."

He put the torch in his breast pocket so that the beam shone up, and together they moved to stand beneath the foreedge of the trap, facing each other. She kicked off her shoes and put her hands on his shoulders. He reached out to grip her arms above the biceps and bent one leg slightly to offer her a knee to step on. Her foot was there for less than a second before she was gone with a little spring, doubling her body at the waist then extending her legs upwards so that she was standing on her hands on his shoulders, well supported by his grip on her upper arms.

Their combined height in this position was a fraction under twelve feet, but her legs were bent with the trapdoor only six inches above her feet. She drew in a deep breath and smashed her feet against the trap in the area she had judged one of the bolts to be. These were feet unshod for most of her childhood years, feet on which she could still walk unshod for any distance over any terrain.

The door lifted slightly and shuddered. Her head almost touched the top of Willie's head with the recoil, but then their arms straightened and she kicked again. On the third strike she felt something give, and one corner of the trap lifted an inch or two. Willie said a little breathlessly, "That bolt's gone, Princess. Ripped the screws out of the keeper section." He moved sideways a little, and again she launched a hammerblow with the flat of her feet against the position of the other bolt. It gave on the second strike, and she kicked the door back to rest against the storeroom wall above. Doubling at the waist, she lowered her feet to Willie's shoulders, straightened up, and with her back to the foreedge reached up to hook fingers over the edge before lifting her legs to circle her body up and over on to the storeroom floor.

The metal ladder, in two short sections, lay near the trap. As she got to her feet her handbag and skirt were tossed up from below. She said, "The ladder's here, Willie. Won't be a moment, it's in two bits."

She was bending to bring the two sections together when the door opened and a man stepped into the storeroom, a thin, neatly dressed man with dark hair sleeked back, a long jaw and watery eyes. He stopped short, staring at her, and the three men who were following crowded in the doorway behind him. Two were of medium build, the third a big man, all hardfaced and wellmuscled, with the confident air of experienced minders.

The big man gave a sudden laugh and said, "Well there's a turnup. Nice legs, eh Tabby?"

Tabby moved aside, blinked watery eyes and said, "Get her, Dave. Quick."

As the man moved towards her she spread her hands and said ruefully, "Okay, there's four of you, so let's not get heavy about this." On the last word, timing his pace accurately, she spun round and delivered a vicious backheel to his crotch. He squealed, staggered sideways, and sank down against the wall, panting and clutching himself, face pale with shock.

Tabby said in a voice suddenly shrill, "Christ! Get the b.i.t.c.h!" One of his two remaining companions was dark and stocky, the other was younger with a shaven head. A half section of the ladder was in her hands as they moved forward together. With one end of it she hooked the ladderback chair to send it skidding across the floor and down through the open trap. Continuing the swing, she dropped the two furthermost rungs over the shaven head and sent the man cannoning sideways into his companion. They fell in a tangle together, and she s.n.a.t.c.hed up her handbag, clutching the kongo that formed part of the clasp, jerking it free.

In the cellar, Willie held the chair by its topmost rail, the legs pointing upwards. She had let him know that there were four men to cope with and in one brilliant stroke had given him the way out. The sounds from above suggested that she was managing so far, but he was well aware that in such a confined s.p.a.ce she would be at a great disadvantage. He bent at the knees, concentrated for a second, then jumped. The seat of the inverted chair hooked over the edge of the trap, and at once he began to haul himself up the ladderback.

As his head cleared the opening he saw a big man clutching his crotch and trying painfully to get to his feet. A second man sat with his neck trapped between the rungs of the ladder and his head covered by the galvanised iron bucket. Its handle was caught over one of the projecting ends, making it very difficult for him to get the bucket off. Modesty, kongo in hand, faced a dark stocky man with a knife and was using all her footwork skill to keep him between her and a thin man by the door who held a gun.

