The Golden Keel / The Vivero Letter. Desmond Bagley
crooked my finger at the bartender and Walker ordered another double. I was beginning to understand the reason for his degradation. For fourteen years the knowledge that a fortune in gold was lying in Italy waiting to be picked up had been eating at him like a cancer. Even when I knew him ten years earlier I was aware of the fatal weakness in him, and now one could see that the bitterness of defeat had been too much. I wondered how Coertze was standing up to the strain. At least he seemed to be doing something about it, even if only keeping an eye on the situation.
I said carefully, ‘If Coertze was willing to take you, would you be prepared to go to Italy to get the stuff out?’
He was suddenly very still. ‘What d’you mean?’ he demanded. ‘Have you been talking to Coertze?’
‘I’ve never laid eyes on the man.’
Walker’s glance shifted nervously about the bar, then he straightened. ‘Well, if he … wanted me; if he … needed me – I’d be prepared to go along.’ He said this with bravado but the malice showed through when he said, ‘He needed me once, you know; he needed me when we buried the stuff.’
‘You wouldn’t be afraid of him?’
‘What do you mean – afraid of him? Why should I be afraid of him? I’m afraid of nobody.’
‘You were pretty certain he’d committed at least four murders.’
He seemed put out. ‘Oh that! That was a long time ago. And I never said he’d murdered anybody. I never said it.’
‘No, you never actually said it.’
He shifted nervously on the bar stool. ‘Oh, what’s the use? He won’t ask me to go with him. He said as much last week.’
‘Oh, yes, he will,’ I said softly.
Walker looked up quickly. ‘Why should he?’
I said quietly, ‘Because I know of a way of getting that gold out of Italy and of taking it anywhere in the world, quite simply and relatively safely.’
His eyes widened. ‘What is it? How can you do it?’
‘I’m not going to tell you,’ I said equably. ‘After all, you wouldn’t tell me where the gold’s hidden.’
‘Well, let’s do it,’ he said. ‘I’ll tell you where it is, you get it out, and Bob’s your uncle. Why bring Coertze into it?’
‘It’s a job for more than two men,’ I said. ‘Besides, he deserves a share – he’s been keeping an eye on the gold for fourteen years, which is a damn’ sight more than you’ve been doing.’ I failed to mention that I considered Walker the weakest of reeds. ‘Now, how will you get on with Coertze if this thing goes through?’
He turned sulky. ‘All right, I suppose, if he lays off me. But I won’t stand for any of his sarcasm.’ He looked at me in wonder as though what we were talking about had just sunk in. ‘You mean there’s a chance we can get the stuff out – a real chance?’
I nodded and got off the bar stool. ‘Now, if you’ll excuse me.’
‘Where are you going?’ he asked quickly.
‘To phone the airline office,’ I said. ‘I want a seat on tomorrow’s Jo’burg plane. I’m going to see Coertze.’
The sign I had been waiting for had arrived.
Air travel is wonderful. At noon the next day I was booking into a hotel in Johannesburg, a thousand miles from Cape Town.
On the plane I had thought a lot about Coertze. I had made up my mind that if he didn’t bite then the whole thing was off – I couldn’t see myself relying on Walker. And I had to decide how to handle him – from Walker’s account he was a pretty tough character. I didn’t mind that; I could be tough myself when the occasion arose, but I didn’t want to antagonize him. He would probably be as suspicious as hell, and I’d need kid gloves.
Then there was another thing – the financing of the expedition. I wanted to hang on to the boatyard as insurance in case this whole affair flopped, but I thought if I cut Harry Marshall in for a partnership in the yard, sold my house and my car and one or two other things, I might be able to raise about £25,000 – not too much for what I had in mind.
But it all depended on Coertze. I smiled when I considered where he was working. He had a job in Central Smelting Plant which refined gold from all the mines on the Reef. More gold had probably passed through his hands in the last few years than all the Axis war-lords put together had buried throughout the world.
It must have been tantalizing for him.
I phoned the smelting plant in the afternoon. There was a pause before he came on the line. ‘Coertze,’ he said briefly.
I came to the point. ‘My name’s Halloran,’ I said. ‘A mutual friend – Mr Walker of Cape Town – tells me you have been experiencing difficulty in arranging for the delivery of goods from Italy. I’m in the import-export business; I thought I might be able to help you.’
A deep silence bored into my ear.
I said, ‘My firm is fully equipped to do this sort of work. We never have much trouble with the Customs in cases like these.’
It was like dropping a stone into a very deep well and listening for the splash.
‘Why don’t you come to see me,’ I said. ‘I don’t want to take up your time now; I’m sure you’re a busy man. Come at seven this evening and we’ll discuss your difficulties over dinner. I’m staying at the Regency – it’s in Berea, in …’
‘I know where it is,’ said Coertze. His voice was deep and harsh with a guttural Afrikaans accent.
‘Good; I’ll be expecting you,’ I said, and put down the phone.
I was pleased with this first contact. Coertze was suspicious and properly so – he’d have been a fool not to be. But if he came to the hotel he’d be hooked, and all I had to do would be to jerk on the line and set the hook in firmly.
I was pretty certain he’d come; human curiosity would see to that. If he didn’t come, then he wouldn’t be human – or he’d be superhuman.
He came, but not at seven o’clock and I was beginning to doubt my judgement of the frailty of human nature. It was after eight when he knocked on the door, identified me, and said, ‘We’ll forget the dinner; I’ve eaten.’
‘All right,’ I said. ‘But what about a drink?’ I crossed the room and put my hand on the brandy bottle. I was pretty certain it would be brandy – most South Africans drink it.
‘I’ll have a Scotch,’ he said unexpectedly. ‘Thanks,’ he added as an afterthought.
As I poured the drinks I glanced at him. He was a bulky man, broad of chest and heavy in the body. His hair was black and rather coarse and he had a shaggy look about him. I’d bet that when stripped he’d look like a grizzly bear. His eyebrows were black and straight over eyes of a snapping electric blue. He had looked after himself better than Walker; his belly was flat and there was a sheen of health about him.
I handed him a drink and we sat down facing each other. He was tense and wary, although he tried to disguise it by over-relaxing in his chair. We were like a couple of duellists who have just engaged blades.
‘I’ll come to the point,’ I said. ‘A long time ago Walker told me a very interesting story about some gold. That was ten years ago and we were going to do something about it, but it didn’t pan out. That might have been lucky because we’d have certainly made a botch of the