Flyaway / Windfall by Desmond Bagley Page A

up.’
    There was an array of bottles on a portable bar so I went and poured myself a scotch and added water from a silver jug. As I sat in the wicker chair she said, ‘What are you doing in Algiers?’
    She spoke English but when she said ‘Algiers’ it came out as ‘el Djeza’ir’. Then she was speaking Arabic. I said, ‘Looking for Paul Billson.’
    ‘Why?’
    I sipped the scotch. ‘What business is it of yours?’
    She offered me a gamine grin. ‘I’ll tell you if you tell me.’
    I looked up at the sky. ‘Is it always as pleasant here in winter?’
    She laid down her cigar carefully in a big ashtray. ‘So okay, Stafford; you’re a hard trader. But just tell me one thing. Are you here to hurt Paul?’
    ‘Why should I want to hurt him?’
    ‘For Christ’s sake!’ she said irritably. ‘Must you always answer a question with a question?’
    ‘Yes, I must,’ I said sharply. ‘Until you declare your interest.’
    ‘So, all right; let’s quit fencing.’ She swung her legs off the chaise-longue and stood up. Her build was stocky and she was a muscular old bird. ‘I was a friend of Paul’s father.’
    That sounded promising, so I gave measure for measure. ‘His sister is worried about him.’
    Her voice was sharp. ‘His sister? I didn’t know Peter Billson had a daughter.’
    ‘He didn’t. His widow remarried during the war to a Norwegian who was killed. Alix Aarvik is Paul’s half-sister.’
    Hesther Raulier seemed lost in thought. After a while she said, ‘Poor Helen; she sure had a tough time.’
    ‘Did you know her?’
    ‘I knew them both.’ She went over to the bar and poured a hefty slug of neat rye whisky. She downed the lot in one swallow and shuddered a little. ‘Paul told me Helen had died but he said nothing about a sister.’
    ‘He wouldn’t.’
    She swung around. ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’
    ‘He treated her pretty badly. People don’t talk about those to whom they’ve been unkind. I’ll tell you this much—Paul wasn’t much help to his mother in her last years.’ I picked up my glass again. ‘Why should you think I’d hurt Paul?’
    She gave me a level stare. ‘I’ll have to know a lot more about you before I tell you that, Max Stafford.’
    ‘Fair enough,’ I said. ‘And I’ll need to know a lot more about you.’
    She smiled faintly. ‘Seems we’re going to have us a real gabfest. You’d better stay to dinner.’
    ‘Thanks. But tell me something. Where is Paul now?’
    ‘Come with me,’ she said, and led me into the garden where she pointed to the south at a low range of hills just visible in the twilight. ‘See those? Those are the foothills of the Atlas. Paul Billson is way to hell and gone the other side.’
    By the time we went in to dinner our stiff-legged attitude had relaxed. I was curious about this elderly, profane woman who used an antique American slang; any moment I expected her to come out with ‘twenty-three, skidoo’. I gave her a carefully edited account and ended up, ‘That’s it; that’s why I’m here.’
    She was drinking whisky as though she ran her own distillery at the bottom of the garden but not one white hair had twitched. ‘A likely story,’ she said sardonically. ‘A big important man like you drops everything and comes to Algiers looking for Paul. Are you sweet on Alix Aarvik?’
    ‘I hardly know her. Besides, she’s too young for me.’
    ‘No girl is too young for any man— I know. You’ll have to do better than that, Max.’
    ‘It was a chain of circumstances,’ I said tiredly. ‘For one thing I’m divorcing my wife and I wanted to get out of it for a while.’
    ‘Divorcing your wife,’ she repeated. ‘Because of Alix Aarvik?’
    ‘Because the man in her bed wasn’t me,’ I snapped.
    ‘I believe you,’ she said soothingly. ‘Okay, what’s your percentage? What do you get out of it?’
    ‘I don’t know what you mean.’
    A cold blue eye bored into me. ‘Look, buster; don’t give me