Halfway out of the trap, knife in hand, left forearm braced on the floor for support, Willie threw. The blade sliced across the top of the gunhand, and the weapon flew wide with the violent reaction of the nerves. The man gave a m.u.f.fled scream, clutched his gashed hand, and started forward as if to recover the gun.

Willie held his second knife poised. He said briskly, "Leave it, Tabby, or this one goes right through your puddingchute."

The stocky man was distracted. Modesty stepped inside an illjudged thrust and dropped him with a strike from the kongo. Tabby focused on the figure climbing out from below, and the blood drained from his face. He backed against the door, wounded hand clutched under his armpit now, trying desperately to force a smile.

"Oh Jesus, I didn't know it was you, Willie!" he croaked. "I mean, we were just doing a job for someone, that's all. I'd never 've touched it if I'd know it was you! I mean, would I?"

The man with the bucket over his head gave up trying to remove it and sat very still. Modesty moved to pick up the fallen gun and the stocky man's knife. Evidently Willie and the man he called Tabby had met in the past. Tabby was plunging on now, trying to be jocular. "It's a real turnup, this, isn't it, Willie? I mean, with you down the 'ole I couldn't know who it was, could I? I mean, I never seen Modesty before-"

He broke off with a yelp of terror as a knife grazed his ear and stood quivering in the door. Willie moved towards him, grimfaced. "You referring to Miss Blaise!" he demanded. "Just don't take b.l.o.o.d.y liberties, Tabby, it upsets me, see? You might need specs one day, so you don't want to lose your ears, do you?"

Modesty suppressed a smile. She knew that Willie's anger was quite genuine. It always baffled her that he could accept with equanimity the notion that people might try to kill her but was infuriated if they showed any sign of disrespect. Tabby was looking at her now, sweating, ducking his head in apology and saying huskily, "Sorry, Miss. No offence."

She said, "You've done this before, haven't you, Tabby? Picked up a man here. A man with thick dark hair and a scar over one eye."

Tabby swallowed. "I-I might 'ave. Miss."

She said, "He's dead. So are you now. He was an SIS man, and his friends will sign you off when we hand you over, so you won't live to need spectacles." She began to turn away, then paused. "Unless we can come to some arrangement."

Tabby almost choked in his eagerness to get the words out. "Anything, Miss. Anything," he gabbled. "I mean, whatever you say. Oh Christ, I just want out. I 'ate that Mountjoy." He glanced in terror at Willie. "I don't know much, honest, Miss. But I'll tell all I know."

Willie said, "Will Mountjoy phone you tonight?" Tabby nodded. "So you'll tell him everything went according to plan?"

Tabby said desperately, " 'Course I b.l.o.o.d.y will! You don't reckon I'm going to tell 'im I blew it, do you? He'd 'ave me gutted! You going after 'im, Willie, you and Miss Blaise? I mean if you don't nail 'im he'll 'ave me gutted anyway, soon as he finds out I blew it."

Modesty said, "Did you deliver the crate last time, or was it collected?"

Tabby looked away. "My boys delivered it," he muttered. "Just delivered it."

"So you know where. That's good. When would you expect to deliver us?"

Tabby winced. "He'll ring and say. Most likely it'll be tomorrow night. Not before."

"All right." She glanced round the room. It was clear that all three men had to some extent come to their senses, but all were unmoving. Impossible to see the face of the man with the bucket on his head, but the other two seemed to be listening dazedly. She said, "Can you answer for your boys? Answer to Willie for them?"

"Oh G.o.d, yes, Miss. Yes. No sweat."

She looked at Willie. "Can you screw the keeper sections of those bolts back in place so the caretaker won't wonder?" He nodded, and she turned back to Tabby. "For the same reason, you take two of those crates when you leave here. When Mountjoy has phoned and you've told him all's well, you and your boys disappear. Go anywhere as long as you're well out of distance. Watch the newspapers. If you read that Hallenberg is safe, then you won't need to worry about Mountjoy. Or his friend."