Pike's Pyramid. Michael Tatlow

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СКАЧАТЬ evidence that it was a random robbery that went wrong. Perhaps they’ve already made an arrest. However, my priority is to protect you two.

      ‘If Sussoms was killed to silence him, we might have to contend with a ruthless individual or gang who would take extreme action again. You being a journalist and maybe making public the evident reason for your friend’s death; that’d worry the killers.’

      ‘Yeah,’ Pike said quietly. ‘I hope it was a random slaying by a thief. An old Yankee millionaire up there alone. That was the official line from the cops, despite me telling them about Jack’s allegations up beside his gory corpse, when I was their suspect.’

      ‘That’s what they claimed they believe.’ Bond grinned at his pad. ‘I’ll have the Czech authorities informed about your break-in through my Hobart HQ. I’m also going to deliberately over-react to this lot, Blarney. Maybe, mate, the villains think you got documentary evidence from Sussoms and mailed it home for safe keeping.’

      ‘If they think you are a threat…’ he contemplated the garden, frowning. He began walking back down the path towards the house. Pike kicked at a sod of earth and followed, squinting into the sunset.

      ‘Struth!’ Blarney called out and stopped. ‘It might be Jack’s killer or killers who robbed our Prague flat. I’ve just remembered, bugger it.’

      Bond swung around and faced him. Pike related the scene at Palmovka. He added that, wanting to leave the republic soon, he had not bothered telling the Prague police about it.

      Nor did he report, he confessed, the attack on him and the near attack on Alex at Prague’s airport.

      Bond frowned incredulously. ‘Are you serious?’

      ‘Sure.’ He told the astonished policeman all about it, adding that Harbek’s office had been told when they would be at the airport. ‘They could have been muggers who thought we were loaded with money,’ he concluded. ‘But, at least for now Sam, I don’t want Alex to find out about it. Nor the Prague cops.’

      Bond said, ‘It sounds like two attempted murders. You two are, or were, marked for termination, mate. I’ll report that and the Palmovka robbery to the Prague cops. I’ll include your stolen organiser book. They’ll be interested in what’s happened in Stanley.’

      Seated at the kitchen table, Blarney said, ‘I’d feel easier if I could get another motive for someone to go to the considerable trouble of reconnoitring and then robbing a house in Stanley. And not a mansion likely to be loaded with valuables.

      Bond wondered to them if that Argo stuff would be valuable to anyone. ‘Might someone want to sabotage your thriving little business? Did you have stuff you mailed to yourself from Prague, for instance, about Jack Sussoms’ claims?’

      ‘Absolutely no to all of that,’ Alex told him. ‘Come on, Sam. Do you really think they’d send someone all the way from Prague to find out?’

      ‘Such a job is nothing if the stakes are high enough,’ the policeman said carefully. ‘And our thieves just might figure now that you’ve brought what they’re after back with you. Stuff you could publish, Blarns.

      ‘You be watchful, my man,’ Bond advised. ‘You’ve got my mobile phone number. The slightest thing that’s suspect, or you remember, call me straight away. Any time. Right?’

      ‘Okay,’ said Blarney. ‘I’d better recharge our damned mobile phone.’

      Alex silently drank her coffee as the men ate cake from the party. Bond told them he had heard of two Stanley residents with reasons to damage their business. One was Lotsa Pride, Janet’s husband. ‘He says Argo is fucking up his marriage. Pardon, Alex, but that’s what he says at the pub.’

      ‘You’ve been talking to Hava-chat, eh?’ Pike grinned. Eddie, aka Hava-chat, Corcoran was the wizened barman at the Stanley Hotel, that Pike’s father once ran. Hava had been the town gossip for thirty years; a continual, uncensored news service.

      Bond said, ‘The other one is the young wife of another keen member of your team. Her husband egged her into joining Argo with him against her wishes. She’s shy.

      ‘He pestered her until she rang some of her friends to invite them to an Argo meeting at their home. She messed it up time and again. She mentioned Argo to one of them. When she heard that name, the friend turned her down. You train them to avoid mentioning the name Argo, I gather?’

      The couple looked uncomfortable. ‘Sort of,’ Pike admitted, glancing at Alex. ‘I think I know who you’re talking about. I’ll deal with it.’

      ‘Good,’ said the policeman. ‘The husband is Harry, er, Clucker, Duckworth. You’ll know there’s a ruder version of that. Now Harry is trying to force her to show the, ah, the pitch, is it?’

      ‘That’s terrible!’ Alex said, looking questioningly at her husband. ‘Sam, you and Sadie must be the only ones in town who haven’t been invited to hear a pitch.’

      ‘I’d like to hear one. Purely as part of my investigations, mind.’

      ‘Well, how about seeing the pitch in Irishtown, Monday night?’ Alex said brightly. ‘Blarn is showing it at Sean and Mary O’Hallorans’ farm.’

      Bond agreed to attend. He departed with muted cheerfulness In the light of Janet Pride’s disturbing gossip, Pike wryly wondered to himself if he should recommend that the policeman wear combat gear. He anxiously wanted to free Alex from any possible danger. He wondered how he could induce her to leave Stanley for a while.

      He took her in his arms. Smouldering Alex asked him, ‘What can we say to the O’Hallorans about Plodder attending? That he’s a candidate for joining Argo?’

      ‘That’s for tomorrow,’ he said. ‘The Pike Argo network is now in recess, my sexy darling.’

      They made love, hungrily, on a rug in the lounge room. Afterwards they clung together as one. The cats and the spaniel fussed over them as he told her how he had missed her last night.

      He told her more about the dinner at Wrest Point, Richard’s demands for tedious reports. They retired hand in hand to the bed and made love again, slowly. The angst and tiredness vanished from Pike’s body. He idolised his wife in a lyrically grateful way he had never dreamed was possible. She wanted to have a child with him.

      He marvelled that lovely, brilliant Alex had chosen him, so ravaged and virtually unemployed then. Incredibly, somehow she loved him now more completely than ever.

      Alex said the Stanley robbery had made her more angry than fearful as she nuzzled into his neck. ‘Are you going to tell me what Sam said up at the back fence?’

      Pike swallowed. ‘He showed me the footprints, of course.’

      ‘You’re a frightful liar, Blarn. Don’t tell me you spent all that time looking at footprints. Or organising a fishing trip.’

      He partly relented and told her Plodder now knew about the Palmovka robbery.

      His right arm cradled her head. He recalled balefully the pair of them joining Sussoms for a chat at the hotel bar a couple of days before his death. Jack, ever expansive, had branded her the belle of the whole goddam team.

      ‘Blarney, СКАЧАТЬ